Historical Materialism

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Historical Materialism
by Justin Schwartz
04 February 2002 23:22 UTC




>One question I had on the paradox of ideology is that I don't think Marx
>and Engels fold all "theory" into "ideology" in the pejorative sense that
>they use it in _The German Ideology_ and elsewhere. So, that the theory of
>Marxism is not , paradoxically, unMarxist.

So I argue in the paper.

^^^^^^^^

CB: Do you mean that we agree on this point ? That there is no real paradox ?



>^^^^^^^^
>
>CB: Yes, I was trying to focus in on LTV  in reading "In Defense of
>Exploitation " since it is a specific issue that came up here.
>
>For starters , in the following. it seems to me that it is true that since
>"embodied socially necessary labor time" is equivalent to "value", one
>could substitute that phrase whenever Marx uses "value", it might work, but
>why not have a single word for this central concept ?  It's like force =
>mass x acceleration, but the theory doesn't improve by just using mass x
>acceleration instead of "force".


I do use the term,a fter defining it. see the last sentence:

^^^^^^^^

Charles: I know you use it , but in order to discard it. Point me more specifically to your rationale for discarding its use. I see no logical, theoretical, or scientific reason to discard its use ,yet, in what you say. Marx argues very convincingly in _Capital+ that the concept of value is critical in explaining capital. You don't say anything that dissuades of Marx's argument.  Can you give a summary of your most forceful argumentative points on that issue ?

^^^^^^





>
" Roemer defines Marxian exploitation as the unequal exchange of labour for
goods (1986b, 260). A worker is exploited if and only if the amount of
labour embodied in the goods she can purchase with her wage is less than the
labour she expended to earn the wage. A capitalist is an exploiter if and
only if the amount of labour embodied in the goods he can sell is greater
than that (if any) he expended to acquire these goods. The notion of
'embodied labour' derives from the LTV. A commodity 'embodies' an amount of
labour in that its value is determined by the socially necessary labour time
required to produce it."

jks