So, from differential ownership of productive assets, we can predict exploitation. No disagreement. No value theory, either.
--- Michael Dawson <MDawson at pdx.edu> wrote:
> > And in any case, neither LTV nor any other
> > alternative theory possesses any
> > predictive power .
>
> I strongly disagree with this, personally. The
> labor theory of value is
> part of the explanation of the production and
> extraction of surplus wealth,
> a process which Marx certainly understood as being
> 5,000 years old by the
> time Das Kapital was published. In traditional
> empires, the process is
> naked and hard to miss. In capitalist times, the
> rulers claim they don't do
> it any more, and the process no longer depends upon
> naked tradition and
> obviously arbitrary power. It's concealed by "the
> market," in other words.
>
> Marx's obvious prediction is that class domination,
> which rests on
> separating the masses from the surpluses they make,
> will always lead to
> perversion and conflict. Capitalism is no
> exception. In fact, the ironies
> of capital accumulation make its development more,
> not less, predictable
> than prior class systems. Follow the work; follow
> the money.
>
> Jettison the anthropology/sociology of all this is
> you wish. But then you
> have to provide some account that refutes it all at
> the level of history.
> Quibbling about the strong but not complete
> correlation between values and
> prices ain't that.
>
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