Dave B
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The other side of the argument for balance is as below; …….[Karl] is not analysing the commodity of a precapitalist, simple commodity production……… https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/editorial/heinrich.htm Although I believe there may be two or three more modern Marxists theorist like Sweezy? ; a very small minority. Who also appear to share my position.
Deville's capital for dummies from 1883 andC-M-CversusM-C-Mit is only a couple of pageshttps://www.marxists.org/archive/deville/1883/peoples-marx/ch04.htm
Returning to chapter one volume one. And the allegation that is about simple commodity production etc Is this term that crops up several times and in several forms ie ‘private labour etc’. You can click the link and just do a word search on private if you want but an example would be; As a general rule, articles of utility become commodities, only because they are products of the labour of private individuals or groups of individuals who carry on their work independently of each other https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm I think it is reasonable to assume that Kautksy interpreted that as simple commodity production, thus; This mode of production was supplanted by the simple commodity production of private workers, working independently of each other, each of whom created products with means of production which belonged to himself, and it goes without saying that these products were the his private property. https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1903/economic/ch20.htm There is an article by Bukharin linked on the issue that I would take issue with on the details. https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1920/abc/01.htm Actually as an anti entirely and anti ‘only’ person. I would take issue with Karl even, with his caveat – As a general rule
Hi adam I haven’t got much time now. However when I used that Rosaquote about the co-existence of different type of economic production, including simple commodity production, I thought that implicitly did not involve entirely one system. So I am not wriggling I think. I don’t want to get side tracked too much about simple commodity production automatically of itself leading to capitalism or whatever. However I thought that Stalinist quote wasn’t that bad; unless you want throw the baby out with the bath water. The central issue for me is whether chapter one and C-M-C etc is about simple commodity production; idealised into a model; or not. Or as Fred said does the law of value only function within the economy of simple commodity production and therefore would be the best system to analyse firstin order to get a handle on value; as it operates on a simpler unmodified ‘one to one’ basis. If he had started from an analysis of exchange value in capitalism he would have had more difficulty? This law clearly contradicts all experience based on appearance. Everyone knows [..in capitalist extant real world..] that a cotton spinner, who, reckoning the percentage on the whole of his applied capital, employs much constant and little variable capital, does not, on account of this, pocket less profit or surplus-value than a baker, who relatively sets in motion much variable and little constant capital. For the solution of this apparent contradiction, many intermediate terms are as yet wanted, as from the standpoint of elementary algebra many intermediate terms are wanted to understand that 0/0 may represent an actual magnitude. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch11.htm So you start with the simplest cases ie simple commodity production and deal with the more complex systems you experience later and see if what you have learned from the simplest cases can be transposed into the more complex. Newton’s law of gravity etc predicts that a falcon feather will fall to the ground at the same rate as a hammer which it clearly doesn’t; except on the moon. In order to make it fit in with daily experiences of falcon feathers and hammers etc you have to drag in drag co-efficients and Reynold numbers etc etc . An understanding of which helps keep jumbo jets in the sky if nothing else.
Hi Adam You seem to making two points; “that capitalism was not preceded by a non-capitalist exchange economy” “And a non-capitalist economy composed entirely of simple commodity producers never existed historically.” On the second point first, that I will return to later; I do not argue that there was ever an ‘economy’ or for that matter more narrowly an exchange economy, that was entirely composed of simple commodity producers. I would propose that before capitalism there was an ‘economy’ that was [at least in part-my claim] a non exchange ‘economy’; eg subsistance and making stuff for yourself etc etc. That is uncontroversial I think so I think we can drop it? [That is if you choose to categorise subsistence and making stuff for yourself etc etc as an ‘economy’, which is OK with me.] And, as I propose, before capitalism, and co-existing with subsistence ‘economy’, was historically an exchange economy with buying and selling of commodities which manifested itself in thing like prices and markets etc. I would thus then say that ‘all’ the ‘older forms of production’ of commodities, preceding capitalism, can be sub divided into several types or ‘forms’, of which simple commodity production is but one. Before returning to that. If you propose that; “ that capitalism was not preceded by a non-capitalist exchange economy” Then you have to reject the idea that there were markets and prices etc before capitalism. All the stuff on ‘Time Team’ about Iron Age hill forts doubling up as markets and; “ Towns in Roman Britain—- Many towns appeared. Some were created deliberately. Others grew up by Roman forts as the garrisons provided markets for townspeople's goods.” http://www.localhistories.org/romlife.html And the following on Medieval Markets is also a load of bollocks as well. http://www.phy.duke.edu/~dtl/89S/restrict/marketsandfairs.html And Saint Thomas Aquinas of 1250AD was just indulging in abstract idealism with his Just Price Theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_price And for that matter the Imperial Roman Code, the Corpus Juris Civilisre the parties to an exchange. As there was no exchange economy etc etc. And presumably People in Cyprus and Turkey etc 3000 years ago when they needed tin for Bronze got on a boat and went to Cornwal lto mine it for themselves etc? On ‘all’ the ‘older forms of production’ of commodities that preceded capitalism; stuff produced in order to be sold. I think you could break them down into several categories. Feudal peasant simple commodity production- where a peasant as part of his Monday to Thursday may tend to specialise in the production of particular type of agricultural eg