From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Thu Feb 17 2005 - 08:16:45 EST
---------------------------- Original Message ------------------------- Subject: Marx's Form of Analysis From: "Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@hetnet.nl> Date: Thu, February 17, 2005 8:09 am ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Without wanting to discourse metaphysically about the trading process, I would say that Kozo Uno substantially improved on Marx's derivation of the forms of value. In particular, the argument that what makes commodities commensurable in exchange is the fact that they are products of labor is not really tenable; this reduces to a tautology. After all, it could just as well be argued that this commensurability derives simply from the fact that they are offered for exchange or are able to be exchanged, or have a price. More substantively, I think Marx's argument must be that use-values have an objective economic value inasmuch they are products of labor as such, regardless of whether these use-values are exchanged or not, i.e. regardless of exchange-value. This objective value could be judged, though perhaps not very exactly, according to the work it takes to produce the products and consequently their replacement cost; the attribution of value to labour-products, and its effect on economic behaviour, is likewise an objectively verifiable process which occurs regardless of whether that value happens to be quantifiable in exact terms. What the exchange process does, through ever more precise, standardised and comprehensive comparisons of trading ratios, is to quantify and objectify the value of products regardless of the specific labor-time it took to produce individual products, i.e. they acquire a socially-recognised (socially average) value. Thereby the trading process itself, through a lengthy historical evolution, becomes a crucial factor in economising labor-time, and subordinates the forms of labor increasingly to the forms of value. This means one aspect of the triple relationship in trade, namely the relationship between products (as against the relation between people, and between people and their products) begins to dominate proceedings. This interpretation admittedly makes (economic) value a transhistorical category, but not a timeless category, since the specific form in which this value asserts itself is specific to the social relations dominating each epoch. Marx argues that it is only in the capitalist epoch that economic value begins to dominate and shape all social relations, thereby separating the "economic" and the "moral" domains of human activity, and in this sense he also talks about the "economic formation of society", through a web of objective interdependencies created by market expansion. It is a statistically demonstrated fact though that even when capitalist market economy has become dominant, (1) market-functioning is dependent on a large amount of unpaid labor, not simply within capitalist production, but external to it (household labor and other voluntary or necessary labor), (2) the majority of products of human labor owned as assets by members of an economic community are not being traded at any point in time. In both cases clearly the products of this labor nevertheless have a value, even if no actual price is specifiable. All that happens in a capitalist market economy is that the objective valuation of labor and its products becomes systematically "biased" according to the costs and revenues pertaining to co-existing private enterprises (essentially governed by "earnings potential"). But to develop this insight in a theoretically consistent way, requires the proposition that labor-products have value, regardless of whether they are exchanged or not, and regardless of whether we can accurately specify what that value is. As I have said before, my view is that those who wish to discard any objective concept of value in favour of a price theory operate with an extremely naive idea about prices and price formation; the fact is that the computation, estimation, aggregation, accounting, negotiation and comparison of prices invariably refers to a concept of value anyway, eclectic as it may be, and whether or not it is acknowledged as such or not. Often this concept will be presented as an "ideal price", but even so, this is a price which would obtain if certain conditions objectively existed. But as soon as we admit that prices are formed by objective conditions, we are already talking about value relations asserting themselves as an objective force. Marx's contribution then is to attempt to provide a consistent theoretical framework for understanding the origin and distribution of value, which is however unfinished, insofar as he focuses mainly on the capitalist production and distribution of current output only. He pays little attention to (1) and (2) above, or to the revaluation of assets, except in regard to depreciation. Obviously market expansion has as its corrollary not just that more and more means of production and labor-power become traded commodities, but also that more and more means of consumption become traded commodities. This means that the forms of value increasingly extend into the sphere of consumption as well. In this sense, Kozo Uno's three-doctrine theory of a "purely capitalist society" must unfortunately be judged as incomplete. My argument here is, that even the purest of pure capitalisms cannot exist without consumption, not just consumption within the production process, but also outside it. As Marx suggested in his Grundrisse, economic analysis must investigate not only the mode of circulation, production and distribution, but also the mode of consumption; and in correspondence, he also says "any child knows" that no society can cease to produce anymore than it can cease to consume. I think this insight is of profound ecological significance as well. On that note though, I'm off for a coffee :-) Jurriaan
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