Diane Elson: The Value Theory of Labour
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Hi J. Clarke,
Diane Elson has been very prolific in feminism and women’s emancipation,
A general thread in her work is the gender divisions of labour. Often the activities and labour participation of women is subalternative to men, and their economic participation.
In capital social totalities, society, and even some traditional older ones, women have been subjected to the male gaze, and their labour limited, even dismissed, even unpaid- like the value of ‘domestic labour’, it has been unrecognised.
I do not want to do a ‘mansplain’ (a man who explains a feminist issue). I am supportive: and men need to challenge and speak out too, or it may lead to collusion with male privilege; silence as complicity!
Her writings often explain that she works with the ‘insider’ who is part of the capital regime, to inform of the disempowerment of women and their labour, while men’s labour seems valued more.
She challenges the binary divisions of gender and work: men’s work valued over women’s, family/domestic chores under profit making chores.
The challenge is: encouraging men to participate and share in the social totality of labour- so it becomes non-binary. women’s work is men’s work: Men’s work is women’s work- then can we get parity.
So if you read her work, it will be a good and challenging read- post note: though she works to educate ‘insiders’ of capital formations, she is not supportive their modes, and is an educator and an activist. The capital seek this division-
But my point… socialism should eliminate this gender division, and production should be non-binary…
L.B
Good Morning,
From what I have read so far this piece by Elson is more of a theoretical discussion regarding the Theory of Value, perhaps laying the theoretical foundation to bring TOV into feminism?
The sections I have read present a critique of mainstream interpretations of Marx’s Labour Theory of Value. Firstly she states that accounts which use LTOV as a proof of exploitation, as bulwark that only labour contributes value and exchange value. Elson argues that this conflates surplus labour and surplus value, i.e. capital did not invent exploitation via surplus production. Elson argues these accounts conflate labour time with value.
It appears Elson is arguing that the form taken by labour is the focus of Marx’s TOV rather proving exploitation per se. It is the form of exploitation, why Labour must express itself as the commodity that is Marx’s focus, rather than an attempt to derive price (in the sphere of exchange/circulation) from value producing labour (Bohm Bawerk said labour and the commodity came first to “rig” the debate of price, according to Elson).
Elson seems to be arguing that the Marxist economists spend most of their time trying to prove Marx’s value theory as a theory of price (almost as a “proto-mathematician”), whereby production is the domain of value, and exchange of price (as a result see all the time spent on the “transformation problem). All in all, Elson is arguing that these accounts conflate value with exchange value. Another account criticises from the perspective of abstract labour, i.e. that these accounts are only focussed on use values, but Elson says this is not a suitable account as price based accounts do include abstract labour as the embodiment of labour, and Marx does not treat them as opposites. As such the critique needs to be in the method and in the fact that price based accounts are largely apolitical.
Elson argues that seeing the TOV as a theory of price renders Marx as merely another political economist like Ricardo or Smith, and indeed that many Marxist authors like Sweezy and others do see Marx primarily as having refined and improved the discipline of Political Economy, ignoring it’s radical political objectives.
We should see labour as more than just an embodiment of price according to Elson. She even criticises the popular accounts of Rubin and Althusser who also take forward Smith esque arguments that TOV is a method of distributing labour amongst the production process. Where one branch of production has greater “material-technical” productivity, labour will drift from here to more intensive sectors, ensuring labour is appropriately distributed relative to productive inputs, resulting in an equilibrium of price and so on. Rubin argues he is different to Smith as Labourers are forced to move between productive sectors, Elson contests this. To Elson these distributional accounts are also obscuring Marx’s political message.
Elson is now moving on to the indeterminate nature of labour, and how it becomes determinate under the commodity form. I’ll write more as I read.
Labour is indeterminate: but are you considering the specialisations in labour and the distributions to the class/gender divide?
Fixing and stabilising the price of commodities requires a shake up of labour- leading to casualisation, and the ‘uber’ self employed.
Perhaps commodity price indexing means labour costs are equally low, and undervalued… even unrecognised!
L.B
To maximise profit by conflating labour with unpaid time:
This is one theme. Labour time is undervalued for a ‘commodity’- and undervalued labour is pervasive. And that is generally undervalued work with little skill or profit, other than its outcome (according to capitalism) in life’s necessary activity (experience effects of engendered work). Raising a family is value, producing future workers, but the one who raises the family is under valued! And the labour buyer profits from it in their workforce.
Okay, that made it sound complicated-
All labour is important, under socialism. Under capitalism, labour time is measured, according to a commodity and product- something that can be sold. Parenting (mum or dad) is not accorded a value in wage, in the act of raising a child/ren, but seen as an expense.
I have moved beyond the thread, but the theme is- time and labour is under an antagonism. The reality is that the technical and material operations/forces involved in undervalued work are being maximised for profit… by producing markets. I will wake up tomorrow and make this less complex..
L.B.
Tell me more about your discoveries JClark, as I may have described the general rather than the particular.
I suppose the argument then is that there is labour time that is not recognised as “value”
Thereby the LTOV shouldn’t just be used to defend that value is only generated by labour in the production process
Perhaps the end result has value- but it can go without pay,
The social totality, or the social practice pertaining the family as an apparatus does have an ‘end user’ for capitalism. Future populations are generated- and then turned into labour/consumers.
But how they came into being is not waged. Women experience this above men. There is a lot of labour time completed without value- and not all of it is waged, but the opposite, it is commodified- pay to be a parent!- but the resulting effects are of benefit to capital, and often to men in the traditional patriarchy.
Sometimes the value is an indirect effect, or a non paid benefit in any totality.
This is a challenge.
There is a waft of feudalism in capital recognition of labour.
I suppose thats it, it isn’t just recognised labour time that contributes value to the social totality of exchange values , ultimately what capitalists realise as profit
I guess it’s just a question over whether this exploitation is included under wage slavery (as in, it’s work, it’s just unwaged) or whether it’s treated as a seperate source of value, metaphysically distanced from the production process
I see your point. Capitalism, if it can, will use all available labour as it can in an unpaid form (from parenting to altruism) to end result a profit- this can happen more spectacularly in corporate philanthropy- with donated worker time, and maximising under spending by a ‘small government’ approach to welfare. But generally it is pervasive.
Labour and time takes on new complexes- and challenges the reality that non for profit is a end user for profit.
L.B.
Take care
Reflections on Elson’s “Value Theory of Labour”, part 1
This is a summary of her book, like many so called innovator she tries to indicates that Marx theory of value is inconsistent, I think Andrew Killman did a much better job showing that it is totally false. In regard to her works on femeninism the main point is that men and women are exploited at the point of production, and feminism is just a bourgoise current, even more, in the USA many so called feminists and lesbians voted for Donald Trump and the Republicans and they are against the foreign workers, and many support the pro-life movement, and bourgoise nationalism
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