Intrinsic Value?

@oisleep Jun 28 2012 11:55

Really? Then how do we uncover the concept of superfluous labor time? How do we predict the possibility of social revolution itself? Does this mean all labor time associated with the capitalist mode of production is necessary? Even labor time that produces objects that are harmful, as someone argued above? How do you arrive at the historically specific relative features of capitalism if, as you state, everything is necessary and we need not understand it with a view to the future of mankind?

I would argue, based on your view, we cannot even know what of present relations are being undermined by capital's own development at this point. Marx's theory is not a snapshot of some ideal capitalism existing all at once and perfected, but a description of a transitory mode of production in the process of its self-abolition.

@ocelot Jun 28 2012 11:57

Ha! Okay.

So what do you think Marx is doing in his Critique of the Gotha Programme?

HINT: He is stripping present relations of the obstacle created by individual production and exchange to provide a view of what production would look like if the law of value were replaced by a common social plan. The actual process unfolding within the mode of production provides the foundation for his argument. Based on this, he is able to predict, in general terms, what is necessary under the lower stage of communism and what of the present relations are superfluous.

wow... haven't seen a catalogue of errors since....well since Noa and Dave B on the abstract labour thread!

so SNLT is determined by considerations of production conditions in the future communist commonwealth is it? hmmm.... so when Marx devoted all that effort in elaborating his critique of political economy he was really pulling idle speculations about an undetermined future out of his ass? funny how he never once (to my knowledge at least) made the argument you are trying to attribute to him himself, no?

similarly, value, exchange value and price are really unrelated? so all that stuff where Marx explicitly posits and explains their relationships and the order of determination between them - I just imagined it?

Jehu - you better run, mate. I hear Dr Capital is coming.....

@andy g Jun 28 2012 14:25

No, not socially necessary labor time -- superfluous labor time -- there is no need to twist my words. If you want to hold a discussion, that is fine. But to do that you have to engage what I said, not what you think I can be made to say.

To determine if any of the labor time in the present society is superfluous from the standpoint of the working class -- which is to say, time the working class could enjoy away from labor were it to assume control of the productive forces of society -- you have to have some notion of how socially necessary are the existing hours of labor in relation to that event. My argument is that there is definitely a portion of presently existing labor time of society that is only "necessary" from the point of view of capital and capitalist relations of production. This labor time, however, is entirely superfluous from the point of view of wage labor.

How much is it? How do we measure it? Where in the total sum of social labor time might it be located? "Marxists" haven't a clue to this question, because, frankly, they have no comprehension that it exists and that it is fully predicted in Marx's theory.

Comprehending it begins with the discussion of value, exchange value and price and why the three are, in fact, not necessarily directly related in Marx's theory. We need to understand why their relationship is contingent, not absolute.

Intrinsic value is mentioned in the first sentence of the first post:

So I don't know about you, but I think the words "intrinsic value" at the top of the OP constitute an explicit mention, but maybe that's must me being my usual obstreperous, picky self.

As for a nuclear submarine having a use value-- of course it does. It can explore the oceans; it can map the Marianas trench.

What Jehu means is a military submarine, and the issue is not "use value" there, but capital value. Those who argue that military spending is waste spending or fictitious capital argue that because the military submarine does not function in the reproduction of variable capital, or in the expansion of the means of production, it must function as a deduction from capital and not an accretion.

I respectfully decline to get involved in that controversy because basically I think it's a deduction all right, but a deduction from "V," from wages, and certainly not from profits, and because I think not that there is no such thing as "fictitious capital" but that all capital is fictitious when it cannot reproduce itself quickly, massively, profitably enough.

seems to me that the phrase SNLT figures.....

I am "engaging" in what you say or at least as far as I can given its general incoherence. despite disparaging Marxists you seem to regard Marx himself as an authority. My point remains - does anything Marx wrote in any way support your idea that what is socially necessary for the valorisation of capital has anything to do with what the associated producers of a future communist society would deem necessary?

if not lets acknowledge that the LTV you refer to isn't Marx's and admit that a root and branch exposition of "your" LTV is required.

let's also agree that that is what your blog's for, eh?

@ S. Artesian

Interesting argument regarding fictitious capital -- i have to think about that.

I just had to quote this, because I am astonished by it:

This question is tongue in cheek, right? I mean, you cannot convince me you have read Capital and missed the entire section devoted to the struggle over the length of the working day. What is this but a struggle over what constitutes socially necessary labor time?

