I have two posts to reply to here which I'll try to deal with separately. Firstly, Jerry observes: ------------- In the quote below, you focus on the last word. I would focus on the last three words. What I take "intrinsically incommensurable" to mean is that they can't be "added-up" together because they are apples and oranges so to speak. Actually, that's a poor analogy because both apples and oranges have the characteristic of being fruit whereas use-value and exchange-value only have a general and systematic common characteristic to the extent that they both (along with value) represent different aspects of the commodity. ------------ I actually focus on all three words too: "intrinsically incommensurable magnitudes". I emphasised the final one only to make the point that, at least once in Capital I, Marx explicitly stated that use-value could be a magnitude. It seems that you've accepted that point, so let's now check the phrase itself out. Your take is quite feasible: it could be, for instance, that exchange-value is measured in tonnes of steel, while use-value is measured in volts. However, we know that the unit of measurement of exchange-value which Marx used (and which I accept as a measurement tool) is units of socially necessary abstract labor. For your argument to be sustained, you would need to show that--in the instances in which Marx talked of use-value as being quantitative--he was thinking of it in terms of units of some completely different entity. So how then do you interpret how he employs use-value in the following crucial paragraph: ------------- 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. (Ibid, p. 188.) ----------- Clearly in this statement, Marx is saying that: "The past labor that is embodied in the labor power ... [is] the exchange-value of the labor power" and "the living labor that it can call into action ... is its use-value". Are these not both units of socially necessary abstract labor time? Notice that he continues, after having identified the exchange-value of labor power with the commodities needed to sustain labor, and the use-value with the labor performed during a working day, he then states that "the value of labor power, and the value which that labor power creates in the labor process, are two entirely different *magnitudes*". There's that word again, now stated as being "entirely different" rather than "intrinsically incommensurable". So Marx is here explaining the source of surplus value in terms of the difference between the exchange-value and the use-value of the commodity labor-power. He says as much, very emphatically, in response to Wagner's# misinterpretation of Marx: "that surplus value itself is derived from a `specific' use-value of labor power which belongs to it exclusively". (Marx 1879, p. 200) So you can argue, as you continued, that "assuming the commodity-form, use-value can't be measured directly", and make the (valid) points you made about dimunition of this over time, etc.; but I still see here Marx using use-value as quantitative, and measured in units of socially necessary abstract labor time. Having read Michael's post as well (Hi!), I think I have dealt with the same issues above and won't go into them (I also agree with Michael in his characterisations of neoclassical economics), except one: Michael's comment that "Marx certainly - but imo, wrongly - wanted to characterise [labor-power] as a Commodity". From my point of view, Marx's characterisation of labor-power as a commodity *in the first volume of Capital* is entirely understandable. I believe that in the intended volume on Wage Labor, Marx would have shown what happened when one dropped this supposition, and treated labor-power as both a commodity and a non-commodity. In other words, there is a further dialectic which means that the rules which apply to strict commodities (products which are produced for a profit using other products) do not apply in toto to labor-power. One clear consequence of this is that the wage would normally *exceed* the value of labor-power, since if workers only received their means of subsistence in return for labor, they would be treated as no more than commodities. This argument is supported by the fact that *every time* Marx discussed the wage and the value of labor-power in the same context, he referred to the *minimum wage*, not the actual wage.## Cheers, Steve # 1879. Marginal Notes on A. Wagner, in Carver, T. , 1975, Karl Marx: Texts on Method, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. ## While Marx never explicitly applied his Commodity Axioms to the question of labor-power, it is probable that he would have done so in the intended third book on wage-labor (Oakley 1983, pp. 115-116). However, whenever he did consider the relationship between the wage and the value of labor-power, the term he used was not "average", but "minimum" (Marx 1861, Part I, p. 46; 1846, p. 55; 1861, Part II, p. 223; Meek 1973, pp. ix-x, citing correspondence from Marx to Engels)--in contrast to the practice of his purported followers. In a section of the Grundrisse entitled "The minimum of wages", Marx made it clear that in his complete analysis, the wage would normally exceed the value of labor-power: "For the time being, necessary labor supposed as such; i.e. that the worker always obtains only the minimum of wages. This supposition is necessary, of course, so as to establish the laws of profit in so far as they are not determined by the rise and fall of wages or by the influence of landed property. All these fixed suppositions themselves become fluid in the further course of development." (Marx 1857, p. 817.)
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