[Marxism] work - ability - needs

[S. Artesian]

No I don't think you're being pedantic or a prick.  I just think you're 
wrong.  In the first chapter of Capital, English Language Version, Charles 
Kerr, 1921-- page 45  Marx states:

"All that these things now tell us is, that human labour-power has been 
expended in their production, that human labor is embodied in them.  When 
looked at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they 
are--Values.

...But if we abstract from their use-value, there remains their value as 
defined above. Therefore the common substance that manifests itself in the 
exchange value of commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value. 
The progress of our investigation will show that exchange value is the only 
form in which the value of commodities can manifest itself or be expressed."

As for alienation-- Marx does not dispense with it after the 1844 
Manuscripts.  In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Book 
1, Part 1, Chapter 1, in analyzing the interpenetration of use and exchange 
values, the way the commodity is both at once but neither until exchanged, 
Marx states:  "Only as a result of this universal alienation of commodies 
does the labour contained in them become useful labour..... To become 
use-values commodites must be altogether alienated; they must enter into the 
exchange process; exchange hower is concerned merely with their aspect as 
exchange-values.  Hence only by being realized as exchange-values can they 
be realized as use-values."

And one other thing, while the analysis of texts is critical to developing 
and developing the tools of Marxist analysis, Marxism is not the analysis of 
texts.  Consequently the importance of analyzing proposed changes in the 
organization of labor in countries struggling against the crushing weight 
advanced capitalism.

With that, I might suggest that others on the list can pick up the 
discussion of value forms if they deem it worthwhile.  We might be better 
off carrying on the discussion off-list.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Angelus Novus" <fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2008 6:17 AM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] work - ability - needs