value and price

I was planning on writing a detailed response to Revol68 but it seems, upon rereading his response to my post, that he hasn't at all defended his view that the commodity as object of use (i.e. as use-value) is non-objective. He has simply claimed that I have left the production of need out of account. This is certainly true, but it really has little to do with what I've been saying. I haven't claimed to have provided a theory of the production of need. Nor do I think one is unnecessary. Quite the opposite. But what I'm stressing is that this development is not the same thing as the production of the commodity, since the development of human need is not the same as the production of an object of use (a use-value). This seems to be self-evident to anyone who is not a mystic. It seems unlikely that even someone of Revol68's intellectual caliber would openly dispute this. But when he says that the ability of an object of use to satisfy our needs does not come from its real material properties, he disputing this basic fact of human life. Furthermore, the confusion in this kind of thinking is evident in the writing of many people (including Baudrillard) who are unable to distinguish between use-value and value. Why would the debates on cultural production have attained such high status if not for a very basic confusion, whereby those who argue that cultural production is productive labor equate and fail to distinguish between the production of need (in whatever way, whether through socalled "coolhunters" or through simple advertisements) and the production of the object of use. If these theories had remembered the very basic distinction that I'm drawing attention to, they would have realized that value is only produced during the production of an object of use (a use-value), and therefore that the production of human need falls outside of this realm.

The problem that Revol68 is having is a common one in radical circles, for reasons that are unknown to me. It is the inability to distinguish between the conditions of existence of some thing and the thing itself. A perfect example of this distinction would be, for example, the role of nature in the production of value. Non-human nature is of course a necessary condition for the production of values. We would not be able exist, let alone produce value, if the sun, for example, did not exist. But when we come to the production of value, the sun as such does not play any role in the production of value, either in a qualitative sense (since the substance of value is not congealed masses of light emitted by the sun), nor in the quantitative sense (the sun does not in any way determine the magnitude of value).

This is the the same distinction as that between human need and objects of use. In order for an object of use to fulfill human need, the human needs that are fulfilled by this or that particular use-value must be presupposed. I.e., if human need does not exist then there are no objects to satisfy that need. And if the human need for food, for example, did not exist, then what we consider food would not be an object of use for us (or at least it would not be an object of use for us in the same way, since it would not fulfill the same need). But recognizing this necessarily relation does not obviate the distinction between objects of use and human need.

Failure to recognize the distinction between conditions of existence for things and those things themselves is precisely what is behind the immense confusion not only in the current thread, but also in the debates on productive and unproductive labor, on whether or not value preexists exchange, on the role of nature in the production of value, and I'm sure many others.

As far as theories of the production of need are concerned, I have to say I like the general approach and framework given by Michael Lebowitz in Beyond Capital, where he deals with the "historical and moral element" in the value of labor-power in interesting ways. And since the value of labor-power is what defines need for much of the world's population, this is an important thing to onsider. Marx also has many comments in this direction (particularly in The Grundrisse and The German Ideology, many of which are taken up by Michael Lebowitz), but he never elaborates on them systematically.

I was considering responding to Revol68's other comments on objectivity and human nature, but considering the low quality of the debate on use-value and human need I figure I may as well let them pass. But if Revol68 thinks that I need to consider Marx's 1844 Manuscripts, I will just point out that that text is precisely where Marx first lays out basic materialist principles on the objectivity of nature and on the objectification of human intersubjectivity (whether in the production of means of subsistence or in the production of language). Revol68 will find not a word supporting his frankly bizarre claims about the subjectivity (I would say that Marx's discussion of art is indicative of his general materialist approach).

And, just for fun, I figure that I should refute Revol68's ridiculous claim in the "Marcuse and false consciousness" thread claiming that I have "no notion of Marxs hegelian influence as displayed in [my] objectivist postings on use values and society in general". Not only is it self-evident that anyone who claims that the dialectic does not exist in reality but is rather applied by the observer to the subject-matter (as Revol68 has claimed) is not to be trusted on matters of either Hegel or Marx, but Revol68 offers no evidence to back this claim up, and in particular he has not offered an alternative interpretation of the first few paragraphs of Capital which offer prima facie support for my argument on use-value and objectivity.

You can, of course, defend yourself by saying that you simply don't care what Marx said. But in that case you will have to take back your claim that I don't understand "Marx's hegelian influence", since if "Marx's hegelian influence" is one's subjet-matter then what Marx said is quite relevant.

I don't think I'll bother responding to any more of Revol68's half-baked posts. I'll respond to Chris soon. My response to Red might take a little longer since he has posted a new version of his model which I want to look over before replying.

Mike

The object of the debate between revolt and mikus has slipped insensibly into a discussion of what constitutes a use-value. However, this inquiry began on the wrong foot as an inquiry into the nature of a use value, and not a use value in relation to "value and profit", as the thread would indicate, and therefore not as a use-value in relation to capitalist production.

With regards to the object of labor produced for capital, the use of the object (good, service, etc.) is utterly irrelevant in terms of its subjective value. The only thing that matters to capital is whether or not it has a use, because if it doesn't then it cannot also have value-- not subjective value but exchange value.

As far as I can see, revolt and mikus are speaking on two totally different registers, whilst redtwist is perhaps moving back and forth between them. Mikus is using the category of use-value from Marx, and revolt, because he hasn't read Capital is not using that category at all, but rather is talking about subjective use or the value of something as it is used by an individual or group of people. Both are valid, but only the former pertains to a discussion of value and the form of labor under capitalism.

As for redtwister, I think you are wavering between these theoretical registers, making it hard to discern whether or not you completely understand use-value and value in Marx's sense. In your ambivalence you lack precision. For instance, you say: "I actually think that being a commodity often indicates its existence as a use-value".

Often, no. Always, yes. Absolutely nothing can be a commodity without being a use-value.

Furthermore you are conflating the two meanings of use-value by incorporating them both into a single thought, gesturing to revolt here and nodding to mikus (and Marx) there. For instance, you do this in your dinette set example.

When you wrote about the dinette set, you were discussing use-value in relation to two different kinds of value. When talking about value (in Marx), the ideology bound up in a dinette set, or the "worlding" of the dinette set to speak with Heidegger, is not at issue. That is a different story. In the one we are studying here, the qualitative attributes of the commodity are irrelevant so long as they exist at some point or are grounded in some sort of material effect. With respect to value, the relation the objects have to one another as products of labor is purely quantitative.

In your dinette set scenario, you are dealing with commodities in relation to each other in their concrete form. (The dinette set is a portrait of domesticated middle class life; the world of the housewife can be exhibited in the Tupperware-- it is an object with a gender, etc. This all has to do with concrete objects even if they are to be taken as merely as signs in a semiotic order.) They are objects with a story to tell about qualitative life in capitalism, and they have a history to be sure.

But that has nothing to do with "use-value" in the way we use it when talking about value, the residue of labor in capitalism, and the forms in which it appears. These are just two separate ontologies altogether.

In general, I think the main problem is the fact that Revolt doesn't know what a “use-value” is. He could go on all day about this subjective use value and mikus could go on all day about “use-value” and never the twain shall meet.

So I thought I would try to explain the concept to revolt in terms he can understand.

It is really quite simple. I will demonstrate using the example of Duchamp's urinal, because there is some debate as to what constitutes a use-value once you get into the subjective realm of art.

(Mind you, this is an EXAMPLE, which might lead one to assume that artistic production is productive of value. The point here is to demonstrate what a use-value is and not to defend artistic production as being value production.)

First of all, Revolt, one of the things that the urinal piece demonstrates is that the materiality of the use-value is not always "an object" but can include the movement of an object. We can view part of Duchamp's labor, if we can call it that, as the transportation of the object from the bathroom or showroom or wherever, to the museum. The use value here would be the movement of something in space and time—the physical act.

Next, although Duchamp is rendering, in its new placement, the use of the urinal use-less in it’s traditional sense, he is creating another use for it; HOWEVER this is NOT use in the same sense as it is in “use-value”. Although the use has changed, the use-value (in Marx’s terms) hasn't. The use-value in this situation would still be the urinal. The use of the urinal, for pissing or contemplating has changed, not the use-value, namely the urinal itself. Do you see? It is really that simple.

The use-value is the actual material thing, or a useful effect. In the first case it is movement of another use-value and in the second it is the urinal itself.

BUT DON’T BE MISTAKEN this is just an example of the difference between use and use-value, and is not claiming that the production of art is productive of value. Sorry if that confuses things at all. I hope not.

In addition, this brings me to what redtwister was getting at when he posed the question, "in the absence of a split between the usefulness of a thing and its constitution as an exchange-value, is the category of use-value meaningless?"

I’d say no. One can give examples like mine and speak of use-values standing alone because when we are talking about use-values we are from the point of view of their materiality, as simply objectification or transformation of matter. If you were to say there was no use-value apart from exchange value, then you would be saying that there is no human existence outside of capitalism, or materiality of labor.

Of course, if we were living in a communist society all things would be use-values and produced as use-values, and not also as exchange values. But I think that there is a distinction that Marx makes which is important, that locates the use-value as a transhistorical category, along the same lines as he does the labor process.

It is by virtue of the fact that humans must interact with and transform nature (although in particular social relations) that the capitalist is able to exploit them. Therefore use-values must exist in order for exchange value to exist, and they must exist a priori. There could be no exchange if what was being exchange wasn't a useful good or service for the recipient, no less could there be exploitation if there wasn't a need for use-values that satisfy hunger, the need for warmth and shelter, etc., in short, the stuff needed in order to exist.

