From: ope-admin@ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu
Date: Sat Sep 01 2007 - 18:04:52 EDT
---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: Re: [OPE-L] A startling quotation from Engels From: "paul bullock" <paulbullock@ebms-ltd.co.uk> Date: Sat, September 1, 2007 5:13 pm To: "OPE-L" <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul, OK. after this I shall take a break, since in practice these issues will have to be resolved by a party representing the workers, in power, and certainly arguing like mad over the use of 'prices', material budgets etc , and not us now. What do I mean by value ? OK in my 'own' words.. no quotes.. Value is the expenditure of wage labour in the expansion of capital... it is a specific active social relation... requiring specific social and so political /legal conditions. It can only be Value if the immediate material results of production can be transformed into money through the market. Unrealised products have no Value. The purpose of the employment of labour power, is surplus Value, and it is for this reason in the first place that labour is coerced into working as wage labour. Its substantial result is expressed, and can only be expressed in the form of exchange value. Exchange value is the recognition of the social status of the product, and so the labour used to make it - acceptance in exchange for another such product, albeit eventually one money commodity. This quantitative expression of value is determined by the socially necessary labour time of the product. Value is thus the substantial expression of a social relation, with a definite quantitative dimension realised through the market, (materialised as money) . As products are drawn into the market, as the market expands both the range of products and the number of each, the labour power drawn into production is increasingly recognised as socially acceptable/ desireable, yet each of the different useful skills of the labourers now finds no other role than as means to enrich the employer. Without enrichment the product is not made. Labour takes on only one purpose, with one essential quality for capital, to produce More Money. This single, one dimensional quality, an abstract quality, labour abstracted from any specific useful skill - is the substance of the Value relation, the historical purpose of the Value relation. Labour that is performed outside of the production processes of capitalism creates no value or surplus value. Commodity production, and the social quality of 'abstract labour', evolves historically. At first concrete the results of labours exchange only, apparently, for their mutual utility to the parties involved. The abstract quality of the labour contained in them is not apparent. Once the process of production for the market, for money, gains ground the exchange is ultimately for money. This is a long term process involving a major historical shift. As this occurs Value as a social category has evolved as an 'abstract' category, a general all, pervading characteristic. In fact the concrete skills of the workers themselves are constantly subject to change - de-skilling - so that the very capacity of labourers to do so many 'different' jobs seems to imitate the essence of the matter, indifference by the capitalist to the variety of skills, and a focus on only the common result of the effort, money and more money. None of this has anything to do with measuring energy expended by the workers as such, we are not dealing with labour in general, but labour under capitalism, it is the social substance of the effort that is the key. The concepts that Marx identified and the relations he traced out between them are real, they mature as capitalism ages, as do the contradictions between them. the contradictions intensify, and the system will choke. Each of the 'categories' that Marx located is interdependent, part of an historically evolving whole. The very idea of tearing out the concept of 'abstract labour' from capitalism, demonstrates, IMO, a failure to have understood Marx's method. Paul Bullock ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Cockshott" <wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK> To: <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2007 8:52 PM Subject: Re: [OPE-L] A startling quotation from Engels > Paul B > ------ >>I don't think this is a terminological issue per se. Exchange value and >>value are not synonyms; exchange >value is explained by value >>(quantitively and qualitively), and they are quite different concepts. > > Paul C > ------ > In that case we agree that they are different, I am however unsure what > you mean by value. > > Paul B > ------ > You have restated your belief that 'that abstract social labour is a > feature of all modes of production in which there is some form of social > cooperation'. In this case excluding Mr Crusoe before Man Friday, you are > saying abstract social labour is pretty much an historical constant. I > don't agree. The abstract quality evolves with the expansion of commodity > production, this vastly accelerates with capitalism. > > Paul C > ------ > 1. What do you mean when you say that the 'abstract quality evolves'? > > > > Paul B > ------ >>The value process thus arises and exists through the market. On your part >>you avoid the issue rather by >saying. Only in some societies will this >>labour be projected onto the space of money relations. As Claus >has said >>in responding to Jurrain, in effect the cloak of capitalist social >>categories is thus cast over >other societies. > > Paul C > ------- > > 2. Consider the feudal serf, who is obligated to work 2 days a week on the > land > of his feudal superior, and who is also obligated to deliver > each whitsun 3 suckling pigs and 2 combs of honey to his bishop. > His duty to his lord spiritual is expressed in terms of the product of > concrete labour, but > to his lord temporal, it is abstract. He must work for his seigneur at > whatever concrete task > he is set. > > Under feudalism this obligation do deliver abstract labour is > 'uncloaked', it is there > for all to see. It is only capitalist social categories of money and > wage labour that > cloak abstract labour, representing it as something