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Capital Volume 1 Part 1 Chapter 1 Section 3A

skzb — Mon, 24 May 2010 07:15:06 +0000

This subsection is called, “Elementary or Accidental form of Value”

Page 48: “x commodity A=y commodity B, or
x commodity A is worth y commodity B, or
20 yards of linen= 1 coat, or
20 yards of linen is worth 1 coat.”

Subsection 1: The two poles of the expression of value: Relative form and Equivalent form
“The whole mystery of the form of value lies hidden in this elementary form. It’s analysis, therefore, is our real difficulty.”

Intuitively, this makes sense. That is, if we say 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, we’re saying 20 yards of linen can be exchanged for one coat. It makes sense that we can get from there to money.

“Here two kinds of commodities (in our example the linen and the coat), evidently play two different parts. The linen expresses its value in the coat; the coat serves as the material in which that value is expressed. The former plays an active, the latter a passive part.”

Right. By saying 20 years of linen = 1 coat, then we are defining the linen in terms of the coat, or, we’re saying, “How much coat is needed to express the value of 20 yards of linen.”

“The value of the linen is represented as relative value, or appears in relative form. The coat officiates as equivalent, or appears in equivalent form.”

The value of the linen is relative to the coat.

“The relative form and the equivalent form are two intimately connected, mutually dependent and inseparable elements of the expression of value; but, at the same time, are mutually exclusive, antagonistic extremes–i.e., poles of the same expression. They are allotted respectively to the two different commodities brought into relation by that expression.”

Mutually dependent opposites, like positive and negative poles of a magnet.

“It is not possible to express the value of linen in linen. 20 yards of linen = 20 yards of linen is no expression of value. On the contrary, such an equation merely says that 20 yards of linen or nothing else than 20 yards of linen, a definite quantity of the use-value linen. The value of the linen can therefore be expressed only relatively–i.e., in some other commodity. The relative form of the value of the linen pre-supposes, therefore, the presence of some other commodity–here the coat–under the form of equivalent. On the other hand, the commodity that figures as the equivalent cannot at the same time assume the relative form. That second commodity is not the one whose value is expressed. Its function is merely to serve as the material in which the value of the first commodity is expressed.”

In order to express the value of a commodity, another commodity is required.

Page 49: “No doubt, the expression 20 yards of linen = 1 coat . . .implies the opposite relation: 1 coat = 20 yards of linen…But in that case I must reverse the equation, in order to express the value of the coat relatively; and, so soon as I do that, the linen becomes the equivalent instead of the coat…whether, then, a commodity assumes the relative form, or the opposite equivalent form, depends entirely upon its accidental position in the expression of value–that is, upon whether it is the commodity whose value is being expressed, or the commodity in which value is being expressed.”

Okay, yeah, I think I got that. It caused me to do some serious thinking about the equal sign, which actually contains a lot more implied complexities than I’d ever realized. But it does make sense.

Capital Volume 1 Part 1 Chapter 1 Section 3A

Short-short sold

skzb — Mon, 17 May 2010 21:06:05 +0000

I’ve sold a short-short called “Mira” to Sword and Sorceress #25, scheduled to be out in November. Sword and Sorceress was Emma Bull’s first sale, and, as Emma is one of my heroes (no, I’m not kidding), I’ve always wanted to have a story in that anthology. I’m delighted. The story came out of a conversation with Reesa, so special thanks to her. Smooches, too.

Short-short sold

Auction Stuff

skzb — Fri, 14 May 2010 02:33:32 +0000

Bunches of cool stuff are up for auction this week, all proceeds going toward Reesa Brown’s medical expenses. There are even a few things from that Brust guy, in case anyone around here is interested. The auction runs through Saturday night, so those of you who don’t get paid until Friday will still have time to spend your pennies in a good cause!

EDIT: from Brad — “As incentive to everyone to bid higher…I’ll match the auction total. Yup, so everyone’s bid is worth double.” That’s right, any bid you make will double the help we get towards our medical bills, so go visit http://spinathon.reesabrown.com/auction and make your bid, you have until 11:59pm Saturday May 15th!

