[lbo-talk] advertising and marxism

[c b]

Prices  , yes, however, whether monopolies or not the wages paid to
wage laborers, who are the mass of consumers of personal consumption
commodities, put a limit on how much can be realized by actual sale
regardless of what the price is.  Effective demand limits effective
price in Keynesenoid terms.

Monopolies, oligopolies, like the automobile companies, can collude
and price fix, but they can't get around the fact that the mass of
wage laborers are only paid so much, and it is always less than enough
to buy all the consumer commodities which they produce; because the
capitalist exploits a portion of the value they produce at the stage
of production and appropriation of production for sale.

This is a self-evident characteristic of the market which Marx's
approach makes clear.

Charles

Bill Bartlett
At 10:31 PM -0400 25/3/12, Shane Mage wrote:


>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.