Originator of a THESIS on money’s incapacity

[Prakash RP]

  '  Ok Prakash you are convinced that I'm confused and have a confused view of money. Tell me why I should switch to your definition of money. ' ( Alan's comment #62 ) I don't think I ever said you've got ' a confused view of money. ' In fact, I feel dubious about whether you're aware of what your view of money is. You should accept my definition of money because it's true. Once again I'd ask you to have a close look at my comments #51 and #55 and not to fail to take cognisance of the fact that my definition of money is wholly premised on Marx's view of money. I'd also ask you not to be so careless as to cause a waste, by passing silly remarks, of your own and other people's precious time.

[Alan Kerr]

Ok Prakash you feel dubious about whether I’m aware of what my view of money is. Tell me why your definition of money is true.

[Prakash RP]

 I'd like to replace the sentence ' If " worth " is taken to mean " exchangeable value ", money that happens to be meant, by definition, to measure the " exchangeable value " can certainly " be seen as a measure of worth ". ' in my comment #73 ( posted on 17 Jan 2018 ) with what follows. A pen ( a commodity with a certain kind of use-value ) can be exchanged with a truth brush ( another commodity with a different kind of use-value ). Because of this fact, you can say, if you please, that the use-value of a commodity is exchangeable with the use-value of another commodity. But in this sense, every use-value is exchangeable, and thus the exchangeable use-value is evidently identical with the use-value and non-identical with the exchange-value ( or value ). Put plainly, the exchangeable use-value is not to be confused with the exchange-value or value or exchangeable value. Therefore, if ' worth ' is taken to mean the ' exchangeable value ' ( = exchange-value ), money that happens to be meant, by its definition, to measure the exchange-value can certainly ' be seen as a measure of worth '. But then this ' worth ' is not the use-value nor the exchangeable use-value, OK ? 

[Prakash RP]

 I think I should now ask the SPGB to make known its official stance on the thesis ( money cannot measure the worth of a commodity ), its significance ( the immediate corollary* to it ), and my claim to have proved it first and thus enlightened humanity about its correctness and its significance as well. * i.e. the fact that economic inequality doesn't owe its origin to qualitative distinctions between humans or between the work done by a skilled hand and that by an unskilled one. [ I'd like to add the following to the above. ]  I think I've successfully dealt with all counter-arguments that deserve to be reckoned sensible, and thus I've proved my points, and so I wish the SPGB would agree to debate, if they like, directly with me on my claims and points at issue. I feel my debaters have exhausted their faculty of reasoning and would like the SPGB to take cognisance in this regard of my comments #41, #51, and #55 and comments #44, #49, #53, #56, #62, and #78 by Alan Kerr as well as comments #59 and #63 by ALB, which I think prove this point of mine.

[Ike Pettigrew]

Prakash,I think you've simply misunderstood what I was saying.For instance, you quote me as stating that:"Both use-value and exchange-value have "value" in common. "I'm sure I did indeed make that statement, but then, how does the following statement of yours relate to it?

Quote:

"But according to Marx, both ' use-value ' and  ' exchange-value ' are abstractions, and he used the term ' value ' to mean only ' exchange-value '."

In my post, I make that very statement as well: I say somewhere that exchange value is value.  The fact that I say that use-value and exchange-value have value in common only means something in the context of the passage in which that statement was made.  It just means a word in common.  I can't be bothered to go back and find it and explain further.And it may be that prices are determined by the market, but I didn't say anything to contradict that.Just to be clear, my post wasn't addressing your question about whether you have found something unique.  That doesn't interest me, and just looking back at the thread, I think that has already been answered for you.I don't want to look at posts #51 and #55.  I think this is boring and I can't be bothered.  

