DJP
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“Could you define the ‘homogenous human labour’?”
Clocks, brick walls and cloth are physically different types of products. Just as they are different types of products the type of labour that is needed to make them is of a different kind – clock making is very different to bricklaying, and bricklaying is different to weaving. So how can we compare these different types of labour? By reducing them to a simple, abstract form of labour. We don’t think of the actual different concrete acts of labouring such as bricklaying, clock making or weaving – we think of labour in a abstract, generalised way.
“The quantity of SNL (which is average labour time essentially) equals the amount of value”
That’s not quite right. Value isn’t average labour time, but average *socially necessary* labour time.
The mere fact that labour has gone into something doesn’t mean that it has “value”. The producers don’t know if the labour they have performed in producing the commodity is socially necessary until *after* the commodities have been exchanged. Labour spent on unsold commodities is not socially necessary labour. Without a market there is no way for this valorisation to take place, there is no way to know if the labour has been socially necessary.
If we where producing things directly for use we wouldn’t need (or be able) to calculate ‘value’ in this way.
In English, a merchant will store their commodities in a warehouse.
I don’t think it is a mistranslation to use “commodity” instead of “merchandise”. “Commodity” is just where the convention has settled in English.
“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?
“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.
“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.
“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.
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.
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.
Prakash, I have some questions for you.
What do you mean by “social use-vale”? That is not a category that is used by Marx.
How do you see “value” as being distinct from “exchange-value”, if it is at all?
You speak of “Social necessary labour time”. What is this and how is it calculated? Is all labour “socially necessary” and if not what determines which labour is “socially necessary” and which is not?
Come to think of it, what do you think the “law of value” actually is? Can you explain in a few sentences?
Saying that there is difference between things made for exchange and things made for use isn’t the same thing as saying that the only things that can be exchanged are commodities (things made for exchange). So what you say above doesn’t logically follow.
The whole point of Marx’s analysis was an attempt to understand the dynamics of societies based on the exchange of commodities. And an important part of that was making a distinction between this kind of society and others, where social labour takes the form of production for use.
Prakas wrote:”What’s your mightiest point against my view that every useful thing containing human labour is a commodity ?”
By calling every useful product of human labour a commodity you are losing the distinction between things made for exchange and things made for use. You are losing explanatory and predictive power. That’s the strongest objection.
And yes you are correct, commodities (and also wage labour and capital) do predate the capitalist mode of production.
“I’m afraid the above statement reflects your inability to make a distinction between collection & creation.”
All human labour (production) can do is transform materials provided by nature from one form into another. The production of raw materials could involve something as simple as finding and collecting them. But the finding and gathering of these raw materials has transformed them – they are now in a form which can be used by people.
To return to the pearl example – an ungathered pearl inside a clam cannot (yet) be used by anyone (they are not “use values” in Marx’s terminology). A pile of pearls removed from the clams and returned to the bay can be used (they are now “use values”), their form has been changed by labour. As someone will want these pearls, and as we live in a market economy, the pearls will fetch a price (they have an “exchange value”) and this price is a reflection of the value that they contain (the amount of socially necessary average labour it takes to find them and bring them to shore).
So nature creates the pearls, but collecting them and bringing them to shore changes their form, and it is this act of production that gives them a “value” (in an exchange economy).
Does this make sense to you?
“My answer is, ‘Yes!’”
Well this is not what Marx says. Read the first few chapters of Capital.
A useful thing produced by human labour is only a commodity under specific historical circumstances. This is not an unimportant point.
Of course you don’t have to agree with what is written by Marx, but the beginning point of being able to criticise any theory is knowing what it’s basic categories are. With regards to Marx you have not done this.
“I know oxygen in free air, rain water, uncaught fishes in seas, etc. so many useful things that don’t belong to the category of commodities.”
Ok. Do you think that every useful thing produced by human labour is a commodity?
“Pearl divers that dive into seas for pearls do not produce pearl balls. They discover & collect pearls, and thus they add value to collected pearls which thus turn commodities.”
The claim isn’t that pearl divers are able to grow pearls from their own bodies or magically make them appear out of thin air. “Producing” a natural pearl is the act of diving into the sea, finding pearls and bringing them back to shore. As pearls are multiple this is an act that can be “reproduced”.
As ALB said it’s a case of “humans transforming materials that originally came from (the rest of) nature into something useful for them.” Pearls inside of an oyster at the bottom of the sea are not useful. They become useful through the act of being fished (or whatever the term is for the gathering of pearls). That is what it means to “produce” a natural pearl.
