[lbo-talk] value form

Bill Bartlett billbartlett at aapt.net.au
Thu Sep 28 05:27:47 PDT 2006


At 10:33 PM -0700 27/9/06, boddi satva wrote:


>Yeah, but you don't make jam for a living.
>If you did, you would expect to get a basket of goods and services in
>return for your jam. Well, okay, but what if, instead of strawberry
>you insisted on making breadfruit and okra jam. You might still think
>of yourself as a jam-maker, but people are not going to be happy
>giving you perfectly good goods and services in exchange for jam they
>don't like and can't trade for other things because other people don't
>like it.

I see you can't even conceive of the notion of creating things in any other context, for any other purpose, than a commodity exchange.


>Even under socialism to make a living as a jam-maker and be fair to
>your community you have to produce commoditizable jam. Otherwise
>you're not being fair to the people who are providing you with the
>goods and services you want. And you're going to have to make good jam
>and A LOT of jam, because jam is pretty easy to make so a lot of
>people can do it and simple industrial processes can make huge
>quantities of jam at low economic cost, so you're asking for too much
>in return for your jam if you only make a little.

I'm not asking anything in exchange. Get it?


>Simple fairness and the fact that we specialize in what we produce
>demand that we produce commodities. Whether or not we call them
>commodities is immaterial. If they must be judged for value and traded
>(whether for barter or money), then they are commodities.
>
>Again I ask: "what's wrong with producing commodities?"

Already answered. I suspect you recoiled in shock from the answer and have suffered traumatic amnesia, blocking the horror away from conscious recall.

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas



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