An Incontestable Argument for the Law of Value
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“The whole mess was created by Engels, Marx never considered that commodity was produced in a pre capitalist society. Marx clearly indicated that the law of value is only applicable to a capitalist society”
That may be true of the law of value – in fact, what you say is I think correct – but does that necessarily mean commodities could not have existed prior to capitalism? I don’t think so
Commodities in the sense of articles bought and sold on the market obviously predated capitalism and possibly by thousands of years. What distinguishes capitalism from precapitalist societies is the generalization of commodity production as the opening line of Das Capital notes. In particular, it is the generalized transformation of labor-power into a commodity that makes capitalism, capitalism.
When you think about it, the law of value presupposes generalized wage labor insofar as we are talking of value being constituted out of “socially necessary labor time”. That implies commensurability (and a universal metric in the form of money) across the board for different kinds of labor in order to arrive at some notional idea of the average amount of time it takes to produce a given commodity.
If this is correct then you could not really talk about the law of value operating in a society that consisted, let us say, of half-slave labor and the other half-wage labor. Presumably, the vast bulk of labor would have to take the form of wage labor for the law of value to become operable…
You’ve again made a silly mistake.
Value is an attribute of a commodity defined as a useful product of labour.
Your ‘1000ft sandcastle’ is useless, hence valueless.
By the law of value, the Marxian labour theory of value is meant. It states that it’s useful labour (defined as the labour that’s performed something useful) that happens to be the source of value (exchange-value).
Thus, both slave labour (i.e. the labour of a human slave) and half-slave labour are capable of producing value too, aren’t they ?
“Thus, both slave labour (i.e. the labour of a human slave) and half-slave labour are capable of producing value too, aren’t they ?”
No, I don’t think so. As I understand it the law of value only comes into effect in a fully commoditised society and above all one in which labour-power is itself transformed into a commodity. Otherwise how else does the notion of “socially necessary labour time” acquire significance? That presupposes the more or less general transformation of all goods- both producer goods (including labour-power itself) and consumer goods into commodities – in order to assert a relationship between the quantity of abstract labour embodied in a commodity and its price. For that relationship to exist (even if only in an ultimate sense since in practice the prices of specific commodities cannot equate with their value) labour-power has to take a commodity form bearing a price tag in order to enter into the equation at all
True, you cannot measure abstract labour in the way that you can concrete labour. Slave labour is concrete labour but only wage labour can form the basis of abstract labour (and hence value) even if wage workers obviously perform concrete labour as well. Value is an economy-wide phenomenon and presupposes the economy-wide transformation of labour power into a commodity
“Value is an attribute of a commodity defined as a useful product of labour.”
Good. Now you see how this is different from what you said earlier; “Value is independent of the SNL”. Labour spent on making useless things is not socially necessary, hence not value creating. So value and socially necessary labour are linked.
But, in an exchange economy, how does society determine what is socially necessary?
I suggest you read the first two chapters of Capital to find out.
The SNL means a certain quantity of labour. More labour (e.g. the quantity of labour required to produce a useful thing using backward technology) than the SNL also creates value. In this sense alone, I remarked that value is independent of the SNL. Nevertheless, the amount of value equals the SNL according to the technology of the time. On this ground, you can say that the quantity of labour in excess of the SNL does not create value and claim on this ground that value is not independent of the SNL. Well, I agree it’s a strong point in your favour.
“More labour (e.g. the quantity of labour required to produce a useful thing using backward technology) than the SNL also creates value.”
Are you sure about that?
Lets presume that the socially necessary average labour time it takes to make a chair is two hours.
I make my chair in two hours, but you make yours in four. Does your chair contain any more value than mine? Or do the two chairs have the same value?
Another way to think about it is this:
Suppose society needs 1000 chairs but 4000 chairs are produced. Has the labour gone into producing the 3000 surplus chairs produced anything of use? Was the labour that made the 3000 extra chairs socially necessary?
But now we have another question.
How does society establish both how many chairs are needed and what the socially necessary average amount of time taken to produce each chair is?
What do you think the answer is?
I must thank you cordially for your interest in this debate and spending a lot of your precious time for this. A humble seeker after the Truth, I find great interest in this debate that I expect to lead us to the Truth.
‘… do the two chairs have the same value?’
I think both chairs will have the same value which must equal the SNL of the time. Greater quantity of labour than the SNL doesn’t make the chair made by me more valuable.
In your 2nd example, each of the ‘4000 chairs’ is equally valuable if the SNL per chair is equal. The fact that society doesn’t need them right now doesn’t rob ‘the 3000 extra chairs’ of their value, as I see it.
Nevertheless, I think it’d be wrong to miss an important point in regard to the first example. Supposing the technique I used, which is backward today, was the most advanced technique once in the past when the ‘four’ hours was the SNL of that time, the chair I made should be twice as valuable, in that past era, as that made by you.
I’d like to answer your remaining questions tomorrow.
“Supposing the technique I used, which is backward today, was the most advanced technique once in the past when the ‘four’ hours was the SNL of that time, the chair I made should be twice as valuable, in that past era, as that made by you.”
Yes this is right, this is why as production techniques improve commodities get cheaper – it takes less labour to make them. So in our example, the move from 4 to 2 hours would mean that each new chair made now contains half as much value as it did in the past.
Not clear what’s your rationale for considering slave labour and half-slave labour not socially necessary. Both sorts of labour are as much capable of producing useful & salable things, hence value, as wage labour, aren’t they ?
Wages are market-prices (market-value expressed in money) of the commodity which Marx termed labour-power, the use-value of which is the socially necessary labour, the stuff which both the slaves and the half-slaves (prisoners of our times are examples of such people) are, like wage slaves, capable of performing. Slaves were like wage slaves paid subsistence wages in kind, not in cash. It’s true that wages of slaves & half-slaves are not fully determined by the market forces. But then, under welfare capitalism, as the minimum wages acts show, wages are not determined wholly by the market forces either. Have you considered these points?“Slaves were like wage slaves paid subsistence wages in kind, not in cash”
I don’t think it makes much sense to think of slaves as receiving wages of any kind. The slavery system treats slaves more like beasts of burden. Yes if you want your animals to remain productive you have to supply them with food and shelter, but this is not like a wage.
‘How does society establish both how many chairs are needed and what the socially necessary average amount of time taken to produce each chair is?’
Well, the capitalist society calculates the number of chairs ‘needed’ on the basis of how many people have got the necessary purchasing power.
Wage slaves also deserve to be viewed, and justifiably so, as beasts of burden paid in cash in the light of the fact that they sweat blood to produce all wealth & luxuries and thus keep civiliations moving & advancing but have to survive on welfare alms practically. And if the minimum wages acts were revoked, their wages would, I can assure you, fall in no time below the subsistence level.
There’s No good reason for Not viewing a slave as a wage slave paid in kind.
I can understand why you might say that wage labour is like slavery since for the time the wage worker is selling their labour power they are in the dominion of the employer. But this is just an analogy, made to bring out how wage labour is a relationship of domination rather than “free contract”.
To put it the other way around, to say that slaves are like wage labourers but they receive payment in kind and not payment in wages misses the essential thing about the condition of being a slave. Slaves are bought and sold outright, not paid a wage of any kind.
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