Value is one of the first things Marx discusses in Capital, and it is not something that he devised himself, but rather a tradition that began with Adam Smith and was handed down to students of political economy.

For openers, here is what Anaxarchos has written about it, some months back in a previous discussion:


Concrete, real labor makes use-values. "Abstract labor" (labor considered as a social average, abstracted away from it's concrete properties, degree of skill, individual intensity, etc.) makes "value". Commodities in exchange have many exchange-values. A bushel of corn trades for a yard of linen but also for a pound of salt. Commodities in exchange with the money commodity have a specific exchange-value ("price").

The exchange-value of commodities is based on their value. The use-value of commodities doesn't play at all except as a precondition to them becoming commodities in the first place (without "usefulness", they would not be "exchanged").

The social engine of Capital is driven by a single trait: the cost of labor (wages) and the value that labor produces are of two different magnitudes. The price of labor is the cost of its reproduction. The only complicating factor is that we describe "reproduction" in social terms. It does not necessarily coincide with "simple reproduction" in the basest physical terms. There are a set of factors for producing labor of a certain intensity and there are additional historical, political, and social factors which help to determine its "price" at any given moment and in any given locale (country), as well.

The difference between the value of the commodities produced and the cost of labor is surplus-value. The "cost of capital" doesn't count at all here because capital is merely the "dead labor" of the past come to life again as the "means of production". In the capitalist system, surplus-value is created in production but realized in circulation, in the form of profit, interest, and rent.

Nothing that I have said above is even remotely controversial, from a scientific or a historical standpoint (until later, that is). When Marx writes about this, he nearly perfectly mimics Ricardo who in turn more generally follows Smith. Marx is simply much more precise on abstract/concrete labor and use-value/value, and MUCH more precise and accurate (as might be expected) when it comes to surplus value. The rest of Capital is very much a re-derivation of the fundamentals of Political Economy based on this more precise underpinning. It is on this basis alone that those who want to "debunk" Marx, invariably find themselves at odds with "Classical Political Economy" as a whole.

Interestingly, the elements of "Classical Political Economy"are fairly well known even prior to Adam Smith. Quesnay certainly understands them in part. So does Ibn Khaldun, who I quoted at length on PopIndy. So do a whole raft of medieval and ancient scholars (not the least of whom is Aristotle). In fact, the basic understanding of this, in its component parts, is arguably understood and explained at the very beginning of human history (written history, that is).

The complicating factor, historically, is that the dominance of surplus-value is a relatively recent form of expropriation. The precondition is obvious and is identical to the "dawn of civilization" (pyramids don't get built by those merely sustaining themselves): human beings must be able to produce more than it takes to reproduce themselves, and the incidental "trade", which reaches well back into the million years of human existence, must become regular and routine enough to transform use-values in "surplus" of one type into a range of use-values. Both of those come with agriculture and with "animal husbandry" in particular. Given that, the rest is a given.

For a million years of human history, captives are either killed or adopted into the tribe. There is simply no basis for anything else. With the dawn of the herds, however, the Greeks, for one, take no time at all to see "surplus product" in potential. The social innovation is a third status for boys captured in war (with "war" about to be waged for the express purpose of capturing people). The herd-boys become "slaves", who work to maintain and increase the herds but have no call on the surplus that is produced. Social property is the innovation and its first fruits are class society (slaves and "free"), which in turn nearly immediately transforms itself into a society of several classes (slaves, women, freemen, slaveholders). For our immediate purpose, the form of expropriation is surplus-product. Though it appears that the slave is "owned", body and soul, nevertheless it is only the surplus-product of the slaves which is expropriated - otherwise slavery would die with the slaves in a single generation. Here, the expropriation of surplus-product is masked by the property relationship of the slave to the slave-master.

In Feudal times, the absolute ownership of one human being by another is largely superceded by serfdom or a free-holding peasantry in which the primary form of expropriation is as surplus-labor, with each producer obliged to contribute so many days of labor per year on the lands of their Lords and of the Church. The unending battle over "how much to each" tends to mask the fact that it is again feudal property that is the basis for extracting only surplus-labor (otherwise, feudalism would last only a single generation).

In our own times, of course, we have free labor which is free of all means of production and thus free to sell itself by the hour, not to one expropriator, but to any expropriator of their own choosing, provided that it occurs at the "prevailing rate". Here, the labor is paid for, "in full", at the point of production, but surplus-value accrues, as if by magic, only in circulation. The capitalist property relation appears in the ownership of the surplus products of labor transformed into commodities themselves.

The extraction of "surplus" is the same but property relationships, how they are masked, and which point in the process they appear are all fundamentally different (so too, things as, "basic" as for example, "fundamental human nature", are vastly different as well).

The point of this last is to simply understand the context of "value", "exchange-value", "use-value", and "surplus-value".

http://salsa.babson.edu/Media/Fwright.jpg

But both are great.

I was just reviewing the stuff in Section Two of Commodities trying to pinpoint what is defeating me on this and any given sentence and some paragraphs make perfect sense to me but the more complex paragraphs or a given section gives me fits.

Linen, coats, argh. I can understand animal behavior without molecular biology well enough. What practical value is there in having the nuances of 'value' down pat?

What is it you see as "nuance?" I see fundamental elements where you are claiming minutia.

What is it that is confusing you? Are you mathematically inclined? If so, writing out these 'word problems' as equations may be more helpful.

Or you might even want to draw an evolutionary tree for value.

Or you may want to skip every other reference to linens and coats. I think sometimes Marx's propensity for repeating himself time and again is itself a source of reader confusion. Perhaps you thought you 'got it,' until reading another explanation that raised questions again.

It's not the stuff itself that is hard. It is the 150 year old prose and the fact that the 'stuff' is either something we've never thought about or it is diametrically the opposite of things we've been taught. For me anyway, the hardest thing about the first couple of chapters was in letting go of the context *I brought* to them.

Anyway, ask specific questions if you can cook them up. This is the discussion that will help others and, IMO, make plain the root from which every other political-economic conception springs (* or rather, would spring if peeps weren't suffering from "issues" overload, affluenza and "middle" class confusion).

I cannot any longer see how people who don't have a good grasp of the matter of LTV even have coherent view of conditions. But then, we who are somewhat slow are often zealots thataway...

Because it is the meaning of life... seriously. Politics IS economics, as is history. Every attempt to abstract away from that has been a failure in explaining anything else comprehensively. Competing ideas sound good in the moment but never apply in the general case. Economics is the science of human social organization, the foundation of all others, because human beings are fundamentally social and because their social organization is above else, economic organization.

But again, "why value?" Because it is the atomic unit of economics. Without it, the remainder of economic life remains a mystery, describable only by the ripples on its surface. And here, a contradiction appears: if in order to understand social life, we must understand value, and if the creation and extraction of value is fundamentally based on exploitation and nothing more... then we have a problem.

This is Marx's contribution... the old bastard.

You don't have to "understand" value or economics. It is not "required"... but it sure don't hurt. On the other hand, if you want to walk through it, I'll be happy to help.

There have been hundreds of attempts to make that section (which Marx reworked 3 times to make that obtuse) more reader friendly and it is still the original that everyone always goes back to. It's not easy to paraphrase the old fart, even when his book is open right in front of you.

Anarchy would be preferable. Value can then be determined between individuals, or in the case of collective work, an ad hoc committee.

But as far as people selling themselves into serfdom, I don't know that can ever be fully avoided. Besides, if someone wants to sell themselves to another as a slave, maybe that's what "floats their boat," so who am I to tell them they can't or that they didn't assign themselves the proper value?

(I simply do not understand your comment, period) the problem is that they are allowed to become slaves. I cannot comprehend someone wanting to be a slave, but I would prefer living in a society where no one was ALLOWED to become a slave. Marxism is no more "dangerous" than anything else political/economic (and probably less dangerous than many others). "Boat floating" has it limitations - or should have - that all sounds a bit too libertarian for my tastes...

I think you're kidding yourself and putting the blame on individuals with that statement - sort of blaming the victim so to speak.

If someone wants to become a slave, they should be free to do so, and I see no reason to not allow it if they have made that choice. To not allow it would be to prohibit them from exercising their desires. We don't have to understand why they would wish to do that to themselves.

I was in downtown SF a few years ago and saw a few people with leashes around their necks walking around on all fours and barking like a dog. It wouldn't be something that would appeal to me, but I'm certainly not going to tell someone they can't live out their days acting like a dog if that's what they want to do. I realize that's not a perfect parallel, but it does speak to someone wanting to be something that I can't comprehend ever wanting to be. And I really don't view that as libertarian, that's just freedom to me.

nt

A commodity is, in the first place, a thing that satisfies a human want; in the second place, it is a thing that can be exchanged for another thing. The utility of a thing makes is a use-value. Exchange-value (or, simply, value), is first of all the ratio, the proportion, in which a certain number of use-values of one kind can be exchanged for a certain number of use-values of another kind.
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/v/a.htm#value

"Use-value" is the value of a commodity as a consumable.

"Value" as used in Capital means abstract human labor and in describing the "Value" of a commodity, it means the congealed abstract labor time embodied within said commodity.

"Exchange-value" is nothing more than a measure of magnitude of value.

Abstract labor time in the form of a commodity's value is unknown and unquantifiable until the moment of exchange. At that moment, in comparison to the universe of other commodities, the one in your (the seller) hand finally shows the magnitude of its value, i.e. its exchange value.

Upthread, BP talks about linens and coats - items that Marx refers to repeatedly in his presentation. If we know that ten yards of linen = 1 coat, then we have an exchange value that has its magnitude expressed in terms of one other commodity.

As Marx says in Ch 1., "To the owner of a commodity, every other commodity is, in regard to his own, a particular equivalent, and consequently his own commodity is the universal equivalent for all the others." This then is what we could call the one commodity that, unlike that of the owner mentioned in the quote, acts as the 'universal equivalent' not just for others, but for ALL commodities. That is of course, money.

