I see you and I have taken different tacks in answering Rakesh.
> but i think there's an uncanny proximity between steedman's criticism of
> marx and that of marx's criticism of classical polec, esp here, where
> gordon writes:
>
> >>> "An ambiguity lies concealed in the phrase 'how much.' Does this
> mean how much in value terms, or in physical terms? That is to say, is
> the question > at issue what quantity of bread the worker needs--or is
> it, rather, what > the value of this quantity is? Marx took the question
> in the second way. > The value of wages, in his view, depends on the
> value of the bread the > worker needs.<<<
>
> that is, steedman (via gordon) shows a blank in the phrasing, and it's
> this blank which, because of its presence in the text, enables a shift
> in perspective, a critique, a kind of immanent reading which makes for a
> break from established ideology.
>
> but all this is over and above the issue of whether i think steedman or
> althusser are right on this point.
More than an "uncanny proximity", I'd say. After the passage you quote, Gordon/Steedman go on to claim a circularity in Marx's use of the value of labor power that, I think, does not exist. As I said to Rakesh, this claim of circularity shows a misunderstanding of the distinction between labor and labor power, and the use of each.
>> but what you raise is interesting for another, though related, reason i
> think:
>
> is it really the case that marx answers the question with "the VALUE of
> labor pwoer is determiend by the the VALUE of the bread required to
> produce the laborer"?
>
> otoh, he clearly does. and there is clearly a circularity there.
I don't think so. The value of bread is determined, like that of all commodities, by capitalist production, the interaction of capital and labor that determines the labor expended. The value of labor power is separately determined outside the relations of production (there is a separate social element to the social subsistence--the social element in consumption--that is distinct from the social relations of production). But not entirely outside--its value is affected by the interaction of capital and labor in production (that, e.g, affects productivity).
So I see no circularity problem, ala Gordon/Steedman. Again, the determination of the value of labor power is relevant only to the distribution of the product between capital and labor, not to the determination of the value of that product. In quantitaive terms, if you and I disagree about the value of v, we reach different values for s, but the value of the product in question is not affected.
> but
> there's another sense in which he doesn't i think. (i'm hazarding, so
> any corrections would be appreciated)
>
> a) the importance of marx's critique begins with the difference between
> labour and labour-power;
>
> b) is this not, then, another way of putting sraffa's notion of labour
> as an 'exogenous variable'? that, in the difference between labour and
> labour-power, and specifically in their _connection_ within economic
> calculation, in the way labour is reduced to labour-power, both as a
> constant and constantly unsuccessful attempt -- in the discourses of
> political economy and in the social processes of reproduciton of
> capitalism, ideologically and really (to use a crap distinction) --
> the remainder is exactly this quality of _labour_ as an extrinsic
> variable. what escapes the calculation, the attempt to predict and
> control the circuits of capitalist production, is exactly this
> 'arbitrariness' of labour (or the working class). arbitrary from the
> perspective of classical political economy's calculations. and, that
> it's this arbitrariness which makes for the persistence of political
> economy as a discipline -- to pun it, as a constant attempt to
> discipline this perceived arbitrariness. which is another way of saying
> what i'd noted before when i posted the althusser quote (below*).
I'm not sure I understand this reference to the difference between labor and labor power as an exogeneous variable, as in Sraffa. Except in the sense that it is the class struggle over this difference that is critical and "arbitrary" or "ambiguous" (not determined by production per se)--the constant attempts by capital to discipline labor and make the exchange calculations come out "right" (i.e., to pay both productive and unproductive labor their social subsistence). Put this way, the class struggle over the distribution of surplus value is, at least in the first instance, exogenous to the determination of value in production. Is this what you mean, or am I just stuffing your thoughts into my framework?
> c) and so, we get back to the issues we were discussing recently around
> 'the missing book on the wage' in marx's work. how much of a blank is
> this? negri, o'connor, lebowitz, others have answered this question in
> different ways, which is what makes their work interesting.
Yes, as you pointed out a while ago, Lebowitz complains about the lack of attention to the class struggle in the laws of motion (the missing book).
> but to some
> extent it's a question whose answer remains ambiguous, or rather can
> only be answered through an account of specific class struggles, since
> no answer can be formal but is always a question of the kinds of class
> composition (ie., it is by definition, variable) that obtain in
> particular moments of capitalist history. this is also why to some
> extent there was never a 'book on the wage', and why we can't write one
> at that level of abstraction.
Yes.
> *>>hence, classical political economy's remainder is this confusion, or
> rather non-identity between
> labour-power and labour, between the specific presupposition of capital
> (labour-power, abstract labour) and labour. it is a recognition in a
> fetishised way of this 'misfit' which serves to prompt the entire field
> of political economy, and which it then proceeds to render as 'blanks'
> in the answers it gives, thus to make this remainder manageable, to
> render it null and void within the answer by never entirely posing the
> question of its own preconditions, by making labour-power appear on a
> continuum with or identical with labour. the unstated question still
> remains, the management is never entirely complete or effective -- which
> is why political economy still appears as a viable form of knowledge.
Yes, the struggle between capital and labor over surplus value is constantly changing.
Roger