milk butter or eggs or whatever. And thus producing a surplus to his requirement trade or exchange it at the ‘medieval market’ for the specialist product and surplus product of another. It can also include ‘industry’ eg tailoring, shoe making, blacksmithing and plough making etc etc. this tends to exchange at its value for the reasons Rubin gave. There is also the surplus value and surplus product belonging to the feudal Lord which according to Adam Smith was exchanged for aristocratic bling produced by the guild artisans in the protected towns. This didn’t need to exchange at its labour time value unlike simple commodity produced products. Related to this was the production of commodities (for sale) by slave labour eg Spartacus working in a mine in Libya; according to the film. Although Karl in volume one did a short piece of slave mine workers producing commodities in ancient societies etc. Not that all commodity production in ancient Rome and Judea re Jesus and his 'technic' plough and yoke making etc was ‘slave production’. In Cicero’s time ‘free’ simple commodity producers would produce stuff or commodities for sale. Then in the pre-capitalist era ‘wage’ meant the amount of money simple commodity producers got for their commodity, which they would exchange for the consumption of material necessities of life ie other commodities or C(1)-M-C(2);in a Deville like closed circulation. As is obvious in the material from late 18thcentury simple commodity producers themselves in E.P. Tompson’s book they also considered their ‘M’ as a ‘wage’. "vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery Simple commodity production as a category can be narrowly viewed as the full and proper ‘labour voucher’ like remuneration of personal labour eg Silas; rather than ‘private labour’. Which I think is why I think Karl in his confusing pedantry used the term ‘private labour’ in the opening chapters of volume one where I claim he is discussing simple commodity production. Unlike Silas, most alleged late 18thcentury simple commodity production was done within family syndicate like units with division of labour with it. The issue here is when does a family become a Clan or for that matter just an economic co-operative based on something less than ‘filial’ ties. The economic co-operative produces commodities surplus to their requirements for sale by plan rather than just by ‘accident’. But the distribution of the goodies, or C(2), purchased with ‘M’ obtained from selling C(1) in the external market , within the community is according to need. There are at least three totally separate and fairly well documented examples of this. Trans historical, trans geographical and trans cultural. There was the Russian Mir system. There is the Polynesian Anutan eg http://www.bbc.co.uk/tribe/tribes/anuta/ and saint Kilda etc which ran into the 1930’shttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/celtic-communism-gaelic-commonwealth.html ??????????? Blah blah! What my Hienrichain friends have said to me is, after eventually accepting that simple commodity production did exist, was that it was never a pan-economic system. Even though I never contested that. And then as the argument goes because it was never a pan-economic system Karl would never have started his analysis from that, why would he? Like capitalism itself was a pan-economic in the mid 19thor even early 20th century? In fact when you look at the Madison data from the late 19thand even early 20thcentury a very significant portion of the mass of ‘value’ produced came from countries that were producing non-capitalistically. I thought when I was thinking about using the dizzy Rosa quote that you would make the connection and throw her own tendentious theoretical perspective back into by teeth; that you know I don’t agree with. So I qualified it, and placed it in hopefully relatively neutral terms of ‘nuanced theoretical bickering’. So you are a rotter again!
Rubin on chapter one???????????? My Heienhrician friend has the gall, ignorance or dishonesty to claim that that Hienhric’s own mentor denied the existence of simple commodity production. They later transformed that point to one that Rubin was making an abstraction which is a variation on Adam’s logical theoretical construct. You know when these witch doctors of Marxist theory are in trouble when they start throwing out ‘abstraction’ and ‘social relations’ out of their bag of magic bones. If all these kinds of things are unreal (which is what ‘they’ mean) abstractions then for simple scientific materialists like myself which bits are real and which bits unreal logical abstractions and L. Bird like ideology that is unaffected by the material world. I. I. Rubin's Essays on Marx's Theory of Value Chapter Eight BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF MARX'S THEORY OF VALUE For the time being we are concerned only with one basic type of production relation among people in a commodity economy, namely the relation among people as commodity producers who are separate and formally independent from each other.We know only that the cloth is produced by the commodity producers and is taken to the market to be exchanged or sold to other commodity producers. We are dealing with a society of commodity producers, with a so-called "simple commodity economy" as opposed to a more complex capitalist economy. In conditions of a simple commodity economy the average prices of products are proportional to their labor value. In other words, value represents that average level around which market prices fluctuate and with which the prices would coincide if social laborwere proportionally distributed among the various branches of production. Thus a state of equilibrium would be established among the branches of production. The exchange of two different commodities according to their values corresponds to the state of equilibrium among two given branches of production.In this equilibrium, all transfer of labor from one branch to another comes to an end. But if this happens, then it is obvious that the exchange of two commodities according to their values equalizes the advantages for the commodity producers in both branches of production, and removes the motives for transfer from one branch to another. In the simple commodity economy, such an equalization of conditions of production in the various branches means that a determined quantity of labor used up by commodity producers in different spheres of the national economy furnishes each with a product of equal value. The value of commodities is directly proportional to the quantity of labor necessary for their production. http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch08a.htm I really liked that one when I read it co’s as far as I am concerned I did it myself in 2004? with my goose eggs and blue suede shoes before I had ever heard of Rubin.
