Jonathan
Jonathan Nitzan wrote:
> You summed it well. A car costs 20,000 times a hamburger because it
> takes 20,000 more labour to make. The neoclassicists could say the
> same thing: the care costs 20,000 times a hamburger because it
> generates that much more utility (at the margin). Go prove otherwise.
> But then, this is just an architecture question. It does not relate to
> the "essence" of capitalism, which is well understood and need not be
> questioned.
>
> Michael Dawson wrote:
>
>>> how we can look at the process of production and deduce from that
>>> process
>>> the numerical architecture of accumulation.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Why is "deducing the architecture of accumulation" on anybody's agenda?
>> This isn't a calculus equation. It's a world where people live under
>> conditions inherited from the past. Central among these conditions
>> is the
>> existence of a money-wielding elite out to perpetuate its established
>> powers
>> and privileges by perpetuating "private" industry.
>>
>> Within these conditions, the labor theory of value is a category that is
>> useful for keeping track of who puts how much labor into commodities,
>> and
>> who gets the financial and political proceeds attaching to their
>> production.
>> It is useful because it grounds a socialist ethics in the actual,
>> concrete
>> events that are most central to the ethical and practical topic at hand.
>>
>> Money counts several things, but central, if not primary, among these is
>> numbers of hours of work. A car costs 20,000 times what a hamburger
>> costs
>> because it takes 20,000 times more labor to make a car than it does
>> to make
>> a hamburger. That's not the whole story, but it's certainly not NONE
>> of the
>> story either.
>>
>> We have a composite theoretical approach to the human psyche and
>> probably
>> all other complex phenomena. Why can't we have one about economic
>> counting?
>> Doesn't reality dictate this? And isn't the labor theory of value one
>> necessary theory there?
>>
>> Meanwhile, Sweezy and Veblen provide an excellent framework for
>> understanding the political economy of capitalism. This understanding
>> allows us to make some powerful predictions about the future of human
>> events. The relative growth of finance; the importance of military
>> spending; the progressive commercialization of personal life; the main
>> trends in the division of labor; the stonewalling of the welfare
>> state and
>> public industry/employment.
>>
>> It's fine and dandy to "go beyond" them, but it had better lead to
>> superior
>> explanations and predictions of events. In my book, I see no need for
>> wholesale rethinking. Their model, like all models, needs refinement
>> and
>> elaboration. But it has proven to be extremely robust as an
>> interpretive
>> and predictive framework.
>>
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