on 2/2/02 08:50 AM, Devine, James at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > [was: RE: [PEN-L:22192] Re: RE: Re: re: re: Historical Materialism] > > Ian asks: >> If one can do the quantitative side of Marx without the value >> theory and achieve the same results as those who use the value >> theory, which side is being redundant with regards to that aspect >> of Marx's corpus? > > One way of summarizing this whole issue is as follows: > > (1) the distinction between value and price roughly corresponds to the > orthodox distinction between "social opportunity cost" and opportunity cost > to an individual. Both of these are quantitative. > > (2) the social opportunity cost and value are defined from the perspective > of the society as a whole, though of course we can't assume that society > gets what it wants all the time. Since its perspective is human society, > value is in terms of human effort rather than subjective wants (though those > wants play a role). (Social opportunity cost has to be defined in terms of > some sort of "social welfare function.") > > (3) it's important to utilize both value and price (social opportunity cost > and individual opportunity cost). Otherwise, we fall into the fallacy of > composition or into the sterility of methodological individualism. > > (4) there are contrasts between the two levels. MOE is aware that social > opportunity cost and individual opportunity cost don't always coincide (so > that there's "market failure"). Modern Marxist theory should be aware of the > distinction between a worker's contribution to the societal pool of value > (value) and what he or she is able to claim from that pool (exchange-value). > Societal rationality isn't the same as individual rationality (however that > word is defined). > > (5) But there's unity at the societal level: in the end, the social costs > (value) constrain the individuals in the system, even though it's individual > costs (prices) that are crucial in determining behavior. A capitalist can't > get a profit as a "free lunch." > > Jim Devine > Sir Devine, James
your definition on price and value is incorrect. price is false appearance of a category of value product. Below is from "Capital" "The category of cost-price, on the other hand, has nothing to do with the formation of commodity-value, or with the process of self-expansion of capital. When I know that of the value of a commodity worth £600, five-sixths, or £500, represent no more than an equivalent of the capital of £500 consumed in its production and that it can therefore suffice only to repurchase the material elements of this capital, I know nothing as yet either of the way in which these five-sixths of the value of the commodity, which represent its cost-price, are produced, or about the way in which the last sixth, which constitutes its surplus-value, was produced. The investigation will show, however, that in capitalist economics the cost-price assumes the false appearance of a category of value production itself." and "that this increment of value springs from the productive processes undertaken with the capital, that it therefore springs from the capital itself, because it is there after the production process, while it is not there before it. As for the capital consumed in production, the surplus-value seems to spring equally from all its different elements of value consisting of means of production and labour. For all these elements contribute equally to the formation of the cost-price. All of them add their values, obtaining as advanced capital, to the value of the product, and are not differentiated as constant and variable magnitudes of value. This becomes obvious if we assume for a moment that all the expended capital consisted either exclusively of wages, or exclusively of the value of the means of production. In the first case, we should then have the commodity-value of 500v+100s instead of the commodity-value of 400c+100v+100s. The capital of £500 laid out in wages represents the value of all the labour expended in the production of the commodity-value of £600, and for just this reason forms the cost-price of the entire product. But the formation of this cost-price, whereby the value of the expended capital is reproduced as a constituent part of the value of the product, is the only process in the formation of this commodity-value that is known to us. We do not know how its surplus-value portion of £100 is formed. The same is true in the second case, in which the commodity-value = 500c+100s. We know in both cases that surplus-value is derived from a given value, because this value was advanced in the form of productive capital, be it in the form of labour or of means of production. On the other hand, this advanced capital-value cannot form surplus-value for the reason that it has been expended and therefore constitutes the cost-price of the commodity. Precisely because it forms the cost-price of the commodity, it does not form any surplus-value, but merely an equivalent, a value replacing the expended capital. So far, therefore, as it forms surplus-value, it does so not in its specific capacity as expended, but rather as advanced, and hence utilised, capital. For this reason, the surplus-value arises as much out of the portion of the advanced capital which goes into the cost-price of the commodity, as out of the portion which does not. In short, it arises equally out of the fixed and the circulating components of the utilised capital. The aggregate capital serves materially as the creator of products, the means of labour as well as the materials of production, and the labour. The total capital materially enters into the actual labour-process, even though only a portion of it enters the process of self-expansion. This is, perhaps, the very reason why it contributes only in part to the formation of the cost-price, but totally to the formation of surplus-value. However that may be, the outcome is that surplus-value springs simultaneously from all portions of the invested capital. This deduction may be substantially abbreviated, by saying pointedly and concisely in the words of Malthus: "The capitalist ... expects an equal profit upon all the parts of the capital which he advances."[3] In its assumed capacity of offspring of the aggregate advanced capital, surplus-value takes the converted form of profit. Hence, a certain value is capital when it is invested with a view to producing profit [4], or, there is profit because a certain value was employed as capital. Suppose profit is p. Then the formula C=c+v+s=k+s turns into the formula C=k+p, or the value of a commodity=cost-price+ profit. The profit, such as it is represented here, is thus the same as surplus-value, only in a mystified form that is nonetheless a necessary outgrowth of the capitalist mode of production." MIYACHI TATSUO PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL KOMAKI CITY AICHI Pre. JAPAN [EMAIL PROTECTED]