Hi Adam There is I suppose two essential and equally interesting arguments here; One; is what Karl was on about and what he really meant etc Two; what early Marxist theoreticians thought he meant. I would like at the moment first to look at how early Marxist theoreticians interpreted what they thought Karl was on about. If they were wrong that would be interesting in itself I suppose. I could pick anyone of several early twentieth century Marxist theorists, I believe they didn’t differ significantly on the issue at hand.But I am going to choose Rosa because I liked the way she claimed to lay out Karl’s theory in the process of bickering about other nuanced implications of it etc. I summarise what I think her view was before quoting her. Rosa took a stagiest theory type view of economic development. So the theoretical position first before the empirical historical observations. She starts of with the idea of a natural economy (which is an interesting way of describing it) by which she means primitive communism and I think societies engaging in agriculture and making other things (industry) which are all thrown into the community pot to be divided up in one way or another etc. No exchange or buying and selling etc. Then this is 'ousted' and people start to exchange what they produce themselves for what other people produce on a quid pro quo system based on expended labour ‘time’. And thus simple commodity production. This ‘simple’ medium of commodity production creates a new economic environment or set of conditions ie exchange etc. That permits or allows the emergence of capitalist production to; “take root”. Simple commodity production emerges out of ‘natural production and capitalist production emerges out of Simple commodity production. There are no anti dialectical cataclysmic changes it is a historical process and thus all three systems can, do, and must ‘co-exist’ together as one transforms into another and that into something else. They, as part of a process, co-exist at any one historical and geographical point in time. And as this process will proceed and have proceeded to different degrees in different places due to uneven trans geographical economic development they will also, albeit more isolated and unconnected, co-exist across the globe (well in the early 20thcentury anyway). However there is kind of chicken and egg situation as capitalism also encourages simple commodity production or ‘calls it to life’ and which, displaces the ‘natural economy’. Just as simple commodity producing peasants and economy in India are called into that economic life today? You could argue conversely, and it is seems a ‘reasonable proposition’, before we return to a Karl quote, that capitalism popped up out of nowhere and caused simple commodity production that had no prior existence and called it into life as an act of Genesis. And it didn’t need the medium of (simple) commodity production and exchange value etc as a pre-existent or ‘older’ condition for its development. Anyway; from Rosa, at last. "Natural economy, the production for personal needs and the close connection between industry and agriculture must be ousted and a simple commodity economy substituted for them. Capitalism needs the medium of commodity production [..as a starting point?..] for its development, as a market for its surplus value. But as soon as simple commodity production has superseded natural economy, capital must turn against it. No sooner has capital called it to life, than the two must compete for means of production, labour power, and markets. The first aim of capitalism is to isolate the producer, to sever the community ties which protect him, and the next task is to take the means of production away from the small manufacturer." https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch29.htm On Rosa's empirical historical reality of simple commodity production as opposed to it being an abstract theoretical construct "But Marx’s assumption is only a theoretical premise in order to simplify investigation. In reality, capitalist production is not the sole and completely dominant form of production, as everyone knows, and as Marx himself stresses in Capital. In reality, there are in all capitalist countries, even in those with the most developed large-scale industry, numerous artisan and peasant enterprises which are engaged in simple commodity production. In reality, alongside the old capitalist countries there are still those even in Europe where peasant and artisan production is still strongly predominant, like Russia, the Balkans, Scandinavia and Spain. And finally, there are huge continents besides capitalist Europe and North America, where capitalist production has only scattered roots, and apart from that the people of these continents have all sorts of economic systems, from the primitive Communist to the feudal, peasantry and artisan. Not only do all these social and productive forms co-exist, and co-exist locally with capitalism, but there is a lively intercourse of a specific kind. Capitalist production as proper mass production depends on consumers from peasant and artisan strata in the old countries, and consumers from all countries; but for technical reasons, it cannot exist without the products of these strata and countries. So there must develop right from the start an exchange relationship between capitalist production and the non-capitalist milieu, where capital not only finds the possibility of realizing surplus value in hard cash for further capitalization, but also receives various commodities to extend production, and finally wins new proletarianized labour forces by disintegrating the non-capitalist forms of production.This is only the bare economic content of the relationship. Its concrete design in reality forms the historic process of the development of capitalism on the world stage in all its colourful and moving variety." https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1915/anti-critique/ch01.htm If we take the position that (simple) commodity production and all non capitalist commodity production and exchange value etc was not a pre-existent or ‘older’ condition for its development. Then we have to deal with the following. Capital Volume II Part I: The Metamorphoses of Capital and their Circuits, Chapter 1: The Circuit of Money Capital "On the other hand, the same conditions which give rise to the basic condition of capitalist production, the existence of a class of wage-workers, facilitate the transition of all [..prior?..] commodity production [..ergo non capitalist?.. ] to capitalist commodity production. As capitalist production develops, it has a disintegrating, resolvent effect on all older [ …pre-existent?