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From: D Hugh-Jones <dash2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Sat, 1 Jun 1996 14:47:07 +0100 (BST)
On Fri, 31 May 1996, Flannon wrote:
>
>
>
> Now I'm not an economist, and its been awhile since I battered around the
> idea of the ltv, but on the face of things your formulation seems
> incorrect. Its not that a commodities exchange value is determined by
> labor time, rather its use value is determined by quantity of labor
> required to produce it. When the dominant value of a commodity becomes
> exchange value the commodity becomes fetishized, i.e. the commodity
> becomes alienated form its use value, that is, labor time has no
> connection with market price. This situation is not one which will
> either confirm or deny the ltv, rather the ltv is a mechanism for
> examining this situation.
I don't want to engage in one-upmanship because I don't know enough Marx
(especially considering I have an exam on the guy in about 10 days). But
I think he says that exchange value, not use value, is determined by
market price. I _think_ this was prevalent economic orthodoxy at the time
- certainly Ricardo developed the idea of the falling rate of profit.
> But like I say, I'm no economist. And the reason I'm not an economist is
> because I take Althusser a bit to seriously. "The lonely hour of the
> final instance will never arrive." If such a determinant teleology will
> not occure then why, I might ask, are we talking about economics here?
> If you're really interested in the ltv then why not take a look at the
> marxism archive, where there was a ritch discussion of just this topic
> some time back.
>
> Flannon
>
Dave Hugh-Jones
A Rush and a Push and the Land is ours
dash2@xxxxxxxxx
