Category: Steve

Capital Volume 1 Part 1 Chapter 1 Section 2 Post 1

Section 2 is “The two-fold character of the labour embodied in commodities”

Page 41: “At first sight a commodity presented itself to us a complex of two things–use-value and exchange-value.  Later on, we saw also that labour, too, possesses the same two-fold nature: for, so far as it finds expression in value, it does not possess the same characteristics that belong to it as a creator of use-values.”

In other words, when we abstracted use-value from the commodity, we were left with exchange-value; to put this in practical terms, when we ignore the particular things a commodity can be used for, we are left with the fact that it can be exchanged for other commodities.  In the same way, human labor can be divided: if we ignore the particular sort of labor (machine-tool operating, baking, &c), we are left with human labor in the abstract.  On the one hand, it produces a particular sort of thing; on the other hand it produces value.

“Let us take two commodities such as a coat and 10 yards of linen, and let the former be double the value of the latter, so that, if 10 yards of linen=W, the coat=2W.”

Take a moment to get used to this coat and the linen, because we’re going to be spending a lot of time with them.

“The coat is a use-value that satisfies a particular want.  Its existence is the result of a special sort of productive activity, the nature of which is determined by its aim, mode of operation, subject, means, and result.  The labour, whose utility is thus represented by the value in use of its product, or which manifests itself by making its product a use-value, we call useful labour.  In this connection we consider only its useful effect.”

So far as I can tell (I’m liable to be missing something), Marx is simply establishing here that useful labor (as opposed to wasted labor) of  a particular kind is what produces particular use-values.  Remember that by use-value we mean the properties of a commodity that make it satisfy a particular human want–it’s shape, size, weight, composition, function, &c.  A particular sort of labor produces use-values, human labor in the abstract produces value.  These things, of course, happen at the same time.

“As the coat and the linen are two qualitatively different use-values, so also are the two forms of labour that produce them, tailoring and weaving.  Were these two objects not qualitatively different, not produced respectively by labour of different quality, they could not stand to each other in the relation of commodities.  Coats are not exchanged for coats, one use-value is not exchanged for another of the same kind.”

Right.  Okay.  The key here is “stand in relation to each other as commodities.”  What does that mean?  It means they can be exchanged, I think.  If the same sort of labor produced them, they would be the same commodity, which means they couldn’t be exchanged (or exchanging them would be meaningless).  So exchange takes place between the products of different sorts of labor.  For the nitpickers out there, yes, of course I might exchange my heavy winter-coat for a snazzy lighter one, but those are different sorts of coats, which means different sorts of labor were expended on them; that we might refer to both forms of labor as “tailoring” or even “coat making” only shows that, for most practical purposes, those of us not in the coat-making industry ignore the subtle distinctions in how coats are made, because, for most purposes, that doesn’t interest us.  Marx could as easily have used 1 Type A coat = 2 Type B coat, but it would have introduced confusion for no gain in understanding, which is something we leave to the post-structuralists.

Page 42: “To all the different varieties of values in use there correspond as many different kinds of useful labour, classified according to the order, genus, species, and variety to which they belong in the social division of labour.  This division of labour is a necessary condition for the production of commodities, but it does not follow, conversely, that the production of commodities is a necessary condition for the division of labour.  In the primitive Indian community there is social division of labour, without production of commodities.  Or, to take an example nearer home, in every factory the labour is divided according to a system, but the division is not brought about by the operatives mutually exchanging their individual products.  Only such products can become commodities with regard to each other, as result from different kinds of labour, each kind being carried on independently and for the account of private individuals.”

