Hey everybody, I've been spending time with the _Grundrisse_ and the _Urtext_ recently in order to write my response to Charles, so I haven't been posting on the ongoing value-theory thread yet, but I wanted to chime in with a quick "me too" post:
^^^^ CB: Thanks for the respect of close attention what I wrote, Angelus
Carrol wrote:
> but the perspective advanced here denies that there is a
> transformation problem because Marx's value theory, unlike Ricardo's
> value theory, isNOT INTENDED TO EXPLAIN PRICES!
And Doug wrote:
> I've long thought the whole value theory/transformation problem
> debate was a total goddamn waste of time.
Carrol and Doug and John Gulick are all 100% correct.
>From the perspective of value-form theory, THERE IS NO TRANSFORMATION PROBLEM, because value exists at an entirely different level of abstraction in Marx's presentation than the category of price. As John
Gulick points out, "value" is not an empirically existing physical
magnitude; it's the form assumed by social labour in a capitalist
society (more on this in my response to Charles).
^^^^^ CB: I'm thinking I'll look at _Value, Price and Profit_ to get an idea of how Marx related value and price.
^^^^^
The transformation of "value" into "production prices" is literally meaningless.
To try to reduce it to a short sentence: value is not a quantity underlying price; value is a social relationship expressed through price.
^^^^^ CB: What is the social relationship thus expressed ? If value is not a quantity, why does Marx discuss different commodities as having "equal" values ?
Exchange value, at first sight, presents itself as a quantitative relation, as the proportion in which values in use of one sort are exchanged for those of another sort,[6] a relation constantly changing with time and place. Hence exchange value appears to be something accidental and purely relative, and consequently an intrinsic value, i.e., an exchange value that is inseparably connected with, inherent in commodities, seems a contradiction in terms.[7] Let us consider the matter a little more closely.
A given commodity, e.g., a quarter of wheat is exchanged for x blacking, y silk, or z gold, &c. – in short, for other commodities in the most different proportions. Instead of one exchange value, the wheat has, therefore, a great many. But since x blacking, y silk, or z gold &c., each represents the exchange value of one quarter of wheat, x blacking, y silk, z gold, &c., must, as exchange values, be replaceable by each other, or equal to each other. Therefore, first: the valid exchange values of a given commodity express something equal; secondly, exchange value, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it.
SECTION 1 THE TWO FACTORS OF A COMMODITY: USE-VALUE AND VALUE (THE SUBSTANCE OF VALUE AND THE MAGNITUDE OF VALUE
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3