So another quote:

"Use-values are only produced by capitalists, because, and in so far as, they are the material substratum, the depositories of exchange-value. Our capitalist has two objects in view: in the first place, he wants to produce a use-value that has a value in exchange, that is to say, an article destined to be sold, a commodity; and secondly, he desires to produce a commodity whose value shall be greater than the sum of the values of the commodities used in its production, that is, of the means of production and the labour-power, that he purchased with his good money in the open market. His aim is to produce not only a use-value, but a commodity also; not only use-value, but value; not only value, but at the same time surplus-value."

Surplus Value as defined on Marxists.org:

"The measure of value is labour time, so surplus value is the accumulated product of the unpaid labour time of the producers. In bourgeois society, surplus value is acquired by the capitalist in the form of profit: the capitalist owns the means of production as Private Property, so the workers have no choice but to sell their labour-power to the capitalists in order to live. The capitalist then owns not only the means of production, and the workers’ labour-power which he has bought to use in production, but the product as well. After paying wages, the capitalist then becomes the owner of the surplus value, over and above the value of the workers’ labour-power.

In all societies in which there is a division of labour, there is a social surplus; what is different about bourgeois society is that surplus value takes the form of capital, and surplus value is in fact the essence of production in capitalism.– Only productive work, i.e., work which creates surplus value, is supported. All “unproductive labour” is eliminated.

The capitalists may increase the amount of surplus value extracted from the working class by two means: (1) by absolute surplus value – extending the working day as long as possible, and (2) by relative surplus value – by cutting wages.

Attempts by individual capitalists to increase their profits by introducing machinery or speeding-up production by technique fail as soon as their competitors copy the new technique and restore their market share. The end effect of these improvements in production may be to increase the productivity of labour, but unless the rate of surplus value is increased proportionately, the rate of profit will actually fall.

Having been accumulated as capital, surplus value must then be distributed to landlords, bankers and other parasites, and expended via taxes on the various expenses of maintaining the social fabic."

relative term, heh.

We need to go back to how I framed my original statement; that is, Anarchy. Were anarchy the way of life, there would of course be no "wages' as we think of them today. The individual could exchange the works of their hands or their mind or whatever they determine for something another has to offer of which they have both determined is an equatible exchange. If someone were to exchange themselves as a whole (slave) in return of someone else seeing after their needs, and the parties reached an agreement on how this exchange would be equitable, then who would object and why?

I highly doubt anyone would sell themselves as a slave, so this subject has taken a turn I never intended except as an example of freedom to do as one pleases. But people succombing to serfdom (unless its self-imposed) would be less likely IMO if anarachy were the way of life as opposed to various economies.

the means of production -- the way that humans create their own lives -- are much, much too big to be deployed on an individual basis. And there is no way you could undo this development without also introducing massive depopulation.

Your example makes it seem as though you've forgotten which century and even which epoch you live in

If you are really suggesting that people could produce their own lives in an isolated fashion I think that is some kind of utopia nostalgi on your part.

But regardless, everything is social and, what really undoes your argument, is that there is nothing BUT anarchy now. There is no real guiding plan on what is produced or in what quantities except for whether it is expected to turn a handsome enough profit for the capitalist owners. I challenge you to describe a system that is more "chaotic" than the one that currently exists (and remember, we have "overproduction" of food globally right alongside severe and persistent famine)

and I think it has exactly No substance to it. It is a talking point. Where from I do not know, but it does nothing more than betray an utter lack of knowledge about either Marx's work or, so far as I can tell, that of the anarchists.

It's not strickly individual except in determining with whom you wish to cooperate. We don't need governments, we don't need laws, we don't need heriarchy of any kind.

Saying "that there is nothing BUT anarchy now" makes no sense. Everywhere I look on the planet there's government (some form of heirarchy). Anarchy says that all forms of government are undesirable. Anarchy is not an economy, it's a way of life.

..... of where people have misused Marxism. So to say that it has no substance to point out that historical fact makes no sense. Any economy that allows for heirarchy has the potential for abuse.

Holding up Marxism to an impossible standard does not do justice, at all. I would posit that Marxism has been less abused than has Capitalism, or any other "ism" you got. It seems to be "failure before the act" to take the stance you are taking. Democracy has been abused, monarchy has been abused - what you are saying strikes me as very odd.

To say that placing the workers at the top of the society so as to bring about a class-less society and calling that "any economy that allows for heirarchy (sic) has the potential for abuse" misses, at least, the point of this particular "hierarchy".

The only way that the owners will ever submit to equality is through force. Try using force in a non-hierarchical way...

while ignoring historical context is in itself abusive to clear thinking. Whatever happened in ostensibly "Marxist" societies has to be taken in context. And whatever happened that was an "abuse" under those societies had precisely Nothing to do with Marx's work.

And though I'm happy to be the first to admit that I know little to nothing of anarchist scholarship, I am unaware of any substantive contributions made to economics by the anarchists.

It seems to me that the anarchists' polemics against Marxism are not unlike those of the so-called left-communists: Everything is great in theory, but those who actually pursue praxis are uniformly derided for their many impurities and insufficiencies.

I'm not entirely against that sort of criticism. However, I don't think that, given the general level of acumen the accompanies a lot of this criticism among non-acedemics, and, given the particular historical moment, that it is worth much at all.

the late 19th and early 20th century. You are talking about some sort of libertarianism.

"Anarchy involves cooperation between agreeing individuals."

Where did that come from?

"It's not strickly (sic) individual except in determining with whom you wish to cooperate."

What is this?

"We don't need governments, we don't need laws, we don't need heriarchy (sic) of any kind."

Say what?

Rose, this makes no sense, at all...

Is that 19th century pedagogy? Or perhaps German styling? (I've never had much luck with translations from the German)

So, what is LTV?

There is no such thing as "freedom". You may have certain "freedoms" within limits, but what the hell is that?

If you say a person has the "freedom" to become a slave, you are saying that a person has the "freedom" to become a slave owner. That is pretty repugnant...

I think it is also worth noting that your conception of 'freedom' cannot be understood apart from its irreducible entanglement with the construct of individualism.

Individualism is in no small measure the problem, not some gilded idol to be worshiped as part of a sort of leftist religion that is, not least because of disregarding/discounting Marx, thoroughly unscientific.

just sayin'

It is all part and parcel of the same damn Socialist movement. There is not a single real Proudhonist alive and he was the first to call himself an "anarchist" (accurately). The agrarian socialists who adopted the label did so because the state was the major intermediary between the freeholders and the major property holders. In Russia, for example, the elimination of serfdom came with a debt as the price-tag. The debt collector was the autocracy. No wonder the state issue seemed overwhelming.

Herzen wasn't no anarchist in the modern sense, nor Bakunin, nor Kropotkin, nor the Nihilists... nor American Syndicalists (Who was the leadership of the IWW? Haywood, Flynn, Foster - all became Communists). The Blanquists were not "anarchists" and neither were the Social Revolutionaries - Right, Center, or Left. There was no split between "centrism" and freedom, ever. Lenin was accused of being tinged with "Anarchism" (adventurism, volunteerism, a small conspiratorial group, etc.).

There is no connection between modern "anarchism" and the so-called historical varieties. When people say they are anarchists today, they might as well say they are from Indiana. It has no meaning... except that it is thoroughly anti-Socialist, completely made-up and doesn't even try to be coherent or draw more than two wishy-washy sentences from someone in history.

It is OK to be an Anarchist until one is about 25. It is good for getting one's head knocked by the cops, which has been the foremost way in which real political education has occurred for two centuries. After that, they should be forced to explain their actual "theory" of society... which I guarantee will be shallow and incoherent, even in comparison to California suburban spiritual cults.

Also look up the definition of "anarchy." Anarchy is the absence of heirarchy; ergo no governments, no written laws, no heirarchy.

No wars but class wars. No maps but topo maps.

I met a number of similarly minded folks when I went to the socialist gathering in Atlanta a couple summers ago.

Mutualism was a key term I would hear bandied about and, best as I can discern, this is something that seems to be popular in reaction to the evils of state socialism. Central planning is bad and private property, if not "bad," is certainly OK for a good bit of them.

I think stuff like this could only have currency among those who've insufficiently grasped - I love the way Anax phrased this - atomic unit of economics, value, and the consequent Labor Theory of Value. Of course the mutualists claim their whole concept is built on LTV.

Maybe I am just too quick to disregard them and their academics as they are to do the same to Marx. That said though, I cannot but fall back again on the fact that I know of no truly substantive contributions to political economy by them - at least not insofar as they have had legs enough to have garnered any criticism based on praxis.

The repetition is/was rough on me too. The solution for me, ironically, was to revisit the text repeatedly.

Not that I have finished the book though. I seem to have went on extended break time long about Chapter 10...but if one counts each read separately, I have probably 60 chapters under my belt :)

If economies require heirarchy, then the potential for abuse not only can arise, it eventually will.

I apologize in advance for not being an 'apt pupil'.

I guess I should try to understand this if only to put some more bolts in my quiver.

(A half assed quibble: Both economics and history are branches of biology. Insert smiley.)

and raise you a "middle class."

:grin:

Certainly those who would wish to be masters over others would need to be herded off a cliff.

My issues with Marxism is the same with economies in general, which is heirarchy will remain. With heirarchy in place, what starts out as Marxism eventually will turn into State-Sponsored Capitalism.

Because of heirarchy, trading Marxism for Capitalism is eventually trading one jackboot for another. You're trading bad for, at best, temporarily better. That's the problem anarchists have with any economy; the heirarchy.

Then see Bakunin's words on 'natural authority'.

It's the kind of animal we are.

I think that you have not sufficiently discarded the propaganda which we all have been subjected to since the cradle and have not judged history in context, as Pinko pointed out.

If you do, then please do explain... in terms that are concrete... how economics is based on hierarchy? How is that the engine of economic life? You don't want to talk about "value". You want to talk about Pol Pot. The reason is that you want to accept every single platitude manufactured by this society, without criticism, and still lay claim to "radicalism". This is a new radicalism, don't you see? Based on the exact same slogans as the old society...