I believe that, for our purposes in this case, a corporation counts as a private individual.  What we’re doing here, then, is being clear on just what we mean by commodities, and pointing out that division of labor is vital to their production.  It is interesting to contrast this with Adam Smith, who began his work with division of labor, and, I think, took commodity production as a given.  Marx’s point about the factory is that there is division of labor there: different parts to a greater whole are produced, or a single part is worked over by different people doing different things, or some combination: but they are not producing different commodities.  Until we actually have an object that satisfies a human want and can be exchanged at the market, we have not produced a commodity.  In practical terms, the guy who puts together the front passenger door for the 2010 Prius is not producing a different commodity from the guy who attaches that door to the Prius’s frame.

To Will: Class and anti-racism

Inspired by this post.

I haven’t gotten involved in the “anti-racism” discussion, and, really, I’m still not.  I am replying to my good friend Will Shetterly’s comments on it, because I am a Red, and we Reds have a tradition of  saving our vitriol for those who come closest to agreeing with us.  I am doing so publicly, on my blog, because a) I don’t want to pull his discussion off track, 2) I still haven’t figured out exactly which of his blogs and feeds to reply to, iii) I want to open this up to any Smart People hanging around here, and D) I’m just that sort of asshole.

What I hear from you is a constant exchange that, it seems to me, goes like this: They argue that racism is a real problem, and you say that you have never denied this.  You say that it isn’t just those of color who are oppressed, but also the poor.  They have never denied this.  They say that by bringing up the poor, you are distracting the discussion from racism.  You say that it is impossible to discuss racism without bringing in class issues.  And so around and around.  What are we missing here?

It seems to me, Will, that you are basing your position on an abstraction that is, fundamentally, true: in terms of both the causes and the cures of social ills, class is a  fundamental distinction, race is secondary.  Okay, we both agree on that.  Now what?  If we want to understand the causes and cures, and if we begin with the idea that the class struggle is the essential motivating force in society, then it follows that ideas have class distinctions at their base.  Racism is an idea–an idea that expresses itself in poverty, in brutality, in misery, in oppression.  What is the class basis of this idea?  As you have said, it is an idea that serves the interests of the ruling class, of the propertied, of capital, of the elite.

“Anti-racism,” like racism itself, is an idea.  What is the class basis of this idea?  It is a theory of the middle-class, of those who deny that the class struggle is fundamental,  of those who exist between the two camps who have actual power.  What are the hallmarks of a middle-class idea?  First, the attempt to understand social issues without regard to class–the reduction of things to “just people.”  Second, reflecting the lack of real, material power, everything is reduced to an idea.  The problem is not children dying because the heat was cut off because there was no money because the factory closed and a black man in a poor area has a nearly impossible task in finding work; the problem is: people have racist thoughts.  The problem isn’t that the environment is being sacrificed in a reckless drive for profit, the problem is: people aren’t environmentally aware.  The solution, to them, isn’t the destruction of social classes forever, thus removing the material basis for racism and the destruction of the environment, it is to explore your own mind, and to learn how to speak without hurting people’s feelings and to learn the importance of recycling.

Environmental issues cannot be solved, or even seriously addressed, until the profit motive has been removed, and the full creative potential of humanity has been turned to the problem; but there are those who talk about how we should “reduce our carbon footprint,” removing the class issue from it, so it becomes not a problem of humanity organizing and consciously determining use of resources, but rather “just people.”  The women’s movement (as, in fact, the struggle against racism) has moved from being part of a proletarian movement, to being middle class; now it isn’t a question of wages, of medical care, of the right to a decent life, but instead a series of abstractions designed to appeal to those with a certain level of privilege, of comfort, and to hell with the rest of them.  (In fact, the women’s movement is probably the worst; where at one time it revolved around the fight for union representation, for equal wages, abortion rights, and for the right to vote, now they furiously argue with each other about how many women should be in the Senate and whether there should be laws banning pornography.  Ye gods.)

So here’s my problem with your approach: Merely by saying the working class is oppressed, without also seeing the power the working class has to remake society; by putting it in terms of income rather than in terms of relation to production (which is what gives the working class it’s power); by putting it on the level that one idea, “classism” is more significant than another idea, “racism;” you are, yourself, taking the same sort of middle-class stand that is at the root of what you are arguing against.  If your middle-class position is marginally less wrong than someone else’s middle-class position, that doesn’t carry the struggle forward one iota.

