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<title>technical conditions approach</title>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'>Travis:</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Just because I am in a school boy's mood. I saw this
model on Star Treck with the food replicator and I immediately grasped why the
LTOV was bogus. Then Q showed up and suddenly I was in the nth dimension
watching a vector of pigs fly. Then it hit me: Pins dance on ferries
heads not the other way around. <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Eureka</st1:place></st1:City>!
The age old question is solved: Just assume that there is no labour
indirect or direct and bingo you can prove there is no labour involved. Paging
doctor Rifkin, Paging doctor Rifkin your utopia is calling. </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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margin-left:3.75pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=blue face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'>[WS:] If memory serves, I read a similar
argument against LOTV in the “Main Currents of Marxism” by Leszek
Kolakowski, written circa 1960. What you quoted seems to be just a dorky
way of translating that argument into pseudo-scientific jargon. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'>But the general argument can be restated as
follows: labor compensation has two components: the necessary cost of
reproducing labour power as the Old Man repeated after Ricardo) and the economic
rent (i.e. a premium charged by the provider due to his quasi monopoly position
in the market (e.g. a movie or a sports star.) It is obvious that
automation may drastically reduce the necessary cost of reproduction component
simply by reducing or altogether eliminating human labor in certain areas, but
not the economic rent component. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'>I think that most today’s prices, at
least in the developed world, are driven by the rent component, not by the reproduction
of labour power (i..e. the actual cost of production) component. That is
to say, a garment that sells for say $50 at Macy’s has about $2 reproduction
of labor power component (i.e. actual production cost) and $48 in economic
rent, i.e. charge for the Macy or other designer schmuck brand. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'>I believe that LOTV does not say much about
that $48, which IMHO limits its usefulness in explaining how modern economy
works.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue'>Wojtek<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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