What is value?

[ALB]

I agree, Vin. I don't see why he thinks this sort of criticism is relevant to us. We have never said that "value" is a thing. Others have, but not us. See this criticism (the first item) of the old De Leonist SLP by someone expressing a view similar to ours:https://bataillesocialiste.wordpress.com/english-pages/1969-02-why-we-have-resigned-from-the-socialist-labour-party-of-great-britain/He should direct his criticism at Maoists and others who do think that value is a thing and one that will survive into socialism. Our maybe he can form a united front with us against them on this issue.

[DJP]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

DJP, as I said, Value is a simplification, average socially necessary is the next complication.

Actually isn't that what "value" is? Though you probably do need a two step argument..

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

In fact how can a meaningless concept be explained?

[my bold]Errr… by using a meaningful concept to explain the meaningless concept? Y'know, by analogy?Isn't this entirely normal human behaviour? The idea that we teach each other? Y'know, good old-fashioned social interaction.It's a bit worrying that fellow comrades seem to have difficulty with the idea of humans passing on information, and helping each other to develop.Hmmm…. I'm tempted to think that you, being a 'materialist', think that 'meaning' is within an object, so that the very idea of something being meaningless to one person, but meaningful to another, is anathaema.Perhaps you came out of the womb, DJP, entirely up to speed on Marx's Capital, but for most of my life this book was almost entirely meaningless. Large parts of it still are!What's more, I know that my experience of the meaninglessness of Capital is also the experience of the vast majority of workers who've tried to read it.Of course, there are always the clever shites, who join 'parties', but whenever they're asked to explain to baffled workers, they can not do so. They can mouth the platitudes (see ALB's post, which I took a quote from), but they can't explain.Apparently, these 'materialists' (let's call a spade a spade) think that 'matter' tells humans 'what it is', so 'meaning' is within the 'matter', and any worker, who continues to look baffled in the face of platitudes, is written off.So, workers, faced with the continuing refusal of 'socialists' to explain the meaning of the world, and thus still finding it meaningless, turn to those people who can explain 'meaningless concepts'. I, of course, refer to various hornswoggling liars, like the bourgeoisie and their 'invisible hand' of the market, or the religious and their 'invisible deity'.But, while comrades like you continue to be astonished at the very idea that we actually explain the meaningless to workers, then we will remain well behind the Market, Catholicism and Islam, in the list of 'ideologies to turn to for explanation' for the baffled yet  curious worker.It's the 21st century, and we're still arguing about why we should explain the world to workers. Ah well, Charlie's been dead for 131 years, and Fred for 119, and we're still not explaining our ideas.Mind you, how long did it take after the deaths of Smith, Jesus and Mohammed for their ideologies to take root?I suppose all this talk, for materialists, is just evidence of the evil 'Idealism' trying to make inroads in the SPGB?

 What on earth is all that about? How do you know what DJP 'and other comrades'  are thinking?  You continue to attribute ridiculous ideas to people then ridicule them for holding the ideas you have made up and attributed to them. 

[Young Master Smeet]

DJP,yes, but all definitions suffer in detail.  OED gives this for a table:

Quote:

A flat and comparatively thin piece of wood, stone, metal, or other solid material; a board, plate, slab, or tablet, esp. one forming a surface used for a particular purpose;

So, how does a table differ from a bench?  We all know the difference, but "Ah, we use a bench for sitting, we don't generally sit on tables"  The OED definition does, but you may need to dig deeper, the point is that the conversation should never end.  I have a mild disagreement that the value isn't the relationship but is the outward sign of inward relationship, but that is not to say that saying value is a relationship is wrong, but capable of furtehr refinement.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

I have a mild disagreement that the value isn't the relationship but is the outward sign of inward relationship, but that is not to say that saying value is a relationship is wrong, but capable of furtehr refinement.

I’m inclined to regard ‘exchange-value’ as the position in a social relationship, and ‘value’ as the emergent property, the ‘social acid’ that destroys human relationships.To use an analogy that I’ve used before,A single brick (as a unstructured component) = a use-value,A brick in a wall (as a part of a structure) = an exchange-value,Dog protection (an emergent property of a wall) = value.Or,A tin of beans for eating = a use-valueA tin of beans for sale as a commodity (the structure of capitalism) = an exchange-valueThe emergent causal power of many commodities to destroy human relationships = value.These sorts of analogies are endless, and can help get workers into the mindset of regarding the world as composed of components, which put together in certain relationships form structures, and which structures produce emergent properties.Again, components like cogs, springs, dials, hands and a case, put together properly by a watchmaker, produce a watch, which has the power to tell us the time.And structures can act as components for higher level structures, so that a wall (composed of bricks) structured properly with other walls can form a castle, which has an emergent property of military defence. And a number of castles, build in correct geographic locations, can form a chain of forts, from which political domination can emerge.I think that the ontological elements of Critical Realism (components, structures, levels and emergence) can play a didactic role in introducing workers to the complex ideas of Marx which they will find in Capital, especially use-value, exchange-value, commodity and value.It’s my belief that we need to explain these unfamiliar ideas of political economy, which are so baffling, even to many academics, and most of the time to ordinary workers, who need to have an understanding of how exploitation works, and why they must reject the market and money in their entirety (because they produce a substance which is poisonous to humans, and so 'market socialism' is clearly a non-starter), without having to discuss in fine detail every nuance of Marx’s text.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

A single brick (as a unstructured component) = a use-value,A brick in a wall (as a part of a structure) = an exchange-value,Dog protection (an emergent property of a wall) = value.Or,A tin of beans for eating = a use-valueA tin of beans for sale as a commodity (the structure of capitalism) = an exchange-valueThe emergent causal power of many commodities to destroy human relationships = value.

