Re: [Marxism] From here to there? The Road Forward

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 12/26/03 12:28:10 PM Pacific Standard Time,
clyder@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
This formulation is confused. It conflates value with exchange value.
Value is defined by Marx to be abstract social labour.
This exists in any mode of production
with social production - that is a mode of production where the product
is not directly consumed by the producer.


Reply

You assert that Karl Marx defines value as abstract labor or rather what he
calls "human labor in the abstract."

This means that value is NOT the socially necessarily amount of labor that is
embodied in the production of commodities.

I state emphatically that value is the socially necessarily amount of labor
that is embodied in the production of commodities. I state that the recognition
in the human mind of this socially necessary labor is described by Marx by
deploying the concept of human labor in the abstract.

I state for the record that there can be no such thing as human labor in the
abstract as a material reality. The reason Marx speaks of human labor in the
abstract - which is converted into abstract human labor as an abstraction, is
to explain the basis of exchange if the social product. What exist and has
existed on planet earth is real labor and flesh and blood excretion. The common
denominator of the exchange process is explained as human labor in the abstract
or the amount of socially necessary labor that goes into the production of
that, which is exchanged.

Human labor in the abstract - Marx word, is a theory reduction to describe a
process, because all labor in human history is concrete or we would not know
it is labor.

VALUE IS MANIFEST AS EXCHANGE VALUE BECAUSE VALUE CANNOT MANIFEST ITSELF AS
THE ABSTRACTION YOU SAY IT IS.

Reread Marx.

Use Value and Exchange value is his categories and not use value and abstract
human labor.

If necessary I will quote my sources which is Capital and obvious to anyone
that has actually read them without a lot of ideological baggage.

USE VALUE AND EXCHANGE VALUE . . . NOT USE VALUE AND ABSTRACT LABOR.

Melvin P.
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