@ADDL: I am at a loss to understand how anyone can walk away from Capital and not realize the struggle over what constitutes socially necessary labor time is the heart of the conflict between the two great classes. What do you think it is about? Unemployment? Wages?

Yes, Jehu, but Marx's critique of capital is the "immanent critique"-- a critique based on the conflict inherent to its own laws of accumulation, not because, or not simply because capitalism cannot satisfy human want.

Capitalism can't, at a critical point, satisfy capitalism's needs. Thus the conflict between means and relations of production; between the labor process and the valorization process; between capitalist profitability and capitalist production.

It is not the incapability of capitalism to measure up to the emancipation and productivity of labor that will and can be realized with its abolition that distinguishes Marx's critique. It is the incapability to maintain its own reproduction based on the already existing productivity of labor that determines its obsolescence. Not Telos, but reproduction.

As Marx describes it in vol 3-- overproduction is always the overproduction of the means of production as capital; the inability to deploy the means of production to exploit labor intensely enough to offset the tendency to declining profit that is produced by the extreme intensity of the exploitation of labor.

I agree. And the heart of Marx's argument is that Capital itself, constantly forces the reduction of socially necessary labor time. This is what results in the continuous devaluation of both labor power and constant capital through recurrent crises.

Can't argue with that.

who would want to? the problem is it bears no relation to what we were actually talking about....

again, Jehu, what in the section on the working day supports the idea that SNLT is determined by considerations of a future communist society? resistance to speed up, prolongation of the working day etc are about resisting the drive to increase the portion of the workers labour that is devoted to the production of surplus value. this i think is very different from determining what concrete labours can be deemed socially necessary or the process of reduction of concrete to abstract labour.

the point about military products is not that they have no value but that their consumption involves the destruction of their value rather than its transfer to a new commodity product or the reproduction of labour power. again, surely a wholly separate debate?

@Andy G

Marx thought this struggle was important enough to call it "the modest Magna Charta of the working class." I am pretty sure that constitutes all the proof you need on this question.

BS alert! BS alert! deliberate refusal to address the issue!!!!!

Marx described a legally limited working day as the modest Magna Carta of the working class. This has nothing to do with considerations of necessity under communism playing any role in the determination of SNLT. Once again - can you provide any evidence in support of the argument you are making rather than one you're not?

I think I will leave you to it, you are clearly having a different discussion to the rest of us on here but don't seem to realise it

what you refer to there is the actual thread title itself (which gets repeated in the first sentence of every thread on this board)

So, as I said in my post:-

other than the (slightly misleading) thread title, there has been no mention, either explicitly or implicitly, of such a concept as 'intrinsic value' on this thread

And there hasn't

Well.........as my younger daughter used to say back in the day.............."What............ever"

by your own admission your original point about it was obstreperous and picky - don't fall back on indifference now!

but yes, enough

Point taken, but you know, at the core of the issue of rent, is this notion, of somehow, "intrinsic value."

Anyway, enough.

Jehu--

come on, capitalism does not fail because it is not communism. It fails because it is capitalism, on its own terms.

The issue you raise of a nuclear submarine you raise on the confusion of use value and value. A Boeing or Airbus jet designed for in-flight refueling is not lacking in use-value when it is used for refueling F-16s or Harrier jump jets.

Use value is pretty much blind, don't you think, to who the subject using it is, and how the subject uses it. Mean, suppose Dick Cheney buys a shotgun and shoot's a partidge for dinner. Use-value, correct?

Suppose, Cheney's drunk, thinks his hunting partner is a partridge, and shoots his hunting partner, a Texas millionaire who contribute beaucoup bucks to the bourgeois political parties? MORE use value, no?

Listen, Andy,

If you want a traditional tired, unimaginative Marxist reading of Marx, I suggest you find a "Marxist". But I come here to find folks who are trying to understand Marx through open eyes; not folks who want to continually repeat the mindless drivel spread by Marxists about his theory. So far I am quite disappointed.

But, okay. In addition to the entire chapter of Capital, volume 1, which I recommended to you, this is from Capital, Volume 3, Chapter 15 (My favorite):

@oisleep

I am sorry, but the question at hand was how objects having no value have a price in the market. This was my starting point in this discussion. I stated the reason why things having no value can have a price is that value and price are not related. I used as my example a war machine, which, despite have no socially necessary labor time in it, nevertheless appears to have price.

What part of this is not on topic?