Explain hierarchy and exchange, hierarchy and money, hierarchy and circulation, hierarchy and the erosion of the division of labor, heirarchy and prices... Explain something.

... but the "social sciences" are NOT branches of Biology or any other natural science. That would make them too rigorous on the one hand and there would have to be a Social Biology on the other - headaches for academic careerists all round.

The issue is labor, and particularily the exploitation of one's labor for gain by others. But as long as there's heirarchy, there's going to be exploitation. This includes the exploitation of "value." It doesn't matter if the economy is Capitalism, Marxism, Maoism, or what ever "ism" you want to insert. Heirarchy is the problem. An economy that is deemed "better" because it offers less exploitation over another economy is unacceptable.

Central planning is bad.

-End dissertation-

If so, do those who are in positions of power (heirarchy) have the potential to abuse that power? Then it's just a matter of time until they do.

You're trading one problem for another. What's the point of going full circle when you know the circle is going to lead you back to your labor being exploited? We should be striving to get off the circle. There's a difference between "Communism" and "communism," that latter being the one I would desire, but we don't need a government (heirarchy) to do that.

and, as you are using this term "Heirarchy," it really doesn't mean much at all.

To me this is end to end BALONEY:

Modern civilisation faces three potentially catastrophic crises: (1) social breakdown, a shorthand term for rising rates of poverty, homelessness, crime, violence, alienation, drug and alcohol abuse, social isolation, political apathy, dehumanisation, the deterioration of community structures of self-help and mutual aid, etc.; (2) destruction of the planet's delicate ecosystems on which all complex forms of life depend; and (3) the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons.

Orthodox opinion, including that of Establishment “experts,” mainstream media, and politicians, generally regards these crises as separable, each having its own causes and therefore capable of being dealt with on a piecemeal basis, in isolation from the other two. Obviously, however, this “orthodox” approach isn't working, since the problems in question are getting worse. Unless some better approach is taken soon, we are clearly headed for disaster, either from catastrophic war, ecological Armageddon, or a descent into urban savagery — or all of the above.

Anarchism offers a unified and coherent way of making sense of these crises, by tracing them to a common source. This source is the principle of hierarchical authority, which underlies the major institutions of all “civilised” societies, whether capitalist or “communist.” Anarchist analysis therefore starts from the fact that all of our major institutions are in the form of hierarchies, i.e. organisations that concentrate power at the top of a pyramidal structure, such as corporations, government bureaucracies, armies, political parties, religious organisations, universities, etc. It then goes on to show how the authoritarian relations inherent in such hierarchies negatively affect individuals, their society, and culture. In the first part of this FAQ (sections A to E) we will present the anarchist analysis of hierarchical authority and its negative effects in greater detail.

It should not be thought, however, that anarchism is just a critique of modern civilisation, just “negative” or “destructive.” Because it is much more than that. For one thing, it is also a proposal for a free society. Emma Goldman expressed what might be called the “anarchist question” as follows: “The problem that confronts us today. . . is how to be one's self and yet in oneness with others, to feel deeply with all human beings and still retain one's own characteristic qualities.” [Red Emma Speaks, pp. 158-159] In other words, how can we create a society in which the potential for each individual is realised but not at the expense of others? In order to achieve this, anarchists envision a society in which, instead of being controlled “from the top down” through hierarchical structures of centralised power, the affairs of humanity will, to quote Benjamin Tucker, “be managed by individuals or voluntary associations.” [Anarchist Reader, p. 149] While later sections of the FAQ (sections I and J) will describe anarchism's positive proposals for organising society in this way, “from the bottom up,” some of the constructive core of anarchism will be seen even in the earlier sections. The positive core of anarchism can even be seen in the anarchist critique of such flawed solutions to the social question as Marxism and right-wing “libertarianism” ...
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/anarchist-faq-section-what-anarchism

On edit and to a key source, Bookchin:

Hierarchy as such - be it in the form of ways of thinking, basic human relationships, social relations, and society's interaction with nature - could now be disengtangled from the traditional nexus of class analysis that concealed it under a carpet of economic interpretations of society.

This a plain retreat from theory/science into rhetoric, an omnipotent conception that both contains and transcends Marx, that is if one is more enamored of high flying rhetoric than material reality. Indeed, it appears that Bookchin wanted to be atop the hierarchy of leftist thinkers, a place he thought his little argument-ending claim that anyone rejecting his claim is therefore somehow in favor of this thing that transcends any real-world examples, this ontologically superior construct called "hierarchy."

It's sort of like having to have "faith." It just IS. And from there all other things spring.

Well, I'll pass. I'll pass especially as this leads to primitivism and all sorts of frankly made-up-shit that is on display just by perusing the titles of this guy's works.

is anti-ism-ism.

You can't just write everything off for being an -ism, and that is the root of the argument you are making.

As for the rest, well PC took care of that as far as I can tell.

This thread has really taken off this afternoon, I oughtta read the whole thing..

Thank you rusty!

You have a chance here to learn about what Marxism is, not what you think it may be. Agree, disagree it's all good, but this thought is the beginning:

"But again, "why value?" Because it is the atomic unit of economics."

Jumping forward to questions about hierarchy or abuse of power are because you have a preconception of "how power corrupts". If you let some of the people, here, start from an explanation of value, you'll at least be able to reject Marx for valid reasons, instead of a perceived potential for corruption.

... over and over again... without explanation or elaboration.

Your record is stuck.

Kick it.


Meanwhile, all you have achieved is a defense of the status quo. Why trade it in?

The opposite of freedom is understanding.

Do you think that the owners are just going to roll over and give up? You can't start out with no classes, you have to work toward it. If you give up before you start, the bosses have already won...

... without any of the subtlety of the old man.

1) Capitalism presents wealth as an "immense accumulation of commodities", its unit being a single commodity. (Remember, a commodity is a "thing", tangible or not, produced for exchange)

2) A commodity is, in the first place, something that satisfies some human want or need. Otherwise it would not be produced, because no exchange would take place.

3) This inherent usefulness of commodities, we call use-value. But the usefulness of commodities is not abstract. It comes from their properties - their quantity or quality - and that usefulness has no existence apart from those specific properties.

4) BUT, commodities don't simply satisfy some want or need. They also exchange with each other. More, they exchange with each other in specific quantities. Thus it appears that as exchange-values, we are measuring something inherent to all commodities, an aspect of their basic properties.

5) And here we have a contradiction... because, exchange value is not based on the basic properties of commodities which make them use-values. Commodities as use-values share nothing in common which would explain their exchange-value. They do not trade by virtue of their weight, their size, their color, the nature of the hierarchy of wants that they satisfy, their classification or anything else. Quite the contrary, smaller, less "important", lighter commodities often exchange more dearly.

6) Apparently, commodities all share something in common with each other that is completely abstracted away from their physical properties, the purpose which they are meant to satisfy, or anything else related to the specific properties of each commodity. That "something" appearing in exchange is apparently characterised by a "total abstraction from use-value".

7) But if we "...leave out of consideration the use-value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labor."

We have now covered the first three pages of Section 1 of Chapter I of Part I of Volume I of Capital.

Two questions:
Is this clear?
Is this true... is it inherently, logically, indisputably true?

... word for word.

The latter statement being my tip o' the hat to the inscrutablity of labor vis your post.

"Labor is the source of all wealth (e.g. value)."

Oh yeah, big shot?

Well then demonstrate it.

I see nothing in that post to demonstrate, let alone validate, the Labor Theory of Value.

(*You'll of course pardon me for being the so-called Devil's advocate. I'm merely attempting to further along others' presumed positions. And, I hope, to not be taken quite so literally as in saying "Fuck Off" though it too was meant in such a vein...)

:lmfao:

Give Rose the benefit of the doubt. While not likely exactly a coinkidink, this is almost certainly an artifact of the collective, not some nefarious individual. We are, alas, what we eat...

And I will give Rose the b of the d. We are swimming in this muck our whole lives and we have to constantly fight through it. But it is this kind of bringing someone up short that, hopefully, knocks some of the mud from their eyes (I know it did mine). The only thing that is worrisome is that Anax asked her twice to explain herself and I asked for some specifics and in each case she completely ignored the questions or requests. But, yeah, I am not assuming nefarious-ism, but getting caught with Hayek is still pretty funny...

You keep telling everyone to read it and this is the start to BP's question... all neat and logical. We will get to your question in a minute. First, let's see if we can help Senor Swine read the book. In truth, we haven't got to labor yet... (don't quote me on how he just said labor or "labour"). We are still at "exchange-value" can't be based on "use-value".

One interesting thing to this is that Marx reworked it as a logic derivation - in the formal sense. Let BP get through this... i.e. Is this much true?

BTW, "yes, of course", ain't an answer either. For you: is this much indisputably true? Is there ANY common feature inherent in all commodities as use-values?

Also BTW, there is an inherent logical failure in "marginal utility" which appears by page 3. It assumes what must be proven and starts from exactly the same basis: Commodities exchange, they have nothing in common, SO there MUST be a reconciliation of utility in the abstract. The "margin" part is just a flourish.

it didn't occur to me how close you're hewing to the presentation.

Is there ANY common feature inherent in all commodities as use-values?


So, still being a bit of a turd even if somewhat corrected, I'll then ask with a nod to our environmental/biological enquirer -

What 'value' then is a tree? clean water? fresh air? coltan?

... unless they are bottled water, clean air in a tank, or a processed tree. The labor involved is then obvious, as it is with an eco-resort where you can "enjoy trees, clean water, and fresh air". As far as "virgin land" and mineral leases go, they are exchangeable because commodity production already exists - a special case which we will get to. Virgin land which cannot be seen, modified, or sold has no value... just as mineral rights without any rights don't have any value either.

I take that back... they can have a curiosity value, such as an acre of land on the moon... sold by someone who doesn't own it... but sends you a "certificate", anyway. The why and wherefore of use-values is not our concern.

All products of labor are not commodities, either. The vegtables you grow for consumption are not commodities and neither are the "bookcases" that I used to produce out of cinder blocks...

