From: cmgermer@UFPR.BR
Date: Sun Aug 19 2007 - 18:09:18 EDT
Dear Prof. Bendien, Thank you very much for your reply. I assure you that I have carefully read your post, but I think to have better understood your opinion after this post, as I will try to show. The core of my argument is that value is a characteristic of a commodity producing economy, especially of capitalism, not of all modes of production. Let me try to be more specific: 1) the products of labour are only commodities if they are predominantly produced for exchange. In this case they have exchange-values. It follows that in societies where the products of labour are not commodities (i.e., are not exchanged), they don’t have exchange-values; 2) Marx says: “the common substance that manifests itself in the exchange-value of commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value” (CI, ch. 1). If I understand you correctly, you interpret this as meaning that when the exchange-value comes into existence, value is already there because it is the expression of human labour as such, and thus value is present in all modes of production. This however does not seem to be the case. Value for Marx, imo, is also a specific characteristic of the commodity producing economy. Look please at the quotation below. Marx says that “the labour, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labour, expenditure of one uniform labour-power … so far as it requires for producing a commodity, no more time than is needed on an average, no more than is socially necessary. The labour-time socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time’. There can only be a social average labour time if there is exchange of commodities, which is based on the equalization of the SNLTs required to produce the commodities exchanged. Without exchange, why and how would the producers be forced to reduce their labor time to the social average? If there is no exchange, every production unit or community has to produce its essential means of consumption and production under the conditions in which it produces, irrespective of the time taken to produce. If the production is for self-consumption, the product is usefull (but has no value) whatever the time required to produce it; if it is for exchange, its value, i.e., its social exchangeability, does not correspond to the particular time taken to be produced, but to the social average time, which requires exchange in order to exist. This is why, imo, Marx says that value is the social form of the products of labour in the commodity producing economy (“so also is it impossible to abolish money itself as long as *exchange value (=meaning value) remains the social form of products* ” – Grundrisse). In the first quotation above, although it may be interpreted as meaning that exchange-value is the expression of an ever existing essence of the products of labour – value – the fact is that value, i.e., average social labour time, only comes into existence because of the generalization of exchange. Exchange converts the products of labour into commodities and produces the exchange-values of the commodities, and scientific investigation discovers that exchange-values are just a form of expression of something more fundamental, which is value. I hope I have been able to clarify my opinion. Regards, Claus. > Dear Prof. Germer, > > The core of your argument seems to be that: > > "But before capitalism social labor did not in general adopt the form of > commodities and by way of consequence the form of value either. In this > sense I think it can be said that your interpretation is a-historical, > because you identify all historical forms of social labor to the form it > has > in capitalism, which is value." > > You obviously do not read what I say, because I have, like Marx, > distinguished sharply between the "value" of "the product" (a product > which > is a use-value) because it is the product of human labour, and the "form" > in > which this value is expressed. Marx does not say that products have value > because they are commodities, but instead that products have value because > they are products of labour. It is completely clear and irrefutable. The > value-form and its developing expressions cannot even come into being, if > products of labour have no value to start off with. > > I don't actually know what you mean when you say vaguely "before > capitalism > social labor did not in general adopt the form of commodities", this has > nothing to do with Marx. What Marx says is, that labour-power and means of > production generally become tradeable commodities exchangeable for money > in > the capitalist mode of production, which they were not on any large scale > before. > > I do not "identify all historical forms of social labor to the form it has > in capitalism, which is value", whatever that means. To repeat, what I say > is, that the fact that products of human labour have value, is something > that has very different consequences and implications, depending on the > given relations of production and exchange, i.e. it can take different > forms > in different historical epochs. But it has never been in doubt to workers > in > any era of history that their products have value, because it took work to > make them. > > It is only a bourgeois prejudice that value originates in commodity trade, > and naturally dogmatic Marxist orthodoxy follows the bourgeois prejudice > with its occult mumbling about "value". Orthodox Marxism is > anti-historical, > in the precise sense that real economic history is rarely studied. If it > was > studied, then a lot of the garble it talks about "value" would vanish. > Even > so, you do not even engage with the textual evidence for Marx's own view, > which I provided. Well it is there, if you care to look at it. > > If I produce products for my own consumption, I know jolly well that those > products have a labour-value, which I can express in terms of my own > labour-time and which indeed I can compare with the hours of labour which > it > would take other people I know of to accomplish. No commodity trade is > necessary for the latter at all, just a working knowledge of how long, on > average, a task takes for people to perform. In fact, under certain > conditions my very survival would depend on that knowledge. > > You write: "I think Marx's concept is that value is the social form of the > products of labor in a society where labor is not distributed according to > a > social plan". It sounds very radical, very orthodox, very profound. But in > reality, you again conflate the form of value with the substance of value, > even although Marx takes great pains to distinguish between them across > many > pages of his book. In feudalism or many other precapitalist societies, > "labor is also not distributed according to a social plan". Yet you want > to > argue that value did not exist in those societies! > > All this seems to be a dispute about subtleties, but in reality the false > theory of value you propose caused the ruination of many workers' lives in > Soviet-type societies. It was thought "value is the social form of the > products of labor in a society where labor is not distributed according to > a > social plan" which effectively meant that, since there was now a social > plan, workers became expendable in the execution of the plan. > > Jurriaan >
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