Re: Marx and value--a potential critique.

[m-14970@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Hugh Rodwell)]

BodySat gets down to fundamentals.

Let's work backwards through his posting.


>        Marxism is no place for fundamentalists.

You're beginning to sound like m2! Just what do *you* mean by 'fundamentalists*?

Would you say 'Science is no place for fundamentalists' if someone argued
that Einstein really was convinced that light was both a wave and a
particle at the same time, and also had a finite speed (constant in a
vacuum), and that nothing in the whole wide universe was capable of
travelling faster than this light?

So you think someone trying to clarify the fundamental principles of Marx's
analysis of the capitalist mode of production, and as convinced as Marx was
of their correctness, has no place in 'Marxism'?

Perhaps a touch out of place, given the number of subscribers who don't
appear to be convinced of the correctness of these principles, or even of
their usefulness, but having 'no place'?

How about applying to be a Moderator?!


>        There is clearly and absolutely no such thing as embodied labor.  To
>the extent that Marx argues such a point he is clearly and plainly wrong.
>Expressing in what way the exchange value of goods can be modified, or is
>informed by the conditions of labor is another story.

Wrong. There is clearly such a thing as embodied labour. If there wasn't
(and very firmly fixed to the commodity at that), what would be the
characteristic of the commodity that determined the fixed, average level of
its market price when all the accidental oscillations of unusual conditions
equal out? What would be the thing in all commodities (including money =
gold, the basis of all cash and credit money) that makes them directly
comparable (in terms of price) despite totally different use values and
physical characteristics? Why would there be such amazing differences
between the market behaviour of new and second-hand goods?

Perhaps it's the 'embodied' that is confusing. Let's not quibble about
words. Say 'attached', 'linked', 'bound', 'fixed to', 'labelled with' or
whatever. The thing is, the capitalist knows damn well what his costs of
production have been and the equivalent he can demand for them, and he
knows the average rate of profit he can demand on the basis of his invested
capital, and in the normal course of events (which is what Marx was
analysing, including the processes that produce crises in the normal course
of events) he will accept no price below this. The law of value is pushing
him to do this, whether he is aware of it or not. For him and his customer,
there is a quantity of labour 'embodied in' or 'bound to' that commodity
(let's use a completely average commodity produced by completely average
methods and labour so we don't get bogged down in sales above or below
value due to competition), that is mutually acknowledged as material, and
which could be traced back to the minutes devoted to the labour process by
each worker participating in the planning and production of each commodity
at every stage of its development.

The most abstract (labour time as such) turns out to be the most concrete
(the price you pay at your local supermarket). The most concrete (the taste
of that broccoli, the back seat of that Volvo) turns out to be irrelevant
and abstract when it comes to fixing the exchange value, the price of the
thing.


>        Marx, in the three fat books produces a theory which is both
>economics and political rhetoric.

What did Joan Robinson say: 'the usual verities flooded with a tide of red
ink' or some such (Exercises in Economic Analysis)? It's the same line
you're pushing. At least she made a colourful splash in the streets of
Cambridge with her blue and white saris -- what's your raison d'etre?

>Consumers set the price, and therefore the
>value of goods since there is no other *real* way to define the value of
>goods.

Look Body, if I as consumer set the price, I would be living a damn sight
better than I do now. Consumers do not set the price. They negotiate the
value of the goods as best they can with the capitalist producers and
merchants on the basis of cost of production and consensus margins (average
rate of profit). In other words, on the basis of the value and surplus
value contained in the goods (averaging out the whole of society as above).

What's *real* or not in bourgeois economics is another kettle of pilchards.


> Laborers labor in the hopes of receiving exchange value.  The create
>no intrinsic value.  Also use value can only be expressed as exchange value
>in a money economy.


No way. They come to an agreement with the boss to exchange their
labour-power for her variable capital. Anything else is extrinsic to the
workings of the system. Workers are exploited and profits made, even when
no trickery or violence or blackmail are involved (common as these methods
might be). 'Intrinsic value' is exactly what they create in the form of
embodied labour-time imparted to the commodity.


Use-value is expressed as use-value - the taste of the broccoli is that
taste and not the dollar I paid for it. I can't get the use-value of the
back seat of my Volvo from the kronor it cost me. Exchange value is
expressed in money terms in a capitalist economy - the broccoli cost a
dollar, the back seat of the Volvo came partly with the car for thousands
of kronor and partly as an optional extra in red leather for hundreds of
kronor.


Satori?

'Every-Body loves Satori night'?


Cheers,

Hugh






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