In addition, there are also the other kinds of use-values that are the tools and means of production for creating all use values, and although these use-values or tools exist in other societies we must admit, in capitalism they are the property of the capitalist. So, to think of use-value as something that exists in all societies, helps us see that the relationship of humans to use-values in our society, involving a class with and a class without access to these useful things being peculiar to capitalism, and that a new organization of society would ultimately involve a new organization of use-values, that is, use-values as such.

Although I see where you’re going-- one cannot speak of use-value really until you get to capitalism. However you can still speak of use-value apart from its relation to exchange-value.

As I mentioned, the way use-value functions for capital is different then how it functions for consumers. Where in the former instance the qualities are irrelevant, in the latter they are of essence. Unfortunately, the meaning of commodities has nothing to do with capitalist accumulation, and is the subject of semiotics, anthropology or phenomenology-- what ever tickles your intellectual fancy.

I think that perhaps this whole problem stems from revolt’s recent reading of Value, Price and Profit, where Marx’s talks about labor power being the value of necessaries. So now there is a question of needs, and what is necessary. This is another question entirely.

For the purposes of understanding capitalism, it doesn't really matter so long as they reproduce the laborer. What qualifies as an adequate amount of necessaries is the result of history and has been determined socially; it is something fought for, perhaps not on the basis of increasing needs (or so-called manufactured needs), but the desire for life expressed in a greater quantity or portion of social wealth. In either case it would still not matter what these use-values are or how they are used or esteemed.

I know that although it seems petty, I think this argument is important and emblematic of the theoretical pitfalls of Negri and ilk, who often use the word value to mean both this social substance and subjective meaning-- thereby obfuscating their readers’ understanding of value and of capitalism, while making all the pomos happy and basically allowing for all sorts of sloppy theoretical errors. More importantly I believe this lack of specificity in Negri's theory and others might create in some sense an obstacle to revolution, because their theories encourage people to believe that all manner of "resistance" and "refusal" are attacks on capital.

If we take capital as self-expanding value, then understanding the concept of value (and therefore the categories of use-value, exchange-value, money, etc.), where it is produced and how it functions is crucial for revolutionary practice. These distinctions are important to make, maybe not for the politics of the everyday, but if you want to put an end to capitalism.

Firstly I have never seen someone act like such an absolute arsehole on an issue as abstract as use value and exchange value, it really escapes me why you feel the need to discuss this as if i'd just shat in your turkey.

Secondly you seem to be having difficulty grasping me saying that a commodities use value is non objective, whilst not denying that the object itself has objectivity. Lets take the example of a Diamond, now I do not question it's structural make up, I do not propose that a mud brick is a better means for cutting glass, or that it is more transparent than a diamond. What however isn't objective is it's use value, that is how it is used. Diamonds are used as jewllery, as a status symbol, as a token of affection and love, now what objective property in the diamond gives it this use value? It's sparkle, it's shape, it's rarity, maybe, but what makes these traits soo valued in society, why do we bestow worth onto somethings rarity, why are synthetic diamonds less "worthy"? Surely the reasons cannot be located in the thing in itself but rather in a dialectical relationship between the objects properties and the subjectivity of a society, what it values, what it bestows worth to, what it considers aesthetically pleasing.

I agree that this failure to draw a nice neat line between the things themselves and conditions of existance is behind all this debate. But considering we only have acess to the world as active, partial, subjects, that our relationship with the world is of primarily one of being in it, that is, having a perspective from somewhere. These objective properties themselves are not some Platonic truth, but rather are part of discourse, there is no thing in itself, not in the presence of our subjectivity, As Laclau points out.

The object that is produced is already bound up in a discursive world and as such it's use value is already bound up in exchange value as exchange value is the dominant discourse. Now this is not to reduce use value to exchange value but to point out that there is no clear neat line.

Well I shall not seek to seduce such a sprightly intellect as yourself into such a debate, afterall like the aforementioned diamond your sparkle somehow manages to transcend the dirty world of discourse. Needless to say my Platonic friend that early Marx is not just the Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts but also his Critique of Hegels philosophy of the Right, On the Jewish Question and Theses on Feuerbachand numerous other texts. Now as we both are intelligent enough to know, Marx's writings are not exactly consistent on a great number of points, with changes of emphasis and rheotoric abounding. For example Marx makes numerous comments that would appear to allude to a forces of determinism argument, and to others that would put man at the centre of history. Now I think the real value in Marx's work is that he brings to head such aporias, and I think it's pretty obvious that many of critical theories discussions and controversies about structure versus agency, object and subject and deconstructionism owe a huge debt to the issues raised in Marx work. Do you think it's just an accident that people take so many interpretations of Marxs writings, complete with various quotes?

Firslty I am not Hegel or Marx's gravekeeper, I have no desire to be trusted with their legacies, I don't judge an interpretation or articulation purely on it's loyalty to it's source text but on it's ability to produce insights, to allow me to think something through from a different angle, as a means of articulating better thoughts that were somewhat fuzzy. I think Redtwister put this argument well in this post on the radicals and science fetish thread.

Firstly I am aware of that possible interpretation of use value, infact I can see it's appeal, it solves so many of the riddles and difficulties in Marxist thought and really does make superflous many arguments in the post marxist tradition. However I don't think it is a valid one, namely because there is no "object in itself".

When you say

You are not only missing my point but Duchamp's, the "urinal itself" does not exist seperate from it's discursive field, a urinal is not a urinal purely on it's properties and dimensions, it is a urinal in that we piss in it. Now the urinal in the bathroom we recognise as a place for pissing, the urinal in the installation we still recognise as a urinal on one level, as in it's normally a thing for pissing in, but at the same time we recognise it isn't "just a urinal", it isn't something for us to piss in, we would expect to be escorted out of the building if we pissed in it. Hence Duchump highlights that a urinal isn't a thing in itself but rather is dependent on it's place within a whole discursive field, and that by changing the discursive field from that of a public toliet to a gallery we have actually changed this object from a urinal into a piece of art or rather an object that problemises the very definition of art.

Hence a use value does not exist seperate from discourse and certainly doesn't exist seperate from exchange value, even if they shouldn't be conflated ala Baudrillard.

Also, this is petty but i couldn'tlet it go,

Now I may not have read all of Capital but I have read Volume One, albeit it around two and a half years ago, and to be honest if I had accepted your definition of Use value it would have made my life alot easier getting through it, unfortunately I just happen to think it's an overly simplistic definition that dodges some pertinent issues.

I can see why Nike haven't headhunted you.

The notion that how something functions for consumers is irrelevant to capital is baffling. A company that churned out commodities without some assumption as to the qualities desired by consumers, or that led them to buy such commodities wouldn't exactly be troubling the NASDAQ Top 10 would it?

Could you give me an example of a commodity that was just churned out without a seconds thought for how it would be used, what qualities it has that articulate or match the needs and desires of the consumer?

I mean clearly capitals concern is it's accumulation and expansion but nonetheless, to valorise itself, it can only do this by meeting/creating needs and desires. The use value of a Nike trainer for capital might only be it's ability to generate profit but it still has to pay careful attention to the needs, desires, aspirations and lifestyles of consumers.

For some reason, I always get into arguments about Nikes on these web boards! Maybe revolt works for Nike and goes around to different radical web boards under different names advertising for Nike, as one of their covert tactics to pollute our mental environment and manufacture peudo-needs?

No, you're right, in a sense. Nike cares about whether or not people want their product over another. However, for capital (which is how I stated it in the above quote), qualities don't matter. The concrete is only important in so far as it can bear value.

Of course, there are market researchers and advertisers and myspace. Providing the product that is going to sell matters to the Nike people, and every bit of attention directed towards converse and Nikes as opposed to Adidas matters, (but still in statistics based on how many units were sold in a given quarter or whatever).

But, I was trying to explain what a use-value meant to capital, which is just the bearer of exchange-value. As long as the Nike or conver or whatever else Nike Co. sells is a use to millions of people, then production can go on. And this isn't about what a capitalist actually is thinking about his product's useful qualities either. It's only ever about profit. Philip Knight might have been a normal Joe going in to the shoe biz, but now he is reified capital-- he works for the almighty dollar, or Euro or Pound or whatever the fuck—in other words for value. His company has sweatshops because of the demands of capital, that he serves, and must in order to compete. It is far beyond his or anyone’s control—it is ruled by the law of value.

To illustrate, although I hate Moore, there is a moment in one of his programs where he looks at how what Nike is concerned with in their reports (why they have to fire workers I think) is taking like a fraction of a nano second off of the time it takes to make one pair of shoes-- so like how any units, not even shoes, per second. This is what keeps Nike on top, not just the best marketing tactics. They have the capital to make ridiculous profits and they have super cheap disposable labor. The quantitative rules over the qualitative here. Nike cares about the value of their product foremost, and what I mean by that is the amount of time it takes to produce their product, and how much of that time is unpaid.

So, the whole making people want a Nike comes into play, because Nike has to compete. Advertising is a huge overhead cost that any competitor must have. But in terms of having value all that matters is that the product has a use. That use can be manipulated, the signifier can be replaced with some emotional affect unrelated to the physical qualities of the shoe in order to appeal to people; but this is about changing the use, and not whether or not it has one. The use-value is the fucking shoe no matter what. No shoe, no Nike Co. No shoe, no exchange-value, and no profit.

Perhaps I was slightly exaggerating before, but I was trying to make a point, and I don’t think it matters.

On the sixth day God made discourse.

