>Not quite, Brad, it can be destroyed. Marx even uses the term
>"devalorization."
>
>On Sun, May 12, 2002 at 12:45:44PM -0700, Brad DeLong wrote:
> > >>It's probably a good idea not to fetishize "value" as if it were
> > >>some substance that ethical action intends to maximize.
> > >
> > >No one thinks value is a substance.
> >
> > Save Karl Marx, of course, who thought value was created by
> > "productive labor", and could not be created or destroyed--but only
> > transformed and transferred--thereafter...
> >
Brad, I'm no defender of value theory, but it should be attacked on its merits, not on the basid of dumb misunderstandings. I hope you don't purvey this rubbish to your students. In the first place, Marx did not invent value theory. It was, until he capped it and (around the same time) Walras and Jevons developed a credible subjectivist approach, the mainstream approach to political economy, shared by everyone since Petter, including those slouches Smith, Ricardo, and Mill. It's hardly a stupid idea, however indefensible research subsequent to marx may or may not have shown it to be today. Cheap sneers are out of place.
Second, as you should know perfectly well, value for Marx is not a "substance" but a relation. It is embodied labor time in a competituive market economy (that's the relation). It reflects the fact that market relations drive down the amount of labor time necesasry to produce commodities, that is, increase efficiency. At a cost, Amrx reminds us. And there is no doubt whatsoever that the socially necessary abstract labor time is perfectly real. As are the costs. Moreover, Marx is right about the relation between the drive to efficiency and the costs (exploitation, alienation, domination) in a capitalist economy. The only questions, which I am NOT going to discuss, is whether it does the work that Marx wants it to do, as I understand it, in explaining prices and crises, which I doubt.
jks
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