Value talk

["Justin Schwartz" <jkschw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Karl: Dountlessly Justin can say what he likes. However that is neither
> here nor there and of no political or ideological significance. That Justin
> thinks otherwise is neither here nor there too.  . . . >It is not enough to
> claim that capitalism is exploitative. It must be explained how it is
> exploitative. Marx did just that. By establishing the limits of the value
> form itself and the value form in the specific form of capital he made a
> great contribution to the development of communism.

I agree, but he didn't need to use value to do it, or, if he did, that is a
ladder we can now kick away (and should). We should because, as I have
explained, value is a fifth wheel, we can say that cap is exploitative,
i.e., explain why, without using the LTV, and, moreover, we cannot really
explain why it is using the LTV, because of the well-known problems with
that theory.

The defenses I have seen here mainly amount to two sorts: either (1) acking
off from the specific quantitative commits and saying that the LTV is just a
way of reminding us that commodities are the products of labor. That is true
and important, but we don't needto posit a quantity that (on this approach)
has no determinate value (i.e., value in the sense of being able to put a
number on it) to say say this. Or (2) (as Rakesh suggests) there is athe
moral deprecaition line, the idea that value explains crisis. As I have
shown here by restating the argument without reference to value, and as
Brenner has shown in greater length, value does no work in this story.

It is of course of no political significance what I say. Nor you, Karl
Carlile, nor any of us, singlely. Many stones can build an arch, singlely
none, singlely none.

jks

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