Revolt:
You are not only missing my point but Duchamp's, the "urinal itself" does not exist separate from it's discursive field...

No. This is wrong. What you are saying is that nothing exists outside of language and this web of intertextuality. This is not the case. You cannot eat discourse, you eat a material thing. "Food" has different meaning to everyone in every culture and society, but the meaning could not exist without the physical thing. There is a referent. Humans make meaning of the need to eat, that's what veganism is all about in a sense, but there is still the need to eat. Just think of it conceptually if you want. There is the need to interact with nature for life stuffs, and then there is the way in which that is done, which is through society and social relations. If you can't see the two apart in reality, then conceptualize it. If you live in a world constructed by language, then it won't be that difficult a stretch.

Language exists because humans need use-values in the first place. To make these use values they need to communicate, cooperate, organize, have customs, have *ways*. This is where discourse comes in. The doing cannot be separated from the social form in which it is done, but the need for this social form exists first. It is a biological necessity, and if you don't like it then starve yourself and see what happens. Your body will put an end to your dicourse and these obtuse posts as well.

Revolt:
Firstly I am aware of that possible interpretation of use value, infact I can see it's appeal, it solves so many of the riddles and difficulties in Marxist thought and really does make superflous many arguments in the post marxist tradition. However I don't think it is a valid one, namely because there is no "object in itself"...Now I may not have read all of Capital but I have read Volume One, albeit it around two and a half years ago, and to be honest if I had accepted your definition of Use value it would have made my life alot easier getting through it, unfortunately I just happen to think it's an overly simplistic definition that dodges some pertinent issues.

This is not my definition, it is Marx's. You haven't read Marx in this case and you haven't read Capital. What you read was what you wanted to read. You didn't except him on his own terms to begin with. Furthermore, use value is not something he made up. It really exists as a catagory in reality as he described it. I don't understand how this simple fact can be so disputed.

Unless it is misunderstood.

The problem is, the theories you use to understand the world are incompatable with marx, and with the world itself, with objective reality, which exists whether you think so or not. You can't just mix your Foucault, your Derrida and your Marx. It's like oil and water. If you can PROVE why Marx is bankrupt and these thinkers are correct, then please please do. You have to choose though which theory best explains reality. The problem is that in your theory, there is no reality, so that becomes quite a difficult task. There has to be a reality in order for marx to be correct. 2+2 must equal 4. Still. There is no point in debating otherwise, if we cannot agree in these simple premises.

I put the matter in this fashion because obviously something that is produced as a commodity, that is assumed to be a use-value, may in fact find no market and thereby not be a use-value. Marx is explicit in this that a commodity that is not sold is neither an exchange-value nor in effect a use-value as it can only be used if it is purchased. I did not mean it in the sense that any successfully realized exchange-value might be a use-value. If it is realized, i.e. purchased, it's use-value is indeed confirmed.

Hence my question as to whether or not use-value as a category will be meaningful after capital, or whether it would be correct to describe stone-age implements as use-values except in relation to a discussion of capital. Needless to say, I am not convinced by your argument.

Nor does Duchamp's urinal resolve the issue i raised re: immaterial commodities. We do agree that Negri, et al play on this confusion to create a lot of nonsense, a point I have always upheld is that Negri is fundamentally confused and wrong on anything relating to Value.

My thought on the dinnette set is less about marx directly than about Debord's comments on the transformation of use-value in Spectacular society in Society of the Spectacle. I am not convinced of it, per se, but when you say that the use-value implies say a middle class lifestyle and the need for a dining room table, and therefore a dining room, etc., and Mike says that use-values fulfill needs, I admit that I wonder how you reckon this with Marx's idea that capital creates new needs. It can only do so by creating use-values that no one previously new they needed or had a use for. So I think there must be some interplay between need and use-value that the purely "a use-value is a material thing that fills an existing need" approach misses.

Again, I am not claiming absolute certainty on this, but I do not find Marx's work as a whole so self-evident on nuances of this sort. Nor do I rule out the possible inversion again of use-value and exchange-value indicated by Debord. It is something I am at the moment open-ended on and genuinely trying to grapple with rather than something i would declare complete certainty about.

Chris

I admit, i think Lebowitz is not terribly interesting, but for this discussion he has uses.

p. 33
"Thus it is not simply a physical requirement or the natural properties of an object that give it use-value. A use value may be purely imaginary (Marx 1973 (Grundrisse): 769)Its essence is to be found in human beings rather than in things: 'the product supplied is not useful in itself. It is the consumer who determines its utility' (Marx, 1847a: 118)"

This seems at odds with Mike:

Lebowitz also points out that “The very expansion of capitalist production provides the foundation for the growth of workers needs.” p. 35 Marx cited is also cited (1973: 409) as arguing that it is capital defines new needs by the production of new use values, from both natural things, alien cultures, and from old things given new uses.

This would seem to me to go against Mike and Marxfan's points

And again on p.36:
“'Our desires and pleasures spring from society; we measure them, therefore, by society and not by the objects which serve for their satisfaction. Because they are of a social nature, they are of a relative nature.' (Marx 1849: 216)

Lebowitz even differentiates between 3 types of needs with corresponding use-values: physiological, necessary and social needs. The first two he cites as in Capital, the last is in the Grundrisse and other texts. Now, I find this a little specious, as such a separation ignores that physiological and necessary needs may be needs for Thai food in Baltimore. The treatment of any of these as purely physical or necessary has to abstract from their properties. I don't agree with this separation of social, physical and necessary, i find it unnecessary, but maybe discussions like this are why he does it. He certainly seems to see a value to it on p. 37 where he tries to grasp relative impoverishment as the distance between realizable necessary needs and unrealizable social needs.

Then he cites something of interest to this discussion:
“Use value in itself does not have the boundlessness of value as such. Given objects can be consumed as objects of need only up to a certain level” (Marx 1973: 405)

Btw, you guys should go correct Ben Fine and Alfred Saad-Filho, because in Marx's Capital they say:
“Every commodity [i]has[/1] a use-value, or ability to satisfy human needs, without which it could not be sold, and therefore, would not be produced.” tragic really, as they are corrupting more minds than I am. And then they say “...although every commodity is characterised by its particular physical properties that, in part, give it its use-value (the other part being derived from the culture of consumption and use), its exchange value is unrelated to these properties.” Shameful, really.

A final note relating to the transhistoricity of labor. I am sympathetic to Postone on this point:
“...for labor is a social essence only in capitalism. That social order cannot be historically overcome without abolishing the essence itself, that is, the historically specific function and form of labor. A noncapitalist society is not constituted by labor alone.

“Positions that do not grasp the particular function of labor in capitalism, attribute to labor as such a socially synthetic character: they treat it as the transhistorical essence of social life. Why labor as “labor” should constitute social relations cannot, however, be explained.” p. 167 Time, Labor and Social Domination

Chris

redtwista:
I put the matter in this fashion because obviously something that is produced as a commodity, that is assumed to be a use-value, may in fact find no market and thereby not be a use-value.

Wha? Can I get some documentation, because that's rediculous. If a use-value is not exchanged, then it does not cease to exist, it is perhaps worthless to society in the sense that it cannot be used, but it doesn't disappear. This is getting into a different debate, but I would say that it's value is not realized, and therefore its qualities as a useful thing cannot be realized either-- but (unfortunately for the capitalist) it is still waiting around in storage and stuff. It still stays around as a use-value. Besides, logically that's just silly. If you're right, I admit defeat, but I seriously doubt it.

Immaterial labor.

Earlier redtwista wrote: I think the focus on materiality is where Negri gets all confused and stupid:

It's hard to determine where Negri goes confused and stupid; I guess it depends on where you open one of his moronic books and begin reading. His main problem has to do with making the mistake others have in thinking that the industrial production (or whatever) of value can only be the production of use-values of a very tangible nature in factories of a very particular nature, as if this is Marx's perspective in the least or even the case at any point throughout capitalism. By his inane logic he claims that in the new era all immaterial labor, in fact any labor, is productive of value because production has moved into the all encompassing social factory.

The problem for you seems to be, where is the material use-value in immaterial labor. Just when you thought you outsmarted Negri, you are found dangling from his little hook.

Although it seems contradictory, there IS a material use value in immaterial labor. Don't let the name and the binary it signifies confuse you. The immaterial labor category was created out of confusion. Negri, as I noted, (as well as Mandel and some other vulgarizers) have made the claim that a use-value in Marx and in industrial capitalism MUST be an object. But Marx explicitly says it can be transportation, or teaching, or other such intangibles. The main point is whether or not there is transformation of matter. So manipulation for symbols also applies because, you have synapses that are firing and your fingertips are pushing keys. The manipulation of symbols is still the manipulation of something.

Marx talks about the use of brains, nerves and muscles in the creation of use-values, and immaterial labor. Although it does not create a tangible use value per se it is the expenditure of nerves, and sometimes brains too. Therefore, the immaterial labor going on in a mind (so long is it is externalized in some fashion) or in an action, or even in the creation of experience for another is still material, although you can't necessarily claim that it is value producing-- that's an entirely different fish.

The discussion seems to have moved rather rapidly since I've been gone so I'm going to jump in at a later point to respond to Chris.

