Re: [OPE-L] Complex and simple labour: English trans. of French Capital I?

[Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Dear Anders;
>
> I am interested in your work on Marx's defferent solution in French version.
> Will you kindly send it to me by email if you have written it in English?

I would like to read a copy. It's difficult to see what the problem
is once one remembers that for Marx commodities exchange in terms not
of the actual hours expended on their production but the socially
necessary time required for their reproduction. Marx carefully
undermined the individualist foundations of the classical labor
theory of value. If society did not count products of complex
labor--say a report on a X ray or architectural blueprints--as some
multiple of simple labor, then the socially necessary supply of X ray
reports and blueprints would not be forthcoming.  However, to the
extent that the acquisition of such skills becomes rationalized and
democratized, the multiple declines over time. Which is what
Hilferding emphasized. Custom, monopoly, and intellectualist
prejudice cannot prevent such a leveling. The law of value regulates
exchange over time.

But I look forward to hearing about Anders' analysis as well as
Makoto's. And then there are the older responses of Rowthorn,
Carchedi and Hilferding.

Yours, Rakesh

> My own solution became different from Marx or his followers, as you may be awa
> re of it in my paper 'Skilled Labour in Value Theory' (in Capital and Class, 3
> 1, Spring, 1987, and chap.6 of my book, The Basic Theory of Capitalism, Macmil
> lan, 1988.). I shall be happy if I can hear your comments on it too.
>
> All the best,
>
> Makoto Itoh
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > Date:         Wed, 30 May 2007 20:15:56 +0200
> > From: Anders Ekeland <anders.ekeland@xxxxxxxxx>
> > Subject: [OPE-L] Complex and simple labour: English trans. of French Capital
> I?
> > To: OPE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> >
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I am working on the problem of the reduction of complex to
> > simple/abstract labour. In the French edition of Capital Marx has a
> > somewhat different "solution" to the comlex/simple labour problem.
> > This is discussed by  French (and Russians, using the French edition)
> > Marxists, but generally overlooked in the English and German debate.
> >
> > Is there an English translation of the French Capital?
> >
> > Are anyone aware of authors discussing the different "solutions" in
> > the German and French editions?
> >
> > Regards
> > Anders Ekeland