Re: To Melvin/ABC of political economy

[MARIPOWER716@xxxxxxx]

Karl Marx uses the term "social labour" in Chapter XX of Part 3 of Theories
of Surplus Value.  He is describing a process of social production or the
social character of production or as it is called in other places socialized
production or as you quote Marx,  "the aggregate labour of society."  This
"aggregate labour of society" is not an abstraction but set in a historical 
period when
exchange has emerged as a societal force.

In part 3 - Chapter XX, - Disintegration of the Ricaridan School, Marx is
describing the fundamentals of the value form and the theory problem the
theoretical economist faced.  Marx attacks the problem from various sides 
deploying an
approach that examine the "quantitative" and "qualitative" dimensions of that
substance that serves as the basis for exchange. Here is what he states in
part:

"But the labor embodied in them [commodities - MP) must be represented as
social labor, as alienated individual labor. In the price this representation is
nominal; it becomes reality only in sale. This transformation of the labor of
the private individual contained in the commodities into uniform social labor,
consequently into labor that can be expressed in all use-values and can be
exchanged for them, this qualitative aspect of the matter, which is contained in
the representation of exchange-value as money, is not elaborated by Ricardo.
This circumstance - the necessity of presenting the labor contained in
commodities as uniform social labor, i.e., as money - is overlooked by Ricardo."

The above passage was left out of the initial material I quoted from Marx in
an effort to be clear. Apparently I confused matters. Generally I employ terms
used by Engels - not because he was "smarter" than Marx, but because he
presents the theory concepts in a way that the English speaking proletarians 
think
things out.

What is being discussed? The bourgeois property relations as it emerged on
the basis of the development of commodity production. This bourgeois property
relation is not commodity production but becomes the shell (English) or shape
(German) by which the laws peculiar to commodity production assert (English)
themselves.

The theory problem of the modern Marxist movement with respect to the
political economy of Marx and Engels seems to rivet on the points under 
discussion
that appears as the concept of "human labor in the abstract" or as you state
Comrade MIYACHI,

>please consider the private character of bourgeois production. It is not
social labor, and social production. It is characterized by private labor,
private production. <

Here is the problem. The "private character of bourgeois production" does not
mean "private labor, private production."  Bourgeois production means private
ownership of capital that creates a specific pathway or circuit of
reproduction driven by the quest for maximum profits and operating on the basis 
of
private accumulation of profits.

You further state,

"> . . .Capitalist production is mediated social production, and the mediator
itself becomes things  (commodity, money and capital). On the contrary, in
communism, social production is immediate social production, so the product of
its production
need not to receive the form of commodity. <"

1. The words "capitalist production" has to be understood in its historical
setting as used by generations of Marxist, beginning with Marx. It became
popular for everyone to speak of "the capitalist mode of production" to describe
Marx standpoint and unraveling of the law system peculiar to commodity
production and the value form on the one hand and the law system peculiar to the
bourgeois property relations on the other.  Yes, Marx speaks of capitalist
production but he does not confuse commodity production with its shape, as it 
operates
on the basis of bourgeois property form.

2. The word "mediate" as a philosophic term stands in the way of unraveling
the value-producing system.  For the English speaking proletarians "mediate"
combines the concept of "shell," "shape" "organic structure," "form" or that
serving as the conduit or pathways by which something passes from one point in a
process to another point in the whole process. This philosophic concept is in
itself a historical product that gained strength and popular usage amongst the
intelligencia in the imperial centers during a very long period of ebbing and
passivity of the working class.

Capitalist production cannot be understood as "mediated social production"
because capitalism is not a mode of production but rather a property relations
that becomes the shape or shell in which a historically evolved stage of
commodity production acts it self out. What we have to determine is the law 
system
that governs commodity production - the value producing system, and the law
system peculiar to bourgeois property relations as the interactive - dynamic,
shape of production. This problem could not be fundamentally resolved by past
generations of Marxist because the value producing system had not passed through
its last boundary - quantitative, evolution.

>Capitalist production is mediated social production, and the mediator itself
becomes things  (commodity, money and capital). <

This is simply not true. The only thing capitalism ever becomes is more
capitalism. That is to say the bourgeois property relation does not become
"commodity, money and capital." Capitalism means a bourgeois property relations 
and
not a method or mode of production or for that matter capital.  Bourgeois
production or bourgeois property relations gives something else a specific shape
including capital itself. The "mediator" is value itself - not capitalism,
although I would not employ such a description or what is the same, try and
articulate a material relationship on the basis of a philosophic concept.