:shrug:

1)So, is there a difference between capitalist wealth and that of the King of Kings? That seems implied.

2)Wants & needs covers a lot of territory.

Trying to find exceptions to #5 but cannot. It seems there would have to be some relationship between use-value and exchange-value, else why would that commodity be exchanged? Why should we leave out consideration of use-value? Am I a dunderhead?

I'm thinking about cowrie shells, used by some NA folks as a medium of exchange. Does their exchange value reflect the minimal labor of gathering them plus the considerable labor of transporting them inland?

Clear, the nits I'm pickin' are mostly for verification.

Is it true? Let us continue...

that the use-value of these things might be reconsidered, taking into account that referred to these days as 'ecosystem services', leaving aside those things which may or perhaps not be considered metaphysical or at least aesthetic.

Well, about the marginalists. As Anax says, they simply start with the assumption that there is some sort of abstract commensurability between various use values (utilities)

It is not however, wrong to ask if there might be such a commensurability. But what happens is, you have to figure out how to quantify "utility" or use-value.

The way that they do this ends up being to talk about beaver furs and deer skins. Thus, if they exchange in rates that vary widely from the respective disutilities involved in gathering them, then you will have to have a forcible correction..

If the exchange is 3 deer skins for 2 beaver furs but it is harder to gather deer skins, no one will. You would be smarter to just trade 2 beaver furs instead.

As you can see, you've already arrived at defining "utility", or alternatively "disutility" depending on your perspective, as a function of labor time and effort.

There is also a subtle shift at work, because now you are discussing utility to produce something and that is not the same as utility in the sense of a want or need. Except that it is, because one begets the other.

For instance, the marginalist explanation for why water is so cheap despite being the most necessary of commodities is that there is little disutility involved in producing additional gallons. Ie once the spigots are flowing, it costs almost nothing to pump more water through the lines. (this is not actually true today, but it was a question that they dwelled on at the time)

And so you can start to see the whole sordid edifice unravel..

EDIT: the idea is that labor comes to undergrid the entire strucutre as a premise because you quantify the disutility of doing something by measuring it against what ELSE you could have done instead.

When this comes to be expressed in money, it actually changes nothing even though it is in a different guise. You work for your money but then decide later how best to spend it but that money is just the congealed form of the labor you "invested".

EDIT: sorry for starting this thread then bailing, will be back later today

the croupier - right?

:shrug:

arose to ensure (or was used to ensure?) the fairness and equity between traders of commodities, right? When it quickly evolved to being used to ensure profits for the traders, how did it change? Or was the differing uses immaterial? Or is the question nonsensical?

This system arose to ensure (or was used to ensure?) the fairness and equity between traders of commodities, right?

People made some shit. Eventually, people made enough shit they had surplus. They swapped this surplus. Lots of swapping began to take place and this surplus shit became a goal of production. The money form came into existence of sheer necessity.

I don't think fairness and equity ever had much to do with it. It was swapping. Trade. That is call. Nothing good or evil about it.

Now on the productive side though, the transition from surplus as a happy accident to a Raison d'être, this is where one must take a peek in order to see things that can either be fair or unfair.

We all know, if we know nothing else, which side of that question the owners of the forces of production have fallen on all through history...

And neither does the croupier.

His employer though...

which is just an evolvement of assigning commensurability item-by-item (3 bushels of this trade for 4 of something else and so on) doesn't necessarily ensure profits for traders.

Even at the point where money and trade become so pervasive that your dollar can basically be exchanged for any commodity you like, profit (which is not the same as surplus value) isn't guaranteed by money per se.

It is true that money is definitely a requisite and as the capitalist system evolves, money takes on an even MORE front and center role in "lubricating" the entire system.

The surplus value comes from the fact that the capitalist "purchases" a quantity of labor time. Then he is free to use any and every trick that he can to coax as much labor as possible from workers during that time period. Some of this goes back to the worker but since the actual amount of time requied to produce all of the livelihood demands of the worker is much less than the working day, the rest is appropriated by the capitalist as his own.

But of course this surplus value takes the form of money eventually..it is "congealed" in commodities,yes, but it is ultimately counted in $$$

Prior to the spread of the money economy, you have to remember that surplus was considered on an absolute basis. Regardless of what the lord could sell them for, producing more crops added to his surplus. But at the same time, past the needs of his manor and his ostentatious lifestyle, this surplus did not really avail him in the same way as a fortune does today.

Raising net intake -- by raising the exploitation of the peasants and squeezing more from the land -- was the mesaure of increasing value. The capitalist comes along and does things much, much differently. If a company has mutliple divisions and one of them is not being profitable -- despite an overall profit for the company -- you know whats going to happen.

of course there is a system of fairness and equity. This is more or less a necessary component for exchange in the first place. But as Marx says, this is the internal logic of the capitalist system and so the only way to extricate oneself from that logic is to end capitalism.

Even the selling of labor time is "fair" from that perspective. If this was not true, then our call would not be for revolution but the establisment of fairness in the exchange.

I have to think about this more and read some more. I have been thinking of "profit" in a loose way and need to rethink. An advantage in the bartering of goods is not the same as "profit". I have some digging to do...

keep blending in my brain...and I know they aren't interchangeable. But I can't clearly separate them.

I'm slogging through this too. My brain doesn't work as well as it used to...

This thread is super helpful though. So keep talking, people. Someday I may even come up with a coherent, specific question :)

Profit is the unpaid labour expropriated from workers by a capitalist and distributed by various means among the capitalist class, measured in proportion to the total capital invested.

The notion of profit is closely related to that of surplus-value.

Surplus value is the unpaid labour expropriated from the working class as a whole. Surplus value is taken in proportion to the value of labour-power. In general, it is difficult to relate the concept of surplus value to single unit of capital, since the necessary labour time which determines the level of wages is socially determined according to the cost of living.

Because of the complexity of the labour process, the individual unit of capital must invest in purchasing means of production, so they are never able to realise the full rate of surplus value as profit. In fact, production becomes more and more socialised, the rate of profit must fall.

The notion of profit pertains to the position of the individual unit of capital, and no capitalist is ever able to retain the full value of the profit they extract from the process of production – the landlord, the tax-collector, the bank, all demand their share. So too does the wholesaler and the retailer, each taking their margin as the goods pass from hand-to-hand through all the middlemen until it reaches the ultimate consumer. The workers have to support all these parasites with their surplus value; and only a small portion is retained by “their own” capitalist in the form of profit.
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm#profit

"In all societies in which there is a division of labour, there is a social surplus; what is different about bourgeois society is that surplus value takes the form of capital, and surplus value is in fact the essence of production in capitalism.– Only productive work, i.e., work which creates surplus value, is supported. All “unproductive labour” is eliminated."

Why does this continue to bring to mind education and health care - basic and vital social institutions which are failing miserably? Is it impossible for such things to be public institutions (ie available to all) in our capitalist system, and is this because working people are unable to afford them (either by paying for them directly or by tax dollars) because they don't make enough money to do so...particularly not able to afford to pay enough for these services/institutions to be 'productive', that is, create surplus value...so this labor is essentially being eliminated...

I dunno, I can't really formulate it better than that right now. But I tried to say it last night and it made no sense, so I'm trying again now and I still don't know if it makes sense, or if it's at all relevant. But it keeps coming back to my mind. That 'all "unproductive labour" is eliminated' thing is very thought-provoking to me.

Partly because of what it says about what I do for a living. Having to think about it in this context is difficult, because it makes clear the fact that whatever 'value' there is in what I do does NOT lie in actually getting food to hungry people, or in the food itself (which was destined for the dumpster), but rather in the social meaning it provides the donors of the money/food. What has economic 'value' is just the warm fuzzies (or the donors' ability to sleep at night or get a tax break, or whatever). It's twisted.

Am I totally off-base here? I'm sorry I go off on such weird tangents all the time.

Lunch break is over :)

c=constant capital (which is to say "fixed" capital)
v=variable capital -- this one is tricky because by this Marx means the labor contribution and not equipment whose value changes or "varies" with fluctuations (like by some definitions real estate is variable)
s=surplus value

Profit rate = s/(c+v)

Surplus value rate = s/v

The difference is really simple although it can also be sublte enough to get lost in the shuffle if you don't it enough attention. Profit also represents a return on your "fixed" costs which is in not just machinery and rents but also things like taxes and legal expenses and 1000 other necessities.

However, Marx says, that is really an illusory component to profit beause you put that money in and at the end you get that same amount of money back in any given cycle. Only the variable component -- ie labor -- actually makes anything above and beyond what you pay for it.

EDIT: to add to this, the cycle starts with c+v but you end up with c+v+s. But the s only accrued from v because c was simply fixed capital and associated costs.

You could write this as

c+v --> c+v'

v'=v+s and v'>v since s>0

EDIT2: changed this to make it explicit that I am talking about rates

EDIT2.5: the reason I focus on rates is because in this very simplifie example, surplus value and net profit are the same thing. Later on Marx shows why profits don't actually equate to surplus value

The reason is that if one industry has less cost in c, then for the same cost v they will generate a higher RATE of profit. But since more money and investment will flow to industries with higher rates of return, eventually a sort of controlled chaos emerges where rates are equlaized in the sense that you can anticipate about the same return across all industries. Its obviously not an exact science, but it does take effect on large enough scales and it more or less functions to redistribute surplus value across the varies industries.

EDIT2.75: an example, I'm just making the numbers up and this is really simplified

you invest $100. $80 goes to fixed costs, $20 goes to labor. Say workers really produce twice what they are paid thus adding $20 extra dollars to the product. So you sell that product at a price of $100+$20=$120 and you've made $20 of profit

but say you instead invest in something else with your $100. This other industry only has $50 in fixed costs. So the other $50 is spent on labor. surplus value is an AVERAGE of the productivity of labor across society so it is the same as above, where we said that workers produce twice what they are paid. This adds $50 extra dollars

So you can sell this product for $100+$50 and you've made $50 in profit.

