query

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

The quote:

>... In the 'Fragment on Machines' from the Grundrisse, from which I
drew that citation, Marx upholds a thesis that is hardly Marxist:
abstract knowledge-scientific knowledge, first and foremost, but not
only that-moves towards becoming nothing less than the principal
productive force, relegating parceled and repetitive labor to a residual
position. We know that Marx turns to a fairly suggestive image to
indicate the complex of knowledge which makes up the epicenter of social
production and at the same time prearranges its vital confines: general
intellect. The tendential pre-eminence of knowledge makes of labor time
a 'miserable foundation.' The so-called 'law of value' (according to
which the value of a product is determined by the amount of labor time
that went into it), which Marx considers the keystone of modern social
relations, is, however, shattered and refuted by capitalist development
itself.<

comment: I think it's a misinterpretation of Marx (and a very common one
at that) that the "value of the product is determined by the amount of
labor time that went into it" is somehow a _result_ of the law of value.
The idea that the value of a product is the labor time that went into
producing it is definitional, as long as "labor-time" is
socially-necessary abstract labor time. As such, it can only be one
small part of the law of value.

>It is at this point that Marx proposes a hypothesis on surpassing the
rate of dominant production which is very different from the more famous
hypotheses presented in his other works. In the 'Fragment,' the crisis
of capitalism is no longer attributed to the disproportions inherent in
a means of production truly based on labor time supplied by individuals
(it is no longer attributed, therefore, to the imbalances connected to
the full force of the law, for example, to the fall of the rate of
profit). Instead, there comes to the foreground the splitting
contradiction between a productive process which directly and
exclusively calls upon science, and a unit of measurement of wealth
which still coincides with the quantity of labor incorporated in the
products. The progressive widening of this differential means, according
to Marx, that 'production based on exchange value breaks down' and leads
thus to communism.<

Comment: I really don't get this, since "science" can't produce anything
directly, while the creation of robots that produce robots (etc.) that
renders labor totally redundant _also_ leads to a depression of wages
which would discourage the introduction of robots. 

On the other hand, if Marx's posited contradiction does make sense in
terms of science replacing labor, it would make sense that a
non-commodity-producing society would arise (cf. William Morris' NEWS
FROM NOWHERE) so that the law of value would no longer apply.

>What is most obvious in the post-Ford era is the full factual
realization of the tendency described by Marx without, however, any
emancipating consequences. The disproportion between the role
accomplished by knowledge and the decreasing importance of labor time
has given rise to new and stable forms of power, rather than to a hotbed
of crisis. The radical metamorphosis of the very concept of production
belongs, as always, in the sphere of working under a boss. More than
alluding to the overcoming of what already exists, the 'Fragment' is a
toolbox for the sociologist. It describes an empirical reality which
lies in front of all our eyes: the empirical reality of the post-Fordist
structure.<

I don't know the context of this, but it seems to miss a lot of the
current situation. (I won't argue against or for "post-Fordism" as a
description.) Labor seems pretty important to Wal-Mart, General Motors,
Microsoft, etc., etc. Maybe there's less factory labor in the US and
other core countries than there used to be, but a lot has shifted to
China and other "non-core" places. Labor is still central to the
picture. 

Jim Devine, e-mail: jdevine@xxxxxxx
web: http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/