I wrote: >>Am I correct to say that if the working class ruled commodity producing society, values would be used to allocate resources, but under capitalism, prices are used instead? Since values measure social cost to society), the use of prices leads to crises and the like.<<
Jonathan Nitzan [new]: >The view expressed in these comments suggests the existence of two spheres, nominal and real. In capitalism, the nominal sphere gradually distorts the real sphere. Over time, nominal prices and nominal finance become "irrational" - this in the sense of being "de-linked" from the capitalist rationale of real values and real accumulation. The result is inflation and market bubbles. The function of crisis is to re-establish this link by re-creating a greater correspondence between prices and values and finance and capital... >To speak of prices as "distortions" of values is meaningful only if: >(1) Values do EXIST in a quantitative sense. >(2) Values have a DEFINITE magnitude. >To test the "de-linking" proposition is meaningful only if (1) and (2) hold, and: >(3) We can OBSERVE values and compare them to prices. >In our view, none of these three conditions holds. (1) Values (measured in abstract labor time) do not exist. (2) Even if they do exist, they cannot have a definite magnitude. And (3) even if they do have a definite magnitude, they are forever invisible.< >As we see it, capitalism has only ONE quantitative reality: the reality of nominal prices and pecuniary finance. There is no shadow quantitative reality of "real" of values and "real" capital.< Since I don't have the time to engage in a serious discussion here, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'll use two sentences to summarize my view. Put it this way: I see the value/price contrast as an expression of Engels's summary of capitalism's laws of motion as the contradiction between socialized production [value] and individualized appropriation [prices]. Like other serious theoretical visions, not all of its elements will jump through Popper's hoops. JD