… ] forms of production, which, designed mostly to meet the direct needs of the producer, transform only the excess produced into commodities. Capitalist production makes the sale of products the main interest, at first apparently without affecting the mode of production itself. Such was for instance the first effect of capitalist world commerce on such nations as the Chinese, Indians, Arabs, etc. But, secondly, wherever it takes root capitalist production destroys all forms of commodity production which are based either on the self-employment of the producers, or merely on the sale of the excess product as commodities [..eg simple commodity production?..]. Capitalist production first makes the production of commodities general and then, by degrees, transforms all [ ..prior non capitalist?..] commodity production into capitalist commodity production." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch01.htm On whether or not the C-M-C as in the opening chapter meant simple commodity production? We have from Rosa; ..while Ricardo and his followers as well as Say throughout the debate think solely in terms of simple commodity production. They only see the formula C–M–C, https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch13.htm And from Lenin for interest? https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/may/14.htm
Hi Adam. For what it matters to start with; the theory, category and concept of simple commodity production, whatever that maybe, was fully embraced by all the major Marxist theorists in the first half of the 20thcentury. Eg Rosa, Lenin, Kautsky, Rubin et al. For them it was historically pre capitalist and later co-existed within capitalism. You have the common view on this, re opening chapter not being about simple commodity production, that you also share with Professor Michael Heinrich and his Die Linke friends. I know because I have debated with them at length on libcom. They take umbrage in particular, logically enough, at the statement from Fred that I agree with; “This makes clear, of course, why in the beginning of his first book Marx proceeds from the simple production of commodities as the historical premise, ultimately to arrive from this basis to capital — why he proceeds from the simple commodity instead of a logically and historically secondary form — from an already capitalistically modified commodity. To be sure, Fireman positively fails to see this.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/pref.htm (They don’t dispute that ‘simple production of commodities’ and ‘simple commodity’ that Fred was on about is all part of the ‘simple commodity production theory’.) And thus they disagree with Fred’s, and my understanding, that therefore the 'beginning of his first book’, Chapter one Marx proceeds from simple commodity production or it is about that, and not capitalism. To test that case we first need a understanding of what simple commodity production is ‘alleged’ to be. And then set that against the content of chapter one. Simple commodity production is when someone produces a commodity ‘C’, or use-value that they have no intention of consuming for themselves but only in order to sell it in order to obtain money, ‘M’, with the sole intention of purchasing ‘another’ or ‘other’ commodities ‘C’ and use values that they intend to consume and use up. Or in other words; C-M-COr. “…simplest form of the circulation of commodities is C-M-C, the transformation of commodities into money, and the change of the money back again into commodities; or selling in order to buy.” An example being Silas Marner and for that matter the E. P. Tompson ‘pre working class’ handloom weavers in general of George Eliot fame. And this can be ‘categorised’ or defined by the non existence of ‘wage labour’ or the search for surplus value or DM. Does that fit in with the nature of the discussion in chapter one? And; “Wages is a category that, as yet, has no existence at the present stage of our investigation” If Fred and my interpretation is correct and actually; “Marx proceeds from the simple production of commodities as the historical premise ultimately to arrive from this basis to capital” Then this simplest form of the circulation of commodities….C-M-C would be the starting point or origin of capitalism ; rather than capitalism itself. And then in chapter four ; “The [..or this or what he has been talking about? ..] circulation of commodities is the starting-point of capital. The simplest form of the circulation of commodities is C-M-C, the transformation of commodities into money, and the change of the money back again into commodities; or selling in order to buy. The circuit C-M-C starts with one commodity, and finishes with another, which falls out of circulation and into consumption. Consumption, the satisfaction of wants, in one word, use-value, is its end and aim. “ And capitalism begins with? “The circuit M-C-M, on the contrary, commences with money and ends with money. Its leading motive, and the goal that attracts it, is therefore mere exchange-value. M-C-M', where M' = M + DM = the original sum advanced, plus an increment. This increment or excess over the original value I call “surplus-value.” The value originally advanced, therefore, not only remains intact while in circulation, but adds to itself a surplus-value or expands itself. It is this movement that converts it into capital.