[Alan Kerr]

Prakash,It's good that you are keen to revise where you are wrong.1) For one thing, it is changes in production, such as use of machines that change the socially necessary labour-time to make commodities. The change stems from production. Market forces force the price now down and now up. In the end, the ups and downs will balance. That’s why, on the average, the price covers labour-socially-necessary (value). You are plain wrong to claim as if change in the value and all stems from exchange,–supply and demand. That's where you are giving in to a half-baked (marginal utility economist) argument. See your comment #29. Here's what you say."… Another basic distinction between the use-value and the exchange-value is the fact that while the use-value of a commodity ( say a brand-new product on a shop's shelf ) remains unchanged, its exchange-value ( or value ) may undergo frequent changes because of changes in its supply and demand figures. The exchange-value ( or value ) of a commodity measured and expressed in money, i.e. its money-value, is its price, and it is the price of a commodity that happens to be governed and determined by market forces ( i.e the laws of supply and demand ). The use-value ( i.e. usefulness or worth ) of a commodity is independent of market forces…"(That’s what you say Prakash from your comment #29)You are saying right there that exchange (rather than production) determines value.If you mean what you say in that point then, you are helping the ordinary (marginal utility economist) argument.Do you wish to revise your wording there in your comment #29 Prakash?Until you revise, you cannot explain the value of a commodity. You need to go back to my comment (#18). Until you revise your view of the value of a commodity, how can you explain money? That’s why your view of money is wrong.2) So far, you are all wrong. You fail to explain value so you fail to see the difference between value and use-value. See the same quote, of your comment (#29). Why do you claim there as if use-value of a brand-new product on a shop's shelf does not change with supply and demand?In fact, it does as Marx proves"… If the community's want of linen, and such a want has a limit like every other want, should already be saturated by the products of rival weavers, our friend's product is superfluous, redundant, and consequently useless…"http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA3.html#I.III.31Here the weaver's cloth rests on his shop's shelf as its use-value vanishes. The weaver's cloth is not necessary. Why is that? It's because of the rival weaver's over-supply for the demand. The rival weavers flood the market with cloth.3) So far, you are still all wrong. But the origin of class inequality is simpler. Are you right about that? No.Where does class-inequality come from in the first place? All social classes, without exception, come in the first place, from some kind of work and from the skills to do with that work.The first capitalist employers were previously merchants. When merchant still has just a small part to play then he does not matter much compared to other trades. But as merchant's skills become key, so the merchant class can grow in wealth and power. It is a similar way in which the class of small capitalist employers arise. These changes grow from production and exchange.Why do you ignore the SPGB Preamble…?http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/originator-thesis-moneys-incapacity?page=3#comment-44940The SPGB Preamble… explains facts.The way to explain is not just a word-definition. That leaves you facing both ways. It is facts which explain a word-definition which explains the facts? You are simply arguing in a circle.Each step, if a step forwards, must also make it easier to produce wealth.In the free socialist society, of the future, owner-workers need to compute (and better than a market) what kinds of labour, and how much labour is socially necessary. That is becoming possible and inevitable. Only then (with the new alternative in place) is there no more need for a market.In that society, with education and practice, each owner-worker needs to switch easily from one kind of skill to another. Only then is there no more need for class-inequality.

[ALB]

Alan Kerr wrote:

In the free socialist society, of the future, owner-workers need to compute (and better than a market) what kinds of labour, and how much labour is socially necessary. That is becoming possible and inevitable. Only then (with the new alternative in place) is there no more need for a market.

If you are saying here what I think you are saying, i.e. that in a socialist society we will need to calculate the amount of "socially necessary labour" in each product, then I think you are wrong, for reasons that have been discussed on other threads here."Socially necessary labour" only makes sense in a society like capitalism where products take the form of commodities, i.e. are produced for sale on a market rather than directly for use. It is what underlies their value and exchange value but can only be established through the market; it cannot be calculated independently of the market. In socialism, where there will be production directly for use, it wouldn't make sense, so it won't be a question of calculaing this "better than a market". It will be possible to calculate the actual labour-time taken to produce something, but that would not be the same as what its socially necessary value would be under capitalism. If you just mean that in socialism we will have to calculate how much of what kinds of labour are needed, alongside what materials and power, to produce some product that will obviously be the case. This would be part of more general "calculation in kind". But I suspect that you might be saying more than this, i.e. that something akin to "value" under capitalism will also exist in socialism.

