>On Mar 25, 2012, at 7:26 PM, Mike Ballard wrote:
>>
>>
>>***************************
>>Value is determined by the socially necessary/average labour time.
>>Price usually fluctuates around value...
>
>As I pointed out earlier, with regard to prices this is totally not
>the case. In a perfectly competitive market in long-term
>equilibrium prices fluctuate around long-term average costs ("prices
>of production.") In the currently real (oligopolistic) world prices
>are determined by the relative strength of the monopolistically
>competitive groups struggling to extract, each for itself, the
>maximum share of monopoly rents. Advertising is one among many
>weapons in that struggle.
Mike is absolutely right. Socially necessary labour time determines value and the price of commodities is determined by supply and demand. Monopolies don't change that rule, monopolies are simply an attempt to exert pressure on either the supply or demand side of the market equation which determines price.
And incidentally, I would venture to suggest that a sweatshop is by definition a labour arrangement that sets out to manufacture commodities at less than the socially necessary labour time/cost. In other words paying people less than is necessary to reproduce their labour and/or forcing them to work at a pace which is unsustainable.
These practices are plainly unsustainable in the long term, just as monopolies are unsustainable in the long term. The more perfect the monopoly, the faster ways around it, or alternative products, will be created. Take for instance the commodity labour: as we know a labour union is an attempt to create a monopoly of the supply of labour, in an attempt to drive up the marker price. But of course the more successful the union is in creating a monopoly, the more pressure there is to find alternatives. Alternative skill sets than can perform the necessary work, alternative labour markets, outside the jurisdiction of the union, or simply alternative methods of manufacture such as automation.
All monopolies are by their nature temporary. But the point is, they do succeed temporarily and provide short term rewards for those who use them.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas