File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_1998/bourdieu.9803, message 23


Date: 	Tue, 24 Mar 1998 09:57:21 -0500 (EST)
From: bhandari-AT-phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari)
Subject: Re: Aesthetic Labour


I hestitated to submit this last night because it is a rushed reply, and I
have not made my point subtly or historically or succinctly!  I apologize
in advance.

For Marx, value is determined by the *socially* necessary labor time
required to *re-produce* a commodity; so 1. the actual labor time embodied
directly and indirectly in a commodity is not its value a. otherwise more
inefficient labor would produce more value and b. the introduction of more
efficient techniques will tend to lower the unit commodity value of those
produced through less efficient technique and thus 'embodying' more labor
(so Marx does not hold the more embodied labor, the more value); and 2.
Marx's object of investigation is capitalistically produced commodities,
i.e., the world-historically unique vast accumulation of commodities
produced by wage labor in a mechanized labor process, and Marx's theory of
the search for relative surplus value through, e.g.,  mechanization and
concentration,  does not explain the dynamics of the production and price
formation of art objects--they stand outside industrial production and  the
continuous revolutions in production technique by which  unit values are
continuously reduced and one commodity comes to replace another because of
its objective comparative advantages in terms of social labor time.  Such
objective comparison is not possible with art works, which are the works of
genius and incomparable talent and the demand for which is based on the
whims of the rich; that is, objective comparison is impossible with art
objects, their price is not determined in terms of value, i.e,. the social
labor time required for their production or the social labor time their use
will save.

It may be however that the price of art works is indeed affected by the
magnitude of spending on luxury goods as the amount of surplus value which
is actually capitalized may vary over the business cycle; moreover, as the
rate of profit in industrial production rises and falls in the course of
accumulation, art objects can become a repository--like real estate or
stocks--for speculative capital, which cannot find a profitable outlet in
industry. Perhaps the price of art works also reflects a subjective
evaluation of those things which stand outside rationalized capitalist
production and commercial values. Thus as Paul Mattick Jr suggested years
ago, it may become impossible to maintain a belief in the special status of
art because of the fantastic sums of money made by speculating on it.
Speculation in art can thus be undermined by a loss of belief in its
"valued" status as a special object in the world of 'mere' commodities.

 So when Mikhail writes :

>Postcript to La Distinction. If we use a marxian analogy for the
>aesthetic value --then there is a question of labor. For Marx ( and as
>far as i know for many modern economists) the value includes the amount
>(time ) of labour. The more labour the more value.

 I am suggesting the analogy cannot be made, Marx had no intention of
explaining the price of art objects by their value or their basis in social
labor time--they have no such basis.  Of course  art objects have prices
(based on the whims of the rich) but not values (based on the social labor
required for the reproduction of commodities). There are many deeper
arguments here. For example, Marx did not have a simple labor theory of
value.  Marx held that only ABSTRACT labor produced value--which raises the
question of on the one hand why Marx maintained this to be so and on the
other hand whether aesthetic labor is abstract labor. I am suggesting that
aesthetic labor has no objective basis in social labor time. Being products
of unique and incomparable talents,  price of art objects cannot be
determined by the social labor time required for its production; their
price is determined (again) by the whims of the rich.


Best,
Rakesh


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