The quote Chris pulls out of Lebowitz' book and the Grundrisse are interesting, but if you compare them to the relevant passages in Capital it is clear that they are different. In the Grundrisse Marx is using the term "use-value" to refer BOTH to human need and to the material objects which fulfill those needs. But look at the quotes I gave from the very first few paragraphs of Capital. The issue is treated differently since in those paragraphs Marx is using the term "use-value" to refer ONLY to the material body of the commodity. This is why Marx says throughout Ch. 1 that there is nothing strange or mystical about the commodity insofar as it is a use-value: it is absolutely material and sensuous. This is also why Marx says that the commodity is a use-value, rather than saying that it has a use-value. To say that it "has" a use-value would be to imply that it contains use inside it. To say that it "is" a use-value implies that it fulfills needs by its material properties.

So certainly the USE to which a commodity is put is determined in some sense subjectively. For example the same piece of clothing can be USED as a means by which to prevent cold and as a fashion acessory. But with Marx's conceptual distinction in Capital between the use-value and the needs being fulfilled, it is clear that the use-value is the same in both cases, since he is saying that the commodity as use-value is absolutely material, and it is obvious that clothing does not change its material properties by being worn for different purposes.

The reason that Marx is able to do this is because he is leaving historically developed needs on one side at the beginning of Capital, he is simply presupposing them rather than showing how they themselves are produced.

So I think from the above it should be clear why it is not the case that the Marx quote you provided (about capital's constant production of need) is not at all at odds with what myself or Marxfan have beens saying. Marx in that case is referring not to the commodity as material object, as use-value, but to the human needs which the material object (the object of use, or use-value) fulfills. I completely agree with everything that is stated in those passages.

I don't really want to get into Postone on this topic since it will take us even further away from the original topic but I will just say I find his discussion entirely arbitrary and lacking in serious discussion of Marx. I mean, he never even once confronts a passage that seems to contradict his view!

BTW, we have already debated the issue of "potential" use-value and exchange-value. Marx is not at all explicit that an unsold item is not an exchange-value. It is true that an unsold item will LOSE its exchange-value but the function of money as measure of value is PURELY ideal as Marx says many times in Ch. 3 of Capital. So whether or not it is sold really has nothing to do with the matter. If my commodity was just produced yesterday and its ideal price is $10 then its value (or really market value) is $10. No ifs ands or buts about it. (Of course if it is declared that it is no longer worth anything then it has lost its exchange-value. But in this case it is not the sale that matters but the fact that it is no longer, even ideally, worth anything.) You never really confronted the textual evidence that Andrew provided in the earlier debate, so it's a mystery to me why you're bringing this up again here. Do you have a new argument? I'm genuinely confused.

Okay, I'm sorry to have gone on all day and never addressing that second post. I don't know why I didn't see it.

First of all I have to say that I have only read Capital and not the Grundrisse. However, some of the quotes you cite do not actually conflict with mine or mikes position. (It's sad you can't see that). And the first Fine quote supports me against you, since you said a commodity did not always have to be a use-value. (It's a shame, really... that you don't realize it).

From what I understand your position is that use-values: a.) are not always material in some sense b.) cannot exist without exchange-values c.) only exist in capitalism and d.) are sometimes merely subjective.

I think you should find quotes that support this definition.

As for the postone. It's my position that you can't think about use-value until capitalism for similar reasons, but now you can, AND you can easily see that they have always existed. When people weren't seporated from the tools, and the land, and the seasons (natural time) you probably couldn't think about an object just as a use-value dangling in mid-air. So. People also believed that God resided in what I feel confident calling their use-values, and that you could cure yourself of a cut by cleaning the knife. However, now we know this is not true. The same physical laws applied then, we just only know them now. It's the same thing.

Marxfan,

I think your definition of material in the physicalist sense is really stretched here. I think you are confusing the materiality of concrete labor with the use-value which is a product of such labor. Certainly, the concrete labor is material even in the case of symbols in the sense you mention, of synapses firing, use of muscle, writing, speaking, etc. The use-value is not material, however.

I did not say that use-values cannot exist without being exchange-values, if we are talking in capital. Obviously, as Mike points out, a use-value may still be a use-value if it is not exchanged, if someone still gets a hold of it and uses it. Stolen goods are certainly still use-values. What I asked, and I genuinely am asking not merely you but in a general sense, if use-value as a category, is relevant outside of capital, outside of a situation where an object, service, etc. can be posited as being a use-value and having exchange-value.

As such, I do not think that use-values, i.e. objects or services or whatever which are useful for whatever reason (a hammer is a weapon if you know how to use it that way, because of its material properties as an object, not because it is a hammer, which implies a socially-derived purpose) only exist in capitalism. Again, it is about the category.

It seems sad to me that you and Mike do not seem to get that point.

My point is that in relation to capital, even though the material object continues to exist, it ceases to be a use-value as the capitalist will let it rot rather than give it away. I am not claiming that its materiality ceases to be. That would be silly, but that is your fixation, not mine. You are even reduced to the contradiction that it is a use-value even though its qualities as a useful thing cannot be realized, that is, even though it will never be used. An abandoned steel mill by this definition is a use-value even though it is no longer usable because capital preferred to let it rot and move production elsewhere. It will continue to materially exist for a long time after particular qualities of the use-value have been literally corroded.

Aside from a certain annoying tendency to refer to my "not getting it" (i.e. not agreeing with you) as "sad", "a shame really", etc., which is rather completely patronizing since IMO it is you, not I, herr professor, who doesn't get it, i would like to know exactly how you think that Fine quote supports your contentions?

I agree in general that a commodity is a use-value, but the insistence that a use-value is completely material whereas Marx is clearly stating that it can even be imaginary, strikes me as completely opposed to you and Mike. Now Mike answers that differently from you and I will consider his reply separately. I am not even sure that you and Mike actually agree, but nothing like an opponent to make people overlook their differences, I suppose.

As I see it, Marx is making it clear that the use-value has to be deemed useful to the consumer. If it is created but is not determined by the consumer to be useful, despite its materiality, it rots in a warehouse and ceases to be a use-value even if it is material, just as the knowledge of the law in a lawyer's head is not a use-value if no one hires the lawyer.

On spectacular use-value, that does sound about right. It is a tangent, anyway.

Chris

Mike,

I do not per se disagree with the emphasis on "is" over "has". I pointed out that Fine, et al did use the term "has", and so if it is a confusion, it is a common one. However, you admit by default that it is the properties of the thing. IMO, by demanding that it be only the material properties of the use-value denies exactly Marx's claim that a use-value can be purely imaginary. That is, its useful properties may be symbolic as in performative language, such as that of a lawyer or teacher or even a priest or justice of the peace.

Now this is interesting. It is the best reasoned defense of why for a material use-value, the material properties are what matters. That is, as I raised above with the hammer, its actual use may be subjective, but that it is a use-value as both a weapon and as a means to pound nails into a board depends on its common material properties in both cases, irrespective of which of those properties are used in the subjective consumption of the use-value. We agree. But as I said before as well, the knowledge of law in a lawyer's head or the performative speech act is not material in the sense that the speech act as a whole does not produce a material object. Nonetheless, it is the speech act and the knowledge that is the use-value, regardless of what kind of law is being practiced. If you want to follow Marxfan and argue that it is material because it requires the use of muscles, nerves, the brain, etc., I can only say that this confuses use-value with the concrete labor that produces it. The use-value is not itself a material object.

Well, since Marx says explicitly "Thus it is not simply a physical requirement or the natural properties of an object that give it use-value. A use value may be purely imaginary (Marx 1973 (Grundrisse): 769)", I cannot agree that you and he agree. Marx is not referring to human needs here. He specifically uses the category use-value. He is talking about what makes a use-value a use-value, and that it may be imaginary.

but I think this is the rub of the matter between us:

I do not disagree that value is created prior to the act of exchange. I am not taking the CJ Arthur view on this. However, if that object is not exchanged, it loses its value. Now, IMO you are being inconsistent. If abstract labor is embodied in the object prior to its sale, conferring on the object a value of $10, how can it be worth nothing if it fails to be exchanged if it is not declared "worth nothing" exactly by its unsalability, by its failure to be realized in exchange? Where is the determination of its loss of value made if not in its failure to be realized (or if one wants to make it stronger, in its complete unrealizability)?

We can put a finer point on it by asking if the commodity still has a value of $10 if it is stolen and not resold (or even if it is resold by the thief, which might make this more interesting.) Was its value lost because it ceased to be a useful item or because it was ripped out of the circuit before it was realized in exchange?

IMO, your approach does not allow for an answer to this because the way in which exchange-value is lost becomes mysterious and subjective.

I only vaguely remember the details of the exchange with you and Andrew. If you have the quotes you feel are relevant, I would reply to them, but I can hardly reply to a discussion from months, maybe a year, ago, that took place on a completely different list. As for not confronting it, I never sent out my notes as by the time I had finished taken them, the discussion had been dormant for weeks. I may have them somewhere, but I am not sure if I kept them.

As for Postone, it is quite hard to find good discussions about use-value and I was reduced to poaching Postone for some additional way to pose the problem. That said, Postone's meeting certain requirements in his book is not what was at issue here, but considering the matter from other angles. If you feel Postone adds nothing or you just don't want to discuss the way he raises the matter, that's fine. As I said, I was just looking for any serious discussion of it, but it seems under-considered as its own topic, buried in other discussions. I could go through a LOT of material from value theory debates, but i am not sure that is merited here.

Chris

You, redtwister, say:
Btw, you guys should go correct Ben Fine and Alfred Saad-Filho, because in Marx's Capital they say:
“Every commodity [i]has[/1] a use-value, or ability to satisfy human needs, without which it could not be sold, and therefore, would not be produced.”

tragic really,

as they are corrupting more minds than I am. And then they say “...although every commodity is characterised by its particular physical properties that, in part, give it its use-value (the other part being derived from the culture of consumption and use), its exchange value is unrelated to these properties.”