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch04.htm ( even though Silas was a bit of a gold hoarder- separate analysis required.) Another thing that they also foam at, and I agree with, is Fred’s position that the law of value, or in other words that commodities exchange at their value, in fact progressively breaks down with the development of capitalism with the affect of rate of profit and organic composition of capital etc modifying exchange value. And therefore the law of value only acts purely in simple commodity production. The following quotation from Fred, that I agree with, has the Heinrichians spitting even more feathers than the ‘Fireman’ quote. In a word: the Marxian law of value holds generally, as far as economic laws are valid at all, for the whole period of simple commodity production — that is, up to the time when the latter suffers a modification through the appearance of the capitalist form of production. Up to that time, prices gravitate towards the values fixed according to the Marxian law and oscillate around those values, so that the more fully simple commodity production develops, the more the average prices over long periods uninterrupted by external violent disturbances coincide with values within a negligible margin. Thus, the Marxian law of value has general economic validity for a period lasting from the beginning of exchange, which transforms products into commodities, down to the 15th century of the present era. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/supp.htm#law I proposed that it would be logical, wouldn’t it, in an analysis of commodities and exchange value thereof ? To start with the simpler historical analysis of commodity production and proceed from that point from which capitalism ‘started’? [ There was then an absurd debate as to whether or not simple commodity production and even commodity production and markets itself ever existed before capitalism- despite ‘time team’ archaeology, Cornish tin miners from 3000 years ago and Jesus the carpenter as a yoke and plough producing simple commodity producer- he may not of existed but Justin the Martyr in 150AD wasn’t so phased at that economic mode production as my Heinrichians were. Although Justin admitted that that economic category and concrete labour would no longer exist in heaven and suggested that Jesus will have laid down his tools and was no longer a chippy.] The early twentieth century ‘orthodox’ Marxist theoreticians eg Rosa, Lenin and Kautsky were not alarmed at this and my interpretation. In arguing with Michael Heinrich’s English interpreter they accepted that my position was ‘orthodox’ early 20thcentury Marxist theory; their argument being was that Fred was responsible for confusing everything and was the origin of the problem with all the rest following suit. As I think you must know I took a non modernist interpretation of capital after just picking it up and approaching it cold and naively unbiased. I had never read a word of Rosa or Kautsky, never mind on simple commodity production, before I read capital. In fact I was well into and had expanded my reading material somewhat well before I realised there was a Heinrichian ‘problem’; I seemed to have not read SPGB theory either apart from the peasant thing that got me started in 2003. I thought Rosawas quite good on simple commodity production when I read it; innocently and completely oblivious of the controversy. I even skipped over Lenin’s ‘millions and millions of times’ quote which I didn’t archive as it didn’t seem important at the time, and it took me hours to find again. Unlike all the other stuff from Lenin that I was squirreling around, for later. Where does that leave scientifically un-transformed labour time value and exchange value? I would say as a mathematician that ‘labour time value’ is an independent variable. Or in other words a given or ‘predicate’. In simple commodity production, labour time value as an independent variable is in ‘reality’ modified into ‘an’ exchange value by a mathematical and unit transforming ‘function’, f(x). Thus, in simple commodity production, suppose a 100 tonnes of coal is 100 hour of labour time. And 1 ounce of gold or a Krugerrand , or an exchange value/money is 100 hour of labour time as well or what it takes miners to produce etc. Then to convert the labour time value of 100 tonnes of coal into ‘an’ exchange value you divide the labour time value of the coal by 100 hours and multiply it by one once Kruggerands to get an exchange value. If a loaf of sugar contains 1 hour of labour time in order to convert it into the exchange value you divide by 100 and multiply it by one once Kruggerands; thus its exchange value is 0.01 of a Krugerand etc. That is a simple, simple commodity production f(x). In capitalism and with organic composition of capital etc the irreducible predicate and ‘thing in itself’ and mathematical independent variable, x, doesn’t vanish! The mathematical f(x) which transforms labour time value into exchange value changes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_and_independent_variables This thread seems to have split somewhat into surplus value and imperialism.
I think it is interesting with this kind of stuff when we see them putting value in italics and in inverted comma’s etc as they in my opinion commendably wriggle and wrestle around with how their rudimental theoretical terms and predicates, like value and surplus value and necessary labour time, would manifest themselves in free access communism.( although rudimental theoretical term or predicate is a tautology)Likewise value pops up several times in italics in the Gotha programme. The ‘problem’ is that value manifests itself as exchange value in the opening parts of volume one and exchange value “=” value (more scientifically precisely exchange value is proportional to value but it is one to one) or better; As with Y = f(x) f(x) means function of x; hopefully mathematicians will know what I am on about but I am sure I have lost the rest. We have E = f(v) Like Weight = f(mass) And when we are on earth we think they are the same thing as I am sure non scientists still do! They are not, there is 9.80665 thrown in, there unless you live in Boliva or Nepal, and a bit of ‘necromancy’ with SI units Then Karl himself, I think, takes his eye off the ball and starts to subliminally associate value with exchange value, as Adam and his common fellow Hienricians do; evidenced by the progressive disappearance of exchange value in the three volumes.
