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On Thu, 2010-04-01 at 09:05 -0400, S. Artesian wrote: > > That's not a flaw in the Marx's labor theory of value, it's the mechanism by > which socially necessary time for reproduction is conveyed and manifested in > the realization of value, apportioning the socially availaable proft, and > establishing the general rate of profit. > > "Equivalence" as a quality of exchange, as a mediation of exchange is not > identical to, and does not require "equality." > Phililp Dunn responded: > OK, money as a universal equivalent (in a sense involving equality) > plays no part in Marx's labor theory of value. Money is an equivalent > only in the sense that it mediates exchange. It plays a purely > qualitative role and does not function as a quantitative measure of > value. It's just a veil, really. My response (this is the kind of thing I write for my Capital class): As I understand Marx, here is what money does NOT do: (a) Money does not equalize commodities. Commodities are not equal because they can be exchanged for money, but commodities are equal because they contain abstract human labor, and their exchangeability for money is an outward expression of this inner equality. (b) Money does not move commodities around. As Marx sees the circulation process, commodities are active. They must change hands so that their producers can be compensated for the labor put in them. The movement of money is the passive reflection of this active movement of the commodities. Here is what money DOES do: (1) As already said in (a), money is the medium which allows commodities to express on the surface (and thus make operational) the invisible values inside them. This is the first function of money, "measure of value." This is an important role which mainstream economics entirely misses because they don't have a concept of value. (2) In chapter 2 of *Capital* Marx says that every commodity owner carrying his commodity to market has two goals: they have to realize the value of their commodity (i.e., have to get a fair equivalent of what they have produced) and they have to select the use-value which they like best. These two goals are contradictory; if one tries to achieve them in one transaction, a barter of one good for another, one will get suboptimal results. Note that the double coincidence of wants is only the use-value half of this dilemma; again, since mainstream economics does not theorize value it cannot see the other half. Now the existence of money allows the commodity traders to split their transaction in two: first a sale, specializing on realizing the value (you sell to the highest bidder regardless of what use-value that commodity owner is producing), and then the purchase specializing on the value side of it. This is the role of money as means of circulation. (3) Those roles of money are necessary for and auxiliary to the circulation process. But in order to be able to help circulation, money has acquired capabilities which are useful beyond circulation: it has become the one commodity which can buy all other commodities, the independent incarnation of abstract wealth, command over the labor of others which you can carry around in your pocket. This is money as money. Here money is no longer a servant but a king. This is something new, an example of emergence. In other words, in Marx's theory money is *not* a veil but it becomes a causal agent. Hans. Hans G. Ehrbar http://www.econ.utah.edu/~ehrbar [email protected] Economics Department, University of Utah (801) 908 6937 260 Central Campus Drive Rm 343 (801) 581 7481 (econ office) Salt Lake City UT 84112-9155 (801) 585 5649 (FAX) ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
