[OPE-L:5189] Re: Re: use-value as qualitative

[Steve Keen <s.keen@xxxxxxxxxx>]

A longer reply to Jerry's query:


> PS: In
> reply to Steve K's [5183-4] -- I view use-value
> > as quality, exchange-value as
> > quantity, and value
> > as a unity of quality and quantity (this is why
> > I
> > suggested at one point that use-value stands
> > in
> > opposition to exchange-value -- a point Chris
> > A
> > and I discussed last year). 
> >  
> > Thus, my perspective is that use-value is
> > not
> > quantitative, BUT I am willing to listen to
> > your
> > arguments as to why:
> >  
> > a) you think this is a logical extension of
> > Marx's
> > philosophy; and
> >  
> > b) why you think it is a superior way of
> > conceptualizing use-value.
> >  
> > I.e. I want to hear the arguments themselves
> > rather
> > than the
> > assertions.
There are several stages to a
reply.

Taking Jerry's (a), I see two things I have to establish: (i) that the
concept of a dialectical unity of use-value and exchange-value was an
essential part of Marx's philosophy; (ii) that one key aspect of this was
that, in important and clearly delineated circumstances, use-value was
quantitative, not qualitative.

(i), I would hope, is incontrovertible since the publication of the
Grundrisse (pardon me for not removing my DTP formatting codes as I
normally do). I could grab hundreds of quotes, but two will do. Key
phrases are highlighted with asterisks:

"We already saw, for example, that *the distinction
between use value and exchange value belongs within economics
itself, and that use value does not lie dead as a simple
presupposition, which is what Ricardo makes it do.* The chapter on
production begins objectively ends with the product as result;
that on circulation beginning with the <I>commodity<D>, which
is
itself again a <I>use value<D> and an <I>exchange
value<D> (hence
also, distinct from both, a <I>value<D>), circulation as
the
unity of both <196> which is, however, merely formal and
hence
collapses into the commodity as mere object of consumption,
extra-economic, and exchange value as independent
money.<170><$FIbid, p. 320.>

"The first category in which bourgeois wealth presents itself
is that of the <I>commodity<D>. The commodity itself appears
as
unity of two aspects. It is <I>use value<D>, i.e. object of
the
satisfaction of any system whatever of human needs. This is its
material side, which the most disparate epochs of production may
have in common, and whose examination therefore lies beyond
political economy. *Use value falls within the realm of political
economy as soon as it becomes modified by the modern relations of
production, or as it, in turn, intervenes to modify
them.*<193>
Now how does use value become transformed into commodity? Vehicle
of <I>exchange value<D>. Although directly united in
the
commodity, use value and exchange value just as directly split
apart. Not only does the exchange value not appear as determined
by the use value, but rather furthermore, the commodity only
becomes a commodity, only realises itself as exchange value, in
so far as its owner does not relate to it as use
value.<170><$FIbid, p. 881.>

The key detail is the role use-value plays in his analysis, and whether
it is always qualitative, or can as I argue be quantitative. In the above
quote, Marx distinguishes two possibilities for use-value: it can lie
outside or inside the realm of political economy:

It is <I>use value<D>, i.e. object of the
satisfaction of any system whatever of human needs. This is its
material side, which the most disparate epochs of production may
have in common, and whose examination therefore lies beyond
political economy. Use value falls within the realm of political
economy as soon as it becomes modified by the modern relations of
production, or as it, in turn, intervenes to modify them.

The former aspect of use-value is clearly qualitative, and it is the
aspect of use-value which most Marxists (Sweezy in particular) have
focused on. However, the final sentence is crucial: "Use value falls
within the realm of political economy as soon as it becomes modified by
the modern relations of production, or as it, in turn, intervenes to
modify them." I argue that, to "fall within the realm" of
*Marx's* political economy, this aspect of use-value has to be
quantitative. If Marx were a neoclassical, then it could of course be a
qualitative concept. But since qualitative issues form no part of his
core analysis (except when he reduces qualitative differences to
quantitative ones, as in the reduction of skilled to unskilled labour--of
which more later), to become an issue in Marx's political economy,
use-value has to somehow in some circumstances be quantitative.

Now I need two arguments to support this: (i) a methodological one: in
what circumstances does it make sense to describe use-value as
quantitative? (ii) textual support that Marx in fact does this, in
crucial ways.

The normal perspective on use-value comes from the sphere of circulation,
C-M-C, where the purchaser is effectively swapping one commodity for
another. The only reason to do this is to get rid of a (qualitative)
use-value you don't want, in return for a (qualitative) use-value that
you do need. Marx clearly states that use-value is qualitative in this
realm:

"So far as regards use-values, it is
clear that both parties may gain some advantage. Both part with
goods that, as use values, are of no service to them, and receive
others that they can make use of" (Capital I 155).

Marx's special perspective on use-value arises from its role in the
circuit of capital, M-C-M. Here he is quite emphatic that use-value
*MUST* be the explanation of the source of surplus value. This can only
occur if, in this realm, use-value is quantitative. Marx's statement on
this issue is one of the clearest and most didactic he ever made, and for
the life of me I still can't fathom how most Marxists fail to appreciate
this. When discussing where the source of surplus value lies, having
ruled out C-M-C, he discusses M-C-M, and quite clearly states that
use-value holds the key to surplus value:

"The change of value that occurs in the case of money
intended to be converted into capital ... must ... take place
in the commodity bought by the first act, M-C, but not in its
value, for equivalents are exchanged, and the commodity is paid
for at its full value. We are, therefore, forced to the
conclusion that the change originates in the use-value, as such,
of the commodity, i.e. its consumption. In order to be able to
extract value from the consumption of a commodity, our friend,
Moneybags, must be so lucky as to find, within the sphere of
circulation, in the market, a commodity, whose use-value
possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value" (p.
164)

Marx continues "whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an
embodiment of labour, and consequently, a creation of value." I
dispute this identification of labour as the sole source of value, of
course; it appears that most readers of Marx focus on this aspect of this
quote, rather than the definitive methodological statement which precedes
it. I believe we should instead focus on the methodological argument for
the derivation of surplus-value: "We are, therefore, forced to the
conclusion that the change originates in the use-value, as such, of the
commodity".