Shameful, really.

You started it okay. You got smart first, mr. professor.

"In general, I think the main problem is the fact that Revolt doesn't know what a “use-value” is. He could go on all day about this subjective use value and mikus could go on all day about “use-value” and never the twain shall meet.

So I thought I would try to explain the concept to revolt in terms he can understand.[i]

It is really quite simple."

"It is a biological necessity, and [i]if you don't like it then starve yourself and see what happens. Your body will put an end to your dicourse and these obtuse posts as well."

My comments were directed primarily in relation to Mike's nasty treatment of Revol, right or wrong on the technical matters, (not to me, as while Mike and i disagree, we manage to do so cordially for some reason), not at you at all until you jumped into it, but you indulged in a bit of condescension yourself on the way. So please do not expect me to not respond to condescending bs by calling it out.

Chris

Me or redtwister have never denied this. I think you must have made a massive misinterpretation of the arguments abit back.

Of course a commodity must be a use value if it's going to be sold, afterall even if someone just enjoys useless lumps of steel, a big lump of steel is going to meet their need.

This post would actually seem to back up my argument that use values are bound up wit exchange value. After all what is the culture of consumption, is it not social, is it not shaped, constrained and affected by the constant need to valorise exchange value?

when he says "in part" doesn't that mean that a use value is not merely the material properties of the object or commodity but is bound up in a dialetic with human subjectivity, in fields of discourse?

To be honest I gave up on this thread after you insisted in making idiotic statements about discourse denying the materiality of something. The kind of misrepresentation one would expect of a undergrad, especially when my previous post had stressed at great length that the fact something can't exist to us outside of discourse does not mean that it doesn't exist per se.

This...

"It is a biological necessity, and [i]if you don't like it then starve yourself and see what happens. Your body will put an end to your dicourse and these obtuse posts as well."

... is directed at revolt68 not you chris. I think that you are pretty smart and well read.

When I said this:

"In general, I think the main problem is the fact that Revolt doesn't know what a “use-value” is. He could go on all day about this subjective use value and mikus could go on all day about “use-value” and never the twain shall meet.

So I thought I would try to explain the concept to revolt in terms he can understand.[i]

It is really quite simple."

...I was being friendly. I really really really was not being a dick, or at least I didn't think I was. In fact that post was supposed to juxtapose mikus's who's was rather polemical. I wanted to try an approach that was really benign.

In general, agreement is what I am always aiming at. Although it appears that I’m saying that you are wrong because you don’t agree with me, I would much rather be saying that I’m wrong because I don’t agree with you-- it would end the conflict. However, that would be dishonest. I want to get to the bottom of this and I don’t want to get smart. I don’t even want to argue, but I feel strongly about this stuff because I think ultimately it has to do with revolutionary practice.

I just have a hard time with that grad student bs because I don't think it's revolutionary although it purports to be, and it makes me annoyed when Marxists (like Negri etc.) yield to that shit because it's fashionable and they don't want to scare anyone away. It's like the "Marxists" who want to seporate men and women at meetings because they're afraid they'll chase away the Muslim contingent-- but that sexist shit has no place in our new society, and in any real revolutionary project. Foucault could support these "transgressions", oddly. I can't.

So it's ultimately about revolution, and I hate when people are like, I am more revolutionary than thou because I have adapted to the new times and I've got this fashionable thoretical "tool kit" that allows me to change reality to suit me and my writings.

So that's my beef with revolt. As for you chris, I just thought what you were saying to me and mike was intentionally rude and I responded in kind. That's all.

But I'm just going to stop with that shit and go back to my original approach which was, like I said, non-abrasive.
Maya

No I have an arguement, but I'm saving it for a real entry and not just this angry rant. I want to compose myself.

m

right so you don't have an argument?

As for people being arrogant, I think you'll find that if anyone was being so on this thread it was Mikus.

I called you an undergrad because undergrads tend to be the perfect mix of up arrogance and ignorance. I didn't call you it cos I wish to "allign myself with the university" but because i kinda loathe university.

I've never so much as sniffed a Donna Haraway essay never mind sucked her cock (how's that for gender performity!). You clearly have some chip on your shoulder about being called "dogmatic" and "orthodox" as i never called you any of these. Infact i've been ubber polite to both you and mikus considering the arrogance youse jumped into this thread with, and your subsequent inabilities to actually engage with what i've actually wrote, instead of some bullshit about me "implying objects don't exist", where would that implication be considering i've categorically pointed out that is not my position myself and I even provided you wth a snappy Laclau quote. The only place where my position denies the materiality of objects is in your own head and it's inability to think shit through.

Also since you've decided to be explicit in your wankerdom let me point out the dogmatic idiocy of your argument that you can't mix Derrida, Foucault and Marx, that it is like water and oil. Was it not like water and oil to attempt to work with Feuerbach and Hegel, or is ole Charlie the only alchemist with ability to do such things?

p.s. I'm not actually that big a fan of Foucault or Derrida, infact i think Foucault far too Althusserian at times. I'm much more interested in the likes of Bloch, Lukacs, Camus and Zizek.

I'll get back to you after the new year. I would not like to bring it in online. However, I think it is amazing that you call me ignorant and a wanker. This makes me especially glad that mikus consistently makes you look so utterly stupid and I'm excited at the prospect of doing the same in the new year. As for why I stepped in when I did. I found that Mikus was being double teamed, and I thought I would try to help clear some things up that might lead to a more fruitful discussion.

For now I'd like to say that old Karlie was a critic of both Hegel and Feuerbach. I don't believe he was trying to mix them, but that is another discussion.

As for your own alchemy, I believe that you mentioned something about Mike pissing on derrida and foucault.
Also, I believe that discourse comes out of the poststructuralist tradition, and when I think discourse I think Foucault and when I think texts I think Derrida. These are two words you use when describing the subjective use-value. That's where I got that crazy idea. And deconstruction of the discourse of nature and of the dialectic is opposed to Marx and objective truth. Donna Haraway was my example because she deconstructs science, in a way that blurs the distinction between subject and object, subjectivity and objectivity, because she thinks there is no way of using science without taking in various discourses and apparatuses into the microscope and the "practice" of science. There is no object apart from discourse in this view, and obviously I don't agree. She calls herself a marxist and then when you ask her to explain how the two views can be reconciled she admits they can't, or at least not for her. At least she admits this.
(I haven't asked her if she is opposed to my saying she has a dick for grad students to suck, but I don't think there is anything wrong with a little self-conscious masculine performive every now and then. This board allows me act like a dude without the obvious physical contradictions and I take pleasure in it).

I haven't read much Lukacs or Zizek, but what I have read of Zizek, I believe he is underconsumptionist, and I'll get the Lukacs after Hegel, and so that might take a while-- but I'll be glad to see his take on Marx. From what I've heard, he admits that he was wrong initially in his understanding of alienation and the identical subject object-- but again let me take some time out to research that completely. If these notions are in fact true then your argument demonstrates the drawbacks of your influences.

I'm really just tired of this. It's exhausting. But I suppose I'll keep it up as long as it takes.

Also, I believe the Laclau quote may help our argument in a way, but I'll get to that too.

Sorry to leave you hanging, but I'm sure you’ll will be waiting with bated breath for my grande reponse.

ta-ta for now,
maya

I must say that I'm a bit annoyed that the debate has become a discussion of netiquette. But since I'm accused of being an asshole, I might as well justify myself by saying that my condescension to Revol was not something which came out of nowhere, but rather came out of seeing hundreds of posts by Revol which are nothing more than insults, sans actual argument (mostly just poor one-liners). My insults, on the contrary, were thrown out alongside real arguments. I've never cared too much about netiquette rules regarding heated discussions. Pure flames are of course pointless and counterproductive, and that is what most online discussion seems to be, but accusations of stupidity and incomprehension which come as a conclusion to an argument tends to liven up debates and make them more interesting, in my opinion.

In addition, Revol has displayed complete and utter ignorance on this particular thread, since the very beginning. Just look back at the beginning of the topic. He was being incredibly obtuse, and clearly didn't understand what was being asked, but nevertheless, for reasons known only to himself (I would guess a large ego), felt himself qualified to try and answer. And then when the debate between Red and I began, he started taking this holier-than-thou line, feigning sophistication when all he had was ignorance both of mathematics and of the issues at hand. There is nothing that annoys me more than ignorance which pretends to be sophisticated. So if I'm particularly "nasty" with Revol it is only because he is a prime example of simultaneously arrogant and ignorant internet bigshots.

But that's all I'll say on the matter, since I'd rather discuss real issues then whether or not I've made Revol feel bad, or whether I'm being a bully.

Yes, it is an extremely common confusion. I wouldn't deny that. There are hundreds of common confusions regarding Capital, and a dozen or so of them have been expressed on this thread alone! Virtually every major exegesis of Capital has major confusion within it, whether it is Ernest Mandel's introductions or Paul Sweezy's Theory of Capitalist Development. Your citation of Fine and Saad-Filho comes off as an attempt to appeal to authority. And a poor authority at that -- there are a handful of other (some common, some not so common) confusions in Fine and Saad-Filho's Marx's Capital.