Why are you engaging with them?  Is it subjective frustration that “someone is wrong on the internet?”  Do you believe that you can change the world “one mind at a time?”  Can you name an individual whose life is better because of this dispute?  It may be that you’re arguing for the same reason I argue (and am doing so now): it helps me clarify my own ideas.  But if that’s the reason, be aware of it, and keep in mind that ideas by themselves aren’t going to change anything; and accepting the most fundamental error of your opponent is not the best way to avoid his mistakes.

Capital Volume 1 Part 1 Chapter 1 Section 1 Post 5

Page 39: “We see then that that which determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the amount of labour socially necessary, or the labour-time socially necessary for its production.  Each individual commodity, in this connexion, is to be considered as an average sample of its class.  Commodities, therefore, in which equal quantities of labour are embodied, or which can be produced in the same time, have the same value.”

This is probably a good place to drop in an historical note: Up until this point, what we have is clear statement of something that the serious political economists of the time (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Benjamin Franklin, &c &c) would have agreed with.   The stumbling block to political economists, was this: If commodities all sell at their value, and value is determined by the amount of labor embodied in it, and labor is a commodity–where does the profit come from?  Smith, as we know, invented “ordinary profits of stock” to sidestep the issue.  Franklin simply ignored it, and Ricardo, from my limited understanding (I haven’t read him), expresses the problem in the clearest terms without solving it.  In the footnotes, there are quotes of various efforts to solve this, my favorite being the guy who explained that profit comes from capitalists denying themselves luxuries.  I kid you not.

Page 40: “The value of a commodity would therefore remain constant, if the labour-time required for its production also remained constant.  The latter changes with every variation in the productiveness of labour.  This productiveness is determined by various circumstances, amongst others, by the average amount of skill of the workmen, the state of science, and the degree of its practical application, the social organization of production, the extent and capabilities of the means of production, and by the physical conditions.”

The more productive a given form labour is, the lower the value of the commodity produced by that form of labour.  This will become very important later.

“For example, the same amount of labour in favorable seasons is embodied in 8 bushels of corn, and in unfavorable seasons only in four.  The same labour extracts from rich mines more metal than from poor mines.  Diamonds are of very rare occurrence on the earth’s surface, and hence their discovery costs, on an average, a great deal of labour-time.  Consequently much labour is represented in a small compass.”

I think there was a question earlier about diamonds &c, and there’s the answer.  Makes sense to me.  What I don’t understand is why “8” is given as a numeral, and “four” is spelled out.  But this mystery may be less important, in the cosmic scheme of things, than others, so we’ll pass over it.

“A thing can be a use-value, without having value.  This is the case whenever its utility to man is not due to labour.  Such are air, virgin soil, natural meadows, &c.  A thing can be useful, and the product of human labour, without being a commodity.  Whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of his own labour, creates, indeed, use-values, but not commodities.  In order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use-values, but use-values for others, social use-values. ”

This is followed by a parenthetical comment about medieval peasant’s quit-rent-corn and tithe-corn, which is, in turn, followed by a footnote by Engels; the point being that not all use-values produced for others are commodities; they must be produced for exchange to be commodities.

Page 41: “Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility.  If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it: the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value.”

And here, at lest, we have reached the end of Section 1.  Huzzah.

Another Tiassa Update

After several conversations with Reesa, what I think is the last chunk of Tiassa has fallen into place well enough that I can see where I’m going.  I think.  Maybe.  For the moment.  So I believe I’m on track to finish it.   I have noticed that, with each of the last several books, I have pissed off some percentage of Vlad fans, and this makes me sad.  So, with this book, I’m hoping to piss off all of them.  I hate half measures.