anaxarchos
09-03-2009, 12:46 PM
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.
What is Value?
Re: What is Value?
blindpig
09-03-2009, 05:36 PM
Concerning #5:
http://www.crapfromthepast.com/favorite ... etrock.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.
09-03-2009, 05:36 PM
Concerning #5:
http://www.crapfromthepast.com/favorite ... etrock.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.
Re: What is Value?
Dhalgren
09-04-2009, 07:53 AM
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.
09-04-2009, 07:53 AM
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.
Re: What is Value?
anaxarchos
09-04-2009, 12:13 PM
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?
09-04-2009, 12:13 PM
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?
Re: What is Value?
anaxarchos
09-04-2009, 12:15 PM
...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.
09-04-2009, 12:15 PM
...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.
Re: What is Value?
Terwilliger
09-06-2009, 12:49 PM
how do you turn fat, happy individuals into radical activists who stage work stoppages and hunger strikes?
09-06-2009, 12:49 PM
how do you turn fat, happy individuals into radical activists who stage work stoppages and hunger strikes?
Re: What is Value?
anaxarchos
09-10-2009, 08:19 AM
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.
09-10-2009, 08:19 AM
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.
Re: What is Value?
brother cakes
06-24-2010, 09:36 AM
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.”
06-24-2010, 09:36 AM
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.”
Re: What is Value?
anaxarchos
06-24-2010, 07:54 PM
... 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.
06-24-2010, 07:54 PM
... 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.