Date: 	Thu, 23 Nov 1995 22:42:55 -0300
From: jinigo-AT-inscri.org.ar (Juan Inigo)
Subject: Value: unanswered questions (to John Ernst)


Unanswered questions about measuring material relations.

John Ernst writes:

>OK,  let's cut to the quick.
> ...
>Juan says:
>
>"Most" is quite a convenient abstraction,
> isn't it? And what about "somehow"?
>"Somehow" how, John? Productivity is a
> material relation that has a quantitative
> direct expression only at the level of each
> material production process: units of a given
> use value/concrete living labor needed to
> produce them (Chapter 1, to begin with).
> Could John tell us how he adds increases in
> productivity in the production of cannons with
> increases in productivity in the production of
> candies to say, for instance, that productivity
> has risen 4% last year, when 50% of the total
>social production has been shifted from the former
> to the latter?
> ...
>John now says:
>
>So you are saying that we cannot say that
>productivity on average increase by some
>percent from one year to the next? Is this
>generally true?  Can we say if the real wage
>has increased since 1900 since its compostion
>has changed?  Can we get some kind of answer
>by using index numbers?

Is this what John understands for cutting to the quick? A friend of mine
with a religious background tells me that John's way of replying agrees
with the typical one used by Rabbis to sneak away from questions they have
no substantiated answers for: a collection of questions aimed at making the
true questioner appear as the one who has to answer about things he/she
didn't said. It is far too much to have a professional Jesuit in the list
claiming for the supremacy of irrationality, to add more priest-like
slippery to it.

I have presented John a very concrete question that demands a very concrete
answer. Rather, to cut to the quick, that demands him to choose between two
very concrete answers:

a) The concrete "cannons/candies 4%" case is solved by adding increases in
productivity measured in units of ...

b) John's open recognition that he has based his model on a quantitative
relation that cannot be followed beyond its abstract definition.

>John said:
>
>Note well, as some tossed bricks at Keen
>he found an example in the GRUNDRISSE in
>which Marx clearly indicated that the
>technical composition increased at a
>slower rate than outputs.
> ...
>Juan says:
>The supposed example follows:
>
>"It also has to be postulated
>(which was not done above) that
>the use value of the machine
>significantly greater than its
>value; i.e. that its devaluation
>in the service of production is
>not proportional to its increasing
>effect on production." (p. 383)
>
>John now says:
>
>This is not the example.
>Please read the next few paragraphs
>of the GRUNDRISSE. (pp383 TO 385)
>Note that I have disagreed with
>Steve's interpretation of the sentence,
>you cite. He likes to focus on what
>comes before the "i.e." and I think
>that that which comes after it in this
>sentence is  crucial.  Both of us sought
>solace in the example that followed.

What? Keen always referred to that paragraph itself, not to the numerical
example that follows it. And what about John himself? On his 11/3 post,
John stated:

>Dear Steve,
>
>Ok!  Let's start with the quote from the GRUNDRISSE
>and see how we can move our discussion forward.
>
>"It also has to be postulated ...
> ...
>I still claim that the most interesting part of this
>section of the GRUNDRISSE is that Marx himself is
>saying that increases in what he calls the technical
>composition of capital are not as great as those in
>productivity or output per worker.   This is truly a
>"Keen" find as it contradicts nearly ever known exposition
>of Marx's falling rate of profit.
> ...
>As I think I've said, given this passage* from Marx what
>arises is the apparent contradiction between use value
>and exchange value in the process of accumulation.  That
>is, from the standpoint of use value, increases in output
>exceed increases in input.  From the standpoint of exchange
>value, increases in input exceed increases in output.  This
>is precisely why Marx needs a concept value that can show
>this apparent contradiction....

Furthermore, in the quoted paragraph Marx is setting the basis of the
numerical example he develops in pp. 383-385, and that he presents in the
"next few paragraphs of the GRUNDRISSE." Now, what is John aiming at when,
instead of replying to my analysis of the paragraph included in my previous
post (and that he completely snipped in his reply), he claims that he was
referring to an apparently unrelated "example" with no further ado? Is this
what should be understood by cutting to the quick?

>Juan says:
>
>Now, where does Marx say anything about
>the technical composition in the sphere
>of production that uses the machine
>(or just in any sphere) increasing
>faster, slower or at the same pace
>that the increase in productivity here?
>
>John now says:
>See pages 108-109 of Book III of CAPITAL.
>(Intl. Ed.)

John takes the concluding paragraph of my reply to the supposed reference
in the Grundrisse out of context, in an attempt to turn my "here" into his
chewing gum. It doesn't matter. Marx newly mentioned text says:

"Further, the quantity and value of the employed machinery grows with the
development of labour productivity but not in the same proportion as this
productivity, i.e., not in the proportion in which the machinery increases
its output. ..."

This is exactly the same that Marx says in Grundrisse p. 383. So the
analysis that I have included in my previous post still stands unanswered.

