A longer reply to Jerry's query: >PS: In reply to Steve K's [5183-4] -- I view use-value >>as quality, exchange-value as quantity, and value >>as a unity of quality and quantity (this is why I >>suggested at one point that use-value stands in >>opposition to exchange-value -- a point Chris A >>and I discussed last year). >> >>Thus, my perspective is that use-value is not >>quantitative, BUT I am willing to listen to your >>arguments as to why: >> >>a) you think this is a logical extension of Marx's >>philosophy; and >> >>b) why you think it is a superior way of >>conceptualizing use-value. >> >>I.e. I want to hear the arguments themselves rather >>than the assertions. There are several stages to a reply. Taking Jerry's (a), I see two things I have to establish: (i) that the concept of a dialectical unity of use-value and exchange-value was an essential part of Marx's philosophy; (ii) that one key aspect of this was that, in important and clearly delineated circumstances, use-value was quantitative, not qualitative. (i), I would hope, is incontrovertible since the publication of the Grundrisse (pardon me for not removing my DTP formatting codes as I normally do). I could grab hundreds of quotes, but two will do. Key phrases are highlighted with asterisks: "We already saw, for example, that *the distinction between use value and exchange value belongs within economics itself, and that use value does not lie dead as a simple presupposition, which is what Ricardo makes it do.* The chapter on production begins objectively ends with the product as result; that on circulation beginning with the <I>commodity<D>, which is itself again a <I>use value<D> and an <I>exchange value<D> (hence also, distinct from both, a <I>value<D>), circulation as the unity of both <196> which is, however, merely formal and hence collapses into the commodity as mere object of consumption, extra-economic, and exchange value as independent money.<170><$FIbid, p. 320.> "The first category in which bourgeois wealth presents itself is that of the <I>commodity<D>. The commodity itself appears as unity of two aspects. It is <I>use value<D>, i.e. object of the satisfaction of any system whatever of human needs. This is its material side, which the most disparate epochs of production may have in common, and whose examination therefore lies beyond political economy. *Use value falls within the realm of political economy as soon as it becomes modified by the modern relations of production, or as it, in turn, intervenes to modify them.*<193> Now how does use value become transformed into commodity? Vehicle of <I>exchange value<D>. Although directly united in the commodity, use value and exchange value just as directly split apart. Not only does the exchange value not appear as determined by the use value, but rather furthermore, the commodity only becomes a commodity, only realises itself as exchange value, in so far as its owner does not relate to it as use value.<170><$FIbid, p. 881.> The key detail is the role use-value plays in his analysis, and whether it is always qualitative, or can as I argue be quantitative. In the above quote, Marx distinguishes two possibilities for use-value: it can lie outside or inside the realm of political economy: It is <I>use value<D>, i.e. object of the satisfaction of any system whatever of human needs. This is its material side, which the most disparate epochs of production may have in common, and whose examination therefore lies beyond political economy. Use value falls within the realm of political economy as soon as it becomes modified by the modern relations of production, or as it, in turn, intervenes to modify them. The former aspect of use-value is clearly qualitative, and it is the aspect of use-value which most Marxists (Sweezy in particular) have focused on. However, the final sentence is crucial: "Use value falls within the realm of political economy as soon as it becomes modified by the modern relations of production, or as it, in turn, intervenes to modify them." I argue that, to "fall within the realm" of *Marx's* political economy, this aspect of use-value has to be quantitative. If Marx were a neoclassical, then it could of course be a qualitative concept. But since qualitative issues form no part of his core analysis (except when he reduces qualitative differences to quantitative ones, as in the reduction of skilled to unskilled labour--of which more later), to become an issue in Marx's political economy, use-value has to somehow in some circumstances be quantitative. Now I need two arguments to support this: (i) a methodological one: in what circumstances does it make sense to describe use-value as quantitative? (ii) textual support that Marx in fact does this, in crucial ways. The normal perspective on use-value comes from the sphere of circulation, C-M-C, where the purchaser is effectively swapping one commodity for another. The only reason to do this is to get rid of a (qualitative) use-value you don't want, in return for a (qualitative) use-value that you do need. Marx clearly states that use-value is qualitative in this realm: "So far as regards use-values, it is clear that both parties may gain some advantage. Both part with goods that, as use values, are of no service to them, and receive others that they can make use of" (Capital I 155). Marx's special perspective on use-value arises from its role in the circuit of capital, M-C-M. Here he is quite emphatic that use-value *MUST* be the explanation of the source of surplus value. This can only occur if, in this realm, use-value is quantitative. Marx's statement on this issue is one of the clearest and most didactic he ever made, and for the life of me I still can't fathom how most Marxists fail to appreciate this. When discussing where the source of surplus value lies, having ruled out C-M-C, he discusses M-C-M, and quite clearly states that use-value holds the key to surplus value: "The change of value that occurs in the case of money intended to be converted into capital ... must ... take place in the commodity bought by the first act, M-C, but not in its value, for equivalents are exchanged, and the commodity is paid for at its full value. We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that the change originates in the use-value, as such, of the commodity, i.e. its consumption. In order to be able to extract value from the consumption of a commodity, our friend, Moneybags, must be so lucky as to find, within the sphere of circulation, in the market, a commodity, whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value" (p. 164) Marx continues "whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labour, and consequently, a creation of value." I dispute this identification of labour as the sole source of value, of course; it appears that most readers of Marx