>
>I have found Shane Mage's recent references to Marx concise,
>pertinent and non-dogmatic.
OK.
>I assume that his quotation from Heraclitus in the signature line is
>a signal of the importance of dialectics in interpreting all this.
>Everything is in flux. Everything is connected with everything else.
>
>I would say the way Rakesh introduces the objection, is looking for
>just one or possibly two mechansism by which there may be a
>divergence between value and price.
There are many reasons for the divergence of market price from value; Marx notes two reasons for the divergence of value from the price of production. As for the divergence between market price and price of production, I don't think you'll e find the following dialectical but I do reject a quasi-Hegelian emananistic or essentialistic logic by which the price of production is the inner necessity and market price merely an outer contigency. This epistemo-logic is more than a copy theory of knowledge; it is an identity logic in that the claim here is that the more capitalism develops and eliminates residues of earlier economic conditions--i.e., the more capital and labor mobility are achieved--the more does the approximation (market prices) approach the pure form (prices of production). So I would recommend some Kantian skepticism here so that we remain aware of the one-sidedness in any relation between the concept and the conceived.
> Maybe it is sloppy of me, and I will rightly be guided back to the
>precise texts, but I assume that price equilibriates around value as
>a result of a whole range of interactions,
I wish I knew something about chaos theory.
>
>I assume the confusion is that people forget the sharp contrasts
>involved in Marx's method of abstraction. Although he illustrates
>principles with simple figures in Volume 1 of Capital, and he
>concretises the issues by talking of bales of cotton from as early
>as Wage Labour and Capital (1847) these are numerical metaphors for
>abstractions. They are not in themselves the sum total of the
>concrete reality.
Note the quote from Shaikh in my last post.
>
>In fact I note that the way Marx gets concrete as early as the
>fourth paragraph of Capital Vol 1 is by pointing out that "When
>treating of use-value, we always assume to be dealing with definite
>quantities, such as dozens of watches, yards of linen, or tons of
>iron." He then of course, builds up a detailed discussion of how use
>values relate to one another. The price existing at any one time is
>the result of the interaction of innumerable psychosocial
>assumptions of what is considered useful by comparison with what
>else.
Does Marx build demand into this theory in a different way in neoclassical economics in which consumer sovereignty is the sanctum santorum (sp?)
>
>
>Value is a strange attractor, and it too is always in flux.
Well I certainly agree that for Marx there is a continuous depreciation of unit values, an inverse movement in use value and unit value. But can't comment on the strange attactor idea.
Yours, Rakesh