From: ope-admin@ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu
Date: Mon Mar 12 2007 - 05:40:31 EDT
---------------------------- Original Message --------------------------- Subject: Re: [OPE-L] What is most important in Marx's theory? From: "Riccardo Bellofiore" <riccardo.bellofiore@unibg.it> Date: Mon, March 12, 2007 3:54 am To: "OPE-L" <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Howard, in a commodity, value and abstract labour are a ghost. They take reality only when takes a body, and the link btw value and labour is secured through the (concrete) labour producing money as a commodity, which is the ONLY immediately social labour, exhibiting the abstract labour in the commodity. This is the point to be dealt with, and resolved. See my papers. riccardo ps: hint, one should follow in German the different terms and meaning for "embodiment", and for "social" labour. At 21:21 -0500 11-03-2007, Howard Engelskirchen wrote: >Hi Rakesh and Riccardo, > >There's a wrinkle here that may be of interest, though it treads >contentiously on old ground. Within the last century philosophers became >explicitly aware that two things that meant different things could in point >of fact refer to the same thing. The classic example is the morning and the >evening star, Hespherus and Phosphorus (sp?). Historically they were >thought different and then it was discovered they both referred to the >planet Venus. In a forthcoming paper I argue the same thing applies to >value and abstract labor. They mean different things but refer to the same >thing -- expended labor measured by time and rendered homogenous by the >jostle of exchange. The contentious part: it is important to distinguish >this original sense of abstract labor from the way in which the production >of value shapes the character of labor under capitalism in its image. > >Howard > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Rakesh Bhandari" <bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU> >To: <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> >Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 7:07 PM >Subject: Re: [OPE-L] What is most important in Marx's theory? > > >> Hi Riccardo you wrote: >> >> > I can only refer you back to my prior mail, and my writings. The >> > point however refers to this: abstract labour is only a capitalist >> > notion. Useful labour, it is not. Useful labour in capitalism is >> > concrete labour, that is a part of capital, indistinguishable from >> > it. It does not produce ANYTHING, if not as a part of capital. >> > Abstract labour is concrete labour seen as surplus money producing >> > labour. >> >> Abstract labor is the kind of labor which produces in the form a commodity >> transubstantiated into money, qua a social mediation, a purely >> quantitative claim on abstract social labor time, as a divisible and >> homogeneous substance. Capitalism produces historically specific kinds of >> abstractions and homogeneous substances. Sohn Rethel of course had such an >> argument. >> Abstract labor is unique to capitalism in that >> i.the dominant function of labor is abstract, >> ii. against say the physiocratic fetish of agricultural labor social labor >> time as such comes to be understood and shaped in the image of money, i.e. >> as homogenous and abstract. >> iii. Moreover, labor proves itself abstract as barriers to its mobility >> in and out of branches are radically reduced >> iv. the reduction of those barriers, along with the mobility of capital >> itself, results in the price of commodities becoming a function of the >> abstract social labor time required for their reproduction. >> >> I am sure one could strengthen the arguments for the historical >> specificity of abstract labor as a practical abstraction and of social >> labor time as an homogeneous and divisible substance and of the strict >> regulation of price by value... >> >> >> but my point is that it does not follow from the historical specificity of >> abstract labor that labor is exploited under capitalism. Or perhaps it >> does, but I don't see the argument. >> >> >> It must be extracted from "labour power" of free subject (a >> > ONLY capitalist notion) AFTER the labour market, extracting living >> > labour from workers. All this is very specific. No work, no value >> > and surplus value. Before capitalism you could have said: well, >> > technology is stationary, so more output more effort. > > >> I don't understand the importance of the stationary nature of technology >> in your argument. >> >> >> Not so in >> > capitalism, which is quite "dynamic", so there is no reason to >> > attribute the surplus to workers. Actually, the surplus as such, as >> > a use value dymension, is due to capital, not to labour! >> >> Due to capital goods given the scientific knowledge embodied therein or to >> capitalists in their supervisory rather than coordiation functions? Not >> following the argument. >> >> >> Leave it there for now. >> Yours, Rakesh >> >
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