This reveals why profit rates have to be equalized -- otherwise no one would ever invest in the first industry and make only $20 when they could make $50 instead

..

I somehow took RWS's question and fallaciously blew right by Dhalgrens, apparently thinking something more along the lines of 'appropriating' rather than creating...

Thanks for catching that.

I have been working on my post 69 for like 30 minutes and I am still not sure it makes enough sense to warrant all the verbiage.

A note on method: We've tried this three or four times on the web and it hasn't worked, even though it spawns interesting chem trails. I'm gonna try to stick to a two-way conversation on the subject matter alone, exhaust each small section, wait for you to say "move on", and then go on to the next. I'll try to address other questions which are not immediately germane, separately. Questions by you or others which are on the exact subject matter, we address in-line. OK?

A note on Marx: Part of the reason he is hard to read is that he is simultaneously compact and exhaustive. If you skip him, to get the "important bits" or to do it "crude and rude", as I have, then what you skipped immediately shows up in the first questions... as it just did. I suggest reading the old man as we go through the points together. The text we are using is here:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S1


1)So, is there a difference between capitalist wealth and that of the King of Kings? That seems implied.


The predominant form of wealth in Feudal times is lands and their populations (and "obligations") - the estates. There are relatively few commodities, even less money, and most of what constitutes wealth cannot be bought and sold. Prior to Feudalism, the most important form of wealth was in slaves.


2)Wants & needs covers a lot of territory.

Human beings have always made things to satisfy their "wants and needs". Here the two terms are co-dependent. They define each other. Thus, we can say with certainty that human beings have always produced "products of labor" (or use-values) to suit themselves. But, human beings have also been social, and for most of their existence, they have skirted bare subsistence. Therefore, we can also say that most products of labor were more generally useful to the herd/tribe/clan of people as a whole - mainly as subsistence - because most labor was expended as socially useful labor.

Commodities were a specific kind of "product of labor". They were produced for exchange, which typically appeared between people and not amongst them. Here the usefulness of the thing is generalized, beyond arbitrary personal and even group "taste" (giant stone heads from the Easter Islands were probably not good candidates for commodities, no matter how personally or socially satisfying they may have been to build).


Trying to find exceptions to #5 but cannot. It seems there would have to be some relationship between use-value and exchange-value, else why would that commodity be exchanged? Why should we leave out consideration of use-value?

The opposite... use-values of the same kind do not exchange for one another. The purpose of exchange is to convert use-values of one type into those of another. The usefulness of a thing is the precondition for any exchange to take place... BUT, once established, there is no recognition of the particular physical form of the product of labor as commodity. There is no restriction of exchange to products which share any concrete traits at all. What is established is a magnitude for exchange: 10 of A, equals 3 of B... where nothing whatever need be in common between A and B. The exchange takes place on a basis totally abstracted away from the use-value that is the object of the exchange, where the physical traits of the commodity as use-value are only a repository of something else: exchange-value. We know it is something other because nothing in what we have already looked at is shared.

BTW, this whole is a logical derivation...


I'm thinking about cowrie shells, used by some NA folks as a medium of exchange. Does their exchange value reflect the minimal labor of gathering them plus the considerable labor of transporting them inland?

What is the price of water in the Sahara Desert? If there is only one seller and you are dying of thirst, it is limitless. But, that is not exchange. The minute there are three sellers of water in the Desert, the price is equal to transporting that water into the Sahara Desert. This was the "secret" of merchant capital whose illusion was of "buying cheap and selling dear". Of course, not everything can be so bought and sold. After all of that cancels out, what is the substance of the value remaining? It was the sweat of the Teamsters...

Still ready to continue?

It is Profit plus Interest plus Rent. The form in which the surplus is realized is a function of the type of capital employed and the specific relationship of the capitalist to it.

doesn't he kind of use "profit" as a catchall that subsumes all three at times? That is how it seemed to me at least, even if he didn't explicitly say that.

I thought your King of Kings phrase was referring to someone talking about Calvinism..was kind of confusing me. Ha!

...is "Anax". That is not what "Anaxarchos" means but when shortened, it does.

I thought he was talking about me.

Your link uses Bookchin extensively and each one of Bookchin's books basically repudiates the last... until the last set of articles (which were quoted on PopIndy) repudiates "anarchism", mostly end-to-end. He returns to being some sort of "left communist"... and the all-powerful-hierarchy goes out the window except for those who weren't reading all his books... in the order in which he wrote them... and not going through the same personal evolution... quack.

And the target of his frustration is all the beanie babies who read his other books and believed in some-sort-of transcendent hierarchical "oppression" which had nothing to do with real oppression or actual social conditions, and they were going for some-sort-of-personal-freedom horseshit because they were totally removed from real life and the last thing he says to them is, "Why aren't you working class?"

And then he dies...

I have been using a 1907 printing, seems to be the same translation. It has a 2nd edition forward by Engels, think that'll work? (Had to return it this morning, will retrieve tomorrow)

1) check

2) check

5) Is clear. Questions are good. It seems that Marx assumes the reader to be following him, exhaustive in more ways than one.

No... He tends to be very precise about it.

http://images.absoluteastronomy.com/images/topicimages/x/xe/xerxes_i_of_persia.gif

"In all societies in which there is a division of labour, there is a social surplus; what is different about bourgeois society is that surplus value takes the form of capital, and surplus value is in fact the essence of production in capitalism.– Only productive work, i.e., work which creates surplus value, is supported. All “unproductive labour” is eliminated."

This is only ideally the case, isn't it though? Yet a majority of the workforce is employed in unproductive labor. And in the past fifteen or twenty years there have been endless defenses of the new, dynamic knowledge economies, wind-dumpling economies, service economies, whatever you want to call them.

Bourgeois society reproduces in its own form everything against which it had fought in feudal or absolutist form. In the first place therefore it becomes a principal task for the sycophants of this society, and especially of the upper classes, to restore in theoretical terms even the purely parasitic section of these “unproductive labourers”, or to justify the exaggerated claims of the section which is indispensable.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch04.htm

It does not refer to labor which does not produce "things", let alone "useless things". Unproductive labor is simply labor that does not produce commodities, and therefore does not contribute to surplus value (he is speaking from the standpoint of the capitalist). Examples of this are the costs associated with production but not directly contributing to it, such as accountants, security guards, vice presidents of personnel, and so on. Obviously, part of government infrastructure also qualifies (thus the complaints against "big government").

Most of the "service sector" certainly produces commodities and is therefore "productive" of surplus value. McDonald's makes hamburgers, H.R. Block prepares Tax Forms and Lawn Services sell mowing. All of these have been converted into enterprises productive of surplus value rather than simple deductions from the revenues of the capitalist.

Consider the whole quote:

In so far as those “unproductive labourers” do not produce entertainment, so that their purchase entirely depends on how the agent of production cares to spend his wages or his profit—in so far on the contrary as they are necessary or make themselves necessary because of physical infirmities (like doctors), or spiritual weakness (like parsons), or because of the conflict between private interests and national interests (like statesmen, all lawyers, police and soldiers)—they are regarded by Adam Smith, as by the industrial capitalists themselves and the working class, as incidental expenses of production, which are therefore to be cut down to the most indispensable minimum and provided as cheaply as possible. Bourgeois society reproduces in its own form everything against which it had fought in feudal or absolutist form. In the first place therefore it becomes a principal task for the sycophants of this society, and especially of the upper classes, to restore in theoretical terms even the purely parasitic section of these “unproductive labourers”, or to justify the exaggerated claims of the section which is indispensable. The dependence of the ideological, etc., classes on the capitalists was in fact proclaimed.

Of course, the position of the physician changes when he or she is employed by a health care combine selling "health service" commodities...

In the quote, productive labor is that which results in surplus value. Whether or not there is anything 'productive' or 'valuable' about it in the way we commonly use those words is not what this is about.

I don't see the 'service economy' as producing anything of value directly to me, or to any other member of the working class. However, as long as it does play a role in creating surplus value (ie profit, but not exactly as elucidated in another post or three), it is 'productive' in the context of this quote.

It is not ideally the case, it is inevitably the case, because the whole economy runs on the creation of this surplus value, this abstract money that can be traded as a commodity itself.

In another 15 or 20 years will this 'service economy' exist as productive labor? I don't know, it looks to me like it may be outliving it's usefulness to those interested in making profit, but that remains to be seen. Regardless, it will be eliminated if/when it fails to deliver the 'goods' (which, oddly, are rarely tangible or useful goods).

I think you are misreading the context of that quote.

Welcome to PI btw!

I'm learning a lot on this thread. I hope I make some sense here. I may have misread you. Or the quote itself for that matter.

it musta took me 15 minutes to formulate my reply and it took you probably 30 seconds, it wasn't there when I started, LOL.

That whole quote helps clarify something I was babbling about earlier (education and health care). Interesting, thanks.

thanks for starting this thread, btw.

You are now one of exactly 12 people in the entire United States who can formulate ANY reasonable answer based on Marx's Capital. Congratulations.

I know 7 out of the other 11 and I suspect that one of the remaining four lives in Des Moines, but I haven't tracked the fucker down yet...

:alberteinstein:

:grin:

A commodity—as distinguished from labour-power itself—is a material thing confronting man, a thing of a certain utility for him, in which a definite quantity of labour is fixed or materialised.

So, "uselessness" is out of the question, because every commodity has some usefulness, or else it wouldn't have been made, right?

And Marx seems to have a special disdain for doctors. I don't care for doctors either. *shudders*

In my volume, this is actually page 46:

1) We have established that commodities must have a use-value but that this use-value is something specific to the individual commodity. There is nothing in its use-value which is common to all commodities. Evidently, the rate at which commodities exchange with each other is not related to their use-value. "...the exchange of commodities is evidently an act characterised by a total abstraction from use value." In fact, in contrast to the concrete specificity of use-values, as exchange-values all use-values are the same: "...one use value is just as good as another, provided only it be present in sufficient quantity."

2) What is this common "something" in all commodities which has nothing to do with their physical properties or their utility and yet, reduces all commodities to a simple equivalance, provided they be present in sufficient quantity? "If then we leave out of consideration the use value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour."