To cut to the chase, for M-C to generate surplus, the capitalist must be
able to buy commodities which can generate more value than they cost to
purchase. Production is an essential component of this, but what the
capitalist exploits is the *quantitative* difference between the
exchange-value of these commodities and their use-value. That such a
difference can exist is an essential component of Marx's logic
(especially in contrast to neoclassical economics):

"The exchange of commodities, therefore, first begins on the
boundaries of such communities, at their points of contact with other
similar communities, or with members of the latter. So soon, however, as
products once become commodities in the external relations of a
community, they also, by reaction, become so in its internal intercourse.
The proportions in which they are exchangeable are at first quite a
matter of chance. What makes them exchangeable is the mutual desire of
their owners to alienate them. Meantime the need for foreign objects of
utility gradually establishes itself. The constant repetition of exchange
makes it a normal social act. In the course of time, therefore, some
portion at least of the products of labour must be produced with a
special view to exchange. From that moment the distinction becomes
firmly
established between the utility of an object for the purposes of
consumption, and its utility for the purposes of exchange. *Its use-value
becomes distinguished from its exchange-value.* On the other hand, the
quantitative proportion in which the articles are exchangeable, becomes
dependent on their production itself." (Capital I, p. 91>

So the use-value and the exchange-value of a commodity in M-C-M will obey
the general laws that "its use-value becomes distringuished from its
exchange-value" and that value determines exchange-value wholly
independently of use-value. Marx then uses this to derive the source of
surplus value. The use-value of labor which he contemplates here is
clearly quantitative:

The past labor that is embodied in the labor power, and the
living labor that it can call into action; the daily cost of
maintaining it, and its daily expenditure in work, are two
totally different things. *The former determines the
exchange-value of the labor power, the latter is its use-value.*
The fact that half a [working] day's labor is necessary to keep
the laborer alive during 24 hours, does not in any way prevent
him from working a whole day. Therefore, the value of labor
power, and the value which that labor power creates in the labor
process, are two entirely different magnitudes; and this
difference of the two values was what the capitalist had in
view, when he was purchasing the labor power... What really
influenced him was the specific use-value which this commodity
possesses of being a source not only of value, but of more value
than it has itself. This is the special service that the
capitalist expects from labor power, and in this transaction he
acts in accordance with the 'eternal laws' of the exchange of
commodities. *The seller of labor power, like the seller of any
other commodity, realizes its exchange-value, and parts with its
use-value.* (capital I, p. 188.)

To rearrange the above:

"The past labor that is embodied in the labor power, the daily cost
of maintaining it, determines the exchange-value of the labor power; the
living labor that it can call into action, its daily expenditure in work,
is its use-value."

This use-value is clearly quantitative.

Finally, what I think should be accepted as the textual clincher:

"*Exchange-value and use-value, being intrinsically
incommensurable
magnitudes*, the expressions <169>value of labour<170>,
<169>price
of labour<170>, do not seem more irrational than the
expressions
<169>value of cotton<170>, <169>price of
cotton<170>. Moreover,
the labourer is paid after he has given his labour. In its
function as means of payment, money realises subbsequently the
value or price of the article supplied<196><I>i.e.<D>,
in this
particular case, the value or price of the labour supplied.
Finally, the use-value supplied by the labourer to the capitalist
is not, in fact, his labour-power, but its function, some
definite useful labour, the work of tailoring, shoemaking,
spinning, &c. That this same labour is, on the other hand, the
universal value-creating element, and thus possesses a property
by which it differs from all other commodities, is beyond the
cogniscance of the ordinary mind.<193> Moreover, the actual
movement of wages presents phenomena which seem to prove that not
the value of labour-power is paid, but the value of its function,
of labour itself." (Capital I p. 506.)

Note the statement in asterisks: ""Exchange-value and
use-value, being intrinsically incommensurable
MAGNITUDES." A magnitude is not qualitative: it is quantitative.
This can't be treated as a slip of language or sloppy editing by
Engels--this is in volume I, not III. That one sentence is the essence of
what I see as Marx's theory of value: exchange-value, use-value, their
incommensurability (in general, also applying of course when use-value is
qualitative and therefore irrelevant to political economy), and that
use-value is *quantitative* when it matters to political economy.

Now Jerry's final question:

> > b)
> > why you think it is a superior way of 
> > conceptualizing
> > use-value.
Conceptualising use-value as
purely qualitative means it has no role in economics. Some might argue
that the reduction of skilled to unskilled labour, and specialised to
homogeneous labour, involve economically significant applications of the
qualitative side of use-value. There is some truth in that--but even
here, as Hilferding showed in his reply to Bohm Bawerk, the quantitative
side of use-value is decisive.

Going beyond this alone, the superiority of this way of conceptualising
Marx's theory of value is that it allows a complex, subtle analysis which
captures the unique aspects of labour, capital and money in a way which
is simply beyond the LTV. I sit in amazement as I watch people try to
develop a meaningful theory of money on the basis of the strictly
commodity-oriented analysis of the LTV, when there is a much richer
credit theory of money for the taking in terms of Marx's
use-value/exchange-value analysis.

Of course, the real reason why I find myself alone in taking this
approach to Marx is that it also leads to the argument that labour is not
the only source of surplus value.

cheers,
Steve