Re: AUT: Remarks on Midnight Notes

[Ilan Shalif <gshalif@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi comrades.
Old wine get better when time pass.

The following was sent some time ago...
Just was resent by mistake by a comrade...

I wonder why Paul Mattick try to ridicule it.

> On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Aim Deuelle-Luski wrote:
>
> > At 01:46 20/01/98 +0200, you wrote:
> > >Here again the confusing of value, price and commodities:
> > >
> > >Paul Mattick wrote:
> > >
> > >> One more comment on Franco's message, which I reread after reading G.
> > >> MacDonald's comment, which I wish to second: F.B. like Harry Cleaver
> > >> confuses "the production of labor power as a commodity" and "the
> > >> determination of the value of labor power". Historically, as he says,
> > >> the socalled primitive accumulation was the transformation of artisans and
> > >> peasants into wage workers; once capitalism has developed, labor power, in
> > >> the form of
> > >> laborers, has to be reproduced by all the activities: shopping, cooking,
> > >> eating, watching TV, etc. required. But none of this labor is
> > >> value-producing labor.
> > >
> > >ANY labor which is SOCIALLY needed for production of a commodity to reach the
> > >end-user, is entered into its value. The value of a fruit is
> > >not only the work needed to grow it, but all the treatment involved
> > >till it reach the mouth of the consumer - including paper work
> > >and supermarket workers and managerial.
> > >Any one who know something about production recognize the concept
> > >"over heads" for needed work that cannot be allocated to specific unit
> > >of production.
> Yes: but what is produced by cooking, eating, etc.

Eating is like breathing - activity one do to hirself...you cannot treat it as you
treat social work.
However, not like air, food usually need add work to
so people can eat it.
>
> cooking is not "labor power"
>
Cooking in order to supply some thing to eat - is work.
It is work when it is done in the factory while supplying workers
with meals. It is work socially needed if one does it to prepare
food for family or to oneself.
>

> the commodity but the laborer herself. LP is, so to speak, an attribute of
> the person, who is its "owner". This is why, in Marx's analysis, the value
> of LP is determined not by the time necessary to produce the laborer but
> the commodities required for that production: this is where socially
> necessary labor time (value) enters into the story.

Work is work is work. No matter what is the exact citation fromthe bible.

It is socially needed work when invested in frozen prepared
food one only need to put in the microwave. It is partly socially
needed work if bought raw and prepared home.

> > >
> > >As the domestic work is needed both for reproduction of the new
> > >generation and for maintaining the adult workers - so s/he can
> > >go to work, this work IS SOCIALLY needed, thus, part of the value
> > >of the said commodity.
> > >

It is (at least partly) socially needed work when someone tendhir young toddlers
home, or pay some one else to do it while
going to factory or office or school to do slave work.

> > >> This is why the value of LP is determined not by
> > >> the (unmeasurable in terms of abstract labor time)
> > >
> > >Why not, someone lost hir watch? The fact that partof it is usually not for
> > >sale, is not different in principle
> > >from other materials and half way parts of an end product.
> > >
> A watch would do no good. A watch measures concrete labor time. As Marx
> says, abstract labor time appears only in the form of its equivalent in
> exchange, i.e money. It is not measurable otherwise.

I wonder what backward country you are in. The one who tendto the kids while the
mother is at work slave, both measures it
with the watch and charge the payment accordingly.

So does the students (and others) who do the weekly house
cleaning which a full job person does not do if can afford it.

> A factory-full of
> workers might labor for a month to produce cars; if they cannot be sold,
> they have performed no abstract labor time, no value at all.

The mixture between the market and its dynamics is not in place.There are many
products in processing (for instance parts
of computers) that are sometimes sold and sometimes used
in the same factory to make another product.

> > >> work put into it, but by
> > >> the commodities consumed in its production. But this is to restate points
> > >> already argued for in my posts to Cleaver.
> > >
> > >According to this logic, "organic vegetables" grown by a personwithout adding
> > >fertilizers, water, chemical or machine - have no
> > >value.
> Not at all. Vegetables, organic or not, produced for sale, contain
> abstract labor time: the work put into them is represented by money
> capital. (The same vegetables produced for my own consumption contain no
> abstract labor time.)

The abstract labor time is not becoming so as the product it iscreating is sold. The
abstract labor time is (becoming) value
on one condition only - whether it is and as mach as it is
socially needed.

> A child, produced by a family, contains no abstract
> labor time.

First it is wrong. Child rising involves investment of time thathas an alternative
in the market. It involves labor time of others
purchased in the market.

A person can invest the same amount of time rising hir kids
and alternatively invest it in rising for payment of work hours
the kids of another person who invest the time as work slave
in another work place.

> But when that child goes to work, her ability to work enters
> the circuit of capital value: it represents a certain sum of consumed
> commodities; it will produce new commodities; the difference between the
> commodities required to produce it and the commodities it can produce, in
> value terms, is surplus value. This is all that is of interest to capital,

Capital is really interested in time invested in child rising.Mothers of babies
still on mother milk even get time paid
for this by employers.

Governments subsidize nursing homes for kids of working
mothers.

> though of course it is not all that is of interest to the family (since it
> leaves out all the effort of raising a child).

For sure not all efforts invested at home is socially neededwork. But, the fact that
work at home can or cannot be bought
or sold at the market is beside the point.

SOCIALLY NEEDED WORK IS THE SOLE CREATOR OF
VALUES. ALL SOCIALLY NEEDED WORK INVESTED IN
ANY  COMMODITY CREATES VALUES.
<snip from another post>

>  I believe--from which it follows that the value of labor power is
> not created by household labor, even in part. If you think I am incorrect
> is is not enough simply to
> say once again that you have a different view and it is correct, which is
> so far all you and the other Midnite Noters have done.

For sure one can create a mathematics system in which2+2=5... But, for the usual
person, 2+2=4... And it is not
a question of "different view and is correct".

All the concept of "value" and "surplus value" is based on
simple mathematics of economy. Work is measured in time.
The finding of "socially needed work" is a simple accounting
project.

The value of ANY commodity - substantial or service is not hard
to find. (Sometimes even easier than finding the price.)

The value (and price) of parts and materials in process is done
all the time in industry.

The computing of the value of the commodity which is "the work a
wage slave supply during hir life" is just as simple as that of an
equipment that is used long years.

Only male chauvinistic trends (conscious or unconscious) may
lead an intelligent and learned person to deny the
equivalent of 'work needed at home making' to the same amount
of work when paid for it to a hired work slave.

For freedom now!!!
Ilan Shalf (Alternative Psychologist)

> > >http://members.tripod.com/~alternativ_psy/
> > >http://www.geocities.com/~drilanshalif/
> > >http://www.netvision.net.il/php/gshalif
> > >http://flag.blackened.net/ishalif/anarchy.html
> > >http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/3150/Anarchy.html
> > >





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