[Sepehr]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

"I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World." – Eugene V. Debs

 The English laughed a lot when I began my speech by saying that my friend Lafargue, etc., who had abolished nationalities, had spoken French to us, i.e. a language which nine tenths of the audience did not understand. I also suggested that by the negation of nationalities he appeared, quite unconsciously, to assume their absorption into the model French nation.(Marx to Engels, 20 June 1866) Sorry, I could not stop noticing this…

[Sepehr]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 It was not an anticipation of the Leninist theory of imperialism according to which independence for colonies will help precipitate a socialist revolution in the imperialist countries, though it is sometimes misunderstood to be this by many on the Left.

 It is historically impossible for a great people even to discuss internal problems of any kind seriously, as long as it lacks national independence.  […] An international movement of the proletariat is possible only among independent nations. The little bit of republican internationalism between 1830 and 1848, was grouped around France which was destined tofree Europe. Hence it increased French chauvinism in such a way as tocause the world-liberating mission of France and with it France’s native right to be in the lead to get in our way every day even now. (The Blanquists present a caricature of this view, but it is still very strong also among Malon and company.) Also in the International theFrenchmen considered this point of view as fairly obvious. Only historical events could teach them – and several others also – and still must teach them daily that international cooperation is possible only among equals,and even a primus inter pares can exist at best for immediate action.(Karl Marx, correspondence to Kautsky in 1882) The above statement, coming from late Marx, clearly shows his state of mind towards nationalism and internationalism. Yet this remains one of the most misunderstood subjects among many Marxists who are unable to comprehend his dialectical view of the two. But there is an even more important point to be noticed among Marx's works. Istavan Mezaros starts his mammoth work, "Beyond Capital", with the following quote from Marx: There is no denying that bourgeois society has for the second time experienced its 16th century, a 16th century which, I hope, will sound its death knell just as the first ushered it into the world. The proper task of bourgeois society is the creation of the world market, at least in outline, and of the production based on that market. Since the world is round, the colonisation of California and Australia and the opening up of China and Japan would seem to have completed this process. For us, the difficult question is this: on the Continent revolution is imminent and will, moreover, instantly assume a socialist character. Will it not necessarily be crushed in this little corner of the earth, since the movement of bourgeois society is still, in the ascendant over a far greater area?(Marx-Engels Correspondence, 8 October 1858) Here it is again! More than 150 years ago he could see the negative effects of Imperialism on the metropoles of capitalism. Although he intially makes an honest wish, for the development of capitalism in colonies to be the death knell of capitalism, yet he could still see that in fact will prolong it, and history has proven that to be glaringly accurate.This goes in direct opposition with the so called "internationalist" position of some Marxists, who have argued "Imperialism, Pioneer of capitalism". I have already mentioned about Marx's position on Russian agrarian communes and their potential to achieve socialism without going through capitalism. Both of these positions starkly differ from half baked ideas Marx had imported from others during his earlier years. Going back to your position:"It was not an anticipation of the Leninist theory of imperialism according to which independence for colonies will help precipitate a socialist revolution in the imperialist countries, though it is sometimes misunderstood to be this by many on the Left."In brief, you should be able to see Marx's position in the second quote, on the possibility that colonization could crush the socialist revolution in the metropoles. And from the first quote, you can see how later he clearly called for national independence for colonies in order to precipitate "an international socialist movement". For more information please see: Mészáros, István, Beyond Capital: Toward a Theory of Transition.

[Sepehr]

Vin wrote:

You are using snlt out of its context which was to explain 'exchange value' in Karl Marx's anylisis of the commodity in Capital.Labour is necessary to produce anything but that explains nothing. It is not 'measured' in capitalism it is a social relationship specific to commodity production. Commodities will not be produced in socialism.  'things' for use will be produced for free distribution not for sale 

 Marx was not interested in Utopianism, that is why he did not waste his time phantasizing about it.In a capitalist society, commodities are produced for the purpose of exchange. That is why we often see commodities that are supposed to have a certain use-value but indeed do not have it. Nevertheless, under the same capitalist society, commodities must also have a use-value, otherwise there could be no exchange. That is what Marx was trying to explain about the dual character of commodities. In other words, although commodities are produced for the purpose of exchange, but use-value still exists and cannot be eliminated. Now think one step ahead and beyond capitalism. Consider a society where production is organized for the purpose of creating use-values. In such a society exchange will still exist in the same way that use-values still exist under capitalism. If you are thinking about a society in which exchange is completely eliminated while the highly socialized character of production still persists, that for now belongs to the realm of phantasy. You may argue my suggestion is not "Marxist", then I will have to ask you to go and check what Marx himself did during his political activism. Did he not vindicate coalition with the bourgeoisie at some stages? Did he not vindicate nationalism? Did he not support peasant communes in Russia? Marx, too, was a practical man, he never got himself restricted by the manacles of dogma. That is why I say your quibbles about Wolff are purely scholastic.

