An Incontestable Argument for the Law of Value
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Prakash, I think you are understanding “value” to mean “wealth”. Is this correct? While it is true for *societies based on the capitalist mode of production* this is not true for all forms of society. It’s only in capitalist society that wealth takes the form of commodities (value).
I have found this quote from Marx; “Human labour-power in its fluid state, or human labour, creates value, but is not itself value.”
So labour (the living labour of the producers) creates value, is the “value-forming substance”. But commodities, as containers of “coagulated” / “crystalised” / “dead” (as in already spent) labour, *are* value.
Does this make sense? What is being said is that labour creates value (and wealth) but that this labour can only take the form of “value” in a commodity economy. (It’s the process of the exchange of products that reduces and equalises the labour into “value”). In other types of society “wealth” would just be use-values, labour doesn’t go through the transformationary stage that makes it appear as “value”.
DJP – ‘But the distinction also has to be made between ‘exchange value’ (expressed in quantities of other things – a relationship between things) and ‘value’ (an amount of embodied social labour – a relationship between the thing and the producer).’
I’ve always thought that ‘exchange value’ was based on the amount of socially necessary labour contained within it and that use value was a matter of utility or perceived utility? There have been many incarnations of ‘value’ within different cultures at different times but capitalism has transformed value in to a universal form ultimately expressed in the universal commodity called money. Anyway that’s how I’ve always understood the subject.
“I’ve always thought that ‘exchange value’ was based on the amount of socially necessary labour contained within it and that use value was a matter of utility or perceived utility?”
That’s not too widely off the mark, but in Capital (particularly the first two chapters) there is a further distinction between “value” and “exchange-value”. I’ve tried to explain it as well as I understand it in the comments above.
“There have been many incarnations of ‘value’ within different cultures at different times”
Not sure what you mean here. Labour taking the form of ‘value’, as meant by Marx in Capital, can only occur in a society of generalised commodity production.
“I think it’s a most serious issue which, if we fail to resolve it, is certain to lend credence to the capitalists’ claim that the concept of communism is fundamentally flawed.”
I think what’s going on here is the conflation of two different questions:
1. Where does wealth come from?
and
2. What form does wealth take in different types of society?
If you understand ‘value’ as being an ahistorical term always equivalent with ‘wealth’ then the question of whether ‘value’ is created (or realised) in production (or exchange) is one about where wealth comes from.
But if we understand ‘value’ as something historically contingent, as a form of wealth that only applies in certain historical conditions, then the question of whether ‘value’ is created (or realised) in production (or exchange) is one about the form that wealth takes.
The problem is that many critics, and proponents, of Marx’s theory don’t actually read him carefully enough to realise that, for Marx, ‘value’ is a historically specific form of wealth, not wealth in general.
‘Not sure what you mean here. Labour taking the form of ‘value’, as meant by Marx in Capital, can only occur in a society of generalised commodity production.’
DJP – I’m talking about use value here. Many cultures have valued gold historically but not so many have valued Nike trainers. I thought that the LTV was restricted to capitalism?
Dear DJP, I don’t think I ever said anything that suggests that I think value is synonymous with wealth.
I said the concrete labour that creates a concrete use-value is the form of the abstract labour that creates the value of this concrete use-value. Evidently, by my view, the abstract labour happens to be the content that assumes the form of the concrete labour. I said this to contradict your view that the ‘“Abstract labour” isn’t contained in [the] “concrete labour”.’ You seem to have missed this point.
I also remember that Marx compared labour with the cosmic force called gravity and remarked that as gravity that creates weight but is weightless itself, the value-creating labour has got No value. I don’t think I ever said anything to contradict this view of labour. Nevertheless, it’s in fact you who claimed that labour “take
the form of ‘value’” in the market during exchange.You’ve also failed to respond to my argument that your view of labour & value inevitably leads to the view that value originates during exchange in the market. You have yet to respond to my query of what really prevents labour from creating value before the products of labour are brought to the market.
Hi Prakash you said; “I don’t think I ever said anything that suggests that I think value is synonymous with wealth.” Can you please help me and tell me what you think “value” is?
“I also remember that Marx compared labour with the cosmic force called gravity and remarked that as gravity that creates weight but is weightless itself, the value-creating labour has got No value.”
I don’t recall a quote like this, do you have a reference?
