From: cmgermer@UFPR.BR
Date: Thu Aug 30 2007 - 08:22:02 EDT
Hi Ian, thank you for your reply. I'm preparing to leave tomorrow for a conference, from which I'll be back only next wednesday. For this reason I'll not be able to answer now to your comments, but I'll do it after my return. I take the opportunity to inform to the list that a new association of political economists has been founded and is being organized in Latin America: SEPLA - Sociedad Latinoamericana de Economía Política y Pensamiento Crítico [Latin American Society of Political Economy and Critical Thinking]. It is largely based on the Brazilian experience of the SEP - Society of Political Economy, which has been founded in 1996. The conference I'm going to participate is organized by SEPLA with the title: DESAFIOS Y PROPUESTAS DE UN PROYECTO ALTERNATIVO CON HORIZONTE SOCIALISTA PARA AMERICA LATINA [Challenges and proposals for an alternative project with socialist horizon (?) for Latin America]. The conference is a joint meeting of political economists and leaders of social movements. comradely, Claus. > Hi Claus > > Sorry for the delay in replying. > >> Thus the individual producer does >> not know in advance if he/she is or is not a part of the social >> reproduction. A product of labour having value means that it has been >> accepted as product of social labour, i.e., has been sold; not having >> value means that it has not been accepted. Having produced something >> that >> cannot be sold means to have been excluded from the social reproduction, >> and this condition cannot go on if the producer wants to survive. He/she >> must be accepted again as a member of the social reproduction, which >> implies that he/she must insert again his/her particular labour as part >> of >> social labour, i.e., he/she must produce something that meets a social >> demand. > > I agree in general with your characterization. But now I wonder > whether this is, again, a terminological issue. > > I interpret "having value" to refer to the "total labour-time > required to produce a commodity under the given conditions of > production". So a commodity "has value" regardless of its fate in the > marketplace. > > The unqualified term "value" is highly ambiguous. So I am beginning to > try to avoid it. I prefer to use the terms labour-embodied and > labour-commanded when contrasting actual labour-time expended and the > amount of social labour-time that equalizes with it. > > I agree that the labour-embodied in a commodity that does not sell is > not "social labour" in the sense that it fails to equalize or exchange > with other labour. The labour-embodied in the commodity is positive, > but the labour-commanded by that commodity is zero. > >> It seems to me that you use an unusual concept when you say that there >> is >> "labour-value regardless of whether it meets a social demand or not". To >> be a product of labour, particular labour, is not the same thing as >> being >> a product of social labour. Having value does not mean not having >> required >> labour, it means that the labour spent is not social labour. > > I don't think my concept is unusual but rather standard. Marx in Vol > I: "We see then that that which determines the magnitude of the value > of any article is the amount of labour socially necessary, or the > labour time socially necessary for its production." The modifier > "socially necessary" does not refer to the existence of sufficient > social demand, but to the prevailing conditions of production. > > There has been some semantic drift from Marx's definition due to some > more modern interpretations that I do not agree with. > >> Claus: I totally agree with you about the requirement of the allocation >> of >> the total labour-time in all societies. This is basic in Marx's theory. >> What I don't agree is that labour-time expresses itself as value in all >> societies. > > Again, this may be a terminological dispute. What do you mean by > "value" in that last sentence? > > Certainly money and prices are not present in all societies. But > articles that require a definite, objective amount of labour-time to > produce, given the level of technology, is present in all societies. > (Unless we have left the realm of necessity, which seems unlikely for > quite some time). > >> I interpret Marx's point of view as saying that the expression >> of labour-time as value is specific of the merchant economy and of >> capitalism. It does so because in the merchant economy labour as the >> source of all wealth is obliterated by the non existence of a social >> plan >> of production and is disguised as value expressed as exchange-value in >> the >> form of money. Where there is an explicit plan (like f.i. in feudalism) >> labour time appears clearly and does not need to express itself >> indirectly. > > Monetized markets and widespread commodity exchange were ubiquitous in > feudal times. Some parts of the division of labour were partially > governed by the spontaneous operation of the law of value. I agree > however that certain cases of exploitation -- e.g. the corvee peasant > -- are more transparent due to the direct and personal provision of > surplus labour. > >> The analogy you make between the thermometer and money (which is the >> form >> of value) are imo not valid. Although temperature exists without >> thermometers, value does not exist without money, because money is the >> way >> through which the individual labours are converted into social labour, >> which money represents. The sale of the commodity, i.e. its conversion >> into money, is what asserts it as the product of social labour. Thus, >> value and money are social phenomena that evolve side by side. > > I very much agree that social labour and money are two sides of the > same coin that historically evolve side-by-side. Money, as you say, > *represents* labour-value; but it is not *constitutive* of > labour-value. It requires a definite amount of labour time to produce > an article regardless of whether the society uses money or not. Such > articles will "have value" even in a planned economy, for example. > > Best wishes, > -Ian. >
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