@S. Artesian

I agree that capitalism does not fall because it is not communism. Capitalism itself is a transitional form leading to communism; it is a relative mode of production.

Actually the air refueling tanker is a good example use value, because it is the reason why the aircraft industry exists. Civilian uses of the technology are only the means to keep the costs of production down. This is much as the nuke industry develops to reduce the cost of nuclear propulsion technology.

Use value is not blind. It is the interchange between mankind and nature itself. The purpose of human labor is to satisfy human needs, not market demand or fascist state military needs. There are many dual use technologies of this sort. When they serve human needs they are use values; when they serve the fascist state as weapons, they are not.

This is not a moral or abstract theoretical distinction I am making. It can be seen in the empirical data as the growing divergence between the labor time of society measured in worthless fiat currencies and any commodity money measure. In Marxist writings nailing down what of existing labor time is socially necessary has been tried time and again and has failed to offer an independently verifiable satisfying definition. I have demonstrated it beyond question in my work.

What work is that?

BTW if your talking about what the working day would comprise under socialism, I can remember reading several papers by people as diverse as Stalinists, Frankfort Schoolers, Cockshottians, projecting a decline in the working day by 60% [IIRC] or so with the abolition of capital.

Yeah, OK. But the release of the labor from the unnecessary work of value production, of value protection [i.e. armaments etc.] is not the issue that Marx identifies in his use of socially necessary labor time. That SNLT is a market relation. It is capital's measuring of itself, and its mechanism for distributing, allocating the total available profit.

If you've demonstrates something beyond question that nobody has been able to demonstrate since Marx first raised the issue, well I sure would like to read it, because I would love to be the first to raise a question about something beyond question.

This is not what Marx was describing with the term socially necessary labor time. Your argument is that somehow socially necessary labor time refers to a commodity's ability to satisfy an "authentic" need, something that is somehow ahistorical, and stands outside the material requirements of the very society producing it, satisfying human need simply on the basis of human need.

To exist in that condition of course, the commodity would have to no longer exist as a commodity.

The history of society is the history of society failing to meet the needs of its members but meeting the needs for its own reproduction. Submarines, assault rifles, fit that category. Sounds to me like your deploying another spin on the old "unproductive labor" argument for capital's problems.

@S. Artesian

This is Marx's definition of a commodity. This what he states about it before he addresses any other aspect of its nature:

I am not sure this can be defined in his theory in any other fashion except how he states it here. But I am open to other interpretations. You can see the implications I draw from this passage above. I would like to hear yours.

I am sorry to disagree here, but socially necessary labor time is not a market relation. It is a technical-material relation between the level of the productive forces and human material requirements. As Postone has argued, at a certain point prices only appears to be compensation for expended labor, however this is not so. Prices serve only the value dimension alone.

Sure you can:

http://pogoprinciple.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/fiat-currency-no-more-money-than-a-theatre-ticket-is/

And you might be interested in this one as well:

http://pogoprinciple.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/here-fred-fixed-that-for-ya/

Jehu

novelty for novelty's sake is rarely a good thing.

nice quote from Capital vol 3 - has no bearing on the discussion at hand but hey...

if i am hostile to the positions you advance it isn't because they depart from Marx (which they do) but because they are, at least as you have expressed them here, incoherent and unintelligible.

i come here looking for critical, rational debate and to learn from others - as far as you're concerned, so far I'm disappointed

It totally is though.

Your statement as to the (proper? real?) purpose of human labour is entirely moral/normative.

Consider the question in terms of functions, domains and ranges.

The SNLT is a function whose domain is commodities and whose range is discrete quantities of time. It is a measuring function f(c) -> t. SNLT(nuclear sub) -> ?0,000 person-hours.

The concept of social utility is a normative function, f(c) -> [true|false]. SocialUtility(nuclear sub) -> false.

Once again - the qualifier "socially necessary" is a modifier of time, not the product. Be it nuclear subs, PCP or penis-enlargement cream, the commensuration of the labour time taken in their production with the SNLT required for production of same in average conditions of productivity (in a given society) is entirely independent from any assessment of the social utility or harmfulness of the product. Within capitalist social relations, so long as the product can be sold at a rate which valorises both the necessary and surplus labour implicated in its production, then its utility in the self-expanding valorisation of capital trumps any notional utility it may have relative to human needs/desires.

this

can't imagine the "fascist state military" would consider penis enlargement cream anything other than socially necessary. all those missiles, swagger sticks etc must be compensating for something......