Thanks Allin,
I think that we're getting somewhere on this--you now know where my
examples were coming from. But in my opinion, you're still mis-reading
Hilferding--though this is something which Hilferding's own language
encourages, and it's something that has been done by many Marxists,
Sweezy, Meek and Harvey included. I'll see if I can justify my
interpretation by comments on what you posted:
Allin Cottrell wrote:
>
> I have now had a chance to look at some of the original
> literature Steve cited (thanks, Steve), specifically the
> contributions of Bohm-Bawerk, Hilferding and Sweezy. Here
> is my take on the matter.
>
> 1. Bohm-Bawerk raises the standard charge of circularity
> against Marx's account of the role of skilled versus simple
> labour in the context of the labour theory of value. That
> is, Marx (B-B claims) proposes to "reduce" skilled to
> simple labour on the basis of an observable market
> magnitude, namely the exchange-value of the product of the
> different labours, per hour. That's all very well, says
> B-B, but then Marx can't turn around and say that he's using
> the resulting "simple-labour-equivalent" magnitudes to
> "explain" the relative prices of different commodities.
> Point taken; if that were Marx's procedure, it would indeed
> be circular.
>
> 2. B-B then recognizes that there is an alternative,
> non-circular account available within the Marxian
> literature. He cites one Grabski as proferring the idea
> (since associated with Sweezy) that skilled labour counts as
> a multiple of simple labour insofar as the former transfers
> to the product the labour-time involved in training, on top
> of the direct labour.
>
> 3. Implicitly, B-B accepts the Grabski position as
> *coherent*, but he claims that it won't do *empirically*,
> because the ratio of the rate of value-creation on the part
> of skilled labour to that on the part of unskilled labour
> greatly exceeds (or *can* greatly exceed?) the ratio that
> would be predicted on the basis of the Grabski argument. He
> cites an (imaginary?) example where a sculptor creates
> (exchange-)value at five times the rate of a stone-breaker.
> To rationalize this a la Grabski would require that the
> labour-time involved in the sculptor's training stands in
> the ratio of 4:1 to the time the sculptor eventually spends
> making statuettes, which is absurd.
So far, no argument. The hypothetical chosen by Grabski is of course a
hypothetical, but it accords with Marx's own musings on the subject, as
I noted in an earlier post. The following is from chapter 7 Vol I, and
to me it's pretty clear that Marx hasn't really thought the reduction
issue through thoroughly, and it would be easy to read him either in a
Grabskian way (the first square brackets below) or a Hilferding way (the
2nd set)
"We stated, on a previous page, that in the creation of surplus-value it
does not in the least matter, whether the labour appropriated by the
capitalist be simple unskilled labour of average quality or more
complicated skilled labour. All labour of a higher or more complicated
character than average labour is expenditure of labour-power of a more
costly kind, [labour-power whose production has cost more time and
labour, and which therefore has a higher value], than unskilled or
simple labour-power. This power being of higher value, [its consumption
is labour of a higher class, labour that creates in equal times
proportionally higher values than unskilled labour does]. Whatever
difference in skill there may be between the labour of a spinner and
that of a jeweller, the portion of his labour by which the jeweller
merely replaces the value of his own labour-power, does not in any way
differ in quality from the additional portion by which he creates
surplus-value. In the making of jewellery, just as in spinning, the
surplus-value results only from a quantitative excess of labour, from a
lengthening-out of one and the same labour-process, in the one case, of
the process of making jewels, in the other of the process of making
yarn.(18*) But on the other hand, in every process of creating value,
the reduction of skilled labour to average social labour, e.g., one day
of skilled to six days of unskilled labour, is unavoidable.(19*)"
> 4. Hilferding comes along and offers a reply to Bohm-Bawerk.
> He's most concerned by the circularity charge. He says:
>
> "Average unskilled labor is the expenditure of unskilled
> labor power, but qualified or skilled labor is the
> expenditure of skilled labor power. For the production of
> this skilled labor power, however, a number of unskilled
> labors were requisite. These are stored up in the person of
> the qualified laborer, and not until he begins to work are
> these formative labors made fluid *on behalf of society*.
