An Incontestable Argument for the Law of Value
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Stalin wrote: “Wherever commodities and commodity production exist, there the law of value must also exist.”
I don’t know if this is actually correct. Goods produced for the purpose of exchange were certainly produced in pre-capitalist societies (If we don’t call these commodities what do we call them?). But the dynamic of these societies was not controlled by the law of value, since the production of these commodities was marginal.
The pre capitalist societies were producer of products, but they did not produce commodity
What do you gain by calling everything produced in a pre-capitalist society “products”?
Isn’t it still worth making the distinction between things made for use and things made for exchange in these societies? Seems to me you are going to have a hard time explaining how capitalist relations became dominant if you don’t make this distinction.
“Most groups that indicate that commodity existed in pre capitalist society are based on Engels statement”
There’s other places in Capital where Marx talks about commodities existing in pre-capitalist society anyhow. For example, on page 151 in the Penguin edition, he is talking about Artistole’s analysis of “the money-form of the commodity”. Seeing how this fits in with the rest of the analysis I don’t see how this is an anomaly.
I’d like to re-edit my earlier reply (#229926) and replace it with what follows.
I’ve taken cognisance of Marx’s position on what seems to be the fundamental distinction between a commodity and a non-commodity. Nevertheless, it seems to be flawed fundamentally. Marx, evidently, disregarded the obvious fact that both the ‘use values’ meant for the producers’ self-satisfaction and the ‘social use values’ being products of human labour, both of them essentially share something in common, namely, some value (exchange-value), the stuff every commodity must essentially possess. This constitutes a serious limitation of Marx’s view of commodities, as I see it.
Marx also failed to consider the fact that value cannot originate during exchange. Value is certainly NOT the product of exchange. Truly, value is the cause that makes things exchangeable. It’s the value measured in terms of the socially necessary labour-time (SNL) expended to produce the thing that makes both the ‘use values’ meant for the producers’ self-satisfaction and the ‘social use values’ exchangeable in accordance with the following formula: if x hours of SNL is incorporated in a kilo of rice, and if y hours of SNL is incorporated in a pair of trousers, then xy hours of SNL= y kilos of rice= x pairs of trousers.
“Marx also failed to consider the fact that value cannot originate during exchange.”
I’m sorry but this just proves to me that you haven’t read anything of what you are commenting on.
The whole thrust of Marx’s critique was the idea that “value” is created in production, by labour and not in exchange!
But for labour to be socially necessary it has to be proven to be so. I cannot spend 1000 hours making a mud pie and expect it to contain value. The way that labour proves its social necessity (in exchange societies) is when the commodities it produces are exchanged. Labour spent on producing things that nobody wants is not socially necessary labour.
So, for Marx, “value” is created in exchange but it has to be realised in exchange.
OK! I stand corrected. Nevertheless, this mistake by me doesn’t disprove my main point, namely, the fact that Marx’s view of the fundamental distinction between a commodity and a non-commodity is fundamentally flawed.
Every useful product of human labour possesses a certain amount of value, and so it’s exchangeable like commodities. As Marx was aware that the value of a commodity is not created during exchange, he made a serious mistake by leaving out of account this fact and thus regarding things produced to satisfy the producers’ self-need as things without value.
There’s other places in Capital where Marx talks about commodities existing in pre-capitalist society anyhow. For example, on page 151 in the Penguin edition, he is talking about Artistole’s analysis of “the money-form of the commodity”. Seeing how this fits in with the rest of the analysis I don’t see how this is an anomaly.
In that particular section on Chapter one of Das Kapital Marx is not saying that Commodity existed in the Greek Society, since that chapter is mainly dedicated to the concept of commodity he has used the world commodity. Since my mother language is Spanish I have the Grijalbo and Siglo XXI translation and they also used the word Mercantile, and the real word for commodity is Mercancia and they also use the word Merchandise, and the expression used by Marx in German is ware. I published an article which show that there are more than 500 wrong translation to the English language of capital and that particular section is one of them, but in the same chapter Marx also indicated that the law of value is not applicable to the capitalist society. I used the word product because that is what they produced in those society in order to distinguish with the expression of commodity, as it was used by Smith and Ricard, when I was with N&L that was the expression used, even more, Peter Hudis in some of his economic passage he used the expression of products, or society producer of products. He had made many clarification about Marx works because he has read Marx on the original language, as well, he had made many clarification on the works of Rosa Luxembourg. Exchange is not the only feature of capitalism, they exchanged products and one of the main feature is the extraction of surplus value, that is reason why Marx wrote one volume on surplus value. The problem has been the insertion made by Engels, he also made certain insertion on volume 2, and Rosa Luxembourg questioned that too
“Every useful product of human labour possesses a certain amount of value”, but that is not Marx’s claim – he says the opposite. So he is not drawn to make the conclusion that you say he is.
