--- Charles Brown <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> wrote:
> CB: Hey , don't we all agree on the transformation
> problem ?
Well, I'm not sure. To be honest, I don't have a passionate commitment to any particular position, but I am inclined to be convinced by the argument that "value" in Marx's Capital is simply a category existing at the highest possible level of abstraction in Marx's depiction. That is, "value" is not something which is hiding beside a commodity's price, but rather, value is an abstract expression of the relationship of commodities to one another. Marx constructs his account with a series of categories, moving from abstract to concrete. There is no value "substance" which can be isolated to a particular commodity, but rather, commodities have "value" as a result of their standing in relationship to one another, and through the mediation of the universal commodity, money.
Admittedly, we then have to ask the question of why Marx provides a formula in Vol. 3 for determining values from prices. On the other hand, the non-orthodox view does have going for it that it supports what Yoshie was quoting from Hegel the other day:
"Essence accordingly is not something beyond or behind appearance, but -- just because it is the essence which exists -- the existence is Appearance (Forth-shining)."
I will try to look into the relevant chapter of Michael Heinrich's Die Wissenschaft vom Wert this sunday, as well as the amusing chapters of Robert Kurz's Die Kollaps der Modernisierung about the Soviet Union trying to sell commodities at their "true value." If I remember Kurz correctly, this is ludicrous, because value is established retroactively, in the act of exchange.
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