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

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with Joseph on this one. See, for example, my article on the
law of value & political ecology at:
http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/JD-1993-PoliticalEcology.pdf (“The Law of
Value and Marxian Political Ecology,” in Jesse Vorst, Ross Dobson, and
Ron Fletcher, eds., _Green on Red: Evolving Ecological Socialism_
(Society for Socialist Studies/Fernwood, 1993).).

On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 4:53 PM,  <comvox@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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
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-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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