In any case, I think your distinction between material and immaterial is not Marx's. Look at the German Ideology, for example, where Marx describes language itself (and thus your lawyer's supposedly immaterial speech) as material:

So yes, I would say (with Marx's support from beyond the grave) that since speech itself is material, the lawyer's speech is material, just as the words within Milton's Paradise are material. This may seem arbitrary but I don't see how it is any more arbitrary than the opposite. Immateriality implies a kind of non-human and spiritual transmission of information. The basic premise of Marx's claim that a use-value is material is that humans meet their needs by interacting with nature (whether it is through material production in the vulgar sense or through speech, communication, etc.). It seems that if Marx would have granted the immateriality of use-values then he would have abandoned one of his most important ontological points about human nature.

I will address your citation of Marx on the immateriality of use-value below.

For the most part I answered this above. As far as Marxfan's claim about the materiality of human labor, I think it is correct and does support what I've been saying. If the human labor-process is a real, material, concrete labor-process which exists for others, then one must think that what it produces is just as real and concrete as the labor itself, especially in this case since the labor-process is not separable from the product. In other words, if the labor-process of speaking is concrete, then its product must also be concrete, or material, because this labor-process is identical to the product! So if you concede that the labor-process is concrete then you are conceding the whole point.

The disagreement seems to come from your use of the term "material object" in the sense of something separable from the labor process. I don't see any reason to do this. (I should also mention that Ernest Mandel uses the word "material" in a similar way in his introduction to Vol. 2 of Capital, although he has a somewhat reverse take on it.)

Follow the logic Marx uses in Capital:

Marx claims, in Ch. 7 of Capital that the process of producing commodities (a unity of use-value and value) is both a labor process and a valorization process (labor process from the perspective of material production, or the production of use-values, and a valorization process from the perspective of the production of (surplus-)value.)

Since Marx treats this unity of labor-process and valorization process as what is common to all productive labor processes (in capitalism), it follows that the labor-process, which is a relation between man and nature, is a necessary feature of the production of commodities.

In Section 1, on the labor-process, Marx says that the labor-process is a relation between man and nature, a material relation. ("Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate... [The labor-process] is the necessary condition for effecting exchange of matter between man and Nature." Or look even at Ch. 1: "[Humans] can [labor] only as Nature does, that is by changing the form of matter." Emphasis added.)

Marx nevertheless maintains in Ch. 6 of Vol. II of Capital that transportation is a process of producing surplus-value (a productive labor-process). It follows from the above that Marx is also saying that it produces a use-value and a value (since a commodity is defined as a unity of those two things) and that the process of its production is a labor-process and a valorization process.

But in the transportation, there is no use-value produced which is separable from the labor-process.

It follows that the use-value even in this seemingly "immaterial" case is in fact entirely material (remember that Marx has defined the labor-process as a material process, as a material interchange between man and nature), and that in fact for some commodities the use-value is the labor-process, and that therefore, when considering those things, if the labor-process is concrete and material then so is the use-value.

Obviously, this argument holds correct only as an interpretation of Marx. Or, to say the same thing, it only shows that Marx thought that what are commonly considered "immaterial" use-values are quite material.

But the argument is also correct if you accept Marx's two initial premises, that the commodity is a unity of use-value and value, and that the production process is a unity of a labor-process and a valorization process.

You can, of course, drop those initial assumptions, but you will also have to abandon a huge part of Marx's theory since those initial assumptions are hugely important for the rest that follows (as I'm sure you'll recognize).

I already responded to this argument. I pointed out that Marx, in that quote, is using the term differently than he uses it in Capital, since in the quotes I provided (which, I might add, you never responded to) Marx is clear that the use-value is the same thing as the object itself, and therefore cannot be imaginary since the product is not imaginary. If you look at the quotes I provided a few posts ago (taken from the first two pages of Vol. 1), you will notice that there Marx again refers to something imaginary, but this time to imaginary needs rather than imaginary use-values. (In the translation I posted here the term "fancy" is used, but I believe the Fowkes translation has "imagination".) This seems to support my point that the concept of use-value has become more refined in Capital as compared to the Grundrisse.

I'm not going to respond to your points on the realization of value for a few reasons: Firstly, I actually don't think that the crux of the matter is our interpretation of value production. In fact I don't think it has much to do with this at all. Secondly, I'm currently writing something on the topic and don't want to "spoil" it, so to speak. And lastly, I think I said everything I wanted to say in the previous debate (and Andrew said even more), so I don't see it going anywhere. Besides, I think you are "more" correct here than you were before.

But I couldn't pass up on this:

Are you trying to turn this into a pissing contest? I can also go through "a LOT of material from value theory debates." But I don't see why you said this.

Mike

If your going to boast of destroying peoples arguments and showing them up as ignorant you could atleast do the rest of us mere mortals a favour and post the notes, no?

I've still seen no rebuttal of my position and instead see people making arbitrary divisions between the sphere of production and the sphere of exchange, as if use values are produced on some Platonic production line and then shipped into the senous world of subjective need and social discourse. I've also seen alot of assumptions being made about my thoughts on matters.

As for ignorance of mathematics, i've never claimed to know jack shit about the actual maths in those equations and formulas, all i have done, in an uppity manner common amongst communists, is to question the very assumptions that underpin them, a question which brought us to a discussion on the relationship between exchange value and use value, a discussion I thought might be quite useful but which instead was met with a vitirol which can only suggest your last lover ditched you for some poststructuralist peddling player.

Also there was no double teaming going on. I didn't realise this was WWE tag team tournament, as far as I could see redtwister was just interested in putting some ideas out there and seeing how they might fit into various different theories and arguments.

I don't know what you mean by "the notes". Are you referring to citations? If so, then I can't do this because I'm out of town and only have Vol. 1 with me, and I only have internet access sparingly, and I don't like to lug Vol. 1 around with me everywhere I go (contrary to popular belief). I did provide the general sections to look in. The citations are all taken from marxists.org so you should be able to find them quickly with the "find" function.

Mike

By notes i mean your arguments, you know the things that engage with my questions and issues and shows them to be fundamentally wrong headed.

I've read Marx but I am no marxist scholar, I have no desire to be presented with a dozen quotes from Capital. My issue isn't what Marx did or didn't say or mean per se but rather what is the relationship between use value and exchange value, the problem that confronts us when we try to define a use value as something objectively seperate from exchange value.

Now you correctly point out that language is material but surely this means that exchange value is just as material. Surely the use value of a lawyers speech is itself produced in a dialetic relationship to exchange value? Why is my client in court for shoplifting? Why do we have financial advisors, insurance sales persons, market speculators? What is the use value I'm producing in advertising? Surely these use values are all linked to exchange value and only make sense under a system of exchange value?

I was rather tired of this debate and didn't feel like returning to it, but Red brought this up in another thread so I figure I should give a final response.

Red says: "My argument had nothing to do with whether real wages are constant in the real world but what constant real wages measured represented versus what a constant rate of exploitation represented."

This does nothing more than obscure the issue. The issue is one of functional determination, i.e. what causes the rate of profit to fall (or rise). In Part 3 of Vol. III of Capital, Marx says over and over again that the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit is the expression, peculiar to the capitalist mode of production, of the rising productivity of labor (see pg. 319, 329 of the Penguin edition for only two such statements). In other words, the tendential fall in the rate of profit is the form of appearance of the rising productivity of labor, i.e. the rising productivity of labor determines the tendential fall in the rate of profit.

What "constant real wages... represent... versus what a constant rate of exploitation represent..." has nothing to do with the claim Marx is making in Part 3 of Vol. III. Marx could have made the rate of exploitation rise, fall, explode, whatever. The issue is one of functional determination, and Marx is crystal clear that in his theory it is the rise in the productivity of labor which causes the rate of profit to fall. In other words, out of all the changing variables in the capitalist economy, the rise in the productivity of labor is the one that Marx selects as the cause of the tendential fall in the rate of profit. You can talk about Marx's "assumption" of the constant rate of surplus-vaue all day and all night but you can't change this simple fact. (more on this below)

The first sentence is untrue, since there is absolutely no a priori reason to assume that real wages will always rise with the rise in productivity. (In fact, it seems to be the case of the last 30 years that the real wage in the US has fallen while productivity has of course continued to rise, albeit at what is perhaps a slower rate than before.)

In addition, you are again ignoring the issue of functional determination: even if it were true that real wages always rise when productivity rises (which, as I've pointed out, is untrue), it would not make sense to say that the rise in real wages is caused by the rising productivity of labor. A rise in productivity is neither necessary nor sufficient to cause an increase in the real wage, since the real wage can obviously increase independently of rises in productivity (for example due to a rise in wages caused by strike actions), hence rising productivity is not necessary for a rise in real wages. Or, conversely, it is possible for a rise in productivity to occur without a rise in real wages, if the working class is unable to capture the rise in use-values (as I pointed out is occuring today). Hence the rise in productivity is not sufficient to cause a rise in real wages.

The second sentence, in which you state: "one could just as easily look at Marx's example in Chapter 13 of Capital and say that since "real wages" would be rising (without workers having access to, say, any different goods at lower prices), that this is the source of the decrease in profits which Marx describes..." is again untrue if you take into account Marx's claim of functional determination. Marx uses an example with a constant rate of surplus-value at the beginning of Ch. 13 of Vol. III as an illustration, not as the source of his claim that the rate of profit has the tendency to fall. (If you look at the math in Ch. 3 of Vol. III concerning the relation between rate of surplus-value and rate of profit, you will already see the law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit foreshadowed without any necessary postulate of a constante rate of surplus-value.) As I pointed out, Marx constantly says that the rate of profit tends to fall because of the rising productivity of labor. You're method of reaidng Marx (or lack thereof) is to take the numerical example given at the beginning of Ch. 13 and then act as if Marx wrote nothing else on the topic! As if Marx's entire theory was encapsulated in the numerical example! But then why would Marx have claimed that the rate of profit would fall even if wages were zero? (More on this below)

I am going to use this same method to provide "a rather clear refutation" of Copernicus, by redefining the words "Sun" and "Earth." I hope people will take me seriously.

