Re: [Pen-l] An Ecological Future: Marx and Wu Wei

[comvox@xxxxxxxxx]

Michael Perelman wrote:
> I have just written a paper that I will be presenting in China about the 
> relevance of Marx for an ecological future.
> I posted it here:
> 

It is an interesting paper, but I would like to comment only on one aspect of 
it. This is its reference to Marx's theory of value. It attempts to show that 
the value, properly calculated, takes account of environmental values.

Actually, the labor theory of value is not a theory of what should exist in a 
rational and non-exploitive economy, but of what exists under capitalism. It 
is not a theory of what is of real value to humanity, but a theory that 
explains how capitalism devastates various of these real values. Value 
*really does* negate environmental concerns. This is *not* a defect of Marx's 
theory: it correctly shows what happens under capitalism.

Many things of the greatest environmental importance have *no* *value" (with 
respect to the labor theory of value), correctly reflecting that they don't 
have value as far as capitalism goes.

For example, Marx states in "Capital" that 

 "A thing can be a use-value, without having value. This is the case whenever 
its utility to man is not due to labour. Such are air, virgin soil, natural 
meadows, &c."
(Capital, vol. I, Chapter I. At the end of Section 1, on p. 47 in the 1906 
Kerr edition, which was reproduced by Modern Library)

According to Marx and Engels, what is needed to deal with the environment is 
*not* a "better" theory of value, but  conscious control of production; the 
overcoming of the contradiction between town and country; planning with 
respect to not just immediate uses, but with the respect to the future and 
with respect to the overall interests of society; etc. And all this requires 
a change in social system.

Even some passionate advocates of the use of the labor-hour in calculation 
concede that this does *not*, in itself, defend the environment. Professors 
Cottrell and  Cockshott have written a great deal about the use of the labor-
hour in economic calculation. While I disagree with their viewpoint, I think 
their work is a serious attempt to work out the consequences of planning via 
the abstract labor-hour. Yet they write:

"We are not claiming that labor-time calculation would necessarily do better 
[than capitalism] in cases where the market fails to conserve resources. .... 
we should emphasize that we do not regard labour-time calculation as 
providing a mechanical decision procedure for all planning questions. A 
socialist society might open up democratic debate on specific technologies or 
projects with substantial environmental impacts, and might allow 
environmental considerations to override 'efficiency' measured in terms of 
labour-minimization. We have no problem with the idea that environmental 
considerations and labour-time accounting are not necessarily reducible to a 
scalar common denominator, and that the balancing of these considerations may 
require political judgment on which opinions can differ." 

(Allin Cottrell and W. Paul Cockshott, "Calculation, Complexity and Planning: 
The Socialist Calculation Debate Once again", in Review of Political Economy, 
vol. 5, no. 1, 1993. Section II.3.a.)

Value calculation, no matter how much one tries to improve on value -- such 
as with a Pigovian tax -- cannot provide for such planning. It is in 
contradiction to it. This is the one of the reasons why the carbon tax won't 
do any better than carbon trading in dealing with global warming; both of 
them are based on market fundamenatlist ideas and on trying to tamper with 
the value of commodities. Yet the law of value is the law of the enslavement 
of the worker and the devastation of the environment. 

It is common today to regard that economic calculation requires reducing 
everything to a single numerical scale: either the price, the value, the 
improved value, the labor-content, or whatever. That is not so.

It is quite possible to calculate in a way that associates with each product 
not one number, its value, but a series of numbers indicating what materials 
are necessary for its production, how much labor of different kinds is 
necessary, how much waste is produced, etc. The methods that have so far been 
used for doing some of this are only approximate, but better than value 
calculation. However, to the avoid misunderstanding, let me add that the use 
of these methods does *not* constitute socialist planning -- only a more 
realistic planning than what could be provided with value calculations. I 
talk of these methods *not* to suggest that a mere improvement in technical 
planning will suffice to deal with global warming, but to show that reducing 
things to their value is *not* a rational method of economic calculation, but 
simply the capitalist method.

-- Joseph Green
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l