LOV and LTV

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
Chris Burford:>I suggest that approaching these debates with the mind set of LTV, sustains
>an assumption which is essentially about a simple equation:
>
>the value of something is its labour content (with various subtleties added
>about terminology and more or lessness)
>
>LOV however is essentially a whole systems dynamical  approach to the
>circulation of the collective social product that is produced in the form
>of commodities.

Justin:That's not a "law," in any normal scientific sense. A "law" is a precisely
formulable generalization (n.b., not a definitional assumption) stating
relations between variables. I think the law of value is that the price of
commodities tends towards their value in long runm, with certain determinate
disturbances that imply that prices tend to converge on pricesof prodyction.

CharlesB: The law of value is stated by Marx and Engels azs a relationship between variables. The law of value is that commodities are exchanged for each other based on the labor time embodied in them (not as Justin state it; Engels has an essay on this in the afterward or something of Vol. III )




>
>Chris Burfod: Crudely, the difference between LTV and LOV is the difference between a
>simple equation, which may indeed be weak nourishment, and a dynamic
>system.
>

Justin: It's possible, and a standard move of defenders of Marxian value theory, to
make immune from testing and criticism by making it so fuzzy that it lacks
determinate meaning. Who could object to asytstems-dynamical approach to the
economy?

^^^^^^^^

CharlesB: Here's an example of what I am talking about on AM. It is Justin's understanding that seems fuzzy here . Chris Burford's seems to have quite adequate determinate meaning.  The difference Chris describes is also that between moving from the whole to parts and moving from the parts to the whole. A holistic approach is not fuzzier than an approach by parts. ( See Jim D.'s discussion of this issue elsehere here)