I am cross posting this from Ope-l in the hope of getting an answer here
I want to advance this argument The value of a state token money is based on something historically prior to commodity production, something that goes right back to the earliest state forms : the power of the state to command the labour of its inhabitants. The value of the Swedish Krona is set by the fact that the Swedish state (Crown) directly or indirectly appropriates more than half the labour in the KingdomThis is a slight simplification, public expenditure is over 53% of GNP, but a part of that is indirect appropriation of labour as social protection, where individual citizens are paid social benefits in Krona.. The sum in Krona paid out for that directly social labour has its value set by this labour that the Crown directly commands. This rate of exchange between royal tokens and labour sets the monetary equivalent of labour time in Sweden, which then operates via the medium of commodity trade within the remaining private part of the economy. The direct royal command over the labour of his subjects i! s then symbolically appropriated by the capitalist class in the form of Krona credits in the Svenska Handelsbanken etc to give them command over the privately employed working class. There is a theoretical ambiguity with arguing this. Is the value of the Krona determined by the number of hours of labour done by state employees against whose work it exchanges or should its value be set by the labour content of the wage goods consumed by the state employees? Ie in determining the value of the Krona should we assume that the directly social labour of say education and health workers is what is directly commanded by the Krona, or does the Krona just equate to the value of the labour power of the workers. Is this distinction still relevant since there is no exploitation in the provision of free social services? The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401 _______________________________________________ ope mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
