> Real communication, and
>real thought, take time; what can be done in an instant is only to pay
>homage to received ideas.
At the risk of paying homage to received ideas, I want to say I am pleased to see Andrew's name on this list, even to comment on the limitations of the form. At the very least the success of the list has demonstrated that there are a considerable number of serious if not over earnest people who were not being catered for by other lists in "marxism-space" (I do not know about PEN-L)
One idea I received from Andrew more than two years ago, before he understandably left an unmoderated list, was that Marx's theory of exchange value needs to be placed in the context of an overall concept of social value, which was not specific to capitalist economies. Over the last two years it seems to me that this concept is not just extremely valuable but indispensible to understanding the economic effects and psycho-social effects of capitalism.
I think once Andrew sent me a copy of an article but I am ashamed to say I could not work out the UUencode system (or something similar). What I would appreciate now, and hopefully is reasonably to hand, and is suitable to communication on an internet list, is whether Andrew could give the references to where Marx appears to refer to an overarching concept of value (preferably by title of work and section, since we may not have the same editions).
I am sure Doug does not want the 113th round of the transformation problem but this idea is quite different in character, and I want to think about the context in which Marx was using it.
Chris Burford
London.