: In fact, wasn't that simply a re-post of a previous message, the words seem eerily familiar...well, erm.... yes, I wanted to 'try it out' on a newer audience having tidied it up (following our previous discussion).
: It has round here, though- thousands were employed in Steel Mills, ship-yards and Chemical works on Teeside, now british Steel Redcar is Run by Four Blookes and their Dog "Charlie". Look at the clothing Industry.
Doesnt this qualify as 'changes' - given the national rate of unemployment (about 5 in the uk? isnt it?) and the truth of the above - it means jobs appeared elsewhere.
: I agree, but the whole-saler must set a price for it, he is only concerned with making more money - that, and that alone is his sole use-value. he has no "desire" for the product.
We're getting into the philosophical-moral realm, I did post up here afresh about profits, implicitly accepting that the actual *use* is nebulous.
: But that does not counter Von mises' point, which is that we cannot rationally copntrol our oproduction, people might well have a desire for something which is economically scarce. Use-values, also, are infinite, I can use a bible to stand on to reach teh top shelf, for reading, for study, or as a bizarre aid to masturbation-
Youve been to that 'London school of (vicars) Economics' havent you?!
I cannot compare use-value between one commodity and another - this was the problem of barter, that you were stuck with specific use-values, exchange value was invented to get away from such specificity,
Yes, I agree - its expressed 'desire' in concrete exchangables (the dreaded effective demand)
: Let me ask this: what is your metric? What are you <>measuring desire in terms of?
One cant in actuality do this. hence the exchanged items is your only concrete evidence.
: but you are right, exchange realises the exchange value added by the worker, but there would have been no exchange without teh labour of the worker
Chickens and eggs - and if no one ever designed anything there would be no shiny new factory with new jobs for exchnage for.
- If I had a pile of aluminium, wood and rubber, it would have the total exchange value of its components, if I turn it into a widget, then its value is greater than the sum of its parts, I have added value.
If however you worked in a factory with equipment you had not had designed and made possible by others then it is they who create the value. see the jolly post above - its in need of some Red Deathying I facny.
: But I have not yet heard any solid refutation of the basic premises- that money must express a metric of comparison, and that labour is the only universal point of comparison within commodities.
I think the point I'm making is that the 'capitalist' is labor - even when he doesnt think or sweat, and profit is the wage.
: p.s. many economists talk utter bollocks, came across one last year said high home-ownership caused unemployment! Daft bugger.
Thats the 'they darent move for a job' approach.
None.