I’ll try to answer your other points again, tommorrow.
My view of value is: human labour (abstract) creates value the amount of which equals the quantity of socially necessary labour incorporated in a useful thing; Human labour itself is valueless.
Two quotes from Capital Vol. I in defence of Marx’s view that human labour itself is valueless:
‘… or human labour, creates value, but is not itself value.’ (Chapter I, Section 3., A. Elementary or Accidental Form Of Value, 2. The Relative Form of value, (a.) The nature and import of this form)
‘Labour is the substance, and the immanent measure of value, but has itself no value.’ (Chapter XIX: The Transformation of the Value
(and Respective Price) of Labour-Power into Wages)Yes I agree, labour (but *concrete* labour – abstract labour cannot create anything for the same reason that you cannot milk an abstract cow!) *creates* value, *but is not itself value*
Prakash I used this exact same quote above in comment #230275 if you would care to read the whole comment again we might get somewhere!
So we know what *makes* value, but *is* value? It’s abstract wealth. And in a capitalist economy wealth takes the form of commodities.
So commodities (as bearers/containers of abstract/congealed labour) are the form of value. They are the ‘form’ of value because ‘value’ is not something we can see.
How does real concrete living labour become dead congealed labour? When the commodities meet each other in the market and the different labours that went into making them become equalised and reduced to abstract labour.
Like eggs only become an omlette through the process of being beaten and cooked – labour only becomes ‘value’ through this process of equalisation.
I also have a nice quote for you from Capital Volume One page 127 (Penguin edition):
“The value-form of the product of labour is the most abstract, but also the most universal form of the bourgeois mode of production; by that fact it stamps the bourgeois mode of production as a particular kind of social production of a historical and transitory character. If then we make the mistake of treating it as the eternal natural form of social production, we necessarily overlook the specificity of the value-form, and consequently of the commodity form together with its further developments, the money form, the capital form, etc.”
‘Yes I agree, labour (but *concrete* labour – abstract labour cannot create anything for the same reason that you cannot milk an abstract cow!) …’
You sound like a child that’s got No idea of womanhood because it cannot see any such stuff. The example of ‘milk’ and ‘cow’ seems silly as both of them are concrete things while both the value and the labour that creates it are each abstract stuff.
‘So commodities … are the form of value.’
But, there exist so many commodities (an example: a doctor’s examination, diagnosis & prescription or an expert economist’s counsel to raise the rate of interest to deal with swelling inflation) that have got No forms really.
‘They are the ‘form’ of value because ‘value’ is not something we can see.’
But, such an argument should lead you to mistake things like a mannequin, a bot, etc. for life-forms and shooting stars for stars really.
‘How does real concrete living labour become dead congealed labour?’
I think it’s similar to the way solar energy enters your cold body on a winter-day morning. The abstract labour is as real as the womanhood of a woman, and it enters the body of an apple from an orchard to create some value that stays in apple’s body as the womanhood in a woman’s body does.
‘When the commodities meet each other in the market and the different labours that went into making them become equalised and reduced to abstract labour.’
Commodities possess value, and so they’re brought to markets by people to realise their value.
As I see it, the capitalist mode of production is the production for profit the source of which is the surplus-value contained in the value of each commodity. Would like to know how this view clashes with Marx’s view.
Prakash, thanks for the reply. I’m going to end this exchange here as I have used up all the time and energy I have for this right now.
I have been trying to explain to you as well as I can what the various concepts are in Marx’s Capital and how they fit together. You seem to be attaching your own meaning to concepts without first looking at the text in detail, so no wonder we are getting in endless circles.
There is now enough material, along with the other comments from ALB and others for you to undertake a reading yourself.
I suggest you read Chapters One and Two slowly and take notes as you go along, even better if you can find a group of friends to discuss it with. I have been doing such an activity for the past year or so.
Not that the writings in Marx’s Capital are some kind of infallible word of god, but if you read it carefully, and take it on it’s own terms, I do think it is a logically consistent theory which offers a good amount of explanatory and predictive power.
All the best.
I stick to my gun with karl marx, I do not waste my time with inovators
Sad that you’ve chosen to beat a retreat. As I see it, it’s unbecoming of a person with backbone, a person that’s all for the Truth, and I believe that a communist must always stand for the Truth.
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