An Incontestable Argument for the Law of Value
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“Producers (wage workers) in a factory do not produce useful things ‘for the purpose of exchange[ing]’ them really. Still, the useful things they produce are all commodities.”
Of course, the workers in a factory are not the people selling the goods. But the whole fact of them being there depends on the aim of the product being sold so as to be transformed into money.
“Evidently, if, to be a commodity, ‘a useful thing’ has to be dependent on its producer’s intention to exchange it for something else, it’d be impossible to find a commodity in mountainous heaps of industrial products under capitalism, I’m afraid to say.”
So you think all useful things are commodities? That’s definitely not what’s written in the first couple of chapters of Capital.
“Would like to know your logic for your refusal to consider ‘works of art’ to be commodities.”
1. A commodity is a useful thing produced for the purpose of exchange.
2. The value (but not the actual price that it sells for) of a commodity is determined by the amount of average socially necessary labour time necessary to reproduce it.
3. “Price” is the amount of money that something exchanges for on the market.
Works of art are not produced for the purpose of exchange. (You could argue against this definition. But here I am making a distinction between art and crafts)
A work of art (for example the original painting of Picasso’s “Guernica”) cannot have value because it is not a reproducable thing. As there can only ever be one original work it couldn’t have a value determined by average socially necessary labour time either. To have an average you need at least two things.
Despite the two points above, “Guernica” could be sold – current estimates place it’s price in the region $200 million. But this price is determined solely by what the market can bear. It has nothing to do with “value” in the sense of SNLT.
If we are talking about prints of “Guernica” we can talk about these being commodities, as they are reproducable, are produced for exchange and therefore have value.
‘As you point out, this does involve work. And that work can be done again as long as these things can be found in nature, ie they are reproducible.’
The above statement by you adds up to claiming that you can reproduce something that you’re really unable to produce.
Because something (a wagonload of cement) involves some work (transportation) that ‘can be done again’ by the worker (transporter), it doesn’t follow the worker produces or reproduces it.
Pearl divers that dive into seas for pearls do not produce pearl balls. They discover & collect pearls, and thus they add value to collected pearls which thus turn commodities.
In the same way, apples from apple orchards, poultry eggs from poultry farms, dairy milk, cereals, logs of wood, etc. are commodities.
I do agree with Meax’s view that ‘labour is not the only source of material wealth’.
‘So you think all useful things are commodities? …’
I don’t think I ever said anything that should lead you to think so.
I know oxygen in free air, rain water, uncaught fishes in seas, etc. so many useful things that don’t belong to the category of commodities.“Pearl divers that dive into seas for pearls do not produce pearl balls. They discover & collect pearls, and thus they add value to collected pearls which thus turn commodities.”
The claim isn’t that pearl divers are able to grow pearls from their own bodies or magically make them appear out of thin air. “Producing” a natural pearl is the act of diving into the sea, finding pearls and bringing them back to shore. As pearls are multiple this is an act that can be “reproduced”.
As ALB said it’s a case of “humans transforming materials that originally came from (the rest of) nature into something useful for them.” Pearls inside of an oyster at the bottom of the sea are not useful. They become useful through the act of being fished (or whatever the term is for the gathering of pearls). That is what it means to “produce” a natural pearl.
“I know oxygen in free air, rain water, uncaught fishes in seas, etc. so many useful things that don’t belong to the category of commodities.”
Ok. Do you think that every useful thing produced by human labour is a commodity?
‘“Producing” a natural pearl is the act of diving into the sea, finding pearls and bringing them back to shore.’
I’m afraid the above statement reflects your inability to make a distinction between collection & creation.
‘As pearls are multiple this is an act that can be “reproduced”.’
The act of collecting pearls does not produce or reproduce pearls.
‘Ok. Do you think that every useful thing produced by human labour is a commodity?’
My answer is, ‘Yes!’
“My answer is, ‘Yes!’”
Well this is not what Marx says. Read the first few chapters of Capital.
A useful thing produced by human labour is only a commodity under specific historical circumstances. This is not an unimportant point.
Of course you don’t have to agree with what is written by Marx, but the beginning point of being able to criticise any theory is knowing what it’s basic categories are. With regards to Marx you have not done this.
Ok. Do you think that every useful thing produced by human labour is a commodity? My answer is, ‘Yes!’
That can’t be right. Otherwise humans would have been producing commodities from the time we first came down from the trees and began using sticks and stones to get what we needed. In fact even before that while we were still up there and picking fruits to eat. Producing commodities would be part of the human condition and so would still exist even in socialism.
Are you sure you don’t want to correct yourself and answer “yes” to the question “Do you think that every useful thing produced by human labour for sale is a commodity?”.
That would still be wrong but not as absurd as what you have just said.
“I’m afraid the above statement reflects your inability to make a distinction between collection & creation.”
All human labour (production) can do is transform materials provided by nature from one form into another. The production of raw materials could involve something as simple as finding and collecting them. But the finding and gathering of these raw materials has transformed them – they are now in a form which can be used by people.
To return to the pearl example – an ungathered pearl inside a clam cannot (yet) be used by anyone (they are not “use values” in Marx’s terminology). A pile of pearls removed from the clams and returned to the bay can be used (they are now “use values”), their form has been changed by labour. As someone will want these pearls, and as we live in a market economy, the pearls will fetch a price (they have an “exchange value”) and this price is a reflection of the value that they contain (the amount of socially necessary average labour it takes to find them and bring them to shore).
So nature creates the pearls, but collecting them and bringing them to shore changes their form, and it is this act of production that gives them a “value” (in an exchange economy).
Does this make sense to you?
I think that he wants to invent his own concept of the law of value and his own concept of commodity
What’s your mightiest point against my view that every useful thing containing human labour is a commodity ?
Exactly, that is what I said, it is your own point of view, but it is not the point of Marx’s capital, therefore, according to you point of view human beings have been producing commodities for thousands of years when it is only a feture of capitalism which has only existed for three hundred years. Everything that is produced by human beings is not a commodity
‘Producing commodities would be part of the human condition and so would still exist even in socialism.’
My point is as human labour is the source of value (exchange-value), every useful thing incorporating some human labour has got some value, and hence it deserves to be reckoned a commodity. And so, humanity seems to be unable to rid itself of commodities, as I see it.
Nevertheless, humanity can rid itself of the commodity economy (market economy) by doing away with the exchange (buying & selling) of commodities. And by abolishing private property, it can get rid of classes too.
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