Auction Stuff

Learning Poker

skzb — Mon, 10 May 2010 04:45:22 +0000

There’s been some talk of poker. Yes, I play poker. For me, it’s just like meditation, except you’re thinking a lot and you make money. My Poker Master took me in when I was six years old. For three years, all he would let me do is shuffle cards. Day after day, shuffling cards. I would say to him, “When will I learn poker?” And he would smile and say, “Your riffle is imperfect.” Then he would hit me in the head with Super/System.

Later he would make me practice pushing chips into the pot. For years, all I did was move chips, until my motion flowed, and the chips were part of me, and it was myself I was pushing into the middle of the table, saying, “Throw it away, you don’t have the balls to call.”

Finally he let me begin to learn. He taught me the hand rankings, the odds of making a flush with two cards to come, as well as poker etiquette, like what to do if someone has a heart attack at the table (if he wasn’t in the hand, call the card room manager to announce an open seat).

Then the hard lessons began–discipline. Discipline, discipline, discipline. He would put duct tape over my mouth, bind my hands to my side, and deal me aces.

It was hard, but gratifying. I became one with the felt. My consciousness would expand until process was everything, results nothing, unless I took a really bad beat, in which case I had a Smith & Wesson.

Fill, or fill not. There is no draw.

Learning Poker

Progress report, and thank-you

skzb — Sun, 09 May 2010 03:23:46 +0000

I’m on the last chapter of Tiassa, and I want to take a moment to thank Alexx Kay for his timeline, Mark Mandel for Cracks and Shards, and everyone who has been maintaining the Dragaera Wiki; these resources have been especially useful over the last couple of days.

Progress report, and thank-you

They’re Spinnin’ & Grinnin’ I’m Screamin’ & Streamin’

skzb — Sun, 02 May 2010 14:34:48 +0000

Yes, friends, today I will be on streaming video, live from the Spinathon, starting at 1pm Central Daylight Time. What will I be doing? Probably standing around looking like an idiot. But I’ve said I’ll do it, so I will, if I’m not in jail.

(Edit: our main website went down, of course while our admin is in transit and therefore away from the ‘net. However, we’ll still be recording the show and will have it embedded on the site this evening. You can also see it while live from the direct UStream link in Round Rock starting at 1pm CDT. Paypal donations can be sent directly to eposia@yahoo.com, we’re less than 7 hours from making our 48-hour fiber-spinning goal!)

Re-Edit: SpinAThon site is back up and you can watch the cams directly here: http://spinathon.reesabrown.com/node/5

Final Edit: SpinAThon finished at 42.8 hours, and much lovely fiber spun by several talented women. The fiber spun during SpinAThon will be available for bidding along with other finely crafted products in next week’s auction! Steve played for 3.5 hours and we will be posting videos from his performance within the next few days on the SpinAThon site. Thanks to everyone who participated, you all rock!

They’re Spinnin’ & Grinnin’ I’m Screamin’ & Streamin’

Spinathon!

skzb — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:12:23 +0000

Yes, it’s a Spinathon! What, you ask, is a Spinathon? I have no idea, but we’re having one.

Okay, okay. In order to raise some money for medical expenses (Reesa, if you recall, just had a radical mastectomy, which is major surgery, which they charge money for), volunteers are going to be spinning yarn (or knitting) for as long a time as they can get sponsored, up to at least 48 hours. We have 23.5 hours covered so far. This is going to happen this coming weekend (May 1-2) here in Austin (well, technically Paige,TX and Round Rock). As extra incentive, if we raise enough sponsorships to cover the second day of SpinAThon (that’s Sunday, May 2 in Round Rock TX for you local folk), I’m going to be showing up to the event for several hours and maybe doing some tunes and signing some books and pretending to be a celebrity. Reesa will also be on-site for part of both days if you’d like to meet and chat with the person who inspired the event.

