Dialogue with Patrick Murray on the Value-Form Paradigm, Part 1 -- Ep. 25

Brendan and Andrew welcome Patrick Murray, the noted value-form theorist, onto the podcast. (The value-form paradigm is a Marx-inspired strand of political economy that focuses on the market.) Patrick responds to the recent, two-episode RFH discussion––“The Value-Form Paradigm vs. Marx’s ‘Capital’”––and enters into extended dialogue with the co-hosts. Much of the discussion focuses on whether, in Marx’s theory, a commodity’s value is only potential before it is sold; whether “co-constitutive” value-form theory collapses into a more extreme version in which actual values are ultimately determined only in exchange; and whether Marx held that the magnitude of a commodity’s value is determined exclusively by the amount of labor that is socially necessary to produce it. (Part 2 of this discussion will be released in the near future.) Throughout the discussion, frequent reference is made to: a published symposium (http://www.copejournal.com/critique-of-political-economy-vol-1/) on the value-form paradigm, in which Andrew (http://www.copejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/andrew-kliman-on-capitalism_s-historical-specificity-and-price-determination.pdf) and others criticized the paradigm, while Patrick (http://www.copejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/patrick-murray-avoiding-bad-abstractions.pdf) responded to them; Part 1 (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/episode-17-the-value-form-paradigm-vs-marxs-capital-part-1) and Part 2 (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/episode-18-the-value-form-paradigm-vs-marxs-capital-part-2) of the recent RFH discussion, in which Andrew replied to Patrick; and Marx’s Capital, especially chapter 1 (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm) and chapter 3 (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm) of volume 1. Plus: current-events segment on the Republican and Democratic national conventions—or, perhaps, infomercials. * ~ * ~ * ~ * Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Huma