Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 10:49:52 +0100
From: Lew <Lew-AT-dialogues.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-I: LOV and labour time vouchers


In article <199703291310.NAA24143-AT-gn.apc.org>, Chris Burford
<cburford-AT-gn.apc.org> writes
>>>
> Marx believed that, because of the low
>level of the productive forces (in the 1870s) consumption would have to
>be rationed, possibly by the use of labour-time vouchers similar to
>those advocated by Robert Owen. 
><<
>
>I have spliced your quotes from Marx in with the 
>references:
>
>
>"Owens labour-money, for instance, is no more money than a ticket
>for the theatre. Owen presupposes directly associated labour, a form of
>production that is entirely inconsistent with the production of
>commodities. The certificate of labour is merely evidence of the part
>taken by the individual in the common labour, and of his right to a
>certain portion of the common produce destined for consumption."
>(Capital, Vol. 1).
>
>Capital, Volume One, Part 1, Chapter 111, Section 1: Money, Or The
>Circulation of commodities. First footnote.
>
>
>"These producers may... receive paper vouchers entitling them to
>withdraw from the social supplies of consumer goods a quantity
>corresponding to their labour-time. These vouchers are not money. They
>do not circulate"
>(Capital, Vol. 2).
>Capital, Volume Two, Part 2, Chapter XV111, 11: The Role of Money
>Capital. Last page.
>
>"Within the co-operative society based on the common ownership of the
>means of production, the producers do not exchange their products"
>(Critique of the Gotha Programme).
>Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1, 3.
>
>
>I do not think they support your case if read in context of the
>other passages. I accept your point that Marx and Engels regarded
>the process of wage labourer as fundamental to human oppression
>and exploitation under capitalism, and calls for its abolition.
>I accept that there are many critical references to the market
>but Marx was a sharp critic and I do not think that means a 
>political programme of abolishing the market. On closer examination 
>of your quotes I think Marx appears even less utopian on this
>question than might at first be imagined. 

I await your explanation of how Marx thought the market could be used by
the working class and how you think this is not "utopian". You accept
that Marx called for the abolition of wage labour but say not the
market. Yet surely the market for labour power is what is distinctive
about capitalism; without it there isn't much left of the market. And
how does that square with your assertion that Marx didn't want to
abolish the market?

I could go on citing evidence. The Communist Manifesto spoke of "the
Communistic abolition of buying and selling" (11); and "If we conceive
society as being not capitalistic but communistic, there will be no
money capital at all in the first place" (Capital, Volume Two, Part 11,
Chapter XV1, 111)... 

>Just before the beginning of your quote from the footnote in Capital
>Volume 1, he writes 
>
>"I have elsewhere examined thoroughly the Utopian idea of 
>'labour money' in a society founded on the production of 
>commodities (l. c., p 61, seq.)"
>
>This appears to me probably to be a reference to the criticism
>of the ideas of 'Honest John' Gray, at the end of the section
>entitled "Theories of the Unit of Measure of Money" in Critique
>of Political Economy. [This is the New York 1903 translation]
>
>"He makes a National Central Bank ascertain through its branches
>the labor-time consumed in the production of various commodities. 
>The producer receives an official certificate of value in 
>exchange for his commodity, ie. he gets a receipt for 
>as much labor-time as his commodity contains, and these
>bank notes for one week's labor, one day's labor, 
>one hour's labor, etc., serve all the time as a check
>for an equivalent in all other commodities stored in 
>the bank warehouses.
>
>...[Gray argues that it would be possible to dispense with
>the precious metals as special units of money]...
>
>"Labor-time being the intrinsic measure of value, why should there
>be another external measure side by side with it? Why
>does exchange value develop into price? Why do 
>all commodities estimate their value in one exclusive 
>commodity, which is thus converted into a special 
>embodiment of exchange value into money? That was the problem
>which Gray had to solve. Instead of solving it, he 
>imagined that commodities could be related directly to each 
>other as products of social labor. But they can 
>relate to each other only in their capacity of
>commodities. Commodities are the direct products of isolated
>independent private labors, which have to be realized as 
>universal social labor through their alienation in the process
>of private exchange, that is to say, labor based on 
>the production of commodities becomes social labor only
>through universal alienation of individual labors. But
>by assuming that the labor-time contained in commodities
>is *directly social* [Marx's emphasis] labor-time,
>Gray assumes it to be common labor-time or labor-time
>of directly associated individuals.... 
>*Products are to be produced as commodities, but 
>are not to be exchanged as commodities* [Marx's emph].
>
>"What remains concealed in Gray's writings and hidden from
>himself as well,
>
>that labor-money is a well-sounding economic phrase for the
>pious wish to get rid of money, and with money, 
>of exchange value, and with exchange value, of commodities, 
>and with commodities, of the capitalistic mode of production,
>
>was clearly expressed by some English socialists of whom
>a few preceded and others followed Gray."
>
>
>So the footnote in Capital that Lew quotes, begins
>
>"The question - Why does not money directly represent labour-
>time, so that a piece of paper may represent, for instance,
>x hours' labour, is at bottom the same question why, given 
>the production of commodities , must products take the 
>form of commodities?  This is evident, since their taking
>the form of commodities implies their differentiation into
>commodities and money. Or, why cannot private labour - labour 
>for the account of private individuals - be treated as its
>opposite, immediate social labour? " 
>
>There is then the reference to the Critique of Political Economy,
>then the 3 sentences Lew quotes. Then:
>
>"But it never enters into Owens' head to presuppose the 
>production of commodities, and at the same time, by 
>juggling with money, to try to evade the necessary 
>conditions of that production.
>

Since you do not say, I have to ask what is it that you think this
shows? Gray wanted to retain the production of commodities in
conjunction with the introduction of labour vouchers but did not face up
to the consequences of generalised commodity production. The mode of
production determines the mode of distribution and not vice versa. In
other words, commodity production - market forces - still dominated.
Owen didn't make that mistake and was (so Marx thought) clear on the
need to get rid of commodity production, and money as the measure of
value then has no role.

>If time permits I will comment on Lew's  other quotes from Marx,
>especially the one from Crique of the Gotha Programme on the
>trasitional situation after the working class has taken
>state power.
>
>Chris Burford
>London
>
>
>
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-- 
Lew


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