[Sepehr]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Sepehr, I noticed that you cited Wolff approvingly in an earlier post. I wonder if this mention is related to his proposals for Worker Self Directed Enterprises. 

 Wolff is a practical man. His target audience is the masses of people, the same people who enjoy watching American Awards, Oscar or Miss World shows for hours. He also targets students of economics, the same students who are pumped with fairy tales of "market equilibrium" theories all the time. He often encourages them to read Marx, but he sure knows most people would not do that. And he has been successful so far with unlimbering a real social movement. His followers are expanding at a visibly rapid pace. Of course it is not possible to summarize all three volumes of Marx's Capital, let alone all his works, in a few chapters of a book which is intended to target simple minded ordinary people. Wolff himself often admits that he is over-simplifying many discussions. Nonetheless, his overall direction is quite permissible and complies with the conclusions of much profounder discussions given by others. Wolff is not a lone wolf! He is part of a whole school of thought, an intellectual movement and a succession of generations, from Baran, Sweezy, Magdoff and Gunder Frank to Istvan Mezaros, Samir Amin and John Bellamy Foster. If you think you need the profound discussions instead of the over-simplified versions put forward by Wolff, you ought to study other works. I would suggest writings of Istvan Mezaros, especially his magnum opus, entitled "Beyond Capital". There you can see the complete picture. All about communes and all the rest of it in great detail. Once you have gone through that, come back and check Wolff's works. Only then you would truely appreciate his approach.

[Sepehr]

robbo203 wrote:

"Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning" Critique of the Gotha Progamme K Marx

  Thus production appears as the point of departure, consumption as the conclusion, distribution and exchange as the middle, which is however itself twofold, since distribution is determined by society and exchange by individuals. The person objectifies himself in production, the thing subjectifies itself in the person; [9] in distribution, society mediates between production and consumption in the form of general, dominant determinants; in exchange the two are mediated by the chance characteristics of the individual. Distribution determines the relation in which products fall to individuals (the amount); exchange determines the production[10] in which the individual demands the portion allotted to him by distribution. Thus production, distribution, exchange and consumption form a regular syllogism; production is the generality, distribution and exchange the particularity, and consumption the singularity in which the whole is joined together. This is admittedly a coherence, but a shallow one. Production is determined by general natural laws, distribution by social accident, and the latter may therefore promote production to a greater or lesser extent; exchange stands between the two as formal social movement; and the concluding act, consumption, which is conceived not only as a terminal point but also as an end-in-itself, actually belongs outside economics except in so far as it reacts in turn upon the point of departure and initiates the whole process anew. (Grundrisse, pp. 30, 31) The more deeply we go back into history, the more does the individual, and hence also the producing individual, appear as dependent, as belonging to a greater whole: in a still quite natural way in the family and in the family expanded into the clan [Stamm]; then later in the various forms of communal society arising out of the antitheses and fusions of the clan. Only in the eighteenth century, in ‘civil society’, do the various forms of social connectedness confront the individual as a mere means towards his private purposes, as external necessity.(Grundrisse, p. 26 The latter statement pertains to the discussion of socialization of production. Heterospheric trusts and cartels are the highest forms of socialized production today. Between separate branches of a trust, transactions take place in the form of usual exchanges, i.e. C-M-C. However, it is not through a competitive market, but based on a central plan. Communes and associations of self directed workers will be no different in that sense. This however, is not as straightforward as I am showing here. I am just giving a hint of a protracted discussion, many parts of which are still open questions to us, as they were to Marx, therefore demanding social experimentation in long path towards socialism.

[Sepehr]

Vin wrote:

Socially necessary labour time is the product of a competitive market system. 

