[p2p-research] p2presearch Digest, Vol 19, Issue 150

[Ryan Lanham]

Franz:

Based on your response, I am not sure I am any less in misunderstanding of
what you are trying to say.

I trust you are interested in social justice.  I trust you see the current
system as unfair and believe that a fairer system is possible.

Your approach to describing value, money and even labour are non-standard
and, for me, esoteric in a quasi-theological sense of the term--they seem to
be highly influenced by Marxian lines of thought.  I am reminded of the
Frankfurt Schoo, Zizek, etc, who I will admit I find of little value.

I remember little of my own reading of lengthy sections of Das Kapital, but
I do remember the extensive reliance on a labor theory of value which is, to
most who now review it in broader contexts, inaccurate as economics or
sociology.

Commodity fetishism is a social critique by Marx I have less familiarity
with.  As I understand the point, Marx did not believe people were logical
in their assignment of monetary values. Rather, he believed people were
effectively blinded by social constructions of value.  I have not doubt both
of those things are true.  Whether he could see past these things more than
most, I have no idea.

Different values and yet a relatively standard economic value (price) is
inherently true and part of any economic analysis.  We all make different
choices.  I believe Marx was of the opinion that choices could be logical
and standard--along lines of the classical economists who followed him like
Marshall.  As I read him once, Marx perhaps seemed headed toward a utility
theory, but he did not have that insight.  He was obviously not a
quantitative thinker given to insights of that sort.  Marginal utility
theory followed relatively soon after his own work historically, though I do
not think his work contributed to the development of marginal utility theory
directly.

At the level of literary criticism or Frankfurt School-styled philosophy, I
find them best suited to discussions of texts rather than any practical
application, but that may well be ignorance on my part.

Ryan


Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham



On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Franz Nahrada <f.nahrada at reflex.at> wrote:

> Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> writes:
> >Franz:
> >
> >Another countryman of yours, Ludwig Wittgenstein, said that knowledge is
> >ultimately predicated on (reasonable) agreement.  To say that LTV is a
> >"law of nature" is a sort of nihilism that leaves no possible rebuttal.
> >You cannot have proof of this because there is mountains of evidence
> >against it.  If it was meant as science (and it was) it is simply an
> >error--a bad theory.  If it is normative--that is, a statement of how
> >things ought to be rather than how they are (scientific), it is a
> >normative theory that civilizations the world over have repeatedly
> >rejected.
>
> Sorry, I was not prepared for that kind of misunderstanding .... the Marx
> that you have so vigorously critizised is neither normatively nor
> otherwise positively related to Labour Theory of Value. He is just saying
> that in a society where there is no a priori arrangement of division of
> labour actors are doomed to have the social validity of their efforts in
> the form of value. And, with the inevitability of a law of nature, the
> aberration from social average productivity by what reason ever will
> depreciate their labour.
> >
> >
> >I've had similar discussions with many other forms of nihilistic
> >fundamentalism.  You are not seeing the world through different eyes, you
> >are simply avoiding actual discussion and open inquiry.  As I have said
> >before, if one cannot begin with some basis of discussion (other than
> >canonical acceptance of some text--be it Marx or the Gospel of St. Luke),
> >there is really nothing to be said.
>
> There is no canonical acceptance of some text here but a logical step of
> thoughts. If a society treats value as an objective property of things,
> something which Marx called fetishism, value can be deciphered as the form
> of their social action totally separated from their willfull influence.
> Value is not money and value is not not money. Money is the form of a
> content which is relational, a chaotic everlasting process (as long as
> commodity production exists) for the validity of a commodity as part of
> the societies labor.
>
> The fact that money gets a life of its own is based on that fundamental
> relation.
> >
> >Your canon (Marx) blinds you from actual study.  Therefore to criticize
> >others for not seeing the world through your text is irreducibly absurd.
> >
> Did I clarify your misunderstanding?
>
> Franz
> >
>
>
>
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