Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 11:03:22 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: M-TH: value theory (fwd)




---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 17:08:46 -0400 ()
From: "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu>
To: marxism-thaxis-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Cc: "INTERNET:marxism-thaxis-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU"
     <marxism-thaxis-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>,
    marxism-thaxis-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: M-TH: value theory

     Another approach to this is not to claim that the LTOV 
itself is an explanatory mechanism for price theory.  
Rather, this argument, made by quite a few people in 
various variations on Marxism, would argue that it is an 
analysis of class relations above all.  Thus it is the 
analysis of surplus value and the rate of exploitation 
which was Marx's greatest contribution, as Engels states in 
his funeral oration, and not this as a foundation for 
equilibrium price theory.
     One can certainly find large sections of Marx's 
writings where it looks like he is after explaining price 
theory, but the "transformation problem" amounted to 
recognizing that it could only do so with some extra 
machinery added on of one sort or another.  (Of course 
there may be other ways to handle such machinery, such as 
bringing in temporal sequential analysis such as can be 
found in parts of the Freeman-Carchedi volume, _Marx and 
Non-Equilibrium Economics_, 1996, Edward Elgar).
Barkley Rosser
On Thu, 24 Oct 1996 13:54:07 -0400 (EDT) Justin Schwartz 
<jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us> wrote:


> On 24 Oct 1996, jc mullen wrote:
> 
> > Why do you think value theory turned out to be a dead end. I'm not an expert
> > economics, but it seesm to me that the advantage of the labour theory of value
> > is that it allows economic theory to be linked to a vision of whatthe world
> > really looks like : that is there are clearly more and more products available
> > to make human life more comfortable and interesting. Capitalism is the system
> > that allowed this to happen. What is new about capitalism in this respect ?
> > Surely it is that labour is more efficiently applied... it seems to me that the
> > idea that labour creates value is intuitively satisfying in a way that
> > alternative theories are not, whatever the mathematical difficulties it
> > presents.
> 
> OK, first, grant that capitalism produces more goodies and with less labor
> input per unit than feudalism. (The second must be what you mean by more
> efficient.) You certainly don't need the LTV to explain this. The
> existence of competitive markets, in which labor is a commodity (with a
> price) and a cost (and therefore something to be reduced) allows for a
> perfectly good market-based explanation of these outcomes.
> 
> Second, I'd like an account of the way you think appeal to labor values
> does offer an explanation of these phenomena, intuitive or otherwise. One
> reason (Sraffa's via Steedman's) to think it doesn't is thatw hile you can
> construct a value-theoretic story about "the production of commodities by
> means of commodities," it's epiphenomenal. It's a fifth wheel, adding
> nothing to an account based on price. Value theoery in a mathetmatical
> sense ios supposed to explain something deep and hidden about the price
> system. That it does so has not been shown.
> 
> Third, the mathematical difficulties are very significant. If, when one
> states a theory precisely, it turns ouyt to be either internally
> inconsistent or to depend on a very special, restrictive, and narrow as
> well as quite unrealistic set of assumptions to make it consistent, there
> are problems with that theory. If it's inconsistent, it fails right there.
> If its assumptions are narrow and unrealistic, one has to wonder what it
> tells us about the realw orld. All formalizations of the LTV with which I
> am familiar suffer from one or another of these two defects..
> 
> I do not think Marx was mistken to use the dominant economic paradigm of
> his time and to develop it to its fullest articulation. I think thaat he
> provided a great many profound insignts into the way capitalism works in
> doing so. But I think there are limitations to his approach if taken as an
> exercise in economic model building, limitations that have not been shown
> to be transcended despite more than a century of hard work by first rate
> scholars. See Howard and King, History of Marxist Economics, vol II for a
> survey. 
> 
> I further think that, perhaps less than fully articulately, Marx
> sawe some of these limitations and provides the elements for a critique of
> the LTV in his own work. It seems crystal clear tome that he thought of it
> as the framework for a model and not as true in any simple sense; rather,
> he conceived it as useful and illuminating. I will go with him on that,
> but I think that we can now see that the illumination he got from it may
> be had without adherence to and use of that model.
> 
> --Justin
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu






     --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---