3) Now we quote extensively for a bit because Marx is on his game: "But even the product of labour itself has undergone a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use value, we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements and shapes that make the product a use value; we see in it no longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour. Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract."

4) Now comes a very famous paragraph:

"Let us now consider the residue of each of these products; it consists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere congelation of homogeneous human labour, of labour power expended without regard to the mode of its expenditure. All that these things now tell us is, that human labour power has been expended in their production, that human labour is embodied in them. When looked at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are – Values."

What do we mean by "the residue of each of these products"? We mean that once we have abstracted away the concrete substance of the commodity, all we have left is that each is simply a product of labor. But this is no ordinary labor. It is also a "labor" which has lost its individual character - it is something which all labor of every different type, skill level, and intensity may be reduced down to. Commodities exchange because in addition to their physical properties as use values, each is "a mere congelation of homogeneous human labour" in different quantities. When looked at as "crystals of this social substance" (that is, homogeneous human labour), all commodities are simply values.

5) Now, Marx sums up what he has said:

"We have seen that when commodities are exchanged, their exchange value manifests itself as something totally independent of their use value. But if we abstract from their use value, there remains their Value as defined above. Therefore, the common substance that manifests itself in the exchange value of commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value. The progress of our investigation will show that exchange value is the only form in which the value of commodities can manifest itself or be expressed. For the present, however, we have to consider the nature of value independently of this, its form."

We will not normally quote Marx so extensively, but it is worth noting that we have moved forward exactly one page. The above is the Labor Theory of Value in germ form - something which is logically complete but which Marx will develop in detail for the next three volumes.

Again, the span is short and the quotations are extensive because we have gotten to the punch line very early on... if only in rudimentary form.

Is this all clear?

Do you understand what he is saying?

What does he mean by "the same unsubstantial reality", for example?

... about the fact that so many commodities appear so ridiculous. Still, you are precisely right. They must have use-values or utility as a precondition of their entering into exchange. If you look at post #5, above, this exact conversation is in progress.

Reading that I kept wanting to say 'money' is the abstracted, homogeneous, crystallized form of labor, and that money is capital. But Marx says 'value' and I know I'm getting ahead of things, mebbe way ahead. How bad is that?

'Unsubstantial reality', labor is invested(probably not the best word) in the commodity, yet is no where to be seen...shit, how do I avoid regurgitating a tautology?

I think I understand but it ain't coming out right, or mebbe I don't and that's why I'm struggling to express myself.

to be flattered or horrified by that :)

with what is being produced, but with whether or not it is profitable to the owner/boss. I may be using "profit" inappropriately, but that is the idea, I think. Labor is "useless" to the capitalist if it is not providing "surplus-value" and has nothing to do with the item ultimately being created...

"The same unsubstantial reality" is the basic, irreducible, attribute of "value" = human labor in the abstract. "Abstract" in that it is seen (used?) as an amalgam entity considered as one thing, apart from the human beings, as a group, who create it.

Is that even close?

:shrug:

I was wondering, earlier, why it was so important to understand this "economic stuff"; well now I get it. This is the most inhuman and inhumane system that can be imagined. "The Matrix" has got nothin' on modern Capitalism, baby...

and the consider money. Does money share those properties? Is money a commodity?

The "alienation" which "Young" Marx refers to is something like this:

Instead of seeing work as the production of your own live/livelihood -- ie as a PART and expression of your life -- instead your life is distorted to appear as only an expression of work. It is like saying "You must work to live" as opposed to "To live is to work" Work becomes the subject from which life is derivative.

The other part of alienation, which I suspect is the same thing in drag, is that we see the circulation of commodities AS the defining relations in society, but miss that they are truly the relations of man to man. This is because our own work -- our own LIFE -- now appears to be instead be a conglomeration of objects circulating around the globe governed by laws of their own and completely separated from ourselves..

Its another one of those things were Marx is very didactic but also a bit slim on the explanatory side. Sometimes he pops up with an epigram and you can't tell if that is his penchant for turning everything into a less than perfectly fitting epigram or if it is an actual enunciation of what he is really saying.

Dammit I'm supposed to be writing a grant, not essay questions on economics (oh how it hurts my head the way these things overlap though)

'...the same unsubstantial reality...'

The value of labor is so far removed (abstracted) from the actual physical result of the labor that there is no substance to this value, there is nothing real (substantial) about it anymore. It becomes a trade-able commodity of it's own, in the abstract...right?

Basically what happens is that the only value that matters in the market is the exchange-value (ideally leading to surplus-value) regardless of the real use-value of any specific inputs (amount and type of labor and materials) or even the final product itself. Am I on track here at all?

Kid above asked if money is a commodity, and it is, I think, in these terms, because it is abstracted away (from anything of substance) into this unsubstantial value, and can basically be exchanged on its own despite it's unsubstantial nature...

But it is still 'real' inasmuch as it lends power to those who have it (power over labor and means of production and ability to glean even more surplus-value into one's pockets).


I dunno. I'm mostly just thinking aloud, re-wording things and seeing if I even have a sense of them.

- from one another. Work is not social when labor is a commodity.
- from the product, which is appropriated by the parasitic class.
- from the fullness one's potential and form one's self, where work instead is often mindless drudgery and the line between humanity and machine is blurred in the productive process.

The creation of zombies, who work and create new little zombies, then die. It's a horror movie...

"Ya don't work, ya don't eat."

Clouds clear thinking, save the rage for when it can be applied.

but I was trying to hew as closely as possible to "commodity fetishism" and the "division of labor", which are the two things that Marx comes to expressly emphasize (early on in say the Paris Manuscripts he has a different formulation but it is not entirely clear what parts of that he retains and which parts he discards..at least not to me. Its possible the shift is semantic but I don't know)

Even apart from the capitalist society, the division of labor is seen to be the wedge that separates man from his own livelihood. Capitalist relations of course, lay this separation completely bare

"If someone wants to become a slave, they should be free to do so..."

People with leashes around their necks walking around on all fours and barking like a dog are not slaves. If they are free to choose that, then they are free, not enslaved.

Freedom to not be free is not freedom, and proposing that is could be is libertarianism.

This a variation on "gee those darkies sure seem happy-go-lucky on the plantation. It is not for me, but they seem to like it."

:withstupid:

Hey, you said it first! Naw, you're several steps ahead of me on a lot of this stuff, that's for sure.

The scariest part is I think I may finally crack open the copy of Capital I bought 2 years ago...although if we keep up this conversation I may not have to ;)

I think it has dual functions, but I was peeking the other day. A receptacle of value and a commodity.

Claiming that people can freely choose slavery is illogical. but it does help illustrate the inherent contradiction in libertarianism. It requires us to ignore circumstances and conditions, and to see everything as "personal choice." People are free to coerce others, and others are "free" to choose to be coerced. The one exception is when it is the evil gubmint doing the coercion. That should be prevented - government equals tyranny, we are to believe. By what means and with what force government should be prevented or restrained is never made clear, nor is it ever made clear just who it is who will be restraining government and therefore be "free."

How do libertarians imagine that they will be able to prevent the formation of governments or what sort of governments are they trying to prevent? They can form paramilitary groups to defend their homesteads from the evil feds and "be free," and then eventually "we the people" - "we" being...? - will be in power instead of those pointy-head bureaucrats and politicians. They then become the defacto government. What sort of government would that be? A government that ignores conditions and that protects the haves - themselves - from the have nots - the rest of us. That means freedom for some, not so much for others.

...even though you are not wrong.

At its simplest, alienated labor is Capital... wrenched from the laborer and brought back to life as an "alien force"... "alienated" as in removed. 'Course, not just an alien force but an "oppositional one", to use a modern word. More, it is the only part of the workers' labor which survives. The worker consumes wages but Capital survives and grows, to exploit again and again.

Modern parable: a couple of decades ago, a strike occurred at an arms manufacturer in Southern New England. The local police bought police equipment from the manufacturer. The company brought in scabs and there were clashes on the picket line. The workers found themselves at the wrong end of the batons and mace that they themselves had produced just months before.

Now, that is alienated labor...

... assuming that you meant to say Maoist. I know that you have read philosophy so perhaps it was not a typo, but I am hoping it was.

As an old Monist who is working very hard to be a new Monist, I salute you.

Yes, you are very close.

You are promoting anti-hierarchyism.

How would we overcome this tendency toward hierarchy? Is this one of those "human nature" challenges? Must human beings be reformed so that they will no longer form hierarchies? What if we were wildly successful at that, and actually converted 99% of the people to this non-hierarchical view? Would not the remaining unconverted 1% them simply rule over the other 99%?

Non-ism as a doctrine is the ism of those with wealth and power. This same reactionary argument has been used throughout history - "if only it wasn't human nature for people to be cruel, then all slave owners would be kind and there would be no problems. Freeing the slaves won't accomplish anything." If all social problems are to be seen as a problem with human nature, then we are not really overcoming hierarchy, we are endorsing and reinforcing the existing hierarchy and the existing conditions.

I need to go back and make sure he said Maoist all those other times now

Who will have the power to enforce this non-hierarchy?

Of course it is just a matter of time before people abuse power. So we fight back. Would you argue that there is no sense in resisting assault because assault is inevitable - there will always be those assaulting others, because assault is inescapable given human nature? What sort of sense does that make?

How could a true Maoist be anything other than a Monist? :)

I was afraid of sounding like Lukacs actually

It's all very confusing to me.

Consider prison labor in the US, where you can't get much more alienated than, say, stuffing bags with software for Bill Gates. But as for "feelings" about alienation, or an attitude about value, or surplus, it's all very weird.

When basic needs for food, shelter, clothing, medicine etc are met BEFORE we sell our labor, does that change the subjective meaning of the labor, its value, the surplus it creates for another, or the concept of alienation?

I've heard (current and former) incarcerated people suggest they "didn't really mind" whatever low-paid drudgery labor they performed because they saw it (I suppose in the strange way we've all been infected by the cancer of capitalism), as almost "earning their keep."

