File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9802, message 477


From: "Hartin, Tony" <thartin-AT-vitgcdu1.telstra.com.au>
Subject: M-I: RE: Existence of Value
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 15:23:00 +1000



  >
  >  Date: Thu, 26 Feb 98 16:16:56 EST
  >  From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
  >  Subject: Re: M-I: RE: Existence of Value
  >
  >  		C. Tony,
  >  [...]
  >  	Your example of the asteroid minerals presents the absurd
  >  reduction that is inherent in the LTV.  If I want to spear a fish,
and I
  >  bend over to pick up a sharp stick, my bending over did not create
the
  >  sharpness of the stick.  I could have bent over and picked up a
stick that
  >  wasn't sharp.  My bending over is totally unrelated to stick
sharpness.
  >  If I stopped to sharpen a stick, the fish might go away before I
finish.

I'll have to differ here because I think your example is absurd. The
starting point of humanity is development of the means of production.
The act of picking up a fortuitously sharp stick in order to catch
dinner is an animal function, not a human function. Humans sharpen the
stick before hand and then go hunting.

Mining for minerals on bodies other than earth may be impractical at the
moment, but it is a fairly logical outgrowth of our present practices.
  >
  >  	Labor is a fact of life. The usefulness of labor is the product
of
  >  chance.

Woah! I don't get this at all. The sentences I would have used here
would be "The need to survive is a fact of life. Labor is the essence of
humanity. Labor allows humanity to shape the environment rather than
react to it". The concept of "usefulness" is so subjective as to be
non-scientific in my opinion.

  > The reason I brought Newton into the mix was that Newtonian
  >  mechanics are deterministic. We live in a probabilistic world.
There is
  >  no deterministic connection between labor and usefulness.  Labor
may or
  >  may not be useful.  The usefulness of labor has no connection to
labor
  >  time.

I think you are making a judgement based on the surface reality of late
capitalism. Much labour these days is unproductive (or unemployed)
because capitalism can't employ it productively. But the existence or
otherwise of unproductive labour does not change the fact that
productive labour is still required to create use value.

It seems to me that socially necessary labour time contains the concept
of usefulness in itself. It is as non-sensical to separate these two as
it is to say that it is hot today because the temperature is high,
whilst ignoring the fact that the sun is shining and a warm wind is
blowing.

It would be useful if I happened upon a sharp stick on my way to catch a
fish, but it has no value as far as capitalism is concerned -
capitalists can't sell it. A capitalist may pay someone to go around and
find sharp sticks, or to sharpen blunt sticks, in order to sell them,
but then labour has been employed.

Regards,

Tony


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