Kind of reads like a failed answer to a "what is value, exchange value and use value" exam.I suggest you read those first three chapters again…

[Anonymous]

DJP wrote:

Kind of reads like a failed answer to a "what is value, exchange value and use value" exam.I suggest you read those first three chapters again…

 Lol. I agree. He doesn't grasp the meaning of exchange value. Not surprising that his arguments are confusing.I think he should read this, then get back to us http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/guide-value-price-and-profit 

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

A single brick (as a unstructured component) = a use-value,A brick in a wall (as a part of a structure) = an exchange-value,Dog protection (an emergent property of a wall) = value.Or,A tin of beans for eating = a use-valueA tin of beans for sale as a commodity (the structure of capitalism) = an exchange-valueThe emergent causal power of many commodities to destroy human relationships = value.

Kind of reads like a failed answer to a "what is value, exchange value and use value" exam.I suggest you read those first three chapters again…

Yes, so-called 'experts' like you have been recommending just that, for 100 years, and no workers are listening anymore. It's a failed method.Still, as long as you can laugh at someone at least making an attempt, then that justifies your existence as a 'socialist', eh?Thanks for your help, DJP, the workers salute you.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

Lol. I agree. He doesn't grasp the meaning of exchange value.

And yet you apparently do 'grasp the meaning', but won't share it with workers.I'd rather be unable to grasp but trying to help, than sniggering at 'workers who don't grasp the meaning'. How hilarious.The turn this thread has taken, given the efforts I've made, is illustrative of why the SPGB has no influence amongst workers.

[Anonymous]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

As I said earlier, "love is the product of a social relationship".But 'love' can't be touched, it's not a 'material thing', but a product that emerges from a loving relationship, and a product that has 'causal powers' over humans. Put simply, it can make humans do things, even though it has no material body.In a similar way, 'value is the product of an exploitative social relationship'.Value has no material body, but is emergent from a relationship, and has causal power over humans.

The product emerges from a relationship and has power over people. How does this mechanism work? Where does the 'product' with the 'power' to make us do things exist? I assume that the product –  'love' for example – leaves a couple's brains and becomes non-material and then takes over the couple and makes them do things they have no control over? If 'love' and 'value' had a non material existence then logically they would/could continue to exist – in a non-material plain –  if the material humans were removed?  

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

I'd rather be unable to grasp but trying to help, than sniggering at 'workers who don't grasp the meaning'. How hilarious.The turn this thread has taken, given the efforts I've made, is illustrative of why the SPGB has no influence amongst workers.

 I am not sniggering at any old worker but one that claims to be the only communist in the village and the only communist capable of explaing exchange value to the workers 

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

I'd rather be unable to grasp but trying to help, than sniggering at 'workers who don't grasp the meaning'. How hilarious.The turn this thread has taken, given the efforts I've made, is illustrative of why the SPGB has no influence amongst workers.

 I am not sniggering at any old worker but one that claims to be the only communist in the village and the only communist capable of explaing exchange value to the workers 

At least you're laughing, Vin.Makes it worthwhile the SPGB having a site just for that, eh?It'd probably be more cost-effective for them to give you five hundred quid every week, and send you to the pub.At least then you wouldn't actually be alienating any workers reading these threads, and ensuring that the SPGB remains marginal.

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

And because you can't have a detailed discussion, because you don't know the academic basis of your arguments, you turn to personal abuse of me.

 

LBird wrote:

It'd probably be more cost-effective for them to give you five hundred quid every week, and send you to the pub.At least then you wouldn't actually be alienating any workers reading these threads, and ensuring that the SPGB remains marginal.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

And because you can't have a detailed discussion, because you don't know the academic basis of your arguments, you turn to personal abuse of me.

 

LBird wrote:

It'd probably be more cost-effective for them to give you five hundred quid every week, and send you to the pub.At least then you wouldn't actually be alienating any workers reading these threads, and ensuring that the SPGB remains marginal.

It's like having my own personal stalker.Do I fascinate you so much, Vin?

[ALB]

From the New Speakers Handbook on this site here:

Quote:

7. What is value?A social relationship between people which expresses itself as a material relationship between things. The value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary abstract labour time needed for its production and reproduction. Price is the monetary expression of value.8. What is exchange value? A relative magnitude which expresses the relationship between two commodities. The proportion in which commodities tend to exchange with each other depends upon the amount of socially necessary labour-time spent in producing them. Commodities actually sell at market prices that rise and fall according to market conditions around a point regulated by their value.13. Will value exist under socialism? No. Value exists only under certain social conditions and relationships, where things (including human labour power) take the form of commodities to be bought and sold on the market. In a socialist society there will be common ownership, and so no commodities, just freely given and taken services and. products. So exchange value will not exist, the law of value will not hold – leaving only use value. All production will be for use, or for the satisfaction of human need.58. Did feudal peasants produce surplus value? No. They performed surplus labour upon the fields of the lord or rendered to him a portion of their own produce and these were both unpaid labour. But the products of this surplus labour did not uniformly come onto a market; they were for consumption in the manor or for exchange in the village mostly. Surplus value is a peculiarity of the wage relationship and generalised commodity production under capitalism.

[Author]

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