>
>
>The discussion about the labor theory of value misses one important
>point, which I have been trying to push for years. Suppose you want to
>calculate the value of a commodity according to the simple algebraic
>formula
>
>C+V+S
>
>Held the calculate C? Marx describes a simple method: the suppose you
>have a machine that last 10 years, take the C and apply 1/10 of it to
>the value of the final product for each year. If, however -- and Marx
>pushes this quite a bit -- new technology destroys the value of the
>remaining C before the 10 years is up, how the calculate the amount of
>value embodied in the constant capital consumed?
>
>Of course, such calculations are impossible.
Maybe I am being stupid, but if the new technology destroys the value, or
some part of it, of the the product produced with the old technology, it's
destroyed, and there is nothing to calculate. This is the core,a s I take
it, of Marx's theory of crisis. The idae is developed (without the LTV) in
Brenner's recent account of the current crisis. He holds that firms invest
in technologies that amortize overa long period, but get stuck with
technologies that cannot realize the initial investment because of
technological improvements. However, since the costs are sunk, they keep
producing, and thus overproducing, while at failing to make up what they
lost. Thus crisis. If there's a problem for value theory, I don't see it
here. (Except taht you can make the point, as Brenner does,w ithout
reference to value.)
jks
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