[OPE-L:5216] Re: Re: Re: waste, value, and potential

[Steve Keen <s.keen@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't "miss" this practical meaning, Rakesh, it's an integral part of my
appreciation of Marx. He treats the capitalist as a "consumer" of
use-values in the M--C--M+ circuit where he doesn't give a shit about the
qualitative aspects of the commodities he buys: all he cares about are
their quantitative impacts on increasing his wealth. That is why use-value
is quantitative in the M-_C--M+ circuit, whereas it is qualitative in the
C--M-_C circuit.

Steve
At 09:12 AM 3/20/01 -0800, you wrote:
> re 5213
>
> > While re-reading  Vol 1, Ch 7, Section 2
> > in connection with another thread, I  noticed the
> > following that has significance for this thread:
> >
> > (From the paragraph that begins: "Moreover,
> > the time spent in production counts only in so
> > far as it is socially necessary for the production of
> > a use-value"): "Lastly -- and for this purpose our
> > friend (the capitalist, JL) has a penal code of
> > his own -- all wasteful consumption of raw material
> > or instruments of labour is strictly forbidden,
> > because what is wasted in this way represents a
> > superfluous expenditure of quantities of
> > objectified labour that does not count in the
> > product or enter into its value." (Penguin ed, 303).
>
> Jerry,
> Here Marx underlines that it is labor as a pure quantity, not general
> utility, which is meaningful to a producer. There is a practical meaning
> to the incommensurability of value and use value which I believe Steve is
> missing.  The capitalist himself cares about labor, not general or special
> utility. As Wm J Blake long ago underlined, the capitalist abstracts
> everything on earth except quantity of labor. He does not even care about
> the type of labor, about anything in fact, except labor in the abstract as
> a quantity. If a customer asks him to make the food sweet or sour, he will
> make either. If you want your toys round or square, he'll declare that the
> customer is always right. You want a sweater red or blue, he'll oblige you
> either way. But you want to put more labor into it? Ah, that's different.
> The salesman will abstract all natural qualities; they are indifferent to
> him. But on labor, that too is indifferent to him as a quality. But
> quantity of labor, more or less labor, that is different. In so far as the
> above qualities cost more or less labor, in that proportion will he be
> "obliging" or "resistant" to the customer.
>
> Best, Rakesh

Dr. Steve Keen
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