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Re: [OPE-L] The Use-Value & SNLT Question

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On Tue, 10 Apr 2007, Jerry Levy wrote:

> Hi Allin:

I just have time to respond on one point at present.

> > 1. In manufacturing.  For example, a proportion of computer memory
> > chips don't pass quality control and are discarded.  Does that
> > mean the labour that went into them was not socially necessary?
>
> Yes.
>
> In the passage I cited earlier (Vol. 1, Penguin ed., p. 303) Marx
> recognizes this:
>
> "... all wasteful consumption of raw material or instruments of
> labour is strictly forbidden, because what is wasted in this way
> represents a superfluous expenditure of quantities of
> objectified labour, labour that does not count in the product or
> enter into its value".

It seems to me that Marx is talking here of wastage that is over
and above the "socially necessary" rate.  But if not, then IMO
he's flat wrong.  If it's an engineering fact that the cheapest
way (in terms of total labour-time) to produce memory chips is a
method that produces some duds, the labour that is revealed ex
post as having gone into the duds is clearly socially necessary.

Allin.
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