> The labor of the technical educator thus transmits, not only
> *value* (which manifests itself in the form of the higher
> wage), but in addition its own *value-creating power*. The
> formative labors are therefore *latent as far as society is
> concerned*, and do not manifest themselves until the skilled
> labor power begins to work. Its expenditure consequently
> signifies the expenditure of all the different unskilled
> labors which are simultaneously condensed therein... In
> what it has to give for the product of skilled labor,
> society consequently pays an equivalent for the value which
> the unskilled labors would have created had they been
> directly consumed by society."
>
> Now it seems to me that this is just an amplification of the
> Grabski view. The "formative" labors are "stored up" in the
> person of the skilled worker, and are then discharged when
> the latter sets to work. *Some* of the language above
> suggests that Hilferding may have something different from
> Grabski/Sweezy in mind, but I don't believe that is really
> the case. The confirmation comes on the next page when
> Hilferding gives this analogy:
Before I comment on the analogy, I'd better disagree with the above
interpretation. As you say, "*Some* of the language above suggests that
Hilferding may have something different from Grabski/Sweezy in mind",
and I argue that this is the case. The specific language I'm thinking of
is:
>The labor of the technical educator thus transmits, not only
> *value* (which manifests itself in the form of the higher
> wage), but in addition its own *value-creating power*.
Now this is quite a different spin to what we get from the analogy:
> "A man owns ten storage batteries wherewith he can drive ten
> different machines. For the manufacture of a new product he
> requires another machine for which a far greater motive
> power is requisite. He now employs the ten batteries to
> charge a single accumulator, which is capable of driving the
> new machine. The powers of the individual batteries
> thereupon manifest themselves as a unified force in the new
> battery, a unified force which is the tenfold multiple of
> the simple average force."
I've no argument that this analogy suits the Grabski/Sweezy/Meek
situation, rather than the one I'm putting forward, and that I argue
exists in the quote I excerpted above.
If we go with the analogy Hilferding provides, then we're back in the
Grabski/S/M line. But there is more language in Hilferding that supports
the alternative perspective I put: that training can generate the
ability to produce additional surplus value. (However, I'm not about to
argue that Hilferding's language is easy to interpret, or not
misleading: far from it) To highlight the key statement first, it is
that:
"Unskilled labor, if applied to the production of a qualified or skilled
labor power, creates on the one hand the value of this labor power...
but on the other hand ... it creates a new use value... training ...
thus creates on the one hand new value and transmits on the other to its
product its use value--to be the source of new value."
So there is a two-stage process: training increases the
cost/exchange-value of skilled labor, but it also increases the
productivity/use-value of skilled labor. Though the words are not used,
there is a strong implication here that additional surplus value can be
garnered via training.
> This is entirely in line with Grabski/Sweezy. The
> alternative which I take Steve to be suggesting would
> require that Hilferding's accumulator is magically capable
> of delivering *more than* ten times the wattage of the
> individual batteries used to charge it.
>
> 5. Hilferding does *not* specifically respond to B-B's
> claim that the Grabski mechanism can't do the job, as an
> empirical matter. He doesn't even mention the quantitative
> angle (the *only* numbers he gives are in the battery
> analogy, which makes no pretension to actual empirical
> content.)
The "magic" in Hilferding's battery comes from what is used to fill it
up! Hilferding's language did his
argument no service here, but the proposition he puts, even in this
analogy, can be put into the usevalue/exchangevalue analysis which he
puts forward. But it is hardly a transparent argument. Let me extract
the sentences, and then interpret them:
He begins by stating the problem:
"It is not difficult to calculate the value of a labor *power* engaged
on skilled work; like every other commodity it is equal to the labor
requisite for its production and reproduction, and this is composed of
the cost of maintenance and the cost of training. But here we are not
concerned with the value of a skilled labor power, but with the question
of how and in what ratio skilled labor creates more value than
unskilled."
So measuring the exchange-value of skilled labor is "easy"--but the
production of skilled labor itself requires skilled labor input! So how
do you measure that? "Easy": you first reduce the skilled labor input to
its unskilled labor equivalent. But what aspect of this skilled labor
input do you reduce: its exchangevalue (so if a skilled worker is paid
twice what an unskilled laborer is, the ratio is simply 2); or its
usevalue (so if a skilled worker produces six times what an unskilled
laborer does, the ratio is 6). Hilferding intends the latter--and this
is where the "magic" in his battery comes from (though I'm not about to
defend the analogy--it was a terrible one). What he says is:
"Average unskilled labor is the expenditure of unskilled labor power,
but qualified or skilled labor is the expenditure of qualified
labor-power. For the production of this skilled labor power, however, a
number of unskilled labors were requisite. These are stored up in the
person of the qualified laborer... The labor of the technical educator
thus transmits, not only *value* (which manifests itself in the form of
a higher wage), but in addition its own *value-creating power*. The
formative labours are therefore *latent as far as society is concerned*,
and do not manifest themselves until the skilled labour power begins to
work. Its expenditure consequently signifies the expenditure of all the
different unskilled labours which are simultaneously condensed therein."