You may be clever with words Red, but unfortunately for you words and concepts are not identical.

Why you think this method of argumentation is at all intellectually honest is beyond me.

Red goes on to make some arguments that I'm unable to follow. In any case, he eventually comes to my earlier claim that Marx said that the rate of profit would fall even if wages were zero. The quote I was referring to is available on pg. 356 of the Penguin translation of Vol. III, and is reproduced here in the online translation from marxists.org :

In response to this passage, Red says:

Firstly, there is absolutely no reason to assume that Marx is speaking of a "single" capitalist here. Marx is speaking of the law of the tendential fall of the rate of profit, a law which Marx claims is valid for the total surplus-value of society (this is why Marx discusses it before his discussion of the distribution of surplus-value among unproductive capitals). See pg. 320 of the Penguin edition for an explicit statement of this sort. So why in the world would you suddenly assume that the theory has changed to a discussion of a single capitalist? It is great blow against your interpretation that you have to invent new objects of investigation for Marx (objects which Marx never alerted us to) in order to reconcile what you say with Marx. This has been referred to as the creation of "epicycles" before, and I find it to be a rather accurate characterization of what you're doing right now.

The second part of your paragraph is unintelligible to me. You say: "I read Marx as saying something rather obvious; a certain amount of cheap or even free (to the capitalist) labor can only provide the capitalist fixed mass of surplus value and so the capitalist must seek more labor to gain a larger MASS of surplus value, even if that means a decrease in his rate of surplus value (capitalists fire workers, reduce the remaining wages, then notice lower profits and hire more workers to increase the scale of operations in compensation, thus being then forced to raise wages)."

Why in the world are you bringing in a decreasing rate of surplus-value here? What does this have to do with anything? In the quote considered above, Marx is not referring to a decrease in surplus-value, which we can deduce from the simple fact that Marx has made reference to an infinite rate of surplus-value, i.e. all labor is surplus-labor. Your "interpretation" simply doesn't make sense here.

There is no evidence for your claim in the last sentence other than the fact that Marx constructs a numerical example involving a fixed rate of surplus-value at the very beginning of Ch. 13. But the fact that Marx repeatedly refers to the cause of the fall in the rate of profit as the rising productivity of labor, and the fact that he speaks of a rising rate of exploitation both in Chapters 14 and 15, speak very strongly against the interpretation which seems "clear" to you. It is only "clear" because you have ignored a good deal of the evidence. Once you take all of Marx's statements together, it is clear that your interpretation is wrong, or at least has no evidence to support it.

I already mentioned that this was an obvious case of the pot calling the kettle black. To accuse Kliman of "mad-man arithmetic" while posting a "model" in which you have not defined much of anything is absolutely absurd.

And your claim that there are "no non-equilibrium dynamics" in Marx's theory is again wrong, so long as we take equilibrium to mean static equilibrium (i.e. equal input and output prices). How do we know this? First of all, Marx refers to technical change as a continual process throughout this part of Capital. Thus it would seem intuitively strange to want to make input and output prices equal, since the very existence of technical change implies that they are not equal (i.e. price is falling). And secondly, Marx speaks of... falling prices! (See pg. 333 of the Penguin edition.) If Marx was postulating static equilibrium, then this passage would be incomprehensible, since static equilibrium postulates constant (and hence, not falling) prices. Once again, your intepretation is inconsistent with the text.

But the real killer is when after having generated countless inconsistencies within the text (actually, between your interpretation and the text), you say:

This is nothing more than an attribution of your own inconsistencies to the text. Once you reject the assumption of static equilibrium (which, for reasons known only by God himself, you are so hostile to rejecting), what Marx is saying follows completely logically and absolutely necessarily from Marx's discussion of the rising organic composition of capital in Ch. 25 of Vol. I. The mathematical relation between rate of surplus-value and rate of profit makes perfect sense, as does the language which Marx uses to describe this relation. The only reason you find it hard to understand is because you are trying to fit it within the confines of static equilibrium theory, which simply cannot be done. A whole century of writers can attest to this. (I submit the names of Tugan-Baranovsky, Bortkiewicz, Okishio and Samuelson for the best-known bourgeois critics of Marx, who for one reason or another you wish to try and reconcile with Marx.)

I think this thread is a perfect illustration of the importance of method of interpretation when reading Capital or any other text. If your reading of a text generates needless inconsistencies within a text, it is an inferior interpretation to one which does not generate needless inconsistencies.

Mike

Well,

At times in this discussion, I have been sloppy at presenting my positions. Mike's recent post has perhaps the opposite problem of presenting its conclusions as a truths needing no logical or mathematical justification what-so-ever.

I should give a context to this long discussion. Attempting to refute claims that equilibrium analysis cannot give a declining rate of profit, I gave an equilibrium model here which demonstrates a declining rate of profit with an equilibrium model where the rate of exploitation is constant and the level of material consumption of workers is constant. Mike objected that this must contradict the famous Okishio theorem since this theorem states that in equilibrium conditions, a constant real wage implies that the profit rate cannot decline in an equilibrium situation. I reply that this is because the "real wage" as given in Okishio's Sraffian model is a screwy (distorted, misleading, etc) measure of what is actually happening. I note that despite workers receiving absolutely constant material compensation that the Okishio measure "real wages" would register an increase due to the workers wages potentially being able to buy more goods (even if in fact no worker can actually buy these more available luxury goods, they having to spend their entire wages on their survival good).
The debate then became primarily around Mike dismissing the concerns I express about the Okishio/Sraffian measure real wages. Now, Mike reinforces his line of reasoning and I attempt to look at the actual origin of the declining rate of profit:

Ah, and I emphasize this point in my earlier post. But Marx says more than this. He says that the tendency of the organic composition of Capital to fall is how expresses this. All means of production increase the productivity of labor in some ways. If a person, Karl Marx in this case, were to describe a phenomena particular to the capitalist means of production, he would need look at something more specific than just an increasing productivity of labor. Otherwise, his model (or whatever one might call the sum of his observations) would apply to any mode of production.

We can look at Marx's full argument rather than being satisfied with phrases plucked out of Capital here and there.

This is should be obvious - the declining rate of profit is not a deus-ex-machina coming from a simple increase in labor productivity but rather a result of the tendency of the organic composition of capital to increase, something that is a general tendency of the capitalist mode of production.

My model, by the way, makes the increase in the organic composition of capital clear as a cause - you can very easily see the mass of capital increasing while total profits remain approximately constant.

This statement skips over the particular points I mention above to attempt to strengthen your nonsensical thesis. Furthermore, for someone who in other threads talking about rejecting Hegelianism, your statement here is complete Hegelian mysticism. Rising productivity is described like a spirit annihilating all the particular conditions of production and society - no consideration of particular conditions are necessary. It would be kind-of a hoot if you didn't actually believe it.

Ah, Dude...If you are measuring quantities in general and ratios in particular then it must always matter what you are measuring things against. In other threads you discuss an appreciation of science - In science, proper units are crucial. With improper units, you can prove anything. I could describe something I'd call "concrete wages" and "concrete profits" and create a definition that shows these always increasing (by say multiplying real wages and profits by population or by any convenient increasing quantity). By this definition, "concrete wages" and "concrete profits" could rise indefinitely regardless of the situation in the material world. And indeed, the question of the Okisio theorem, IMHO, comes down the question of proper (or in this case improper) units.

Anyway, your dismissal of proper units (and by extension any quantitative reasoning) seems be your main "argument" here and this cursory examination shows how empty it is.

---------

The rest of the discussion here comes down arguments about what Karl Marx really meant. I can understand the frustration of the casual reader concerning these questions. It's ugly fight and each debater's answer tends to be "s/he started it so I have to finish it". I'll leave each person to decide who started the quibbling and how useful it has been for us to attempt to finish it.

Cast off your blinders, open your eyes to possibilities beyond your philosophies. Imagine that there is difference the map and the territory. Now we are first talking about ideal, "toy" model which sketch the possibilities rather the present circumstances - we can indeed talk about this too but it is important to note the difference before mixing discussions and making everything a muddle. In a model, we can have a given measurement - say the power of computer chips that a factory or the number of sun spots one might observe - and multiply it by the current wages a worker gets, call it "real wages" and see that "Pari-pasu", all else being equal, our real wage rate goes up - this is productivity causing the statistic, the measure "real wages" to increase - it is especially notable that this statistic rises while the fundamental amount of survival goods which workers could buy with their wages remain constant, remain constant, REMAINS CONSTANT (is THAT enough emphasis?).

That thing with the real world is that many things happen at once and causes can thus be more complicated. Given the constant of pressures of capitalism, even the odd measure "real wages" can easily decline due to the leverage that capitalists can exert.

Still, in place, the illusions created by Okishio-type model enter the real world. The US bureau of labor statistics indeed uses a "hedonic" measure of inflation in which an increase in the power of computers indeed contribute to a relative increase in the value is calculated as the "real wage" rate regardless of whether

Aside from the fact that he refers to two labors, an amount of laborer that only be hired by a single capitalist?

