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[88] Sprockets: Destutt's Second Error In Hans' response [84] to Brutal's answer [81] to question 203 he points
out that there is a second error which Destutt de Tracy makes, which
Hans describes as a “blatant contradiction” (pg. 98 Annotations to
‘Capital’ Bilingual Version). As Marx says, “The Frenchman does, in
fact, say on the one hand that all things which constitute wealth
‘represent the labor which has created them,’ but he also says, on the
other hand, that they acquire their ‘two different values’ (use-value
and exchange value) from 'the value of labor.'” Marx considers this to
be representative of “the commonplace error of the vulgar economist”, in
particular he refers to the fact that Destutt was oversimplifying the
value of labor as a commodity. Destutt's reason for doing this is “to
determine the values of other commodities.” Ricardo points out, through
his interpretation which does coincide with Destutt's statement, that
“labor is represented both in use-value and in exchange-value.” This is
the half of the contradictory statement by Destutt de Tracy that Ricardo
accepts, which is correct, however, if he is accepting of the other half
of Destutt's statement, Marx is correct in implying that Ricardo should
not agree with Destutt's passage. |
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