[OPE-L:7474] Fwd: Jurriaan Bendien on law of value

[Rakesh Bhandari <rakeshb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Rakesh,

Thanks for your interesting post on OPE-L on the law of value and
Weeks. I think though that Weeks, who argues the law of value can
only exist in the capitalist mode of production, not before, doesn't
explain how the law of value comes into being in the first place, and
doesn't allow for the possibility that the law of value may assert
itself in more primitive forms where exchange is regulated by labour
expenditures (cf. e.g. Thomas Sekine's essay "The necessity of the
law of value"  in Science and Society).

Weeks' main point seems to be, that the law of value can only operate
under generalised commodity production, i.e. capitalism, i.e. through
competitive pressures, the mobility of capital and the tendential
equalisation of the profit rate. Weeks wants to reduce the law of
value to an objective impersonal force asserted through a universal
market. But might it not be argued that in precapitalist society,
where you have simple commodity production as a "sector", the law of
value also asserts itself, be it in a more undeveloped form, as the
determination of market values by socially necessary labour time,
where adjustments to the market occur through the mobility of the
labour force and of instruments of production (similar to Morishima
and Catephores) and through some "imperfect competition" (Meek) ?

I am not saying that Engels's historical argument is necessarily
correct (he places a lot of weight on the ever increasing
sophistication of commodity trade, and less emphasis on
extra-economic factors such as expropriation), nor am I arguing for
the historical existence of a society of simple commodity producers -
but Engels does have the merit of trying to describe better the
process of how it comes about that the law of value can come to
dominate the whole economy of a society, i.e. the law of value
doesn't just fall out of the air.

I think this debate is important, because presumably a socialist
society would wish to reduce the operation of the law of value more
and more, and institute other principles of economic regulation more
consistent with basic human and socialist values (as Weeks himself
argues). So, simply put, we need to understand how the law of value
comes into being, in order to know how to get rid of it. Seems to me
the law of value still operated in Soviet-type societies (since they
still had a commodity producing sector and were under the pressure of
the world market to an extent) but it was no longer dominant there
(it no longer "ruled" or was the dominant regulative mechanism).

Regards

Jurriaan