Did you get that? Any lecturer who gave an explanation like that would
deserve a paper aeroplane attack. His attempt to clarify this is little
better:
"Unskilled labor, if applied to the production of a qualified or skilled
labor power, creates on the one hand the value of this labor power...
but on the other hand ... it creates a new use value, ... that there is
now available a labor power which can create value with all those
potentialities possessed by the
unskilled labors utilized in its formation."
What has been "stored up" in the "battery" is the usevalue of the
input--hence its ability to produce more surplus value than unskilled
labor.
What Hilferding is trying to do is something like the following. SLEVY
represents "Skilled Labor Exchangevalue", and so on.
Production of Skilled Labor
Inputs Unskilled Equiv. Outputs
Costs SLEV+ULEV 2 * ULEVY + 1 * ULEV 3 * ULEVY
Benefits SLUV+ULUV 6 * ULUV + 1 * ULUV N/A
Benefits 12* UVEV + 2 * ULEV 14 * ULEVY
To explain this table, I'm using Marx's standard example of a rate of
surplus value for unskilled labor of 100%: so that the usevalue of
unskilled labor is twice its exchangevalue. Then I'm also accepting
Marx's muse that skilled labor is six times as productive as unskilled
labor: hence its usevalue is six times that of unskilled labor. I'm
throwing in an assumption that it costs twice as much to "produce" a
skilled worker as it does to "produce" an unskilled one--hence the
exchangevalue of skilled labor is twice that of unskilled labor.
The table is obviously far from mathematically valid--I'd need to
include time factors, and myriad other details to make it so. But its
illustrative point is that the "inputs" to training are 3 units, and the
outputs are 14 units. Training has therefore created surplus-value.
Hilferding then goes on to point out that this increase in surplus value
doesn't appear at the end of the production process (which is the case
with normal commodities), but that it "latent as far as society is
concerned, and do(es) not manifest themselves until the skilled labor
power begins to work. Its expenditure consequently signifies the
expenditure of all the different unskilled labors which are
simultaneously condensed therein."
> 6. B-B's "empirical" objection therefore remains an open
> matter. But as it stands it seems to be a merely
> hypothetical anomaly. To see if there were indeed any real
> anomaly, relative to the labour theory of value, would take
> proper empirical investigation. Specifically, one would
> have to find two reasonably homogeneous occupations of
> differing skill levels, A and B, such that:
>
> i) We can construct a reasonable measure of the productivity
> (in terms of exchange-value added per hour, day or whatever)
> of workers in both A and B. (This condition is crucial, but
> not all that easily met.)
>
> ii) We can at least roughly quantify the extra labour-time
> required for training workers for A as opposed to B. (Not
> terribly hard?)
>
> iii) The greater skill in the one case is plausibly analysed
> as a "pure training" effect (as opposed to a
> non-reproducible talent commanding a rent).
>
> iv) There is a reasonable approximation to supply-demand
> equilibrium in the markets for the products of A and B.
>
> Given all this, if the ratio of exchange-value
> productivities for occupations A and B is way out of line
> with what I previously called the Sweezy coefficients (but
> which, on the above reading, might equally well be called
> Hilferding or Grabski coefficients) of the occupations, then
> we have, prima facie, an anomaly of the sort B-B raises.
> *Then*, we might devote some energy to devising a plausible
> account of the anomaly. (I'd actually be quite interested
> to try some empirical work along these lines, but it would
> not be a trivial task and it will have to wait a while.)
>
> Allin.
While I can fully appreciate your interpretation of Hilferding's
argument as a less clear predecessor to Sweezy and Meek, I still stand
by my interpretation that there is something fundamentally different in
there, though very poorly expressed. I hope I've helped a bit to point
out that different argument.
Cheers,
Steve