Re: [Pen-l] Questioning GDP

[Shane Mage <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Aug 31, 2008, at 5:13 PM, Jim Devine wrote:
> There's a very simple way to understand the issue. Gross domestic
> product is an effort to measure what Marx called "exchange value,"
> i.e., the flow of money to buy commodities on the market. (Typically,
> we correct for inflation, to get real domestic product.) On the the
> hand, the Genuine Product Indicator and other alternative measures are
> efforts to pin down the amount of what Marx called the "use-values"
> our economy produces. (Strictly speaking, it can't be done, since
> use-values are qualitative.)...

*Real* GDP measures use-values, not exchange values.  Strictly  
speaking, since it *is* done it *can* be done!  That is because use- 
values are not qualitative but quantitative (Marx repeatedly speaks of  
the "menge," [the "mass"] of use values as varying in a quantitative  
[as more or less] way. Use-value is a measure of concrete (because  
dated) socially necessary labor time.


Shane Mage

"This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
kindling in measures and going out in measures."

Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 30



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