ALB
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We weren’t the only ones to get it wrong. So, apparently, did the Great Zelensky.
Ah! I can see now why you are confused.
You are interpreting “reproduce” in a very literal sense. Of course you can’t use the same material from nature to make more than one example of a use-value. But what you can do is use other material from nature to produce more examples of the same use-value. That is all that is meant by “reproduce” in this context: produce the same use-value again; make another example of it.
It is quite possible to produce more vials and more vaccine. It is happening as we speak. This is not producing a new use-value, but reproducing an already existing one. What can’t be done is to keep on using the same material from nature to do this. But nobody is claiming that you can.
Nor is anybody saying that the production of some new use-value is the reproduction of anything. If it was, it wouldn’t be new. But it will normally be possible to produce more examples of it.
Changes in form may certainly lead to the creation of new things
Exactly. So what are we arguing about?
Production is changing the form of materials that originally came from nature into something useful that didn’t exist before. It is not creating those materials, just changing their form.
Of course new use-values are being produced all the time but they are not being created from nothing, but from materials that originally came from nature. The labour expended in developing a new use-value such as a covid vaccine is part of the socially necessary labour involved in producing it from start to finish. And of course vials containing it are reproducible.
“I cannot see any good reason why the labour theory of value should fail to hold true for new, reproduced amounts of value.
Who says it doesn’t? Except that when a use-value is reproduced its value won’t necessarily be the same as when it was previously produced. This wouldn’t be the case if in the meantime, due to increasing productivity, the amount of socially necessary labour to produce would be less.
The point about a commodity having to be reproducible to be subject to the labour theory of value is precisely this: that the value of a commodity made a few years previously, when the amount of socially necessary labour to produce it was higher but which was not sold, is not that but the current, lower amount of socially necessary labour to produce it.
In other words, the value of a commodity is the amount of socially necessary labour to produce it now and not what it was at the time it was produced, i.e it is the amount of socially necessary labour to reproduce it.
Production doesn’t create anything new. It merely changes the form of materials that originally came from nature. To say that something is reproducible doesn’t mean that the nature-given material from which it is fashioned has to be able to be reproduced (that’s impossible) but that it can be reproduced by using other material that came from nature.
It really is that simple to understand.
In the case of pearls, this doesn’t mean that humans have to be able to make them but that the work of getting them from nature (the bottom of the sea) — which is the productive labour involved in producing them for human use — can be repeated as long as nature produces pearls.
The point of this is that if something cannot be reproduced — such as a particular work of art or land in a particular location — then the labour theory of value does not apply to it, even if it is sold or produced for sale.
Sir Kareer Starmer descends to yet another low:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Danish_European_Union_opt-out_referendum
The warmongers won the Danish referendum but, despite the wall-to-wall pro-Ukraine propaganda, one third of those who voted voted NEJ. I would say that’s a good result. It shows you can’t brainwash all the people all the time.
I wonder what the result would be in other states sending arms to Ukraine to keep the killing and destruction there going.
This has already been done here. This from An ABC of Marxism on this site:
Commodity. Commodities are items of wealth that have been produced for sale. Commodities have been produced in pre-capitalist societies, but such production was marginal. It is only in capitalism that it becomes the dominant mode of production, where goods and services are produced for sale with a view to profit.
Under capitalism the object of commodity production is the realisation of profit when the commodities have been sold. These profits are mostly re-invested and accumulated as capital. Commodities must be capable of being reproduced, and this includes the uniquely capitalist commodity of human labour power. Reading Paresh Chattopadhyay, Socialism and Commodity Production, 2018
Mutual Assured Depression continues:
It’s not that simple. See this article about the interaction in Britain between the minimum wage (paid by employers) and “working tax credits” (paid to employees by the government):
There is a referendum in Denmark tomorrow on whether or not to join the EU defence policy. This should give some measure of popular disagreement with the dominant pro-war narrative.
This might be the sort of referendum in which socialists could vote No?
If that happens then people will decide that the pain involved in trying to save the Ukrainian regime is not worth it and the Tories will be booted out at the first opportunity. And good bye to Borys and Truss, the warmongers who thought that the public would put up with the pain that they inflicted.
Incidentally, I thought the Russian riposte to Truss was amusing;
Interesting observation by the Financial Times;
“American officials have at times been annoyed with the tough talk from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and foreign secretary Liz Truss, who gave a speech in April calling to push Russia out of “the whole of Ukraine”. They have bristled at British calls for more aid or a more muscular response when the US has been the largest provider and has moved mass amounts of assistance into Ukraine at record speeds. ‘The British are actually a step out in front of the Americans, they keep looking over their shoulder to make sure they are being followed,’ said Jeremy Shapiro, research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.”
https://www.ft.com/content/315346dc-e1bd-485c-865b-979297f3fcf5
I wasn’t meaning to suggest that “commodity” was a mistranslation of Ware, only that the word Marx chose to translate it into French made it absolutely clear that he was talking about something that was bought and sold and that this is what the English word “commodity” meant for him. “Commodity” was the obvious English translation, as it had been used by Adam Smith and Ricardo. In any event, there is no such English word as a merchandise.
