Re: wealth

I've been struck by the way issues get raised on this list which some people
then seem to object to, claiming that people should debate them on other
lists. And this on a list devoted to a philosopher/social-theorist (call him
waht you want) who asked us to respect differences. Not much of that going
around is there?


>On Sat, 1 Jun 1996, D Hugh-Jones wrote:
>
>> Hold on, do you actually consider the labour theory of value to be
>> correct? That products' exchange value (i.e. price) is determined by
>> labour-time? I find this very dubious and so do most economists and I
>> think most serious Marxists. But if you can give me a good reason, I'd
>> be interested.
>> Dave Hugh-Jones
>> A Rush and a Push and the Land is ours
>> dash2@xxxxxxxxx
>>
>
>Now I'm not an economist, and its been awhile since I battered around the
>idea of the ltv, but on the face of things your formulation seems
>incorrect. Its not that a commodities exchange value is determined by
>labor time, rather its use value is determined by quantity of labor
>required to produce it. When the dominant value of a commodity becomes
>exchange value the commodity becomes fetishized, i.e. the commodity
>becomes alienated form its use value, that is, labor time has no
>connection with market price. This situation is not one which will
>either confirm or deny the ltv, rather the ltv is a mechanism for
>examining this situation.
>
>But like I say, I'm no economist. And the reason I'm not an economist is
>because I take Althusser a bit to seriously. "The lonely hour of the
>final instance will never arrive." If such a determinant teleology will
>not occure then why, I might ask, are we talking about economics here?
>If you're really interested in the ltv then why not take a look at the
>marxism archive, where there was a ritch discussion of just this topic
>some time back.
>
>
>Flannon
>

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"What I try to achieve is the history of the relations which
thought maintains with truth; the history of thought insofar as it is the
thought of truth. All those who say truth does not exist for me are
simple minded."
(Foucault)


Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA

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