<HTML> boddhisatva wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>                C. Rakesh,         First, I don't know that lawyers are at the top of the pay heap and I will defend lawyers if necessary.  Second, I would say that pursuing a market logic for so-called labor markets is a sure path to insanity</BLOCKQUOTE> I more or less agree. Its very easy to see this.Capitalism or socialism aside, its extremely hard to value scientific or intellectual work.If you can give a price for the value of the invention of the steam engine, the jet engine,  the transistor the fast Fourier Transform, .  ... on the technological side or say quantum mechnics, theory of relativity, the Krebs Cycle, the structure of DNA  on the scientific side good luck.  Its precisely the application or elaboration of basic science and technology in the current modes of industrial production to which we seem to owe most of the increase in health and our standard of living for the past 150 years.  Its a fact that inventors and scientists while occasionally enjoying substantial prosperity are never seriously financially compensated for what they produce.  Their statisfaction comes mainly from the intrinsic value they perceive their work as having.  Market valuation for precisely the work which is most economically valuable is impossible.  This is not to say that most of this work may be wasteful or useless, its the relatively small amount of successes which make the work worthwhile. <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE>Third, I would turn your logic on its head (while basically agreeing) and say it is not that the bourgeoisie distances itself from labor per se, but that the *only* measure of the value of labor under capitalism is how much it can benefit the capitalist qua capitalist.</PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> Take Amaryta Sen's Nobel Prize in economics.  How would you explain the value of his work along these lines.  The point of this is to say that no society would function without extra market valuation. I have only a passing acquaintence to Marx, however if he deals in any depth with any of the issues implicit above, I'd appreciate a citation.  Most of what I've read is very brilliant.                            --mike --- Michael Cohen mike@cns.bu.edu Work: 677 Beacon, Street, Rm313 Boston, Mass 02115 Home: 25 Stearns Rd, #3 Brookline, Mass 02146 Tel-Work: 617-353-9484 Tel-Home:617-734-8828 Tel-FAX:617-353-7755  </HTML>