Mark Baugher wrote: > Instead of dwelling on last year and smug 'I told you so' insults, we > should be discussing strategy, tactics and actions for this year. ...
... Or the finer points of the labor theory of value, the relationship of value > to price, etc. would be a fine alternative to wasting time sticking our > tongues out at each other. The labour theory of value is the great bugbear of Marx refutation, although it was neither Marx's invention nor something he viewed as universal. On the contrary, in the *Grundrisse* he stated, > "The theft of alien labour time on which the present wealth is based > appears a miserable foundation in face of this new one, created by > large-scale industry itself." Notebook VII of the *Grundrisse* is, in essence, a treatise on the *abolition* of the determination of exchange value by the quantity of socially necessary labour time consumed in its production. This is perhaps not a "fine point"; it is THE point. The tendency of capital, he wrote, is "on the one side, *to create disposable time, on the other, to convert it into surplus labour*." This is the fundamental contradiction between the relations of production and the development of the forces of production. If capital is *too successful* at doing what it is compelled to do, it results in overproduction and an interruption in the normal process of production -- what used to be called panic, depression, recession, or slump <sarcasm> until the magic of perpetual deficit spending and monetary easing "solved" the problem of overproduction.</sarcasm> The *real* solution that Marx advocated was that "the mass of workers must themselves appropriate their own surplus labour." When that happens: > The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but > rather disposable time. Labour time as the measure of value posits wealth > itself as founded on poverty, > and disposable time as existing in and because of the antithesis to > surplus labour time; or, the positing of an individual’s entire time as > labour time, and his degradation therefore to mere worker, subsumption > under labour. This, then, is Marx's view of the "labor theory of value" -- it is founded on poverty and is degrading to the individual. It is not an eternal "economic law" that is carved into the foundation stone of human production; it is an oppressive social construct that motivates the activities of capitalists. Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#35057): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/35057 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/111057829/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