Oh really now? Well, why does this quote appear in the section titled "CONFLICT BETWEEN EXPANSION OF PRODUCTION AND PRODUCTION OF SURPLUS-VALUE"? Perhaps because he was describing the need for capital to expand? This would explain why he describes how a how small number of workers, no matter how ill-paid, cannot produce as much, as great a MASS of surplus value as a large number of better workers. Hence the [i]conflict between expansion of production and production of surplus-value[i]? But Marx would never be interested in this topic, despite naming a subsection of the chapter this, no certainly not.
As far as the single capitalist question goes, the point isn't that Marx has suddenly become interested on a specific capitalist but rather that he is looking at the position that a particular capitalist is in - that a given capitalist must hire more laborers as production expands (he uses the phrase "a given capitalist").

What you call "epicycles" is simply subtopics - any complex line of involves subtopics

Moreover, if somehow Marx is talking about the rate of profit declining when all capitalists suddenly can pay nothing, he would not be offering any particular compelling argument for this claim.

See above for my refutations of the points - all I need are the paragraphs preceeding the quote (Why does Marx refer to MASS of surplus value here when it has nothing to do with the argument you mention, etc). You have a great love of your page number quotes but unfortunately I have the Progress Publishers editions (probably some terrible sin or something) so they are unfortunately useless to me. In this case, perhaps you could decode it with quote from Marxists.org (which I use by preference anyway). I might feel deprived but your interpretations so haven't been enlightening so I am not on the edge of my seat about this.

Anyway, if anyone else cares about this topic, I would like to hear whether they think the above statement is really saying what Mike thinks it is saying.

Anyway, as far as consistency goes, I think I am quite consistent with the entirety of each chapter of capital. Your consistency seems to involve picking a quote here and there and producing an illogical series of conclusions based on attempting to meld these into a rigid and illogical consistency. But given the amount of material involved, I have little interest in attempting to debate the subject in full.

This entire debate has pretty much reached the empty level of Christian debates over scripture. Christians know that the Devil can quote scripture for his own purposes and take the position that correct biblical interpretations are "informed by spirit". Naturally, I think we must take the opposite position and take useful interpretations as being informed by logic and banish spirit to the nether realms. Unfortunately, the earlier statements in Mike's post seem to indicate he has no interest in such logic - his approach instead revolves around productive labor as a spirit which annihilates any need to calculate particular quantities. With any quantitative relation to reality firmly shoved out the window, we are left with simple rhetoric about the meaning of X, Y and Z sentence.

Anyway, as I said, discussion seems to have run its course. Unless I see a qualitatively different post (say ones that use a quantitative argument to answer a quantitative question), I probably won't reply.

Best Wishes,

Red

I was going to write a response to Red's latest post, but as it turns out I just plain have no idea what the hell he's talking about, and I'm 100% sure he has no idea what I'm talking about. So I may as well cut to the chase and skip a textual refutation of Red's... idiosyncratic (to say the least!) reading of Capital, since it is frustrating to have to "refute" things which nearly everyone (aside from Red) who has read Capital acknowledge (for example, Red's earlier claim that Marx nowhere discusses how a rise in productivity cheapens labor-power!) I'll just get straight to the numbers.

Now, I must say that I find it rather strange that you demand a mathematical representation of the effect of a rise of the productivity of labor on the rate of profit, since you claim to have read a bit of Kliman, who provides countless demonstrations. But since it is so easy, I may as well provide you with one-sector model, which is the simplest and most direct way of evaluating claims since it removes all extraneous information such as the transformation of values into prices, ground-rent, etc.

Assume one sector. Therefore value = price. First we will assume that value is calculated intertemporally. In Example 2 we will calculate the rate of profit simultaneously valuing inputs and outputs.

The real wage (i.e. the wage in physical terms) will be assumed constant. For simplicity, assume it is 0. All labor is therefore surplus-labor. The capitalist also consumes nothing, and all profit is reinvested. (I.e. both workers and capitalists "live on air".) The physical/material input of period t+1 is equal to the physical/material output of period t.

Let's also assume that $1 represents 1 hour of labor-time throughout the examples.

At the beginning of Period 0, the unit value of the material good is $10.

10 units of the input are used, as well as 10 hours of labor, to produce 20 units of this good.

The value/price of all 20 units will therefore be $20 (because constant capital = $10 and new value created by living labor = $10). The unit value of the output will therefore be $1 per unit (derived from $20/20 units).

THE VALUE OF INPUTS AND OUTPUTS DURING PERIOD 0 ARE IDENTICAL NOT BY STIPULATION BUT BECAUSE PRODUCTIVITY HAS REMAINED CONSTANT ($1/unit).

The rate of profit is s/(c+v), which here is $10/($10+$0), or 100%.

At the beginning of period 1, the value/price of one unit of input is still $1 (because the end of period 0 is the beginning of period 1). Since we have assumed that all surplus-value/product is accumulated, the material inputs of period 1 equal the outputs of period 0, and therefore constant capital of period 1 = $20.

Assume a rise in productivity, due to a new organization of the mode of cooperation in the labor-process, such that 20 units of input and 10 hours of living labor now produce 100 units of output. (The physical output/input ratio has risen from 20/10 in period 0, to 100/20, in period 1.)

The value/price of the outputs have now changed. The total value of output is now $30, since constant capital advanced was $20 and living labor has remained constant (10 hours of labor, or $10 of new value). But now the unit value of the output is $.30 (derived from $30/100 units).

What is the new rate of profit at the end of period 1? The capital advance in this period was $20. The surplus-value is the same as that of the last period, however: $10. The rate of profit, s/(c+v) has fallen to $10/($20+$0), or 50%.

This is probably the simplest possible example of a rise in the productivity of labor causing a rise in the organic composition of capital, causing a fall in the rate of profit. ("The progressive tendency of the general rate of profit to fall is, therefore, just an expression peculiar to the capitalist mode of production of the progressive development of the social productivity of labour." -- Marx, pg. 319, Capital Vol. III)

The numbers here are:

Example 1 (temporal valuation of inputs and outputs)

Period 0

Physical inputs = 10 units
Unit price of input = $1
Constant capital (c) = $10
Living labor = 10 hours
Surplus-value (s) = $10
Real wage = 0
Variable capital (v) = $0
Physical outputs = 20 units
Total price of output = $20
Unit price of output = $1
Physical output/input ratio = 20/10
Rate of profit = $10/$10, or 100%

Period 1

Physical inputs = 20 units
Unit price of input = $1
Constant capital (c) = $20
Living labor = 10 hours
Surplus-value (s) = $10
Real wage = 0
Variable capital (v) = $0
Physical outputs = 100 units
Total price of output = $30
Unit price of output= $0.30
Physical output/input ratio = 100/10
Rate of profit = $10/$20, or 50%

Now, what happens when we value inputs and outputs simultaneously, using the same physical quantities of production and the same real wage? (Here I subtract physical inputs from the physical outputs to arrive at the number of units produced by living labor.)

Example 2 (simultaneous valuation of inputs and outputs)

Period 0

Physical inputs = 10 units
Unit price of input= $1
Constant capital (c) = $10
Living labor = 10 hours
Surplus-value (s) = $10
Real wage = 0
Variable capital (v) = $0
Physical outputs = 20 units
Unit price of output= $1
Physical output/input ratio = 20/10
Rate of profit = $10/$10, or 100%

Period 1

Physical inputs = 20 units
Unit price of input= $0.125
Constant capital (c) = $2.50
Living labor = 10 hours
Surplus-value (s)= $10
Real wage = 0
Variable capital (v) = $0
Physical outputs = 100 units
Price of total output = $12.50
Unit price = $0.125
Physical output/input ratio = 100/10
Rate of profit = $10/$2.50, or 400%

The rise in the productivity of labor has here (Example 2) caused the rate of profit to rise.

The organic composition (defined by constant capital divided by variable capital) has fallen in period 1 of Example 2 (compared to period 0 of the same example), except that since variable capital is 0 the organic composition of capital is undefined. But if we instead use constant capital divided by total labor, or c/(v+s), we see that this number has fallen despite, or rather because of, the rise in the productivity of labor.

What is the difference in the two examples here? Simply that valuation was calculated simultaneously, i.e. it is assumed that the value of inputs and outputs are equal. When the value is calculated this way, the rate of profit varies directly with the productivity of labor. (Notice once again that the only variable that has been changed from Example 1 to Example 2 is the method of calculating values, and thus the change in numerical results cannot have arisen from anything else!)

Notice that the rate of profit of 400% is also the rate of profit calculated if you directly calculate using physical magnitudes: 80 units surplus divided by 20 units advanced. I.e. labor-time determines nothing and physical quantities determine everything. This is a general result for simultaneous valuation.

For any one-sector model, assuming the values of inputs and outputs are equal, if

a= physical inputs
b= total physical output
x = the unit price of the good
w= physical wage (real wage)
r= rate of profit

r = (bx - ax - wx)/ (ax + wx) = x(b - a - w)/ x(a + w) = (b - a - w)/ (a + w).

The rate of profit will equal physical surplus (i.e. total output minus the real wage and minus the physical inputs) divided by physical inputs plus real wage.

Value/price is therefore irrelevant when simultaneous valuation is used.

So there, I've done it. The thing I've really proved is that before one enters into a detailed debate about Capital, one should first read it, and secondly, one should read the relevant literature surrounding the book to make sure that s/he isn't attempting to reinvent a debate that has long since been settled. (Tugan-Baranovsky gave in 1904, I believe, a basically similiar proof to the one I just gave.)

Mike