From: Paul Zarembka (zarembka@BUFFALO.EDU)
Date: Fri May 09 2003 - 09:55:34 EDT
On Thu, 8 May 2003, Claus Magno wrote: > Paul Zarembka, May 07, 2003 6:17 PM: > > > > I find two phrases of your sentences contradictory: "the substance of > value > > is abstract labour, i.e., the expenditure of human productive effort > > irrespective of its concrete form" compared to "value is objectified > > labour". Agreeing with the former, I don't understand how, then, > > 'abstract labor' could be 'objectified labor'. > > Imo there is no contradiction. A commodity is the natural form of a certain > kind of labour (concrete or useful) and a certain quantity of it > (abstract) - use-value and value. Claus, Abstract labor is precisely NOT materialized labor, the latter being the process of making a specific use-value. A commodity is not the 'natural form' of value (indeed 'natural form' has Ricardian overtones), unless you mean that form associated with generalized commodity production. > Thus, each commodity is a particular form > of value, i.e. as value it is the objectification of a certain amount of > labour in the abstract. Labor time, or a 'certain amount of labor in the abstract', or value is not a physical property. Looking at the computer monitor in front of me, I observe not one atom of value, labor time, abstract labor. (I believe I could find the appropriate citation from Marx.) > On the other hand, abstract labour, the substance of > value, can be conceived both as the activity and the result. Abstract labor is not an activity; labor is an activity. > As an activity > it creates value but is not value. It is value in the form of its result, > which is the commodity. Thus, it seems to me that one can say that either > the commodity or its value are objectified labour, because in its quality of > value the commodity *is* labour. I sense a empiricist problematique in your wording (but I'm not sure): a commodity contains value inside itself (e.g., in the computer monitor)? > In ch. 5 of Capital I Marx says that > "definite quantities of product ... represent nothing but definite > quantities of labour, definite masses of crystallized labour time. They are > nothing more than the materialization of so many hours or so many days of > social labour". Note 'represent'. And 'materialization' is not the hours themselves. Paul
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