“Value” (socially necessary average labour time) doesn’t relate to any kind of human labour, but to homogenous human labour in the abstract that has gone through a process of equalisation due to its product being exchanged on the market.
For example, a bush-man spends a certain amount of concrete labour time making arrows. But it makes no sense to think of this labour in terms of socially necessary average labour time or “value” since there is no market through which the labour of different bush-men is generalised and compared.
“Since my mother language is Spanish I have the Grijalbo and Siglo XXI translation and they also used the word Mercantile, and the real word for commodity is Mercancia and they also use the word Merchandise, and the expression used by Marx in German is ware.”
Thanks, this is interesting.
But this it seems to me to be an argument about how best to translate a word, not what categories of production existed in pre-capitalist societies. Nobody denies that things produced solely for sale existed in pre-capitalist society do they?
I’m not sure there is actually much difference between the words “commodity”, “merchandise” and “wares” in English since all relate to items (or products) that have been produced for sale. “Product” seems too general, since things produced for non-commercial purposes could be included in this category.
If Marx, in German, did systematically use a different word to talk about things produced for exchange in pre-capitalism and a different one for those produced in capitalism that would be interesting. But did he?
Marx also failed to consider the fact that value cannot originate during exchange. Value is certainly NOT the product of exchange. Truly, value is the cause that makes things exchangeable. It’s the value measured in terms of the socially necessary labour-time (SNL) expended to produce the thing that makes both the ‘use values’ meant for the producers’ self-satisfaction and the ‘social use values’ exchangeable in accordance with the following formula: if x hours of SNL is incorporated in a kilo of rice, and if y hours of SNL is incorporated in a pair of trousers, then xy hours of SNL= y kilos of rice= x pairs of trousers.
You are looking for the hair in the soup and you main concern is to find the so called mistakes of Marx, as a friend of mine said: it was too much work for one man. The aggregated value is produced at the point of production, your idea is the conception of the bourgeois economists who want to negate that profit is robbery, capitalists are legalized thieves
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40401428
The French translation of Das Kapital is the best one until now, but the French translation of the Grundisse has been completely deformed, and there is a pamphlet which explain that. The Grundisse is a very important part of Marx works and the new publication of 114 volumes will bring many clarification. Franz Mehring who was the best biographer of Marx said that he was working on many subject and topics at the same time, and he also said that Engels did not know about it either, but Engels was the only person able to understand Marx handwriting, and also Karl Kautsky did a very good job with the Theory of surplus value, in English it is one volume, in Spanish there are three volumes
https://www.socialiststudies.org.uk/marx%20whattoread.shtml
What is the best edition of Marx capital to read ? The Penguin edition contain many mistakes. The problem with Marx works are not the so called inconsistence ( Demonstrated by Kilman that they are incorrect, they just want to defame the tremendous contributions made by Karl Marx ) is the inconsistence of the translators from German into other languages.
Engels made many mistakes but we are in debts with him because he was a traitor to his own social class and he dedicated his works to the struggles of the working class, and he was able to finish and compile the last two volumes of Marx ‘s Capital as well Karl Kaustky finish volume 4, but in the Grundisse Marx said that it was going to be six volumes.
I am not looking for a piece of hair in the soup of Karl Marx, I prefer to read and go deeper into his works, and that is what I am doing with his investigation on the so called third world ( a twisted concept, originally it did not relate itself to sub developed countries ) and the pre capitalist society and non western society
https://kmarx.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/el-capital-libro-i-parte-1-trad-manuel-sacristan.pdf. This is a very refine translation of Marx’s Capital in the Spanish ( Castellano ) language, made by Editorial Grijalbo from Spain/Argentina/Mexico, they provide footnotes and explanations for some difficult passages. The important thing is to study Marx instead of looking for his mistakes, as a human being he also made mistakes and some of his conceptions belong to his epoch including the concept of dictatorship
https://kevin-anderson.com/wp-content/uploads/anderson-article-unkown-marx-capital.pdf
The unknown Marx’s capital
[Reply to the Reply #229957]
You seem to be unaware that value and its amount are different things. The quantity of SNL (which is average labour time essentially) equals the amount of value.
Could you define the ‘homogenous human labour’?
The absence of markets doesn’t make a product valueless because value is Not the product of markets.
Talking of the French translation of Das Kapital, this was the one translation that Marx himself supervised and saw to print, in 1873. In it the German word Ware is translated as marchandise. Any English-speaker, even with no knowledge of French, can understand straightaway that what is being talked about is something that is bought and sold. In fact in French the primary dictionary meaning of the word is, precisely, “what is sold and bought”.
It is clear, then, that the word “commodity” in the English translations means something that is bought and sold. There can be no argument that this is what Marx meant by the word. A product that is not bought or sold is not a commodity.
There can be arguments about whether Marx’s concept of “value” (as opposed to “exchange-value”) can be applied to everything that is bought and sold and/or under all historical conditions but not about what the word “commodity” meant for Marx. That’s a closed argument.
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