Value and value form

[wpc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Paul Cockshott)]

It seems to me that jim is consitently confusing the difference
between price ratios and value ratios with the difference
between value and exchange value. The first is a quantitative
deviation generated by the anarchic process of competition which
makes actual prices random variables. The latter is a formal
difference. The substance of value is hours of labour, but
its form of representation is the exchange relation between
commodities. Thus the exchange value of a commodity is always
another commodity ( or money assuming that to be a commodity
in the case of gold money). Thus it is impossible in a commodity
producing society for value to be directly apparent. Even when
all exchanges are exchanges of equivalents this distinction of
form remains. If a horse embodying 4 months labour is exchanged
against 7 cows also embodying 4 months labour, equivalents
are exchanged but the form of the horses value is 7 cows not
4 months of labour. It is only in a socialist economy where
economic calculation occurs in terms of labour hours, that value
in itself can become apparent. Then goods could be marked
with their values in terms of hours of labour. But this requires
a conciously organised system of production and calculation.


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Paul Cockshott , 		WPS, PO Box 1125, Glasgow, G44 5UF
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