other - monetary > profit. > > > Paul B > ------- >>You say,The labour theory of value is used to cost them. So now we are >>back to the initial problem... >your separation of this 'value' from the >>money commodity, your conversion of abstract labour, whilst >retaining the >>name, into various conrete labours that for some reason can be both >>measured and compared >as equivalents. I don't see this as possible >>without the market making the abstraction in practice with >money. > > Paul C > ------ > 3. By the use of timesheets and by normal accounting practices, except > denoted in hours not euros. > Each unit of production returns to the planning authority the total > immediate labour it used, and > how much of this was allocated to each deliverable. It also returns the > quantities of each > raw material and means of production it uses. > > (This is already standard practice on EU projects for eample.) > > The planning authority can then calculate the direct and indirect labour > content of the deliverable. > If the deliverable is unique - a particular bridge, a particular > software product, then the > labour expended in that unit + indirect inputs is the value of the > product. > > Where the product is something standard - tons of polyethelene glycol, > then the planning authority > computes the average labour content used by all plants producing it in > order to arrive at > the labour value. One needs to make some adjustments to deal with > skilled labour, > but in our book, Allin and I go into how one could do this. > > Paul B > ------- > > Undoubtedly, with specific performance times for specific sorts of work, > the extension of linear programmimg would be very relevant. But I take it > as read that a whole mass of techniques and methods used by the > bourgeoisie will be retained and applied for different social ends; the > new society cannot appear from heaven. > > Paul C > ------ > 4. Linear programming was a socialist technique first, later adopted by > capitalist firms, but > Kantorovich invented it for the purposes of socialist economic > calculation. > > > Paul B > ------ > What shouldn't happen is that the special commodity money be used as > capital, but forced out of circulation, so that the whole purpose of > measuring socially necessary labour time through the market - the > production of surplus value - is prevented. This ' holding down' is the > role of the workers state. > > Paul C > ------ > That passage was too condensed for me to interpret, please elaborate. > > > Paul Cockshott > > www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: OPE-L on behalf of paul bullock > Sent: Sat 8/25/2007 5:49 PM > To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU > Subject: Re: [OPE-L] A startling quotation from Engels > > Paul, > > I don't think this is a terminological issue per se. Exchange value and > value are not synonyms; exchange value is explained by value (quantitively > and qualitively), and they are quite different concepts. > > You have restated your belief that 'that abstract social labour is a > feature of all modes of production in which there is some form of social > cooperation'. In this case excluding Mr Crusoe before Man Friday, you are > saying abstract social labour is pretty much an historical constant. I > don't agree. The abstract quality evolves with the expansion of commodity > production, this vastly accelerates with capitalism. The value process > thus arises and exists through the market. On your part you avoid the > issue rather by saying. Only in some societies will this labour be > projected onto the space of money relations. As Claus has said in > responding to Jurrain, in effect the cloak of capitalist social categories > is thus cast over other societies. > > With regard the 'cost of production' issue, this is indeed a problem for > the construction of socialism.What sort of new 'valuation' processes are > to be applied given the existence of needs to be met? The rather obvious > issue of 'opportunity cost' is bound to present itself.. but again how do > we assess cost? You say,The labour theory of value is used to cost them. > So now we are back to the initial problem... your separation of this > 'value' from the money commodity, your conversion of abstract labour, > whilst retaining the name, into various conrete labours that for some > reason can be both measured and compared as equivalents. I don't see this > as possible without the market making the abstraction in practice with > money. For socialism to work, a political process of deciding what we need > to do, what labour needs to be trained and applied has to be made. > Certainly the time taken by mixes of different labours to effect a piece > of work will be PART of the decision making process, but direct decisions > will be made on the usefulness of labour without either the need, or the > possibility (if this is socialism) of referring to value in the market. > It will not be a simple question of 'costing' alone... however that is > done. You say this will be done in terms of labour hours contained, amount > to listing their labour values.. here using the term 'value' when you mean > the current best socio-technically determined time of performance of > specific concrete labour. It is not surprising that you see the > disagreement between us as terminological, since you start by viewing > Marx's notion of capitalistically performed labour as human labour in > general. > > Undoubtedly, with specific performance times for specific sorts of work, > the extension of linear programmimg would be very relevant. But I take it > as read that a whole mass of techniques and methods used by the > bourgeoisie will be retained and applied for different social ends; the > new society cannot appear from heaven... even if we should like to think > it will head in that direction! What shouldn't happen is that the special > commodity money be used as capital, but forced out of circulation, so that > the whole purpose of measuring socially necessary labour time through the > market - the production of surplus value - is prevented. This ' holding > down' is the role of the workers state. > > Cheers > > Paul B >
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