If this sounds like something you want to get involved in, follow the links below:

To skip the rest and go directly to the donate button, click here for the main SpinAThon page and then click the handy donate button, found just above the letters from friends.. (We tried to link to the button directly but the link expires after a certain amount of time.)

A link to the SpinAThon main page, as well as the FAQ page.

Reesa wrote a post compiling several links and information about SpinAThon that might be useful.

Only a few more days available for you to help out with SpinAThon! We also have an auction scheduled for after SpinAThon that will be putting up for bid the yarn and knit things made during the event, as well as other donated unique pieces from artists.

Spinathon!

Capital Volume 1 Part 1 Chapter 1 Section 3

skzb — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 23:07:14 +0000

This section is called “The form of value or exchange-value”

Page 47: “Commodities come into the world in the shape of use-values, articles, or goods, such as iron, linen, corn, &c. This is their plain, homely, bodily form. They are, however commodities, only because they are something two-fold, both objects of utility, and, at the same time, depositories of value. They manifest themselves therefore as commodities, or have the form of commodities, only in so far as they have two forms, a physical or natural form, and a value-form.”

Lurking within the physical form of a commodity is a value form; that is, it is an expression of value. It has value and may be treated (indeed, is treated, and was produced to be treated) as a container of value. Not all things that have value are commodities (ie, undeveloped land); but all commodities have value.

“The value of commodities is the very opposite of the coarse materiality of their substance, not an atom of matter enters into its composition. Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality, and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity.”

Value is meaningless in a single, isolated commodity. It becomes important when that commodity is placed beside another of a different kind; then they enter into a relationship based on their values. The relationship is, to be precise, exchangeability.

“Everyone knows, if he knows nothing else, that commodities have a value-form common to them all, and presenting a marked contrast with the varied bodily forms of their use-values. I mean their money-form.”

Check. Even the most stubborn, ignorant adherent to the Chicago School is aware that commodities are traded for money, and (though he may never have thought about it) that money has little in common with the physical form of the commodity it is buying.

“Here, however, a task is set us, the performance of which has yet even been attempted by bourgeois economy, the task of tracing the genesis of this money-form, of developing the expression of value implied in the value-relation of commodities, from its simplest, almost imperceptible outline, to the dazzling money-form. “

Capital Volume 1 Part 1 Chapter 1 Section 3

Capital Volume 1 Part 1 Chapter 1 Section 2 Post 4

skzb — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:52:41 +0000

Page 44: “Just as, therefore, in viewing the coat and linen as values, we abstract from their different use-values, so it is with the labour represented by those values: we disregard the difference between its useful forms, weaving and tailoring. As the use-values, coat and linen, are combinations of special productive activities with cloth and yarn, while the values, coat and linen, are, on the other hand, mere homogeneous congelations of undifferentiated labour, so the labour embodied in these latter values does not count by virtue of its productive relation to cloth and yarn, but only as being expenditure of human labour-power.”

My impression is that Marx is taking the same point he made before, and simply coming at it from another angle, much like a mathematician might try to prove a conclusion in several different ways. The point is still this: that by abstracting from commodities the particular characteristics to leave only value, we are also abstracting the particular sort of labor that created them, leaving only human labor in the abstract. If there is another point here, I’m missing it.

Page 45: “Coats and linen, however, are not merely values, but values of definite magnitude, and according to our assumption, the coat is worth twice as much as the ten yards of linen. Whence this difference in their values? It is owing to the fact that the linen contains only half as much labour as the coat, and consequently, that in the production of the latter, labour-power must have been expended during twice the time necessary for the production of the former.”

Note that labor-power expended is how we get labor. Intuitively obvious, but worth paying attention to. I have the ability to labor, but it doesn’t actually change anything until I exert myself. Once I have done so, that labor, if it isn’t wasted, does something. Just as an electrical current through a working incandescent bulb transforms itself into light and heat, labor-power, when expended, transforms itself into something else–namely, value.