The opening chapter in volume one is not in fact about capitalism, it is about ‘Proudhonist like’ simple commodity production; and Silas Marner, the linen weaver. And actually a critical appraisal of that ‘rudimental’ economic system which was the ‘starting point’ of capitalism or the economic system from which it emerged or evolved out of. Wage labour, ie capitalism ‘as a category had no existence’ in chapter one! A clue to that if that wasn’t enough even after dragging in Aristotle bed making; is that he uses similar examples eg linen, I think in his critique of Proudhon in Poverty of Philosophy (towards the end and most people don’t get that far). And that Tailoring and linen weaving were probably the last two economic spheres of production to be sucked into the whirl pool of capitalist production. And thus coats and linen were just about the worst examples of capitalist produced commodities you could pick. Linen production itself as the constant capital part of weaving in the early 1800’s was mainly done within the sphere of ‘artisan’ labour. Proudhon was a ‘reactionary’ because he decided that he, and his fellows, now that someone else owned Mayfair with hotels on it etc, wanted to tip the monopoly board over and start again. The ‘bourgeoisie’ quite literally emerged from the Proudhonist and artisan ‘guild socialists’; fertilised admittedly with capital from the merchants and the enlightened intellectual section of the aristocracy.Don’t be a rotter Adam and throw Wolf in my teeth or for that matter the labour time voucher theorists like Byron, that I heroically attacked. I have a sort of stinking but interesting pro Wolf quote from Fred; but I will disingenuously leave it. Even though, as I read it Duhring, as in ante Durhring, was a Wolferist. What is the difference between Wolfe and Duhring? Was it only me that was paying attention to what Duhring was saying? Karl in that famous passage in Grundrisse trashed the idea of the possibility of calculating the God alone knows labour time abstract labour value of things for and as a part of some kind of quid pro quo system of bourgeois exchange or ‘limitations’. It is, or would be, in socialism more general and less specific than that. If gold toilet seats in socialism seats where whizzing of the shelves in the Wallmart community shelves would we throw some extra voluntary muscle to the wheel to make socialism work? No! Why! Because would you be prepared to slave away, and expend your labour time value, value, in a gold mine just so someone else could park their arse on a gold toilet seat In other words the value of a gold toilet seat comes into it. The second question is would you be prepared to communistically consume or take it if you could? Me; I run around like a unhinged lunatic trying to find co-op stores that sell fair trade de-caffeinated coffee; I could probably be put up on a charge for that and should know better. Adulterating food and miss describing it etc is a technical scientific challenge that demands respect. Falsifying documental paper chains is much cheaper. We have had the filet mignon debate and what we would do with the decadent consumers of wealth and diamonds etc as is it will always till be around as some kind anti and post capitalist lure. I think in the first stage of socialism as it emerges from capitalism we should keep these kinds of temptations and even advertise them as the last hankering of the old ways. But only to be acquired upon victory in televised Putin- Kerry cage fights. I have much more respect for the War of the Roses, Richard III and even the early English capitalist like Cromwell type. At least they were up for it.
I clearly disagree with Adam on the nature of value and understand that Adam’s position is common and in my opinion the more modern interpretation. I suppose the argument might be two fold in the sense of what was Karl’s position and maybe the one about what is correct. My position and interpretation is that the value of a product is the amount of labour embodied in it; and that is an irreducible and inescapable predicate, starting position and given. And ‘exists’ independently of exchange or commodity production. And that in the ‘social relations’ of capitalism and simple commodity production things ‘so happen’ or initially are empirically observed to exchange on the basis of their labour time value. Thus ‘social relations’, which as an esoteric term that is bandied about, acts ‘somehow’ on labour time value in such a way that things exchange according to their labour time value. (Rubin and Deville did a good take on the why’s and wherefores of social relations part of it that I leaving for brevity.) If you wanted to demonstrate this hypothesis whilst holding the position that it doesn’t just belong in the realm of idealistic philosophising I suppose you would need to give a concrete simple example of it. The following passage is absolutely crucial in this respect and appears very early on in chapter one for a purpose and desired effect in my opinion. I remember it clearly from when I first started to read it. Up until that point I was thinking is he really saying what I think he is saying; and this sealed it, for me. He is talking about a producing and labouring Robinson Crusoe on his island of one; so no social relations or exchange. However there are other kind of relations regarding the products of his labour and the usefulness they are to him. Thus quite sensibly he doesn’t just decide to make one thing because he would like it, he balances and weighs up the effort required versus the ‘need’ he has for it. That requires an evaluation of the effort required or labour time value on one side and on the other the admittedly more subjective ‘evaluation’ of his ‘need’. That can come, as in the book, from practical experience of having produced something that wasn’t worth the effort or some kind of foresight or evaluation of effort required to produce something and the usefulness of it and the relative benefit of expending effort producing something else. No matter as Karl demonstrates in this example the value or expended effort in a product past, present or even planned has a reality for Robinson independent of any social relations, exchange value or for that matter commodity production. Since Robinson Crusoe’s experiences are a favourite theme with political economists, let us take a