From: Howard Engelskirchen (hengels@ZOOM-DSL.COM)
Date: Sun May 11 2003 - 13:02:51 EDT
Hi Jerry, The argument goes something like this: Rubin rigorously distinguishes the social from the natural or physiological. This is a richly important contribution. But now the social needs to be located. Rubin seems sometimes to want to do so there where the social first becomes empirically manifest, namely in exchange. This would be unnecessary if he were comfortable treating the non-empirical, and specifically the non-empirical social, as ontologically real. A consequence is that he seems sometimes to characterize the labor that produces commodities as private labor (rather than as private in form) because that is its empirical reality. But this is where we start with mainstream social theory -- social relations get generated only by private individuals coming together in the market. Marx considered this to be a dissimulation of the real character of the value relation in the sense that once the structure of the relation is given (given as defined in my earlier post), then producdtive labor within that circumstance is immediately social labor, though it takes the form of private labor. Anyway, this is hypothesis which at the moment I do not have time to test. A more comprehensive reading of Rubin may dispel such concerns. Here are some quotes for examples: p. 175 (Ch. 16): "the transformation of individual into socially necessary labor takes place through the same process of exchange which transforms private and concrete labor into social and abstract labor . . . " Exchange is where the social character of labor first becomes empirically manifest, but socially necessary labor is determined by the relationships of labors in production. p. 127 (Ch. 13): "Sale . . . places [commodity producers'] labor in a determined relation with the labor of other commodity producers . . . ." The determined relation is present in the relationships of labors in production and becomes empirically manifest in sale. p. 129 (Ch. 13): "The labor of the commodity producer displays its social character, not as concrete labor expended in the process of production, but only as labor which has to be equalized with all other forms of labor through the process of exchange." This can be read consistent with the distinctions I've made, but I would not want to read it to say that the concrete labor of the commodity producer expended in production is not immediately social labor. It is useless to its producer, after all. So it does not "display" its social character, but its social reality can be grasped by theory. But these are just snippets here and there. Rubin gives supportive quotes from Marx, particularly from the Contribution to the Critique, that need to be evaluated. Solidarity, Howard ----- Original Message ----- From: "gerald_a_levy" <gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM> To: <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2003 8:47 AM Subject: (OPE-L) I.I. Rubin on value, production and exchange > Howard wrote on Sunday, May 11: > > > I'm not sure Ruben, who has shaped so significantly > > contemporary debate, is quite prepared to distinguish between > > the empirical and the non-empirical real. As a consequence > > perhaps he tends to privilege exchange. > > I don't think that Rubin privileged exchange. It only seems so > because of a tradition in Marxism before and after Rubin of > privileging production, IMO. > > What are some of examples of how he privileged exchange? > > In solidarity, Jerry >
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