 Not at all! Socially necessary labour time is a measurement and absolutely necessary for any kind of social planning, whether capitalistic or socialistic. It may rise due to infavourable circumstances such as a drout, etc., or it may fall due to favourable circumstances such as improved technology, etc. Capitalism as we see today has increasingly done away with the competitive market system, do you think the labour theory of value no longer applies? That is a very peculiar approach to Marx's contributions!

[Sepehr]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

The quoted section comes from a discussion of the notion of 'three revenues', and the thrust is that value comes from labour, not from land nor interest.  So the phrase "In this a commodity produced by a capitalist does not differ in any way from that produced by an independent labourer or by communities of working-people or by slaves." is directed against the idea that the capitalist (nor the landlord) bring anything to the table, value-wise.  This doesn't say anything about the nature of surplus value, nor would would happen under production among a conscious association.

 So is that how you read Marx? In that case, e.g. all that Marx has said in his "On the Jewish Question" only pertains to Jews and cannot be used in any other context! He clearly mentions commodities are produced under all modes of production. If there are commodities, there is exchange. If there is exchange, there is value. If there is value, there is surplusvalue, i.e. produced value excess to the socially necessary labour time. And socially necessary labour time exists in all societies, whether capitalist or non-capitalist.

[Sepehr]

Dave B wrote:

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.                                              […] 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?

 Well said. Your point perfectly conforms to Marx's conception and method. But then again some "Marxists" would resort to grusome techniques of hermeneutics in order to force Marx to conform to their conceptions! Marx differentiated his works from utopian socialists, emphasizing on the scientific  aspect of it. That is in the sense that socialism cannot be built in dreams or ideas alone. Quite contrary, it must emanate out of the realities, utilizing all that is available under capitalism. The discussion of the two departments in volume II is not merely an abstract analysis of the capitalist market system. It also shows how a socialist society could replace the chaotic capitalist markets with a conscious social plan, and that is never possible without value measurements and system. Three points: 1- Since Marx wrote Capital, capitalism has overcome a great deal of its chaotic nature. Markets in the sense that they existed back then, no longer exist today. In the age of monopoly capitalism, as opposed to competitive capitalism, prices are no longer determined by markets based on competitive costs. It is rather demand and purchase power of consumers which is the main driver of prices. This is a big discussion and I am only giving a hint here. 2- A recurring mistake that I see here is the idea that somehow under socialism all the value produced by an association of workers is going to be distributed among them, therefore, based on this premise, it is concluded that surplusvalue ceises to exist. This is a huge misunderstanding. As I mentioned earlier, this was originally put forward by Lassale and Marx despised him for it. Under socialism, still workers will continue to produce a surplusvalue, but that surplusvalue is controlled collectively and goes to a social fund for development programs or other social or communal programs. 3- I feel there is also a misunderstanding about the meaning of communism as meant by Marx. As Marx grew older, he focused more and more on political economy and said very little about communism from a philosophical point of view. Marx's ideas were not holy verses descending from heaven. His thoughts were exceedingly dynamic and constantly evolving. Only within the last ten years of his life, he produced around 30,000 pages of manuscript, most of which is still not published in any language. If there is going to be enough funding, it will take at least another 20 years until we could have those works available. But to see how the late Marx was thinking about communism and wherewithals of transition into it, I would recommend his letter to Zasulich, especially its three drafts.The concept of communes is at the core of communism. Notice that communes is in plural form, i.e. there are several communes interacting with each other in a given society and that interaction will definitely include commodity exchange too. However, this exchange will acquire new qualities and is different from that undertaken between capitalist firms. Therefore it is impermissible to suggest a communist society is no different than a Ford plant!

[Sepehr]

Since you have only reiterated the same erroneous exegesis, I need not to add anything new to my previous comments. Go back and read what I said earlier, and that too in case you truely seek to learn. Otherwise, which I believe is the case with you,  continue pattering your childish prattles, pretending to speak of science. Just like those kids who draw a penis on the blackboard, impersonate their geometrics teacher and pretend to talk in a most serious expression, therefore indulging themselves by openly expressing how much they hate both the teacher and those boring scientific discussions he teaches them.

[Sepehr]

You wrote: "This sums up your misunderstanding neatly"Quite contrary, it shows your own misunderstanding. "If everything is held in common how can exchange take place?" Who said that everything would be held in common?! That is a common misunderstanding about Marx's idea of "abolition of private appropriation of means of production".Besides, I did not invent that statement myself. Go back and read the statement I had quoted from Marx.

