As there sometimes to be a certain 'edge' in our exchanges, I should perhaps say
again that the account of current capitalist reality that I find most persuasive
at the moment is a Marxist, post-Hegelian value-form critique of orthodox
economics. As such, I doubt the usefulness of what we could perhaps call Marxian
Economic statistical and modelling work. Nevertheless, I do not think it is
possible to persuade anyone of that, or any other general 'vision' by defintive
argument or conclusive evidence. Nor can I guarantee that my own view will not
chage. Thus, whilst I do not expect either (any?) side to be 'converted' by our
debates, I do find them a marvelous practical dialectic for improving my, and I
hope others', understanding of the implications of the different positions.
In that comradely spirit, let me continue.
In a response to Duncan sometime ago, Chai-on writes:
(1) If abstract labor did not exist prior to the exchange with money, i.e. if
the
substance of value is formed in exchange, how can you tell the
magnitude of value can be determined independently of the process of
exchange? Independently of the supply and demand relationship?
To which Michael W. responds:
(1) Value is formed in the unity of exchange and production - thus not
independently of the process of exchange, S & D, etc. (I think Duncan has made a
similar point in a susbsequent post.)
(2) I can make no scientific sense of an autonomous 'substance of value': value
is a dimension (of a commodity).
So later, some account of what Chai-on means by:
(2) such a labor [is] existent in the reality ... not in a literal sense but
in an actual sense.
Michael W. (2)
would be helpful. As I see it, actual (specifically competent and differentially
skilled) labour, usually working in teams, produces commodities, which have a
'private' use-value and a social value, quantitatively expressed in price. Sure,
Labour is the sole necessary prime factor of production of value (though not of
use-value, and so not of the commodity). Sure, we can arrive at an abstractly
actual abstract labour prior to exchange by a process of abstraction from
specific skills and particuar productivities - the expenditure of mental and
manual effort. What embodied labour theory has failed to establish, 'independent
of exchange', however, is any necessary quantitiative connection between that
and exchange-values or prices (except in Adam Smith's hunter-gatherer model).
Chai-on goes on:
(3)
Because commodity production is of an imitative labor, education, training, etc.
can produce such a capability. Thus, I argue, a labor that produces a
commodity, [which is not individual worker's labor but a collective labor,
and that an imitative labor] can count as the abstract labor with an
indifference to any kind of concrete labor. In the competition with
commodity production produces more powerful tendency towards the
abstract labor compared to its counter tendency. In this sense, a
dialectical unity between theoretical activity and practical activity is
incorporated into the category of the abstract labor. I have discussed in
detail why such an abstract labor character is tendentially being formed
and reinforced by the commodity production itself in Section 5 of my 1993
CJE paper and my 1990 PhD thesis, which analysis was greeted with an
applause by Chris Arthur.
To which Michael W. responds (starting at the end)
(3) Chris Arthur is an immensely talented and inspirational value-form theorist
who nevertheless wishes to hang-on to an abstract embodied labour theory of
value. I do not understand why.
I haven't read Chai-on's CJE 1993. I will, IDC.
I don't disagree that
'a labor that produces a
commodity, [which is not individual worker's labor but a collective labor,
and that an imitative labor] can count as the abstract labor with an
indifference to any kind of concrete labor';
I only argue that this comes about, and is continually reconstituted and
reproduced, by a process of real abstraction in the unity of production and
exchange. Thus it certainly cannot 'cause' exchange values to be expressed in
particular prices, nor is their any unilinear line of determination from any
such prior value substance to prices.
I don't believe there is any evidence that imitation, education, training, or
even skilling (or de-skilling) generate any secular trend towards the
actualisation of abstract labour. Nor am I aware of any persuasive argument that
any such convergence is a necessary tendency in the development of capitalism.
I would appreciate expansion and explication of the claim: 'a dialectical unity
between theoretical activity and practical activity is incorporated into the
category of the abstract labor'.
Later, Chai-On says:
(4) IMO, paper money is still a product of
labor because, to get it, we have to pay a certain amount of labor or
labor-product just as we do so in order to dig out gold from the gold
mine
Michael W.:
(4) Duncan in a later post puzzles over this. To me it just seems to be an
illegitimate play on two senses of 'production'. If I get my sticky mitts on
some $bills by legitimately selling my labour-power, or a commodity, I have
obtained them by exchnage. The labour expended to mine gold is expended in
production (having been preceded by the exchange of labour power between workers
and the gold capitalist, no doubt). It is just misleading to conflate these two
socio-economic processes.
What is more, it is only by this (no doubt unintended) sleight of hand that
Chai-on is able later to argue:
(5) Then, what determines the value of money? I simply say that the
prevalent price level would determine the amount of necessary labor
to be expended for us to acquire a unit of paper money. Present price
level determines the value of money not in a circular manner but in the
way of an embodied labor theory.
Michael W.
(5) The point is that: ' the prevalent price level would determine the amount of
necessary labor
to be expended for us to acquire a unit of paper money' is in fact a circular
argument, because of the way in which labour is defined as 'producing' paper
money. It reduces indeed precisely an accounting identiy interpretation of the
quantity theory of money, abstracting from any velocity of circulation.
In my opinion fear of circularity, however, is much overdone - there is always a
degree of (non-vicious) circularity in a dialectical conceptualisation, since it
depends on locating concepts within a holistic conceptualisation.
Interactively yours,
Michael W.