>Juan says:
>
>Could John tell us case by case if the replacement
>of 20 ordinary hammers with a) 3 nailing machines,
>b) 20 electric hammers, c) 50 electric hammers,
>d) 2 gluing machines, e) 35 brushes and glue-pots,
>is an increase in the technical composition of
>capital faster, slower or at the same pace as the
>increase in the material out-put per hour from 100
>to 200 pairs of shoes, that results from the increase
>in the productivity of an unchanged mass of living
>labor on the basis of any of these new
>technological alternatives?
>
>John now says:
>How many electric hammers? Assuming that an electric
>has the same mass as the "ordinary" hammer and, thus,
>hammers seem to more than triple as even more
>inputs are added, it would seem that this part
>of constant capital is more than doubling,
>which means it is growing faster than output which
>is doubling.  ...

"Assuming that an electric (hammer) has the same mass as the "ordinary"
hammer..." Mass measured in units of ... ?? Assuming that John means here
by "mass" the same thing that physics would, suppose that the electric
hammers are made of aluminum and plastic and, therefore, lighter than the
ordinary ones: would it mean that the technical composition has fallen? And
what about the "mass" of gluing-pots? The only thing that is clear in
John's reply is the mass of empty statements that the attempt of
"measuring" the technical composition as such produces.

>Since I've answered the essence of your query,
>I'll ignore the bit at the end concerning
>derivatives and use values as I am unclear
>if the use value is an input or an output,
>or, indeed, if it is even a product of a human
>production process.

I have already shown the scope of John's "answered the essence of your
query." But what "derivatives" and "unclear use values" is he talking
about? The "bit at the end" of my post he is now ignoring stated:

*****
Let us assume that I feel a great faith in John's abstractions. I am sure
now that I will have no problem in answering John's question! But I will
need a little help from him. I will have no problem in answering John's
question as soon as he tells me in what UNITS I have to express each of the
elements John places in an immediate quantitative relation.

To make things even clearer and easier for him, he would not even need to
get into those substantiated developments he has shown not to be very
familiar with. It will suffice if he replies by filling in the blanks and
sending back the following coupon:

---------
given:

MP: material mass of means of production
L: material mass of concrete living labor
UV: material mass of a given use-value
h: hours of concrete living labor
uv: units of a given use-value

d: change in the corresponding material mass

d MP measured in units of ......
__________________________
d L measured in h
____________________________  >, =, < 1
d UV measured in uv
__________________________
d L measured in h

or,

d MP measured in units of .......
____________________________  >, =, < 1
d UV measured in uv

--------------

If John does not reply in the unequivocally direct way I am inviting him
here to, he will make crystal clear by himself that his famous relation is
just an infamous abstraction. And on doing so, he will make crystal clear
that he is not interested at all in getting into a substantiated
discussion, that he is only interested in an empty conversation about
abstractions. But, of course, the abstract conversation about real social
forms is a very concrete real social form itself. It is the necessary way
in which ideology is produced; it is the necessary way in which alienated
consciousness is produced as purely such. Vulgar economy, to begin with.

***** end of my quotation***

What sort of ignorant would mistake "derivatives"  for "d: change in the
corresponding material mass"? Does John's e-mail ASCII have a better symbol
than a "d" for a "delta"? And, when productivity is at stake, what sort of
ignorant would find the use-values placed in relation with the labor that
produces them to be not clearly defined? What does John want to mean here?

When John stated that

>You still have not answered what I consider a
>basic question.   In CAPITAL, does the technical
>compostion of capital grow faster, slower, or
>at the same rate as productivity?

and said he was working in a model of the FRP based on the material
relations in question, Jim Miller and I (each from his own point of view)
started to point out the contradiction in terms that such base involved. In
spite of John's attempts to discourage us with his pedantic claims about
our knowledge keeping us in the 19th century, that we were "attacking" or
have not read Marx, and other niceties, we took John's theoretical
assertions assuming that John was interested in a substantiated discussion.
This means that we used our time to analyze John's posts, to resort to
bibliography, to develop our replies to the content of John's theory, etc.
In my particular case, I had to add the effort that means to me to develop
a substantiated argument in a foreign language, alien to the rest of my
daily life (and notice that this even includes looking for the
bibliographical references brought into the discussion through the texts
themselves, since the pagination of the English translation becomes useless
concerning my Spanish translation; in Grundrisse for instance). Finally,
there is the effort of the rest of the members of the list that have used
their time to silently follow the discussion in search of substantiated
arguments.

Is now John trying to mean we were all fools for assuming he was looking
for a substantiated discussion? With the right I have earned by following
John's arguments in a way that cannot be formally objected from any
scientific point of view, I demand from him a concrete answer to my
question about the units in which he measures technical composition to
construct his model. To cut to the quick, only two very concrete positive
answers fit here:

a) The increase in the technical composition of capital is measured in
units of ...

In case John cannot present a concrete unambiguous unit, I still hope he
will reply by admitting that

b) the model of the FRP he is defending cannot be followed beyond the
abstract definition of its elements, thus pointing out to the necessity of
following a different path to face the cognition of the falling rate of
profit.

Of course, any other evasive reply will mean that my question actually
admitted a third, highly negative, answer:

c) that John is consciously opposing an abstract concept concerning a
concrete real form of capital, to the necessity of scientifically facing
the determinations of our general social relation to consciously rule
revolutionary action. And this is a very concrete form of ignorance: vulgar
economy, and therefore, the production of alienated consciousness as such.

I was going to include John's eventual silence as an expression of answer
c). But since John has proposed now to lower the tone of the discussion, I
will take his eventual silence as a proof of his agreement with answer b).

Juan Inigo
jinigo-AT-inscri.org.ar



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