“While, therefore, with reference to use-value, the labour contained in a commodity counts only qualitatively, with reference to value it counts only quantitatively, and must first be reduced to human labour pure and simple. In the former case, it is a question of How and What, in the latter of How much? How long a time? Since the magnitude of the value of a commodity represents only the quantity of labour embodied in it, it follows that all commodities, when taken in certain proportions, must be equal in value.”

Any commodity can be exchanged for any other because, with the correct adjustment of quantity, they can be made equal.

Capital Volume 1 Part 1 Chapter 1 Section 2 Post 4

Capital Volume 1 Part 1 Chapter 1 Section 2 Post 3

skzb — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:42:51 +0000

Page 43: “The use-value, coat, linen, &c., i.e., the bodies of commodities, are combinations of two elements–matter and labour. If we take away the useful labour expended upon them, a material substratum is always left, which is furnished by Nature without the help of man. The latter can work only as Nature does, that is by changing the form of matter. Nay more, in this work of changing the form he is constantly helped by natural forces. We see, then, that labour is not the only source of material wealth, of use-values produced by Labour. As William Petty puts it, labour is its father and the earth its mother.”

Labor, then, is useful and purposeful activity expended upon substances provided by nature in order to change their form. And, as we’ve seen from before, if we abstract from a commodity the particular material substance, and the exact form of the labor, what is left is human labor in the abstract.

The point is that, for now, we will refer for the sake of simplicity to labor, rather than doing the reduction of skilled labor to simple labor, as this will not change anything for this part of the investigation.

“So far as they are values, the coat and the linen are things of a like substance, objective expressions of essentially identical labour. But tailoring and weaving are, qualitatively, different kinds of labour. There are, however, states of society in which one and the same man does tailoring and weaving alternately, in which case these two forms of labour are mere modifications of the labour of the same individual, and no special and fixed functions of different persons.; just as the coat which our tailor makes one day, and the trousers which he makes another day, imply only a variation in the labour of one and the same individual. Moreover, we see at a glance that, in our capitalist society, a given portion of human labour is, in accordance with varying demand, at one time supplied in the form of tailoring, at another in form of weaving.”

Again, different kinds of labor, insofar as they are labor, can be equated as quantities; this is how commodities can be exchanged.

Page 44: Productive activity, if we leave out of sight its special form, viz., the useful character of the labour, is nothing but the expenditure of human labour-power.”

To get an idea of what Marx means by labor-power, it is useful to consider the difference between potential and kinetic energy. Labor-power is the ability to labor–when labor-power is expended, it becomes labor. So far, what we have read is little more than what has been discovered by earlier political economists (albeit expressed with exceptional clarity and precision); the important distinction between labor and labor-power constitutes one of the most important discoveries by Marx. In retrospect, of course, it is obvious: the ability to take an action is not the same as the action. But uncovering this distinction was as important to economics as changes in the form of energy was important to physics.

“The value of a commodity represents human labour in the abstract, the expenditure of human labour-power in general. And just as in society, a general or a banker plays a great part, but mere man, on the other hand, a very shabby part, so here with human labour. It is the expenditure of simpler labour-power, i.e., of the labour-power which, on an average, apart from any special development, exists in the organism of very ordinary individual. Simple average labour, it is true, varies in character in different countries and at different times, but in a particular society it is given. Skilled labour counts only as simple labour intensified, or rather, as multiplied simple labour, a given quantity of skilled labour being considered equal to a greater quantity of simple labour. Experience shows that this reduction is constantly being made. A commodity may be the product of the most skilled labour, but its value, by equating it to the produce of simple unskilled labour, represents a definite quantity of the latter labour alone.”

Here Marx inserts a footnote to remind the reader that, when we speak of skilled or simple labor, we are not speaking of the cost of that labor–ie, wages; which we’ll be getting to later.

Capital Volume 1 Part 1 Chapter 1 Section 2 Post 3