The bourgeois property relations interpenetrates and becomes the shape of the
historically evolved social relationship called capital and in short speak
this phenomenon is called capitalism.

The enemy (without quotes) is not capital, money or the commodity form
because these are categories of history entirely dependent on and governed by 
the
law that govern tool, instruments and machine development and this in turn
reconfigures how society is organized in the last instance.

The enemy (without quotes) is the bourgeois property relations. The bourgeois
property relation compels the law of commodity production to assert itself on
the basis of a circuit of distribution of labor power (reproduction and
industrial expansion) governed by the law of profitability (the striving for
maximum profits). In popular terms generations of Marxist/communist have stated 
that
capitalism means the striving for maximum profits as the guide - becomes the
conduit or creates the pathways, for the flow of capital and determines where
it is invested and/or gives reproduction a distinct shape. This is a
"separate" law from the law of commodity production.  Yes, the latter is 
interactive -
interpenetrate, with the former but they are not identical. Yes, all aspects
of societal development occur as a totality but no one can unravel a totality
based on discussing the interactive process as totality. Categories are used to
describe to the workers the actual life process and its underpinning.

The basic law of commodity production states that and equivalent substance
equal to itself, - socially necessary labor time, is the basis for exchange.
This "equivalent substance" is called value. Value is the socially necessary
amount of labor time embodied in commodities. This is not a law of bourgeois
property relations.  The law of bourgeois property relations interpenetrates and
gives a peculiar shape to commodity production.

For instance, the system of credit capital is not a law of commodity
production, but rather a bourgeois property relation although credit existed 
before
capitalist commodity production. The system of credit capital arises on the
basis of forms of ancient credit, is reconfigured to serve the private owners of
the means of production based on claiming future profits and is transformed
into a property relations.  As a general law of movement, the content of that
that is new manifest itself in front of the form of that which it has emerged 
and
then the form leap forward and assumes new features, allowing for the further
- universal, development of the new. It is no different with credit and the
emergence of the system of credit capital. This same law of movement - motion,
applies to the contradiction of use-vale and exchange-value and the dialect of
"private labor" and "social labor" or social production.


"On the contrary, in communism, social
production is immediate social production, so the product of its production
need not to receive the form of commodity."

Here is stated pretty clear the theory problem. Here is also why you have a
theory problem with unraveling the obvious difference between the old Soviet
power as a system of the dictatorship of the proletariat; the Soviet government
as the executor of a class policy of the militant proletariat in alliance with
the peasants; the socialist economy, which was an industrial economy - in
transition, but with a distinct shape of capital configuration subject to 
varying
degrees by the law of value but not the pathway created by bourgeois property
relations. No one disputes the party of Stalin or the Stalinist party was
most ruthless in its "contact, conflict and call back" with bourgeois property
and privilege.

What is it that creates the commodity form or as you state, what destroys -
abolishes ("need not to receive the form of commodity") the commodity form?
What is "immediate social production," when in fact, all modern production is
social production and immediate. Repeat: all production today and during the
last century has in the main been social production.  What makes social
production "social" (as used in the context of this discussion) is not the 
property
relations, but the state of development of the material power - mode, of
production. Or what is the same the material development of the infrastructure 
of
exchange or to be more precise the exchange value form is a gage of the degree 
of
development of social production and the commodity form. Again we are dealing
with an interactive totality - a system, but discerning its important parts.

The commodity form is by definition a form of "something." This something is
"products." These products become social or "social products" only at a
certain stage in the development of human exchange. Exchange develops as an
expression of the developing division of labor in society. This developing 
division of
labor means people are no longer just laboring to create things for their
immediate use - consumption, and starting to make different things that allow
them to get something they do not make. Exchanges are exchanges between real
human beings. Marx exact words are,

"Exchange of products as commodities is a method of exchanging labor, (it
demonstrates) the dependence of the labor of each upon the labor of others (and
corresponds) to a certain mode of social labor or social production." (Theory
of Surplus Value Ibid.)

What is being talked about? The commodity form and how it arises as a
category of history or based on the division of labor in society that allows 
exchange
to flourish. To state that commodity production or the commodity form is a
category of history means more than saying something "arose historically"
because everything has a history. What is meant is that the law of commodity
production and the commodity form does not grow out of the political 
superstructure
and in the last instance no amount of polices or politics can determine a stage
of development of production. No amount of human will can abolish the
commodity form because one thinks it is a good idea. The reason is because human
beings will not, cannot and did not and could not alienate the products of their
labor as species activity on a communal basis once the communal basis of life
has been shattered by the development of the division of labor. What must take
place is a further development that causes society to leap to a new communal
basis rooted in the massive expansion of the productive forces that rendered
the labor content of things as exchange superfluous. This "cycle" is the real
dialectic that makes communism the historical consequence of the development of
the means of production.

