Re: AUT: Remarks on Midnight Notes

[Fiocco@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Fiocco Laura)]

>On Thu, 5 Feb Paul Mattiick, answering to Doug, wrote:
>
>> Paul Mattick wrote:
>>
>> >Yes: but what is produced by cooking, eating, etc. is not "labor power"
>> >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.
>>
>> And what does this fine distinction do for you politically, aside from
>> providing an elegant excuse for the value theorist to ignore household
>> relations?
>>
>> Doug
>This strikes me as an obnoxious, as opposed to comradely, comment, but I
>will answer it anyway. The distinction provides no excuse for the value
>theorist, or anyone else, to ignore household relations; it only excludes
>them from value theory. But there is more to life than value theory. The
>political gain it provides is as roundabout as theoretical gains usually
>are: it makes it possible to comprehend the functioning of capitalism, as
>a system regulated by the representation--and misrepresentation--of labor
>as "value", and it makes it possible to see through the mystifications of
>economic theory.
>Paul

It may be true that, as you say, "there is more to life than value theory"
but there is nothing left outside capital reproduction process, which is an
antagonist process (realised in the struggle). And capital reproduction
process is unconcievable if we do not consider the ***value-form of
labor***.
I think that the misunderstanding in the debate is due to the confusion
between the problem of quantifying labor force's value and the theoretical
implications of the value-form of labor. If together with value theory
(quantification problem) we get rid of value-form it become impossible
(theoretically) a) to conceive capital as a social relation and b) to
understand why in this owfull world one part of humanity is
"overpopulation". The re-production of a part of the population as labour
force (present and future) is the same process (not something more: there
is nothing outside) which produces overpopulation.
ciao laura




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