As if there were some connection between a wealthy capitalist, a drug bust, and access to healthcare.

The cognitive dissonance, it fascinates.

Between Anax and the Kid, I may actually be getting a grasp on this thing. I started reading "Capital" in earnest the other night and I actually understood it! Really!


:bootyshake:

The reference to Marcuse (who was a smart guy) was because in the 1960s, he claimed that alienated youths were a by product of actual alienated labor. Having said that, he then prattled on endlessly about "feelings".

Actual alienation is the reality underpinning all "feelings", and absolutely immune to their arbitrary twists and turns. Nothing except the total reorganization of economic life changes "the subjective meaning" of labor, value, surplus or alienation: not management seminars or quality circles or split level houses or convection ovens or tantra yoga or good drugs... nothing, nada, zip...

It all comes back as if it were real because it is real. Alienation is Capital. It gets bigger, you don't. It will have your ass. It will not ask how you feel about it. In fact, it doesn't ask anything. It doesn't think, plan or negotiate. It ain't god. It is objectified , alienated, human labor but that is just a historical observation. It ain't got no human at all in it...

And it won't be wished away.

On a very small, if not weird, scale

[div class="excerpt"]Nothing except the total reorganization of economic life changes "the subjective meaning" of labor, value, surplus or alienation: not management seminars or quality circles or split level houses or convection ovens or tantra yoga or good drugs... nothing, nada, zip...[/quote]

Maybe that's what I'm hearing when I listen to those comments.

It'd certainly be a huge reorganization of economic life for most of us to not be selling our labor for food, shelter, healthcare, etc.

Interesting stuff.

from Anax in another thread. It puts a lot of this "stuff" we are doing in perspective:

"Marx was by no means alone or even at the origins of this path of thinking. He was merely the most titanic figure on the road that our movement started traveling along before the French Revolution. The centrality of materialism and a rational understanding of our movement and goals was the work of the 19th century and was well traveled by those who had never heard of Marx (such as Pisarev).

For us too... the objective is to move in a certain direction, not because Marx said so, but because we have established with confidence that it is correct."

That last sentence, especially, strikes home with me. What we are doing (with the much needed help of our friends, here) is trying to "establish with confidence" that we are headed in the right direction. I, for one, am kind of excited about it. It is doing something constructive - it may seem small to some, but it is a required beginning...

We are already into money, alienation, fetishism, and a half dozen other topics while we are nominally on page 4. It is all good, but it is also important for me to stay on the text if we are to keep going forward.

I have several fairly extensive write-ups on Fetishism on PopIndy (and maybe on SI too... I don't remember). You are welcome to dredge them up if you like. Just search on me and "fetish".

No, I am not concerned about what else may pop up on that search. My conscience is clean.

...but it is not quite there. It still has, "too many notes". Bear with me for a sec.

We have discovered that when products of labor become commodities, they also become two sided. As use-values, their value is largely irrelevant. As exchange-values their use-value disappears. Their use-values, which are identical to their material existence, are only repositories or vessels in which value congeals. In turn, the substance of value is abstract human labor. Very clear... So, why call it an "unsubstantial reality"?

Because there ain't no such thing as "abstract human labor". It is a social reduction without any material basis whatever. Pull up an electron microscope and put any commodity underneath it. Not an atom of value is detectable. There ain't no substance to it... yet it is very real, and most often determinate.

What kind of mumbo-jumbo is this? Can we think of anything else like that? Sure.

Go back to your electron microscope, throw away the commodities, and put the Archbishop of Canterbury underneath it. You cannot find a single atom of archbishopness.

It ain't things which "have" value. Exchange brings with it a social measure... not surprising, because it is, above all, social intercourse.

...and a few of us are in an animated discussion and the TV is on in background, in that rude way that SOME people insist on... and what comes on TV but this cable reality show about 3 generations of the same family who own a Pawn shop in some fringe place like LA or Vegas. It is called "Pawn Kings" or somethin', and I am sorry I don't know too many details because I don't really watch much TV, but... the bottom-line is that within 10 minutes, the conversation is over and we are all huddled around the tube.

It was terrific... a far better primer on basic economics, exchange, use-value, and value and the rest than any stupid Paul Krugman NYT column or anything else...

... and see if you agree.

So, GrandMasterBP... this thing we are on matters. I don't know what you (or I, for that matter) think about Carl Sagan, but he pulled a big one out when at the end of a presentation on the Big Bang, he came out with "We are all Star Stuff". Yes, we are.

This bit about "unsubstantial reality" and "crystals of that social substance" are similarly seminal.

Do we stand awhile and admire the scenery, or do we move on?

If we get it, let's keep moving (we can always come back)... lest we be overwhelmed by the attraction of money.

So how far back was it known that labor is the basis of the "value" found in exchange? Well, the Greeks say it openly. The Sumerians make labor time notations on their trading tables. But, one of the most comprehensive attempts at the Labor Theory of Value belongs to Ibn Khaldun who wrote in the 14th century and based his work on observations going back to the 7th and 9th centuries...

Who was Ibn Khaldun?


Ibn Khaldun or Ibn Khaldoun (May 27, 1332 – March 19, 1406), was a famous Arab Muslim historian, historiographer, demographer, economist, philosopher and sociologist born in present-day Tunisia. He is regarded as a forefather of demography, historiography, philosophy of history, and sociology, and is viewed as one of the forerunners of modern economics. He is best known for his Muqaddimah, "Prolegomenon".

http://muslimmedianetwork.com/mmn/windows-live-pictures/MuslimScientistsandThinkersAbdalRahmanIb_E900/Ibn_Khaldun_thumb.jpg
http://www.uwplatt.edu/~soofi/khaldun2.pdf



1. Labor Theory of Value

Although Moslem writers had alluded to labor as an important source of value as early as the 7th century, Ibn Khaldun in his al-Mugaddimah had developed the rudiments of labor theory of value. The parallelism between Adam Smith's labor theory of value and Ibn Khaldun's labor theory of value is striking. Smith started his labor theory of value by stating: "Labour was the first price, the original purchase--money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased." (Smith 1937, 30)

Ibn Khaldun developed his value theory by indicating: "There is nothing here [originally] except the labor, and [the labor] is not desired by itself as acquired [...,but the value realized from it]" (Vol. II, 313)

He further expanded on this theme by writing: "Carpentry and weaving, for instance, are associated with wood and yarn [ the respective craft needed for their production]. However, in the two crafts [first mentioned] the labor [that goes into them] is more important, and its value is greater." (Vol. II, 313)

After a few paragraphs, Ibn Khaldun wrote: "It has thus become clear that gains and profits, in their entirety or for the most part, are value realized from human labor." (Vol. II, 314)

Ibn Khaldun had earlier defined `profit' as: "[The part of income] that is obtained by a person through his own effort and strength is called `profit.'" (Vol. II, 312)

Here, however, Ibn Khaldun divides the total product, the gains, into used and un-used parts. He called the part that is used up `sustenance,' a concept that Karl Marx called `necessary labor.' In Ibn Khaldun's words `sustenance...is "[the part of the profit] that is utilized.'" (Vol. II, 314)

For modern readers Ibn Khaldun's usage of the term profit is problematic. However, it should be clear from the passage that what Ibn Khaldun calls profit or gain is in fact total produce. Ibn Khaldun, in discussing the constituent parts of the gain, explains that a man's ... profits will constitute his livelihood, if they correspond to his necessities and needs. They will be capital accumulation, if they are greater than [his needs]. (Vol. II, 311-312)

Therefore, Ibn Khaldun's division of the total product of labor into `sustenance' and `capital accumulation' is similar to the Marxian notion of `necessary' and `surplus' labor. In considering labor as a commodity, Ibn Khaldun was a precursor of Karl Marx in another respect. Ibn Khaldun wrote: "For labor is a commodity, as we shall show later, in as much as incomes and profits represent the value of the labor of their recipients...'." (Issawi, 85)

Khaldun's thought on another aspect of value theory resembles David Ricardo's ideas. David Ricardo, in development of the labor theory of value, was consciously in search of an `invariable' unit of measurement and arbitrarily selected gold as a commodity which is produced by a method of production that is an average of two extremes: "... the one where little fixed capital is used, the other where little labor is employed, as to form a just mean between them?"(Meek 1956, 110)

Ibn Khaldun also arbitrarily chose gold and silver as `invariable' measures of value by stating that "God created the two mineral `stones,' gold and silver, as the [measure of] value..." (Vol. II, 313)

"Furthermore, [Gold and silver are what] the inhabitants of the world, by preference, consider treasure and property[to consist of]. Even if, under certain circumstances, other things are acquired, it is only for the purpose of ultimately obtaining [gold and silver]. All other things are subject to market fluctuations, from which [gold and silver] are exempt (6)." (Vol. II, 313)

By this analogy I neither intend to imply that Ibn Khaldun's selection of precious metals as `invariable' measures of value was based on indepth analyses that characterized David Ricardo's selection procedure, nor do I mean to suggest that Khaldun was consciously in search of an invariable unit of measurement. My comments are aimed at showing that both men arbitrarily selected precious metals for the purpose.

From the foregoing discussion it is clear that Ibn Khaldun had a rudimentary labor theory of value, a prelude to the consistent, well formulated, and sophisticated versions of the theory by David Ricardo and Karl Marx.

A la "When we can get there, will you do commodity fetishism"? I know you've written about it before but I was thinkin' maybe you had something even more compact similar to "Alienation is capital" plus your modern parable

Mr My-Conscience-Is-Clean :)

One of the dudes I was watching with said "Its kind of poignant actually". I forget which of the two shows he meant.

Not sure what if they're primers, but they're better than Krugman any day (and especially Sunday when the fucker is on TV)

I will add that Energy and Force function in a very similar way..not so unsubstantial though, huh?

and use Maoist as the changeup. This is pretty much the very start of a crack at a materialist analysis.

Pretty cool, huh? Curt's question in the other megathread was two-sided and this is the other side.

