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

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Kid of the Black Hole
09-18-2009, 03:45 PM

that more use-value is produced in the absolutebut the use-value of a given object stays the same for the most part (cases like VCRs being outmoded by DVDs of course factor in as well -- and it is a VERY big factor). When the price goes down that is indicative of a loss of exchange value which entails a loss of value (because it takes less time to produce each unit)

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BitterLittleFlower
09-18-2009, 06:38 PM

between when something, due to age or rarity or demand, starts to have its depreciation reversed after having been resold, given away for years, and then it starts to re-appreciate, such as in antiques...is there labor in finding, re-valuing something?

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blindpig
09-19-2009, 05:24 AM

Both devices serve the same purpose, I find the improvements marginal(skip/chapters). Yet we are compelled to junk serviceable, paid for products and to purchase initially expensive devices and a whole new set of media(curiously more profitable for the manufacturer). This continues until competition bottoms out the price point and a new, more profitable product is introduced (blue ray, whatever) and the cycle is renewed. This pattern is obvious with consumer electronics(your new computer is obsolete when you carry it out of the store), automobiles, military hardware, etc. On the face of it this is the result of competition, though I suspect that there's a lot of planned obsolescence going on. In any case the use value remains more or less the same while the exchange value is manipulated. It seems to me that on the abstract level that this is a major mechanism for dealing with over-production. Marginally improved utility(unless microsoft makes it, then all bets are off), more profits for the capitalists(dollars pried from our pockets), massively increased waste stream, it's fucked up.

Can I please have a planned economy?

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anaxarchos
09-22-2009, 10:31 PM

The use-value is not impacted at all (or doesn't have to be). Increased productiveness, regardless of the source, does not mean that more commodities are produced. It can (and often does) mean that the same number of commodities are produced as before, but that the value congealed in each is reduced. The replacement of one type of use-value by another is a seperate process.

It also does not follow that there is any change in price. It depends on what happens to the values congealed in other commodities... and what happens to money.

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anaxarchos
09-22-2009, 10:40 PM

... I mean on Marx... I guess I'm channeling.

Criticism of consumer society, crackpot theories of planned obsolescence or price manipulation, and the same old shit using "Marxian verbiage" does not qualify.

I ain't saying that there isn't truth to all of the above, but none of it has squat to do with what Marx wrote above, and took 15 years to do it, I might add.

The question on the floor is the two fold nature of the labor contained in the two fold character of commodities... with the objective of understanding how the fucker works WITHOUT regard to ANY manipulations, conspiracies, or rackets.

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blindpig
09-23-2009, 04:52 AM

Just responding to the Kid. Naw, it's just one of those 'everyday conspiracies', the way things work. It is an aspect of the market which seems to have accelerated in recent decades and affects my job a good deal, I've thought about it a bit.

Shall we continue?

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Kid of the Black Hole
09-23-2009, 05:07 AM

I was only telling BP, that all else being equal, that was one way in which use-values could be modified. My point was actually somewhat the opposite, that the process we're describing does NOT entail a "modification" in use-value. I then tried to redirect the emphasis back to value and exchange value instead.

Of course "all else being equal" is not a particularly helpful or realistic premise to run with..but sometimes it helps more than it hurts. You're right that I'm likely sowing more confusion here than I am dispelling (may be confusing myself too because I thought what I wrote was completely inline with what you just wrote)

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anaxarchos
09-23-2009, 02:07 PM

Section 3 - The Form of Value or Exchange-Value
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... h01.htm#S3

I will stick pretty closely to Marx's text in this section because it is really straight-forward. Stop me if it gets foggy...

1) "Commodities come into the world in the shape of use values, articles, or goods, such as iron, linen, corn, &c. This is their plain, homely, bodily form. They are, however, commodities, only because they are something twofold, both objects of utility, and, at the same time, depositories of value. They manifest themselves therefore as commodities, or have the form of commodities, only in so far as they have two forms, a physical or natural form, and a value form."

This is simple summarization of what came before. Be careful with this, though, because while Marx constantly does this repetition, he also often substitutes terms... and thus establishes equivalence. This is the Hegelian "style", i.e. the use of derivation and semantic determination in place of "definitions". The idea is not just to classify but to understand how we got there.

2) "Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality, and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity."

Because, as far as value relations are concerned, it is really "the social relation of" person to person which is being described...

3) "Every one knows, if he knows nothing else, that commodities have a value form common to them all, and presenting a marked contrast with the varied bodily forms of their use values. I mean their money form. Here, however, a task is set us, the performance of which has never yet even been attempted by bourgeois economy, the task of tracing the genesis of this money form, of developing the expression of value implied in the value relation of commodities, from its simplest, almost imperceptible outline, to the dazzling money-form. By doing this we shall, at the same time, solve the riddle presented by money."

In fact, the science of this has advanced a great deal since Marx's time. The science in question is not Economics but Archeology. What Marx derives logically is largely confirmed historically, with the simpler forms being also the earlier... as we might guess.

With that, we end our preamble and start on the body of the Section.

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Two Americas
09-24-2009, 09:29 AM

"Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality, and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity."

The defenders of capitalism would not claim that things have value separate from, outside of social relations, I don't think. They would say, however, rather than "I (or we) want (or need) it, therefore it has value, therefore I (or we) will make it" that "I want it, therefore it has value, therefore I will take it, or force others to make it for me."

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Kid of the Black Hole
09-24-2009, 10:45 AM

I am still following along..

Police presence in Pittsburgh is pretty strong but not that intimidating so far.