Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 21:33:40 +0100
From: dialogs-AT-pseud.pseud
Subject: Re: M-INTRO: use value


In article <199704110605.CAA19440-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>,
dharmabum-AT-pseud.pseud writes

>       I got news for you.  You will very likely remain at least a little
>confused about the Marxist concept of value because there currently is no
>universally accepted one.  The "Labor Theory of Value" has an immense
>contradiction in it (when taken too literally) between the fact that the
>value of a good does come from labor, but that all labor does not produce
>value.  Strict adherents to the Labor Theory of Value would have one
>believe that work producing an Edsel that doesn't start is just as
>valuable as work producing a Honda that runs like a dream. 
>
>

That value comes from labour, but that all labour does not produce
value. If this is a reference to socially necessary labour how is it a
contradiction?

>
>       The main use I get from the concept of Labor Value is that labor,
>in general, must be supported despite the uncertainty of its eventual
>value, and thus a society cannot support unproductiveness (capitalists and
>workers who are so beaten down by capitalism that they are hostile to
>producing value for their fellow workers) to any great extent without
>terrible imbalances in the economy.  Use value is self-explanatory, while
>exchange value indicates how much you are willing to pay (which ultimately
>boils down to how long you are willing to work) for an item's usefulness. 
>Because labor time is integral to exchange value, how fairly you are paid
>for your economic contribution has a great effect on how correctly goods
>are priced. 
>
>
>
>       Now, Marx used the Labor Theory of Value to "prove" that workers
>created value and thus it was theirs by rights.  It must be understood, I
>believe, that Marx wrote from a time-frame wherein the rights of common
>people were disrespected to an extent that it is difficult for us in
>today's developed world to imagine.  Modern Marxists who use the Labor
>Theory of Value in the way that Marx did seem to act as if they were
>living in the same time, and that if workers are not "given" credit for
>all the value in the economy without regards to price and the market, that
>there is no legitimacy to their claims.  I understand as even Ross Perot
>(hardly a socialist) understands that we "are the owners of the country". 
>(Of course if he knew what that really meant, I doubt he would say it
>again.)  A modern Marxist should see, I believe, that our rights as
>citizens give us the right to claim ownership over the means of production
>we work on, yet our fellow workers, through the market, are the rightful
>arbiters of what our work product is worth. 
>

No: Marx used the labour theory of value to show how the working class
are exploited. Workers are paid a wage or salary, which is the price of
their labour power, their ability to work. Capitalists put that labour
to work and reap a surplus over and above what it cost in wages and
salaries. This is the Marxian explanation for the source of profit, and
it shows that wage labour is the hallmark of exploitation under
capitalism. No cheating is involved, and the workers generally get the
full value of the their wage, but they are nevertheless exploited. Marx
never said that value belonged to the workers, because the value
relationships were at the root of working class problems.

>       Because of their belief that markets inevitably distort the value
>of work, and that wage labor and capitalist accumulation inevitably result
>from markets, strict adherents to the Labor Theory of Value "philosophy" 
>propose to place a democratic, governmental system between producers and
>purchasers. This system would allocate resources and determine wage rates
>for most, if not all, of the economy.  They would do this by calculating
>the "socially necessary labor time" inherent in the production of a good. 
>The democratic process, in governmental councils and at the
>ballot box, would be able to express the degree to which goods were
>socially necessary.  They would then allocate resources according to the
>determination of what is necessary, thereby shrinking industries that were
>less necessary, rather than shrinking the amount workers in those
>industries could expect to be paid for their product. 
>

Not all adherents to the labour theory of value (strict or not) propose
government allocation of resouces; that is to say, state capitalism.
Needless to say, there is nothing in Marx's writings which would suggest
that socially necessary labour time could or should be calculated. Marx
did not provide a theory of price but rather a theory of exploitation.

>        I am obviously and openly in disagreement with that view and
>belong to the "market socialist" tendency, even to the point that some
>would call me an "anarcho-syndicalist". I believe that the answer is to go
>ahead and actually turn the hen-house over to the chickens, giving workers
>in firms ownership of those firms.  I feel that such a change would
>radically alter the way workers would have to deal with the economic
>world.  Planning for the economy's future would be as immediate a reality
>as the balance sheets of the companies they owned and that were their
>livelihoods.  Wage labor would not only be prevented, but undermined by
>the fact that workers belonging to firms would get ownership rights in
>those firms along with their first paycheck, and that once this was the
>norm, it would be difficult for firms to offer less.  I see the role for
>government in the economy to be on the credit side.  Government banks and
>credit institutions would be necessary to fill the void left by
>capitalists in financing commerce.  These government banks, as units of
>democratic government, would not only have to serve the interests of
>profitability, but also the political interests of their constituencies. 
>This would be the economic leverage the citizens would have against firms
>that acted in an anti-social manner. 
> 
>
>       All of the above are simplifications, but I think they illustrate
>the debate and the political ramifications of the debate.  
>
>
>
>
>
>       peace

We've already had plenty of experience from co-operatives (self-managed
exploitation, as they're known) and elsewhere that such reformist
avenues lead to a dead end. What is more, many capitalists are in favour
of such organisation as they see them as a way of mitigating the class
struggle and fostering the illusion of common interest. In the end, they
come up against the economic law of capitalism: no profit, no
production. And neither Marx nor any econonomist has come up with a way
of ensuring proits. That's why capitalism has to go.
-- 
Lew


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