Re: value vs. price

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>

One way of summarizing this whole issue is as follows:

(1) the distinction between value and price roughly corresponds to
the
orthodox distinction between "social opportunity cost" and
opportunity cost
to an individual. Both of these are quantitative.
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How do we get from *soc* to *ioc* without a fallacy of division
and, vice versa, from *ioc* to *soc* and avert fallacies of
composition? I know the / dividing the quantitative/qualitative
drives methodologists nuts, but I'm very interested in your take on
this especially as the issue of value, it seems to me, can't be
separated from issues of norms and how differing norms are resolved
or not in societies--keep in mind I come at this from
philosophy-ethical theory with all it's limitations.

In that sense I've found so much of Marx and his interpreters on
the role of value to be very problematic and by default I opt for a
those who take a parsimonious approach because it gives greater
room for normative critique and ties Marx into substantive issues
in philosophy that I think we can't avoid no matter how many times
Marxists try to tame philosophers! :-).

In that sense I'm quite sympathetic to what Cohen is trying to do
in "Self Ownership, Freedom and & Equality" because he uses Marx to
go after the libertarians and by chapter 8 lands very close to
Robert Hale who helped found the Left approach to law and economics
which we need to revive if, over the medium term, we hope to put
property rights--not just the current infatuation with intellectual
property, crucial as that is-- issues back on the map



(2) the social opportunity cost and value are defined from the
perspective
of the society as a whole, though of course we can't assume that
society
gets what it wants all the time. Since its perspective is human
society,
value is in terms of human effort rather than subjective wants
(though those
wants play a role). (Social opportunity cost has to be defined in
terms of
some sort of "social welfare function.")

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Doesn't this raise the issue of 'we can't get outside of society'
and look at it sub specie aeternitie and the slippery slope to
reification?


(3) it's important to utilize both value and price (social
opportunity cost
and individual opportunity cost). Otherwise, we fall into the
fallacy of
composition or into the sterility of methodological individualism.

===============

See above.


(4) there are contrasts between the two levels. MOE is aware that
social
opportunity cost and individual opportunity cost don't always
coincide (so
that there's "market failure"). Modern Marxist theory should be
aware of the
distinction between a worker's contribution to the societal pool of
value
(value) and what he or she is able to claim from that pool
(exchange-value).
Societal rationality isn't the same as individual rationality
(however that
word is defined).
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Ok so we have Chris Burford's emergent properties issue coming to
the fore with all it's entailments of class struggle. I take it
that when class societies disappear there will be no more fallacies
of division or composition in the causal dynamics of determining
the distribution of the social surplus? Are not heterogeneous
preferences and wants a big barrier irrespective of class?



(5) But there's unity at the societal level: in the end, the social
costs
(value) constrain the individuals in the system, even though it's
individual
costs (prices) that are crucial in determining behavior. A
capitalist can't
get a profit as a "free lunch."

Jim Devine

===============

Ok but don't we fall into the issue of whether profit *is* a just
reward, even as ownership itself is not productive? I take it the
unity is there despite the conflict or is the result of the
conflict or both?

Ian