Date: Sun, 27 Oct 1996 00:07:09 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: M-TH: value theory and intuitive expla



On 26 Oct 1996, jc mullen wrote:

> Well I need more time to think this one over.
> 	Butthere are some things I don't understand. How can competitive markets
> with a price and a cost for labour explain how more value is produced with less
> labour. Maybe maths built around these ideas can reflect (simulate) changes in
> the economy, but how could they -explain- it. 

Your question begs the question by building in the term value. The kinds
of explanation taht would be offered by the sort of economic theory I was
discussing, which don't use value as a theoretical term, don't purport to
explain how more value is produced with less labor. They purport to
explain,a mong other things, how more commodities are produced at cheaper
prices with less labor. The challenge for the value theorist is toi
explain what reference to value adds. I concede that value talk is useful
as a way to discuss exploitation, although I would cut the notion of value
free from embodied labor. But this is, as hans d. and some othersw ere
saying, a qualitative use of the notion that does not turn on the labor
theory of value.

--Justin




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