[OT] Re: Python training time (was)

[Steve Holden]

"Alex Martelli" <aleax at aleax.it> wrote ...
> Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters wrote:
>
> > Jack Diederich <jack at performancedrivers.com> wrote previously:
> > |Marx's labour theory of value tried to set an absolute scientific
> > |standard
> > |[Marx considered himself a scientist] by stating that something was
worth
> > |excatly the amount of _human_ labor put into it.  He hedged this a bit
> > |by saying the most efficient amount of human labor
> >
> > But understand the special meaning given to "hedge" here.  The
> > caricature "labor theory of value" Diederich describes is indeed set out
> > in the first few pages of _Poverty of Philosophy_ (and repeated in Ch
> > 1-2 of _Capital_, volume 1).
>
> ...and in that form it's not very far from what Adam Smith
> had proposed.  E.g., it misses the important correction [by
> Ricardo] that for those productions where e.g. land or mines
> are among the factors of productions, it's the *LEAST*
> fertile/productive field or mine being worked that determines
> value (the extra production / lesser amount of labor needed
> in more-productive fields or mines is what becomes the RENT
> of a given field or mine).  But, yes, this and many other
> important corrective factors are covered elsewhere by Marx
> (often, in language so ponderous it makes Ricardo's light
> reading by comparison -- main exceptions being, I suspect,
> those passages where Engels may have lent a hand;-).
>

I often wonder whether socialism might not have been more popular if it had
been presented in less ponderous (not to say turgid) prose. I couldn't get
more than a few chapters into "Capital". Was it any more approachable in the
original German?

Amazing how many times non-socialist forms of government have been labelled
"socialist" as a slur, simply to engender fear in the minds of an
ill-informed populace.

In fact I'm surprised nobody is calling Saddam Hussein a socialist right now
:-)

regards
--
Steve Holden                                  http://www.holdenweb.com/
Python Web Programming                 http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/
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