On 08/08/2013 1:49 PM, Julio Huato wrote: > On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 12:18 PM, John Vertegaal <[email protected]> wrote: > >> It seems to me that Julio takes it for granted that economics can be done >> without invoking a unit of account, (i.e.) in the classical sense of money >> being just a veil. His entire argument doesn't hold if the mapping of "→" >> between the two states of y occurs in terms of a unit of account and not in >> terms of physicalities. For now the principles involved concern not >> mathematical but bookkeeping ones; during which time the physicality of the >> product could be said to have entered a state of suspended animation and >> "dead" to the world that matters. None of this of course follows from the >> opening line of Marx's Grundrisse, rendering strictly a supply-side >> argument. > No. Money is not a veil. It is an objective social form: a bond. OK, so far.
> But its material content is, indeed, a "physicality." What makes you assert that money, as a unit of account, has indeed a material content? Does a numeraire hold the physical content of what it numerates? How so? > If you are trying to pin down this material content, then indeed it all boils > down to "physicalities." In the f: y \rightarrow y framework, money > as a social form is captured by y and its changes over time and space > by f. I'm not trying to; see above. In any "real" economy, accountants, whether they are commanded by their capitalist bosses or by the ruling state, do the capturing of the physical y in terms of a numeraire; in accordance with some basic assumptions, so that the whole makes sense. My point is that indiscriminately hopping back and forth between a physical reality and the one expressed in terms of a human-given numeraire, i.e. doable because money "mediates" the exchange of physicalities, isn't conducive to understanding how the economy works. > I don't see the point of counter-posing math and bookkeeping. They each deal with separate and very different realities. In accounting, everything starts with a debit entry; then (and there), if there is no resolution, no equilibrium and the entry is valueless. In math, or a representation of the physical world, every entry is determinate right from the start and every equation of those entries represents an equilibrium of sorts. Where does default, or the possibility of a disequilibrium, enter into your f : y→y; framework? Why do you think accountants have no use for math, higher than simple arithmetic? I'm not talking here about financialization, which deals with fictitious values, for that's another story altogether. > And I > disagree strongly with the idea that when money mediates "the > physicality of the product could be said to have entered a state of > suspended animation and "dead" to the world that matters." Money does much more than simply "mediate". Its use as a unit of account alters the reality of the field of investigation. This assertion follows from the basic assumption that the field of investigation in question is always in _a state of becoming_ resolved, rather than _is_ a determinately valued structure at any given point in time and as such subject to depletion. > That's like saying that when people learn something, the physicality > of the brain "could be said to have entered a state of suspended > animation and "dead" to the world that matters," namely the > psychological experience of learning.I don't think so. The brain (actually > the whole body) physically changes when we "learn" something, and we > experience these physical changes as a psychological phenomenon called > "learning." And the numeraire of learning is? For the analogy to hold, an answer is required. Or, more to the point yet, what is the natural numeraire of the physicality of y? > The physical proportions (use values) are not slushing around in a world > separate > from the movement of social forms (values). They constitute one and the same > flow of real social life. What I'm implying is not that your over-time function f : y→y is invalid, but that the temporary capture of the physical y in terms of a unit of account forces demand and not supply (of "the productive forces of labor") to become the determinant of the change in y; which also is the underlying reason why money isn't a veil. I fully agree with you that the economy is a social structure and that the flow [of living-standard enhancement], insofar it becomes determinate through exercised final demand, is one and the same flow of [values-in-exchange]. So of course, _if_ markets fully clear at cost-plus prices, reproduction is assured. But is this a useful depiction of the real world through time? Not!! > It just happens that this flow has > different aspects that you can isolate by abstraction. Not sure what you mean... > If you believe that value notions stand on their own, separate and > apart, During the time that "→" operates, it's an either/or situation. One can choose to approach individual use-values within the economy as determinate, but without having a clue as to how to aggregate them in the changed y; or investigate how booked values come to be, and _understand_ why these micro-values are in effect indeterminate and unable to be aggregated in the changed y. Such an understanding leads to the conclusion that within the economy, values-in-exchange rule; while use-values make sense only in the world we actually live, and not in the world we're _making_ a living in. And thus the two worlds are best viewed as connected, but each having separate value notions. > rather than -- as I argue -- being social forms "overlaid" on a > material content (ultimately, the productive forces of labor), And what's the material content, if there is no effective demand for the productive forces of labor? Certainly nothing conducive to reproduction! > then > how come the social forms of value and surplus value dictate the > priorities of production, of physical supplies, in a capitalist > society? Hopefully by now you have a better understanding of the difference in our approaches. Again I fully agree that "the social forms of value ... dictate the priorities of production, of physical supplies, in a capitalist society". "Surplus value" has been debated by me a number of times in the past on this forum, without having been shown that my reasoning is invalid. > This is not different from the argument against Cartesian > dualism. If our minds stand apart from our physical bodies (rather > than being the psychological forms through which we experience our > bodies and the world around them), then how come our goals drive our > actions? And how come sensory experience and reflection on it changes > our bodies and minds? If the body can't touch the mind, then how can > the mind touch the body? Don't see how this paragraph pertains to the above. I'm as much convinced of the interrelation between mind and body as you, going by what you're writing here. John V _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