[Alan Kerr]

ALB you say"… It will be possible to calculate the actual labour-time taken to produce something…"Yes, you mean something socially necessary.Yes. Let the labour-in (all told) = 10m hours.Let the product = 10m somethings.Cost of 1 something = 10m hours/10m somethings = 1 hour.Result actual labour-time taken to produce I something is just 1 hour.Every owner-worker, with a smartphone, will have free access to such vital information online.I cannot see your problem at all ALB.http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA1.html#I.I.133

[ALB]

But your calculation is not the same as "socially necassay labour" under capitalism. That was my point. It would be actual labour time, which is not the same. In theory your calculation could be done but what woud be the point? You talk about "total labour-in (all told)" by which I take you to mean all the labour-time involved in producing it from start to finish, i.e that involved in producing the raw materials, contituent parts,  transporting them, in making the machines used to make them, energy, etc. A huge, bureaucratic accounting execise.What I was envisaging was something less complcated — counting particular labour skills alongside materials and energy involved in the last stage of producing something (much as builders do now to organise building a house).  You seem to be talking about using labour-time as a general unit of account to replace money. Hopefully, you don't envisage putting a labour-time "price" on products for which "labour-time voucher" would have to be handed in to get them. I don't know.

[twc]

Dear Ike,Use value and exchange value are not abstract.The use value of a spade is its social function as an instrument for digging.The activity of digging is socially concrete.  What social practice does it abstract from?Capitalist vendors throw use values — like a spade or a bike — for consumption onto their market, and vendors concretely commensurate their incommensurable use values by sticking concrete exchange values on them.By your turning use values and exchange values into abstractions — thoughts — you fail to appreciate that through necessity, first and foremost, we are compelled to understand concrete processes:concrete processes are what we must investigate and comprehend,concrete processes can only be comprehended by thought that abstracts from them.That is Marx’s dialectic — the way the human mind grasps dynamic processes.For you, sensuous phenomena are abstract thoughts that arise from hypothesis.Thus, you pontificate, without a blush, that “socialism is only a hypothesis” and that marxian value = exchange value!* * *Value is Marx’s abstraction from the concrete social process of exchange.  It is the foundation of his abstract political economic science of concrete capitalist society.Exchange value is the concrete form — the price tag — of value.What the market abstracts from when it commensuratesthe exchange value of 20 spades = the exchange value of one bikeis precisely their incommensurable use values.And that is why another incommensurable use value money can arise, naturally, out of the market, to concretely function as the abstract measure of all use values — the “substance” they all express their exchange value in.And that is why marxian value expresses abstract human labour, i.e. labour that abstracts from its concrete social practice.* * *Hence the sorry concrete capitalist spectacle of the abstract labourer seeking abstract work, pitted against abstractly commensurable humans, and settling for an abstract wage, in an existence that abstracts from all concrete human possibility.

[Alan Kerr]

@ALB1) Crusoe uses numbers and yet is no bureaucrat. With practice, he learns to change easily from one skill to another. In this the future society is the same,–but full scale. Yes, that brings a full scale counting exercise. But we have ever better computers.2) In future society"… We will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour time. Labour time would, in that case, play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption…"(Marx)3) Good luck with your way to count that's no better than the market. That means a) scarcity b) soviet bureaucrat's forced labour camp and c) return to the market.4) Thank you for discussion. My point should be clear now. The above quote from Marx is“… in essence the production relations in a new socialist world…”(Mike Schauerte Socialist Standard for September 2017.)http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2017/no-1357-september-2017/world-without-commoditiesThat future society will find in detail (counting properly with computers) what works best at the time.

