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 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