look at him on his island. Moderate though he be, yet some few wants he has to satisfy, and must therefore do a little useful work of various sorts, such as making tools and furniture, taming goats, fishing and hunting. Of his prayers and the like we take no account, since they are a source of pleasure to him, and he looks upon them as so much recreation. In spite of the variety of his work, he knows that his labour, whatever its form, is but the activity of one and the same Robinson, and consequently, that it consists of nothing but different modes of human labour. Necessity itself compels him to apportion his time accurately between his different kinds of work. Whether one kind occupies a greater space in his general activity than another, depends on the difficulties, greater or less as the case may be, to be overcome in attaining the useful effect aimed at. This our friend Robinson soon learns by experience, and having rescued a watch, ledger, and pen and ink from the wreck, commences, like a true-born Briton, to keep a set of books. His stock-book contains a list of the objects of utility that belong to him, of the operations necessary for their production; and lastly, of the labour time that definite quantities of those objects have, on an average, cost him. All the relations between Robinson and the objects that form this wealth of his own creation, are here so simple and clear as to be intelligible without exertion, even to Mr. Sedley Taylor. And yet those relations contain all that is essential to the determination of value. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm The predicated material reality of “PRODUCTS ARE LABOUR” (shouted out by Karl in Grundisse as that) supersedes or is fundamental to the exchange value; ‘mystery of commodities, all the magic and necromancy that surrounds the products of labour as long as they take the form of commodities’ This, I say, is also essential to the conceptof the book-keeping sense value in socialism. Whereas Robinson in his singularity society of one is only thinking of himself; in free access producing socialism will make the same calculations albeit Robinson will be a collective ‘us’. Thus; 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 If people can’t join up the dots from one position in the chapter one of capital to a very rare, for Karl, drop into the nature of communism well fair enough. At this point I will I think pull in Fred, in a rare boast that he was ahead of Karl on this in 1844, which he was, but it was Karl that put flesh on the bone for him. *15As long ago as 1844 I stated that the above-mentioned balancing of useful effects and expenditure of labour on making decisions concerning production was all that would be left, in a communist society, of the politico-economic concept of value. (Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, p. 95) The scientific justification for this statement, however, as can be seen, was made possible only by Marx's Capital. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/notes.htm#n*15 That was embedded in the closest description of communism outside Gothathat we ever got from them. The ‘politico-economic concept of value’ being in my opinion the ‘social relations’ like; “.. magic and necromancy that surrounds the products of labour as long as they take the form of commodities” If there is ‘magic and necromancy’ around the idea that products are human labour or that it wants a Socratic and reducible scientific why?; please tell me about it. On surplus value, surplus product and surplus labour etc etc. I think it is to Karl’s great scientific credit that they started off with some irreducible predicates which dragged them in their logical analysis almost kicking and screaming towards positions that they would rather not have started out from; as some of us appear not to. My surplus value, surplus labour and surplus product etc is what is left over after I have ‘taken’ or been ‘allowed’ to take what I ‘need’ to reproduce my labour power etc. In capitalism as in ‘all social modes of production’ (including in part communism presumably?) part of my excess or surplus ‘has’ to go towards ‘constantly expanding reproduction’ (productivity enhancing stuff ie machines etc) and looking after the ‘immature or incapacitated members of society’. The remaining part of my surplus value etc goes towards the decadent consumption fund of the ruling class. We should actually in my opinion celebrate and welcome the concentration of wealth and income streams into fewer numbers of individuals as at least theoretically should lead to some kind of ‘how many shoes can you wear’ ceiling on the ruling classes consumption. The quality of the ruling classes consumption fund might become increasingly and irritatingly conspicuous but maybe the quantity is arriving at its limits? Thus from Karl in yet another rare speculation on the nature of socialism ‘value’ and for that matter surplus value and necessary labour time in communism at that has to be addressed. He has made his theoretical bed and thus has to sleep in it! …….if, furthermore, we reduce the surplus-labour and surplus-product to that measure which is required under prevailing conditions of production of society, on the one side to create an insurance and reserve fund, and on the other to constantly expand reproduction to the extent dictated by social needs; finally, if we include in No. 1 the necessary labour, and in No. 2 the surplus-labour, the quantity of labour which must always be performed by the able-bodied in behalf of the immature or incapacitated members of society, i.e., if we strip both wages and surplus-value, both necessary and surplus labour, of their specifically capitalist character, then certainly there remain not these forms, but merely their rudiments, which are common to all social modes of production. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch50.htm Believers in the common and modern theory of value must and do knash their teeth at this. Me as a free access no exchange value socialist am just fine with it. I am stopping know I think; abstract labour requires a separate essay. I think the socially necessary labour time thing also needs a separate approach as it is an extra co-dependent dynamic variable and we humans are not very good at thinking with more than two dimensions or variables at any one ‘time’.