A development must take place in society to render obsolete product exchange
based on the labor content or shatter (abolish) the commodity form.  A
political law cannot overturn an economic law and the evolution of the value
producing system is the essence of economic law. The most that can happen with
political laws is to alert the shape of economic laws - accelerating or 
hampering how
the economic law evolves and resolves itself.  Communism is not possible on
an industrial basis. The most that can happen is to create the political shell
for the transition to communism and here is the meaning of socialism and Marx
"Critique of the Gotha Program."

Everything Marx writes about society begins with the development of the means
- material power, of production or the productive forces and not the property
relations as primary. The property relations grow out of the means of
production or rather on the basis of the division of labor in society. The 
bourgeois
property relation is burst asunder because its pathways cannot contain the
mighty forces of production. Seemingly clever formulation of Marx meaning in
deploying the concept human labor in the abstract cannot deflect from this
elementary truth.

Actually, these "clever formulation" are not clever at all but a bourgeois
current within Marxism that obscure property relations.

Since the break up of primitive communism, value is the story human drama
from the standpoint of political economy. One of the distinguishing features of
political economy is that its laws, unlike those of natural science, are
impermanent, that they, or at least the majority of them, operate for a definite
historical period, after which they give place to new laws. However, these laws
are not abolished, but lose their validity owing to the new economic conditions
and depart from the scene in order to give place to new laws, laws which are
not created by the will and mind of man, but which arise from the new economic
conditions.

The key is not Marx conception and articulation of the concept and material
meaning of "human labor in the abstract." Nor is there anything to be
understood of meaning to the workers by concepts like "fetishisation." Only the
bourgeois mind can create the concept "fetishisation."  What Marx refers to is 
the
fetish that attaches itself to commodity production. Marx does not say "the
fetish that attaches itself to capitalism" but refers to "the fetish that 
attaches
itself to commodity production."

Marx is describing the inner logic of the meaning of exchange - value
evolution  and why with the development of the commodity form, value is 
manifest as
exchange value or rather why things are exchangeable on the basis of not their
use-value but because they can be understood as "uniform social labor."

"The particular labor of the private individual" - Marx description or in
short speak "private labor," must, given a certain stage of development of
exchange, - according to Marx, "manifest itself as its opposite, as equal,
necessary, general labor and in this form, social labor."

Social labor does not mean communal labor. Social labor describes a state of
development of the society infrastructure that allows for the universal
emergence of exchange as the basis of human subsistence.  Herein reside - 
lives, the
social character of production or using tools, instrument and machines in
common, but on the basis not of "private labor" but "the particular labor of the
private individual."

In other words we are not "private producers" but private individuals whose
particular labor is deployed on the basis of bourgeois property relations.
There are basically no "private producers" left on earth and certainly none in
America or Japan. Here there may be problems of language and translations.

The words "private producers" denote in English a historical period on which
arose the bourgeois property relations, specifically, the period of
handicraft. Here the instruments of labor - land, agricultural implements, the 
workshop,
the tools - were the instruments of labor of the single individual, adapted
for the use of one worker, and therefore, of necessity, small dwarfish,
circumscribed. What makes this individual a "private producer" is his ownership 
of
tools that in turn gives him an ownership claim over his products.

Marx explains how the historical process transforms this "private producer"
into the rising bourgeoisie and traces the three phases of simple-cooperation,
manufacture and modern industry. Stated another way Marx explains the
emergence of this rising bourgeoisie - middle class, his conversion or 
reconfiguration
as the modern bourgeoisie and then the emergence of those regarded as
capitalist, because they embodied the property relationship that grew out of the
lived experience of the "private producer."


Melvin P.


 > Please wait! This argument needs comments. Marx says;
"As a general rule, articles of utility become commodities, only because they
are products of the labour of private individuals or groups of individuals
who carry on their work independently of each other. The sum total of the labour
of all these private individuals forms the aggregate labour of society. Since
the producers do not come into social contact with each other until they
exchange their products, the specific social character of each producer's labour
does not show itself except in the act of exchange. In other words, in
capitalist society,  we don't work as "social laborer".

>We are laborer of private producer. If we work as "social laborer," product
of our production needs not receive the form of commodity.  Capitalist
production is mediated social production, and the mediator itself becomes things
(commodity, money and capital) On the contrary, in communism, social production
is immediate social production, so the product of its production need not to
receive the form of commodity. <