[ALB]

In that passage where Marx uses Robinson Crusoe as an example, he is only talking about the alloction of "living labour",, i.e the total amount (and types) of working skills available to socialist society for production. As he wrote:

Marx wrote:

Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community.

This is not at all what you are proposing when you, in your claim that socialist society would be better able to calculate "socially necessary labour" than the market, talk of "labour-in (all told)",i.e. that Crusoe should also count the amount of "dead labour" involved in the production of the raw materials and instruments of labour he uses.  Obviously socialist society will have to count the labour resources available alongside raw materials, machines, buildings, energy, etc. This not require making labour-time a general unit of account, but is just a part of calculation in kind.

Marx wrote:

it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption.

True, Marx does mention the idea of "labour-time vouchers", here as he says to illustrate a point, but it is unclear to what extent he thought this should be a way of allocaing consumer goods and services in socialism. In any event, the SPGB has never thought that labour-time vouchers are a good idea or advocated them. Those that have gone down this road have logically had to give goods and services a labour time "price" tag and some have ended up advocating circulating "labour money".As Ludwig von Mises also said …..

Alan Kerr wrote:

Good luck with your way to count that's no better than the market. That means a) scarcity b) soviet bureaucrat's forced labour camp and c) return to the market.

[Dave B]

i I probably agree with you Alan and I have done this before in the past with Adam and others. As soon as you suggest measuring the labour time value in moneyless communism you get straw man responses. One will be you are going to use it for exchange; be it labour vouchers or whatever. And the other is that it can’t be done accurately. It doesn’t seem to matter how often you deny the first. On second it doesn’t need to be done accurately for it to be useful. We say on the one hand that there is empirical evidence for the labour theory of value because it can easily be seen that things that take more effort to produce cost more. I suppose we could respond by how do you know that is true if you can’t estimate the comparative labour time values of things? They put nutritional information on food items; but they often can’t, don’t and don’t have to measure that accurately either.  A tolerance or error of about +/-20% is acceptable for most things. I think in order to be a socially responsible producer and consumer it is reasonable to want to know approximately how much labour time it takes to produce something you are considering consuming. And if you planning production or considering a new production methodology you need in part to know whether it is going to take more or less effort to produce it that way rather than another. If you decide not to build a bridge out of platinum rather than steel it is because you have made a labour time calculation. Non scientist seem to have no idea whatsoever of the utility of making estimate calculations. In it was in a book by Prof’s Foreshaw and Brain Cox I have just read; about what can be usefully learned by back of a beer-mat calculations.     Capital Vol. III Part VIIRevenues and their SourcesChapter 49. Concerning the Analysis of the Process of Production Secondly, after the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, but still retaining social production, the determination of value continues to prevail in the sense that the regulation of labour-time and the distribution of social labour among the various production groups, ultimately the book-keeping encompassing all this, become more essential than ever. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch49.htm

[ALB]

Alan Kerr wrote:

I notice that you don’t mind about counting. You just mind about proper counting that is better than the market. But it is sloppy counting (no better than the market) that leads to scarcity…

Of course I don't mind counting, but the question is what is to be counted? I'm in favour of counting, as part of calculation in kind, actual living labour, i.e. the amount and type of working skills society has available for production. Nothing sloppy about that. You are (or seem to be) in favour of trying to count abstract labour as embodied in raw materials, machines, buildings produced in the past and used in current production. I don't see the point of trying to do this, of resurrecting a general unit of account to replace of money. I don't think those around when socialism is established will either as it would be a waste of time and resources.

[Dave B]

there is an intersting section on labour vouchers from Karl in nis private musings in grundrisse. In which he stringly implies that he didn't like labour vouchers either and accurately measuring the labour time value in 'communism' would not be possible. But you wouldn't need to for stuff other than for labour vouchers. in science, and I am an analytical chemist in the food industry we have a expression. Fit For Purpose  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch03.htm 

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