There is again a problem with all this as people here and elsewhere or even in general repeatedly confound value with exchange value when they are fundamentally different and derived from a completely different logical perspective. You could argue that it matters jack shit at the end of the day but the problems become palpable when we start to quote Karl. The confusion is understandable after a fashion because the word ‘value’ lends itself to confusion with ‘economic’ value; whereas it should be understood as ‘a’ particular value as in something that can be quantified. It would be therefore better I think if was dropped totally and all the words ‘value’ substituted for ‘quantity of human effort’, denominated in time, for the sake of convenience. So talking generalities, and even specifically excluding economics totally. Lets start with an empirical observation that one thing is ‘equal’ to another for reasons and causes, as yet, unknown or certainly unknown and involving concepts and the existence of ‘things’ beyond contemplation. We could start with an empirical observation, an effect or phenomena, here ‘on earth’, that a ‘lump or iron’ when ‘related’ to a ‘loaf of sugar’ on a ‘weighing balance’ are ‘equal’. And that falcon feather weighs more than a hammer or not etc. If we were in outer space and on the space station and carefully placed our falcon feather and hammer on the balance they would both register 0 and we would be oblivious of the fact that either of them had a ‘weight’; in the narrow visible sense perception formal sense. Now if you were to propel both across the space station room at the same speed towards your comrade the difference in ‘mass’ rather than weight would manifest itself when they were hit on the head with it. As a transference of different amounts of kinetic energy as it hits our head. We naturally confound ‘weight’ and ‘mass’ re the kinetic energy of momentum in our sense perception world when we think of dropping a ‘moving’ brick on our foot. At the moment it appears that the general scientific opinion is that ‘mass’ exists and ‘is’ and other stuff ‘acts’ on it to produce the phenomenal effect of weight. Then; “If, however, we bear in mind that the weight [exchange value] of an object has a ‘purely’ gravitational reality [ simple commodity production & capitalism etc], and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical Higgs Boson? Baryonic? substance, viz., mass, [labour theory of value etc etc] it follows as a matter of course, that mass [ labour theory of value/property] can only manifest itself in the gravitational relation [ simple commodity production & capitalism etc], of object to object. In fact we started from weight, or the weight relation of objects, in order to get at the mass that lies hidden behind it. We must now return to this form [ as opposed to content] under which mass first appeared to us.” Or if you like in other words this ‘hidden’ thing called ‘mass’ first became apparent to us in weight relations on gravitational earth in ‘phenomenal’ weight relations; but mass, like the ‘labour theory of value’ transcends that as a ‘thing in itself’ rather as effect or ‘weight’ phenomenon ie exchange value. “Value”, like mass?, as a property or quantity of human effort that is ‘embodied in something’, as a predicate, is a ‘thing in itself’ that as such ‘categorically’ continues to exists independently of any relationships they may have with each other. Would ‘value’, or ‘quantity of human effort’, continue to exist or ‘matter’ in free access socialism? Or would it be I want it, I like it, it is available, it must be ok co’s otherwise they wouldn’t have, taken it for granted, made it etc etc?
L Bird will says matter or the material world is not the trigger for changing consciousness or scientific ideas; and gives us no examples. So lets take an example of one of the seminal or if not the seminal scientific consciousness changing moment in history. The Geiger–Marsden experiment at Manchester1908-13. Before that there was the plum pudding model of the atom; not totally without its critics but it wasn’t ‘criticism’ that changed it. It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you. On consideration, I realized that this scattering backward must be the result of a single collision, and when I made calculations I saw that it was impossible to get anything of that order of magnitude unless you took a system in which the greater part of the mass of the atom was concentrated in a minute nucleus. It was then that I had the idea of an atom with a minute massive centre, carrying a charge.— Ernest Rutherford If anything it was matter “criticising” consciousness; the active side being 15-inch shells bouncing back of pieces of tissue paper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger%E2%80%93Marsden_experiment
The time just before the repeal of the Corn Laws threw new light on the condition of the agricultural labourers. On the one hand, it was to the interest of the middle-class agitators to prove how little the Corn Laws protected the actual producers of the corn. On the other hand, the industrial bourgeoisie foamed with sullen rage at the denunciations of the factory system by the landed aristocracy, at the pretended sympathy with the woes of the factory operatives, of those utterly corrupt, heartless, and genteel loafers, and at their “diplomatic zeal” for factory legislation. It is an old English proverb that “when thieves fall out, honest men come by their own,”and, in fact, the noisy, passionate quarrel between the two fractions of the ruling class about the question, which of the two exploited the labourers the more shamefully, was on each hand the midwife of the truth.Earl Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley, was commander-in-chief in the aristocratic, philanthropic, anti-factory campaign. He was, therefore, in 1845, a favourite subject in the revelations of the Morning Chronicleon the condition of the agricultural labourers. This journal, then the most important Liberal organ, sent special commissioners into the agricultural districts, who did not content themselves with mere general descriptions and statistics, but published the names both of the labouring families examined and of their landlords. The following list gives the wages paid in three villages in the neighbourhood of Blanford, Wimbourne, and Poole. The villages are the property of Mr. G. Bankes and of the Earl of Shaftesbury. It will be noted that, just like Bankes, this “low church pope,” this head of English pietists, pockets a great part of the miserable wages of the labourers under the pretext of house-rent: — https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm
