Re: [OPE-L] Ricardo and Marx on embodiment

[Andrew Brown <A.Brown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Rakesh,

You write as if embodiment and congealment are the same thing.

["If this is true, value cannot be the labor actually expended or
embodied or congealed in the production of the commodity."]

I can see what you are getting at but I'd want to say that if you follow
through the logic that the labour is 'congealed' (rather than embodied)
then this same logic tells us that this is 'purely social labour' (all
individuality has been abstracted from along with all natural
materiality) and hence we can anticipate that it isn't fixed
individually but socially and changes accordingly. To the extent that it
is congealed, it is social, it is a *peculiar* social substance, unlike
natural substances in respect of its being changed socially (amongst
other things).

Andy