Reading Capital, continued (thread #2)...

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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #2)...

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:15 pm

Kid of the Black Hole
10-14-2009, 03:24 PM

We are treading on some rather rocky philosophical ground, but the elementary form of value is actually being shown to be a contradiction and a very real one, not one that is merely formal or existing solely in the intellect. In particular the CONTENT of value (which is manifested as the use-value of other commodities) sets this contradiction out very plainly and very starkly.

Chapter 2 on Exchange is actually a bit off yet, but there is an interesting footnote referring to Aristotle there as well. In it, Aristotle deduces that exchange value is actually the scenario where the "use" of the item IS exchange even though this merely defers the question of what its use value is since we must then ask what the use is for the person that receivves the item. But that person may also want it only because it can be exchanged for something else.

But that is not any kind of "use value" at all.

But don't worry, we're NOT going in circles however much it may seem that way.
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #2)...

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:15 pm

anaxarchos
10-15-2009, 01:06 PM

The first is a debate in political economy from before Marx's day (which oddly still hangs around till the present but in very different words): Do commodities have value because they have exchange value... OR... Do commodities have exchange value because they have value?

Remember the quote in the very beginning of Chapter 1 in which Marx says "an inherent value appears as a contradiction in terms"? This is why.

Commodities have value because they are the products of labor. They don't have exchange value until they enter into the elementary form in which an equivalent commodity "sets" (remember "congeals") or expresses the magnitude of their value. When we said commodities appear as a two-fold thing, use value on the one hand and exchange value on the other, we were actually engaged in an "abbreviation". They don't got no exchange-value when they stand by themselves... they only have potential exchange-value in that they have value. So far, this shorthand (of equating value with exchange-value) is harmless.

The other bit of background is on philosophy (plug your ears). Organic logic is valid if it matches the physical world... that is, a logical process which abstracts an elementary form from a complex world and then attempts to logically recreate that world must be an analog of the actual evolution or the actual history of that world. In truth, this is the only empirical test possible for "Social Science".

Marx is presenting a combined theoretical/historical thesis on the origins of commodities and exchange. No "transition" is required. In fact, our ability to move from a purely logical to a largely historical narrative IS the proof. The simplest logical forms are also the earliest historical forms.

...which by a roundabout route, gets us to your "bow and arrow" question. If exchange value requires market, capital, the entire superstructure of modern relations, and so on, in order to exist, how did it come to be in the first place? Either it all "changed" at some point OR it requires an airlift: Robinson Crusoe transported back 5000 years OR "the Indian and the Bow" story, which is basically an argument that modern commodity relations don't have to evolve historically because they live "inherently" in the bosom of every human as their "nature".
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #2)...

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:16 pm

anaxarchos
10-15-2009, 01:07 PM

eom...
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #2)...

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:19 pm

blindpig
10-16-2009, 05:12 AM
Marx is presenting a combined theoretical/historical thesis on the origins of commodities and exchange. No "transition" is required. In fact, our ability to move from a purely logical to a largely historical narrative IS the proof. The simplest logical forms are also the earliest historical forms.
So exchange value is inherent in a commodity because labor has been expended in anticipation of exchange? I'll go out on a limb and guess that commodities arose as a natural result of improved productive capabilities? Casual exchange had been around, making things for exchange could only occur with increased productive capability, new methods and techniques. This made possible accumulation.....
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #2)...

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:19 pm

brother cakes
10-16-2009, 11:06 PM

but I think I found a good distillation of Vol. 1 of Capital

"The capitalist pays the value, so far as price coincides with value, of the labor-power, and receives in exchange the disposal of the living labor-power itself. His usufruct is spread over two periods. During one the laborer produces a value that is only equal to the value of his labor-power; he produces its equivalent. This the capitalist receives in return for his advance of the price of the labor-power, a product ready made in the market. During the other period, the period of surplus-labor, the usufruct of the labor-power creates a value for the capitalist, that costs him no equivalent. [4] This expenditure of labor-power comes to him gratis. In this sense it is that surplus-labor can be called unpaid labor.

"Capital, therefore, it not only, as Adam Smith says, the command over labor. It is essentially the command over unpaid labor. All surplus-value, whatever particular form (profit, interest, or rent), it may subsequently crystallize into, is in substance the materialization of unpaid labor. The secret of the self-expansion of capital resolves itself into having the disposal of a definite quantity of other people’s unpaid labor."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... 1/ch18.htm

So if we assume that the prices of things coincide with their values, and we understand (1) that the value of stuff that goes into constant capital doesnt add value to the product beyond what ultimately gets consumed in the production process and (2) that exchange doesnt create new value- I can only guess the idea that exchange does create new value is probably a consequence of prices of things widely not coinciding with their values- then Marx's position that labor-power and labor-power alone can add more value than it consumes, that labor-power is the wild card in all of this business, is ~100% unassailable and correct.

I'm not sure what to make of USUFRUCT though. The word appears nowhere in my Penguin translation.
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #2)...

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:20 pm

PinkoCommie
10-17-2009, 06:39 AM

Usufruct is the legal right to use and derive profit or benefit from property that belongs to another person, as long as the property is not damaged. In many legal systems of property, buyers of property may only purchase the usufruct of the property.Usufruct originates from civil law, where it is a real right of limited duration on the property of another. The holder of a usufruct, known as the usufructuary, has the right to use and enjoy the property, as well as the right to receive profits from the fruits of the property. The Latin words usus and fructus refer to the rights of use and fruit, respectively, and the English word usufruct derives from these Latin roots. -wiki

The legal right to use and/or derive income or other benefits from the property of someone else. The condition for this situation is that the property cannot be damaged in any way. This legal right is not recognized in many locations. - "The Business Dictionary"

Using the fruit of someone else's living organism...

Labor is the source of all value.

In the succinct distillation you've posted we see here what is, to me, the pre-eminent historical example of the dialectic. Capitalism is the higher form of slavery. Once (and still, in places like Dubai), expropriation of labor was tantamount to outright ownership of the living organism that produced that labor. Now, that labor is bought as a market a commodity, a unique on in that it is the sole commodity which is able to generate more value than that which trades for it in the "labor market." And of course this surplus of value is the source of this uniqueness, and it is indeed unpaid labor expropriated under a higher form of social organization.

So, no, you are not even a little bit off topic, even if you are skipping ahead just a tad.

Do chime in. This is all much easier with added perspectives.
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Re: Reading Capital, continued (thread #2)...

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:21 pm

Kid of the Black Hole
10-17-2009, 09:55 AM

(and yes usufruct literally comes from "use fruit") but one thing I've learned (the hard way) is that talking about things like "dialectic" outside of its own specific context or it but in a casual/offhand way, is typically a lose-lose proposition.

Either it comes off as too doctrinaire or too glib/flippant. Either way, what I've personally found (again, the hard way) is that it doesn't tend to be very revealing and people tend to assume you are introducing/expounding some mystified mumbo (of which I've been guilty as charged many times). There is simply alot of dirty laundry/baggage that comes attached with this material, and if we hope to be able to convey or demonstrate or even impart a materialist worldview to others, we sort of have an obligation to hold ourselves to a higher standard

Again, I wouldn't say what you wrote is wrong, but I do think we labor under a sort of self-imposed obligation to be as careful and as precise as we're able.

Just a hard won observation on my part; not meant at all to detract from the gist of brother cakes post and your worthy follow-up
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