[Sepehr]

Thank you for quoting those statements from Marx. That is very nice of you to vindicate my argument this way.However, your next contention about "Wolff argues that if surplus-value was to be re-distributed amongst the workers who produced it then society would be post-capitalist as there would be no exploitation" is totally erroneous. Wolff has never said so. The idea of redistribution of surplusvalue among workers, which was originally proposed by Ferdinand Lassalle", was even explicitly disdained by Marx. As Engels once said: “[…] when a man wants to deal with scientific questions he should above all learn to read the works he wishes to use just as the author had written them, and above all without reading anything into them that they do not contain.” And finally again you are confounding the concept of exchange with the specific form of exchange with money. See my previous comment for some extra hints on this.

[Sepehr]

According to Marx:"The process of production expires in the commodity. The fact that labour-power was expended in its fabrication now appears as a material property of the commodity, as the property of possessing value. The magnitude of this value is measured by the amount of labour expended; the value of a commodity resolves itself into nothing else besides and is not composed of anything else. […] In this a commodity produced by a capitalist does not differ in any way from that produced by an independent labourer or by communities of working-people or by slaves. But in the present case the entire product of labour, as well as its entire value, belongs to the capitalist. Like every other producer he has to convert his commodity by sale into money before he can manipulate it further; he must convert it into the form of the universal equivalent." (Capital, Vol II, Chapter XIX, 5. Recapitulation, pp. 235, 236) That should give you a hint of where you are going astray. Getting lost in purely scholastic arguments is a direct consequence of a lack of understanding about Marx's dialectical method. Value and labour are different concepts, but they are also dialectically interwoven. Marx goes into great details to dissect these concepts in order to finally build up his labour theory of value. He argues that every commodity has got a use-value and an exchange-value. Since use-value of different commodities are different, therefore it is immensurable and cannot be the substance of exchange-value. Then he introduces the concept of socially necessary labour time as the origin of exchange-value, or value for that matter. Hence why your question is incorrect and arises from misunderstanding these basic concepts:"What is "value" and is "value" and "labour" necessarily the same thing?"And finally, only in primitive societies, when humans lived a life of hand to mouth, the society was not concerned about production of commodities. Commodities will continue to exist even under communism. Any product which is produced for the purpose of exchange is by definition a commodity. This exchange, of course, is not necessarily exchange with money, nor for the purpose of accumulation of surplusvalue to private owners. To see this, go back and read the first statement I quoted above from Marx.

[Sepehr]

This article clearly shows the incompetence of its writer on the most fundamental concepts of Marx's labour theory of value. Professor Wolff has shown a great deal of generousity by providing his comment on it. That, I believe, originates from his life-long vocation as a teacher. To me, however, it sounds like a deliberate and intentional distortion of well-established concepts in an attempt to discredit the insights provided by Wolff and Resnick.I have neither the time nor the genorousity already demonstrated by Wolff and Resnick, so I shall restrict my criticism of this frivolous article to only a single point. without pointing to which, I could not sleep at night!Somewhere in the article, it is stated that under socialism there would no more be any such thing known as surplusvalue…How interesting indeed! According to Marx, and this is delineated well early in the very first volume of Capital, the definition of surplusvalue is any value generated excess to the "necessary labour"; it existed in all pre-capitalist modes of production, i.e. slavory and serfdom. In the second volume of Capital, Marx introduces a system of two departments: Department I, production of means of production, and department II, production of means of consumption. And he goes into great details to illustrate how "surplusvalue" is distributed between the two departments in a way to sustain and reproduce the whole system. There, he explicitly mentions how the same process could be achieved under "communism", consciously and without mediation of markets and money.To say that surplusvalue ceases to exist under socialism is so absurd and astray that it could only demonstrate one of the two, or perhaps both, of these cases:1- The writer, and all who endorse this article, are totally ignorant of anything Marx has ever done, wrote and said.2- The writer, and all who endorse this article, are simply another group of malevolent pundits who work tirelessly day and night (what a waste of their toil!) to discredit genuine science and aberrate people from finding out how they could ever end the misery which is set to wipe off life itself from the face of the earth, to wit, capitalism.

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