Subject: [OPE-L:1747] Re: Re: RE: value form
From: clyder (wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Fri Nov 26 1999 - 11:00:50 EST
> MY READING OF MARX IS THAT HE SUGGESTED THAT ARISTOTLE COULD NOT RECOGNIZE
> THE SUBSTANCE OF VALUE (DESPITE BESTRIDING THE CENTURIES ETC ETC) BECAUSE
> ABSTRACT LABOUR DID NOT EXIST IN CLASSICAL GREEK SOCIETY. IT IS NOT ONLY A
> MATTER OR RECOGNITION BUT ONE OF SOCIAL REALITY. ANCIENT SOCIETY PRECLUDED
> SYSTEMATIC COMMENSURATION OF SLAVE AND FREE LABOUR NOT SO MUCH BY
> PRESERVING CERTAIN ACTIVITIES FOR SLAVES (THOUGH THAT HAPPENED TOO, E.G.,
> IN MINING) BUT BY ENSURING THAT SLAVES PRODUCED THE BULK OF SURPLUS (PART
> OF WHICH WAS TRADED). AGRICULTURAL LABOUR FOR THE MAJORITY OF FREE
CITIZENS
> (CERTAINLY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS) RESULTED IN PRODUCE THAT WAS MOSTLY
> CONSUMED WITHIN THE FAMILY (OIKOS).
>
I think that as a materialist one should not confuse the origins of
consciousness
of a thing with the origins of a thing. Social conditions may have been one
factor
making it hard for Aristotle to think through the concept of human labour
time in the abstract
but that does not mean that it did not exist. Another factor which made it
hard for the ancients to think of labour was that they did not have the well
developed idea of time that is required for the concept. In order to have a
concept
of abstract labour you need to have a concept of its measure - duration in
terms of hours or some similar unit. Without the concept of standardised
units of time, the distinction between the people that have to be employed
on a task and their labour time is not evident.
Prior to the development of the verge escapement in the middle ages there
was no common operational concept of small units of time divorced from
astronomical observations. Astronomers had the concept of small time
intervals
but this was directly expressed in terms of angular movement of the stars.
Thus the babylonian tables giving times of the helical rising of venus
express
it in terms of the angular position of other observable stars. In sofar
as a non astronmer ever came across time measurement it would be in the
form of public atronomical devices, solar observatories etc.
The entry of the notion of the hour, minute etc into commonsense perception
had to wait for the mass production of pendulum clocks. Without this concept
of small units of time, the abstraction of labour time is hard to develop.
But the absence of the concept of time measurement from everyday perception
in Aristotles
day does not mean that time did not exist. Similarly the absence of the
concept
of labour time in general did not mean that labour time in general did not
exist.
It should be noted that Aristotle did have a concept of human labour in
general
see the Politics I.iii 1256a19, 1256a40, he was also perfectly familiar with
the
idea of households producing goods for exchange I.ix 1257a5-a28 and indeed
characterises this as being primative relative to Greece where trade for the
sake
of monetary profit existed. He was also familiar with wage labour (I.xi
1258b21).
I dont think we should read to much into his not having a labour theory of
value.
His conception of the source of profit seems to me to be essentially
mercantilist,
with prices being determined by supply and demand and or monopoly ( see his
story of Thales of Miletus and the olive presses). This conception
has been shared by many writers since, going well into the capitalist
period, it is indeed
taught in our universities today. Are we to take the absence of the concept
of the labour theory of value from our introductory courses on economics as
evidence that abstract labour does not exist in modern society.
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