<html><DIV> <P><BR><BR></P></DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>>From: "Forstater, Mathew" <FORSTATERM@UMKC.EDU> <DIV></DIV>>Reply-To: lbo-talk@lists.panix.com <DIV></DIV>>To: lbo-talk@lists.panix.com <DIV></DIV>>Subject: RE: The tendency of earnings estimates to fall <DIV></DIV>>Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 12:04:04 -0500 <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV>>i would say that surplus labor time (SLT) is a portion of total labor time <DIV></DIV>>(TLT), the difference between TLT and necessary labor time (NLT--the time it <DIV></DIV>>takes to produce the value of the means of subsistence = the wage), and that <DIV></DIV>>surplus value is the value generated during surplus labor time. But you say <DIV></DIV>>"soc. nec. ave. LT...is value itself"--what do you mean by that? <DIV></DIV>> <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It's a kind of early formulation but:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>"The _value_ (real exchange value) of all commodities (labour time included) is determined by their cost of production, in other words by the labour time required to produce them.  Their _price_ is this exchange value of theirs, expressed in money...The value of commodities as determined by labour time is only their _average value_.  This average appears as an external abstraction if it is calculated out as the average figure of an epoch, e.g. 1 lb. of coffee=1 s. if the average price of coffee is taken over 25 years; but it is very real if it is at the same time recognized as the driving force and the moving principle of the oscillations which commodity prices run through during a given epoch.  The reality is not merely of theoretical importance: it forms the basis of mercantile speculation, whose calculus of probabilities depends on the median price averages which figure as the center of oscillation, and on the average peaks and average troughs of os! cillation above or below this centre.  The _market value_ is always different, is always above or below this average value of a commodity.  Market value equates itself with real value by means of its constant oscillations, never by means of an equation with real value as if the latter were a third party, but rather by means of constant non-equation of itself (as Hegel would say, not by way of abstract identity, but by constant negation of the negation, i.e. of itself as negation of real value)...But the two [price and value] are constantly different and never balance out, or balance only coincidently and exceptionally.  The price of the commodity constantly stands above or below the value of the commodity and the value of the commodity itself exists only in this up-and-down movement of commodity prices."</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>"The Chapter on Money," _Grundrisse_ pp. 137-8</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thus the ability to measure real value should earn you a lot more than Nobel.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Josh</DIV><br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href="http://explorer.msn.com">http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p></html>