>Marx's view is that
>the value of labour power is a real and objective magnitude.
Charles Brown wrote:
>Charles: Isn't the value of labour power the value of the
>commodities which must be consumed to reproduce the labor power?
Yeah, but there's a lot of slippage in defining the reproduction of labor power. For the typical First World worker it includes a car and a TV; for a Mexican worker (who may be employed by Ford or Sony), it includes a house made of sheet metal, plastic sheeting, and cardboard. A generation ago, the unit reproduced was said to be the "family"; now it's pretty much the individual worker and a dependent if s/he's lucky. I think Rakesh's quote from Jim O'Connor was right - the contents of the consumption basket depends in part on the state of the class struggle. Is that "real and objective"?
Doug