focus on this aspect of this quote, rather than the definitive methodological statement which precedes it. I believe we should instead focus on the methodological argument for the derivation of surplus-value: "We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that the change originates in the use-value, as such, of the commodity". To cut to the chase, for M-C to generate surplus, the capitalist must be able to buy commodities which can generate more value than they cost to purchase. Production is an essential component of this, but what the capitalist exploits is the *quantitative* difference between the exchange-value of these commodities and their use-value. That such a difference can exist is an essential component of Marx's logic (especially in contrast to neoclassical economics): "The exchange of commodities, therefore, first begins on the boundaries of such communities, at their points of contact with other similar communities, or with members of the latter. So soon, however, as products once become commodities in the external relations of a community, they also, by reaction, become so in its internal intercourse. The proportions in which they are exchangeable are at first quite a matter of chance. What makes them exchangeable is the mutual desire of their owners to alienate them. Meantime the need for foreign objects of utility gradually establishes itself. The constant repetition of exchange makes it a normal social act. In the course of time, therefore, some portion at least of the products of labour must be produced with a special view to exchange. From that moment the distinction becomes firmly established between the utility of an object for the purposes of consumption, and its utility for the purposes of exchange. *Its use-value becomes distinguished from its exchange-value.* On the other hand, the quantitative proportion in which the articles are exchangeable, becomes dependent on their production itself." (Capital I, p. 91> So the use-value and the exchange-value of a commodity in M-C-M will obey the general laws that "its use-value becomes distringuished from its exchange-value" and that value determines exchange-value wholly independently of use-value. Marx then uses this to derive the source of surplus value. The use-value of labor which he contemplates here is clearly quantitative: The past labor that is embodied in the labor power, and the living labor that it can call into action; the daily cost of maintaining it, and its daily expenditure in work, are two totally different things. *The former determines the exchange-value of the labor power, the latter is its use-value.* The fact that half a [working] day's labor is necessary to keep the laborer alive during 24 hours, does not in any way prevent him from working a whole day. Therefore, the value of labor power, and the value which that labor power creates in the labor process, are two entirely different magnitudes; and this difference of the two values was what the capitalist had in view, when he was purchasing the labor power... What really influenced him was the specific use-value which this commodity possesses of being a source not only of value, but of more value than it has itself. This is the special service that the capitalist expects from labor power, and in this transaction he acts in accordance with the 'eternal laws' of the exchange of commodities. *The seller of labor power, like the seller of any other commodity, realizes its exchange-value, and parts with its use-value.* (capital I, p. 188.) To rearrange the above: "The past labor that is embodied in the labor power, the daily cost of maintaining it, determines the exchange-value of the labor power; the living labor that it can call into action, its daily expenditure in work, is its use-value." This use-value is clearly quantitative. Finally, what I think should be accepted as the textual clincher: "*Exchange-value and use-value, being intrinsically incommensurable magnitudes*, the expressions <169>value of labour<170>, <169>price of labour<170>, do not seem more irrational than the expressions <169>value of cotton<170>, <169>price of cotton<170>. Moreover, the labourer is paid after he has given his labour. In its function as means of payment, money realises subbsequently the value or price of the article supplied<196><I>i.e.<D>, in this particular case, the value or price of the labour supplied. Finally, the use-value supplied by the labourer to the capitalist is not, in fact, his labour-power, but its function, some definite useful labour, the work of tailoring, shoemaking, spinning, &c. That this same labour is, on the other hand, the universal value-creating element, and thus possesses a property by which it differs from all other commodities, is beyond the cogniscance of the ordinary mind.<193> Moreover, the actual movement of wages presents phenomena which seem to prove that not the value of labour-power is paid, but the value of its function, of labour itself." (Capital I p. 506.) Note the statement in asterisks: ""Exchange-value and use-value, being intrinsically incommensurable MAGNITUDES." A magnitude is not qualitative: it is quantitative. This can't be treated as a slip of language or sloppy editing by Engels--this is in volume I, not III. That one sentence is the essence of what I see as Marx's theory of value: exchange-value, use-value, their incommensurability (in general, also applying of course when use-value is qualitative and therefore irrelevant to political economy), and that use-value is *quantitative* when it matters to political economy. Now Jerry's final question: >>b) why you think it is a superior way of >>conceptualizing use-value. Conceptualising use-value as purely qualitative means it has no role in economics. Some might argue that the reduction of skilled to unskilled labour, and specialised to homogeneous labour, involve economically significant applications of the qualitative side of use-value. There is some truth in that--but even here, as Hilferding showed in his reply to Bohm Bawerk, the quantitative side of use-value is decisive. Going beyond this alone, the superiority of this way of conceptualising Marx's theory of value is that it allows a complex, subtle analysis which captures the unique aspects of labour, capital and money in a way which is simply beyond the LTV. I sit in amazement as I watch people try to develop a meaningful theory of money on the basis of the strictly commodity-oriented analysis of the LTV, when there is a much richer credit theory of money for the taking in terms of Marx's use-value/exchange-value analysis. Of course, the real reason why I find myself alone in taking this approach to Marx is that it also leads to the argument that labour is not the only source of surplus value. cheers, Steve
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