In sports terms he asked: Why are we letting all of the disrupters and haters throw us off our game, when we could elevate it instead?

Answer the first: those "disrupters" are playing defense and its a contact sport

Answer the second: its hard work to raise ones game..gotta hit the weight room and the film room..hot streaks aren't luck (not even in video games)

EDIT: OK, sometimes luck is a definite element in the process, but without preparation you won't have much luck. Come to think of it, I could make this into a dating analogy too..

Yeah, it's a sorrid business. It's all there and ya don't even notice it, 'cept for the occasional flash of insight here and there. I've been learning a lot about aspects of overproduction in recent years.

but let me throw this out: does exchange value exist only at the moment of exchange? My inventory says this is so.

This is a point that gets really confused. The exchange value dictates a great many things in the sphere of production and exchange, even though it may only be "expected" or "anticipated" exchange value.

As a meager example, say you find a collectible that is priced at less than what you can sell it for (say on Ebay or even to a dealer). Here, a known/established price listing has a great effect on the exchange of the collectible

But of course exchange-value is only "realized" in your pocket at the moment of exchange :)

PS if you'll permit me to try my hand at this, don't take it as gospel but I think different ways of writing the definitions can be helpful sometimes

value = calculus of abstract socially necessary labor (ie it takes the average workman 5 hours to produce a particular commodity). This underlies exchange value.

exchange value = how much/many of one commodity will exchange for another

price = exchange value expressed as money, but subject to its own fluctuations that do not necessarily mirror exchange value

use-value = satisfies some human want/need.

You even made a joke about it.

From my response to Megan, below:

"It ain't things which "have" value. Exchange brings with it a social measure... not surprising, because it is, above all, social intercourse."

What is actually going on is this: within the group/clan/tribe there is no exchange, no property, and only a very rudimentary division of labor, if any at all. Social interaction between independent peoples takes the form of the exchange of the products of their labor. What is happening is the beginnings of cooperation between groups rather than within them. Because human productivity remains marginal, as trade is regularized it becomes important that it be of equivalents. A social measure evolves out of a category which doesn't exist in life: abstract labor.

But, more than this, it appears as an attribute of things which are exchanged... as an inherent value. In truth, it is a social interaction between the producers of those things which is at work.

That is "fetishism".

It appears very early on, to boot. Simplicity is not a cure, though complexity masks the relationship further. To say that when you buy sneakers, you are actually entering into a social relationship with rubber producers in Malaysia and assemblers in Mexico and textile workers in China and that none of the "things" that are involved in that have any of the traits you attribute to them, in reality... that is as daunting as it is obvious.

Each commodity has one Value but many Exchange-values. When wheat trades for linen or salt or cod, each of those are exchange-values. A specific kind of exchange-value is that with the money commodity... "price". These exchange-values are expressions of the underlying Value of the commodity, what Marx calls the "Form of Value". Exchange-values change all the time, because of arbitrary circumstances, supply and demand, and a few dozen other factors. But exchange-values fluctuate around Value, what Smith calls their "Natural Price" (when supply equals demand, and so on).

In truth, Values change too, as the conditions of production underlying them changes. The amount of the crystalline "social substance" is constantly being reevaluated against the social average.

The remainder of Section 1 is housekeeping. Marx nails down that which we have already introduced, though he will also do so again in more detail, later:

1. How do we measure the magnitude of the labor embodied in each commodity? We measure it by its duration - time.

2. But, does that mean that the less productive labor produces more value? No. The abstraction of labor we are considering here counts as a social average, what Marx calls, "socially necessary labor time". The value of one commodity is to the value of any other, as the labour time necessary for the production of the one is to that necessary for the production of the other.

3. Apart from variations among workers, many other forces work to change the socially necessary labor time crystallized in each commodity. The introduction of machinery is one prominent change which reduces the amount of socially necessary labor in each commodity by increasing the productiveness of the producers. There are many other such factors:

"The value of a commodity would therefore remain constant, if the labour time required for its production also remained constant. But the latter changes with every variation in the productiveness of labour. This productiveness is determined by various circumstances, amongst others, by the average amount of skill of the workmen, the state of science, and the degree of its practical application, the social organisation of production, the extent and capabilities of the means of production, and by physical conditions. For example, the same amount of labour in favourable seasons is embodied in 8 bushels of corn, and in unfavourable, only in four. The same labour extracts from rich mines more metal than from poor mines. Diamonds are of very rare occurrence on the earth’s surface, and hence their discovery costs, on an average, a great deal of labour time."

4. "In general, the greater the productiveness of labour, the less is the labour time required for the production of an article, the less is the amount of labour crystallised in that article, and the less is its value; and vice versâ, the less the productiveness of labour, the greater is the labour time required for the production of an article, and the greater is its value. The value of a commodity, therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productiveness, of the labour incorporated in it."

5. And finally:

"A thing can be a use value, without having value. This is the case whenever its utility to man is not due to labour. Such are air, virgin soil, natural meadows, etc. A thing can be useful, and the product of human labour, without being a commodity. Whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of his own labour, creates, indeed, use values, but not commodities. In order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use values, but use values for others, social use values. (And not only for others, without more. The mediaeval peasant produced quit-rent-corn for his feudal lord and tithe-corn for his parson. But neither the quit-rent-corn nor the tithe-corn became commodities by reason of the fact that they had been produced for others. To become a commodity a product must be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a use value, by means of an exchange.)[12] Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value."

Congratulations... when we are done discussing the above, we have finished with Section 1 of Capital. This is farther than we have gotten before...

The good news is that as one gets more familiar with Marx, and the material above, it gets a lot easier to continue on one's own.

PM me if you are in the mood to continue at once to Section 2. I am traveling for a short while next week so it will be the end of the week, unless I find I can get on-line. This thread has gotten long so I will start a new one on Section 2, when you are in the mood.

Concerning #5:

http://www.crapfromthepast.com/favorites/sights/petrock.jpg

This was the easy stuff, linen and coats is where I lose my thread. I'll give it another shot in preparation. A new thread is in order, this suckers getting unweildy.

You do this very well, I look forward to phase II.

just struck me like a brick. It is from Section Two:

"Wherever the want of clothing forced them to it, the human race made clothes for thousands of years, without a single man becoming a tailor. But coats and linen, like every other element of material wealth that is not the spontaneous produce of Nature, must invariably owe their existence to a special productive activity, exercised with a definite aim, an activity that appropriates particular nature-given materials to particular human wants. So far therefore as labour is a creator of use value, is useful labour, it is a necessary condition, independent of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race; it is an eternal nature-imposed necessity, without which there can be no material exchanges between man and Nature, and therefore no life."

That is such a clear statement and so illuminating.

We (BP and I) will continue to walk through this at the end of next week or when I am back on line, whichever is sooner. We'll start a new thread beginning with section #2. Are you gonna walk along with us?

...the in-house cartoonist for UE for decades, and one of UE's "secret weapons". Some of his stuff was reproduced on PopIndy and there is lots more on the web.

This reading has been very gratifying and enjoyable. I am looking forward to continuing this study. Like Megan, I am beginning to see the light...

I didn't know that either..I was always trying to remember how that particular strip went until I found where Rusty had reposted it on Soc Indy and put it up here

I certainly need the exercise :)

or do you guys want to start it up sooner and see where we get? He can always smack us down when he gets back online..;)

What I'm athinkin' is that if we keep going we might pull Pinko back into the conversation for a while..but its also possible we'll be a tad..directionless?

I'm down with either way

how do you turn fat, happy individuals into radical activists who stage work stoppages and hunger strikes?

You don't "turn fat, happy individuals into radical activists who stage work stoppages and hunger strikes".

No posible... not possible.

People don't fight back without cause.

Interestingly, people who are on the edge of starvation and in despair don't often "turn" into "radical activists who stage work stoppages and hunger strikes", either. Revolutionary times come from revolutionary circumstances and these are more complicated than simple, honest, misery. There are subjective factors which include a need for a political outlet, broad unity, and a sense of popular power.

Course, this is without discussing the question of whether anyone EVER "turns" anyone into anything, which I personally doubt very much.

..

...

I think this is sort of a neat story, as a real-life illustration of (1) the labor-machinery dialectic or reciprocal-conditioning, etc, and (2) the historical pattern under capitalism that a rise in wages is the mother of mechanization.


New minimum wage laws, a looser yuan and worker strikes like those affecting Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. are raising costs at plants in China’s Pearl River Delta, leading to increased automation of assembly lines.

Foxconn Technology Group, Nissan Motor Co.’s Chinese venture and VTech Holdings Ltd. said they are investing in factory equipment to reduce their reliance on labor. Wages in the region called the world’s factory floor increased 17 percent in the past six months, according to a survey by the government- backed Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

Factory owners in China face declining profit margins from a rising yuan as the government drops a two-year policy that curbed the currency’s gain. Labor costs will probably bloat to 30 percent of gross domestic product in the next decade from 15 percent now, Morgan Stanley estimated this month. Higher wages in urban areas may cost companies about $1.5 trillion by 2015, according to Credit Suisse Group AG.

“Factories need to think seriously about how they produce more with less,” said Ian Spaulding, Hong Kong-based managing director at INFACT Global Partners, which advises plant owners on China work practices. “Factories need to begin to enhance their productivity so that they are in a position to remain competitive.”
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKH3dxC2U_Io&pos=5

... the cheap labor of Birmingham plus machinery would displace the cotton spinners of India who toiled under much cheaper, subsistence wages, precisely through the increased productivity represented by a "superior" organic composition to English textiles.

The same thing happened in the 1960s in Africa, when the cloth of relatively well-paid Belgian textile workers displaced the local fabrics of virtually the entire continent of Africa, from Egypt to the Cameroons.

The difference today is that "globalization" has eliminated the reticence that previously haunted intensive capital export for manufacturing. Now, cheap labor is displaced by cheap-labor-plus-more-advanced-machinery without having to move the manufacturing site by even an inch.

Most of the factories described here are Western or joint-venture plants created for the "re-export" trade.