-Caveat Lector-
What's the difference?????
Power always looks for more power and concentration.In Russia
and in present day Cuba power is concentrated in the government
or the mafias.......................
One clue.........
Modern communications facilitate the concentration of korporate
wealth and power.
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: nurev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sunday, December 06, 1998 10:16 AM
Subject: [CTRL] Labor, Value, & Wealth
> -Caveat Lector-
>
>- THE LAW OF VALUE - Part 1
>
>"Labor is prior to, and independent of capital. Capital is only
>the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had
>not first existed." Abraham Lincoln - Dec. 3, 1861
>
>Labor creates all social wealth. Capital, in the hands of the
>capitalist class, is wealth that has been legally stolen from
>workers in past generations. Workers are exploited as
>workers, not as consumers. If these and similar assertions
> are true, it is obvious why we workers need to understand
>Marx's Law of Value and the extraction of Surplus Value.
>We will learn exactly how the owning class exploits and robs
>the working class on a colossal scale - why the rich get
>richer, and why economic and social power the world over is
>increasingly concentrated into fewer and larger corporations.
>Through its application, we will see the reason for the evils
>and contradictions that beset society -unemployment and
>mass poverty in the face of plenty, inflation, recessions,
>depressions, war, etc.
>
>The powers-that-be are well aware of the danger should
>workers learn Marxian economics. Mainline economic
>books and their teachers refer disparagingly to Marx's "labor
>theory of value" as an frivolous theory.
>
>It is one of the ironies of history though, that the Law of
>Value is not, in its main premise, Marx's discovery at all. This
>main premise is that it is the labor time embodied in
>commodities that determines their exchange value.
>
>As Marx wrote in "Critique of the Political Economy" (1859):
>"The first sensible analysis of exchange value as labor time,.. is
>to be found in the work of a man of the New World.. That man
>was Benjamin Franklin, who formulated the fundamental law of
>political economy in his first work which he wrote when a mere
>youth..."
>
>In 1729 at the age of 23, Franklin wrote in an essay, "A Modest
>Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency":
>
>"By labor may the value of silver be measured as well as other
>things. As, suppose one man employed to raise corn, while
>another is digging and refining silver; at the year's end, or at any
>other period of time, the complete produce of corn, and that of
>silver, are the natural price of each other; and if one be twenty
>bushels, and the other be twenty ounces, then an ounce of that
>silver is worth the labor of raising a bushel of that corn. Now if
>by the discovery of some nearer, more easy or plentiful mines, a
>man may get forty ounces of silver as easily as formerly he did
>twenty, and the same labor is still required to raise twenty
>bushels of corn, then two ounces of silver will be worth no more
>than the same labor of raising one bushel of corn, and that
>bushel of corn will be as cheap at two ounces, as it was before at
>one..." (all other things being equal)
>Note that Franklin pointed out that commodities do not always
>stay in the same relationship. In his example, if a method opens
>up where one can obtain 40 ozs. of silver in the same time it
>formerly took 20 then the exchange relationship between silver
>and corn will be altered.
>
>Franklin concluded his reasoning with this point: "Trade, in
>general being nothing else but the exchange of labor for labor,
>the value of all things is, as I have said before, most justly
>measured by labor"
>
>In the early days of the capitalist system, economics was a
>mystery. Economists in Europe searched for the answer to the
>problem of why commodities exchanged as they did. Why, at a
>certain period, did a bushel of wheat, a yard of linen and a bottle
>of wine all exchange equally? What did they all have in
>common in equal proportions.
>
>It was under this compelling need for understanding the system
>that Franklin, in the New World, and Adam Smith in the Old,
>independently reasoned that commodities exchange in the
>market on the basis of the amount of labor (measured in time)
>embodied in them. In the 19th century, David Ricardo came to
>the same conclusion in his study on taxation.
>
>Marx agreed with their pioneering work and took up the
>investigation where they left off.
>Since capitalism, foremost of all social systems is
>predominately involved in the production and sale of
>commodities, Marx began his book "Capital"
>with an analysis of a commodity. He wrote:
>"A commodity is a product of human labor that by its properties
>satisfies a human want of some sort or another and that is
>produced for someone else's use, i.e., for exchange." In other
>words, three conditions are essential to make a thing a
>commodity. It must have a use, must be produced by labor and
>it must be produced for sale.
>As Marx explained:
>"A thing can be a use-value, without having value. This is the
>case whenever its utility to man is not due to labor. Such are
>air, virgin soil, natural meadows, etc. A thing can be useful, and
>the product of human labor, without being a commodity.
>Whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of his
>own labor, creates, indeed, use-values, but not commodities. In
>order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use-values,
>but use-values for others, social use-values. Lastly, nothing can
>have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is
>useless, so is the labor contained in it: the labor does not count
>as labor, and therefore creates no value."
>
>So commodities are products of human labor produced for sale-
>not for self consumption. In America's early days, most citizens
>worked for themselves and used up the bulk of their produce. It
>was only the surpluses left over that they wished to exchange.
>And this is when they needed to determine the value of the
>various commodities so they could carry on trade.
>
>>From Marx's definition, we can see that a commodity has two
>kinds of value - its value as a useful object and value as it
>exchanges with other commodities. Obviously, commodities
>like food and clothing are essential, and rank above diamond
>rings and fir coats from a standpoint of utility. But, when they
>exchange on the market, their value is determined by the
>amount of "socially necessary labor time" required for their production and
>they exchange according to the labor involved.
>Marx used the term "socially necessary labor time" emphasizing
>that wasted labor does not create value, whether that wasted
>labor is due to slow workers or "outdated" equipment.
>He wrote:
>
>"The labor time socially necessary is that required to produce an
>article under the normal conditions of production, and with the
>average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time. "
>
> He showed that when a better method of production is
>developed, a more advanced machine for example, productivity
>increases and the value of the individual product falls. The new
>machine then becomes the preferred method of extracting more
>value from the worker, so, to stay in business, every capitalist in
>that same industry must introduce the new machine in his/her
>workplace. And this faster method then becomes the norm for
>that industry.
>
>To illustrate this point, Marx wrote:
>"The introduction of power looms into England probably
>reduced by one-half the labor required to weave a given quantity
>of yarn into cloth. The hand-loom weavers, as a matter of fact,
>continued to require the same time as before; but for all that, the
>product of one hour of their labor represented after the change
>only an hour's social labor, and consequently fell to one-half of
>its former value."
>What happened to the hand loom weavers?
>They went out of business.
>
>When we go to the store we do not, of course, inquire as to the
>socially necessary labor time embodied in the thing we're going
>to buy. We think only about its price. This brings up the
>question - What is price and how is it related to value?
>
>Everyone is familiar with the law of supply and demand. It is
>the most elementary law in economics. When the supply of a
>commodity exceeds the demand the price goes down. When the
>demand exceeds the supply the price rises. Thus though
>commodities at any particular time sell above or below their
>value, in the long run these factors tend to balance out and the
>commodities sell at their values.
>
>Capitalist monopolies may through conspiracies, hold
>commodities whose production they control artificially above
>what would be their market price. No society, however, can
>long tolerate this interference in the economic processes and
>therefore outlaws it.
>
>Through the workings out of the Law of Value, capitalism
>evolved from an economy based predominately on small
>businesses and independent owners of their own land and tools
>to a nation dominated by huge international corporations and a
>vast army of wage-earners. We can understand why this
>happened. Just as, in Marx's time, the hand loom weavers in the
>small family-owned "cottage" industry went out of business so
>too has this been the inevitable fate of small producers in every
>industry - a trend that will continue as long as capitalism exists.
>When we hear the "liberal" media refer to "greedy" capitalists as
>if things would be different if they weren't greedy, we now
>understand that the problem rests in the system, itself!
>
>In this present era of declining living standards, the issue of
>greed will be increasingly promoted particularly here in the U.S.
>where we have the greatest spread between wealth and poverty
>of the industrialized nations. Media pundits write about "kinder,
>gentler capitalism" in Europe and elsewhere. For example,
>recent hourly wage costs for production workers in the U.S.
>were $17.30, Japan - $23.65 and Germany - $31.80. This
>reflects the greater solidarity of the workers in these nations -
>not kinder capitalists. More and more, European and Japanese
>capitalists are looking at American capitalism's success in
>breaking unions and eliminating social programs. Unless they
>can emulate these measures and bring costs down, their
>businesses will lose out.
>
>Daniel De Leon, American Marxist theoretician and editor
>(1891-1914) of the socialist paper The People, years ago
>summed up the logical and most important consequences of the
>Law of Value See if his predictions aren't right on the money:
>
>1. Concentration of productive powers increases the volume of
>wealth, lowers the value of goods, and clears the field of petty and
>competitive elements;
>2.Under capitalism, labor power, being a commodity like all
>others, must decline in value;
>3. Concentration of productive powers is an irresistible force;
>4. the irresistible force congests wealth in the hands of a few
>and pauperizes the masses;
>5. Labor alone produces all social wealth; the wealth in the
>hands of the capitalist class is plunder."
>
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>==========
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>and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and
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>frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor
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>
>Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
>
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DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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