A couple of remarks in relation to Hans's nice answer on the labour theory
of value.
>Hugh asked me the "Gretchenfrage" whether I think the labor
>theory of value is valid.
Lovely German expression there, the "Gretchenfrage". Collins German
dictionary doesn't do it justice with "crunch question" or "sixty-four
thousand dollar question", cos even though it gets the crucial character
across, and even mentions money, it fails to get the cultural resonance.
Duden's Universalwoerterbuch pinpoints it better, but in German, so here's
a translation:
[after the question put by Gretchen to Faust: "Now tell me, how do
things stand with you and Religion?" [[Nun sag, wie hast Du's mit
der
Religion?]] Goethe, Faust I, 3415] a question to someone that
touches on
a sensitive [[or delicate, or infected -- the German word is
"heikel"]] set of
problems, often involving matters of conscience;
Poor Gretchen, so right, so loving, and so hard-done-by. Poor Faust, so
full of aspiration and energy, and so desperate to succeed, and all he does
is fuck up, especially with poor sweet Gretchen. Ach und Weh... Meine Ruh'
ist hin, mein Herz ist schwer, Ich finde sie nimmer und nimmer mehr...
We won't go into what Hans in his Studiezimmer might have for Faustian
dreams...
Hans doesn't cop out. His answer is straight from the shoulder.
>Yes I think so;
Excellent, and in fact the only reasonable explanation for the confidence
with which he teaches Marx and can field the NATO-like bombardment of
doubts and objections that assails him each time he runs his introductory
course -- because the "introduction" is in fact the heart of the matter and
where all the really hardcore grind needs to be done. Not armed with the
sword of faith, but clad in the armour of conviction, Hans braves it all
and emerges each time a little stronger and a little more adept and with
his armour a little shinier and at times even sparkling...
(Unlike some usurpers of the Marxian name we could mention, who just rot
internally more and more as time goes by, and end up with their flesh
melting away and flaking off, like the undead in horror films when they're
exposed by the good and the true, so all that's left is a corroded skull
seething with maggots...)
>however here it
>is necessary to say a little bit about what it means that a
>certain "law" holds in a society. Answer: Value, the
>abstract labor congealed in the products, is "real" in the
>sense that it generates its own causal effects, efects which
>go far beyond the motives and preferences of the
>individuals. It is wrong to start economics with individual
>preferences as mainstream economics does.
[...]
>The labor theory of value therefore says that the organizing
>principle of capitalist market economies must not be sought
>in the markets themselves but in the fact, valid in the
>capitalist economy, that all labor counts as an
>instantiation of a homogeneous society-wide reservoir of
>"abstract human labor." This social equality of all labor
>does not govern production directly but through the
>mediation of the market. The market is the social
>institution which induces the producers to take the actions
>by which, behind their backs, abstract labor is elevated to
>the governing social principle of production. Marx uses for
>all this the shorthand formulation that exchange value,
>i.e., the ability of commodities to exchange themselves for
>other commodities, is "the mere mode of expression, `form of
>appearance,. of some substance distinguishable from it."
The core of this is:
>Value, the abstract labor congealed in the products, is "real" in the
>sense that it generates its own causal effects,
and
>exchange value,
>i.e., the ability of commodities to exchange themselves for
>other commodities, is "the mere mode of expression, `form of
>appearance,. of some substance distinguishable from it."
In other words the real, substantial cause -- the state of fact --
underlying exchange relations and all that follows from them is "VALUE, the
abstract labour congealed in the products".
Which means -- and this is where John runs into a brick wall together with
everybody else (myself included of course) who faces this concept of social
production whose mind has been formed in our capitalist society with its
perverted, fetishistic views of production and social relations -- that
until you drop the reality you're used to attributing to money, or rather
until you transfer this reality first from the pointer to the token of
money (credit/confidence) to the token of money (paper/state-proclaimed
money) to the universal equivalent commodity as money (gold etc) and
finally to the value underlying this universal equivalent, ie abstract
labour as explained in the labour theory of value, you haven't got a chance
of understanding what Marx is on about.
It shouldn't be difficult. Most of us can appreciate the reality of a
dollar, and its abstract expression, the reality of US imperialist clout.
But this is pure empiricism, as the boss currency and political clout
change with the shifting fortunes of the capitalist process of production
and distribution throughout the world. It's not a cause, but an effect, a
symptom, of the underlying causal relationships.
The problem, psychologically speaking, is that the removal of a fetishized
certainty, such as the solidity, the reality of money (greenbacks), or the
reality of a God, is accompanied by a sense of emptiness and loss if the
real relations behind the fetish haven't been clarified and understood, and
if the emotional conviction invested in the fetishized relationships hasn't
been transferred to the real causes and processes involved. My guess is
that most people confronting Capital for the first time fail to appreciate
the reality of value as something far more certain and socially solid than
money. They don't see value as the necessary foundation of social
interactions, but they see money ripped away from this status, and
experience a frightening hole, a chasm, a deep dark ravine into which they
fear to fall.
It's like getting your teeth cleaned up and learning how to keep them
clean. If done properly, you wonder how on earth you could put up with the
loose, fur-coated, bleeding, twingey, smelly set you used to have. Value
offers that cleaned-up kind of rock-solid personal security, clean and firm
and intellectually utterly reliable. An unshakeable foundation to build on
in discovering how society works and how best to change it. Archimedes'
"pou sto:", a spot to stand on from which his lever could move the whole
world.
If you don't transfer the conviction of social reality perversely reflected
in a belief in money or credit or central bankers to what really generates
it, ie value, then you end up with teeth that bleed if you so much as flick
them lightly with your finger. Not nice...
To sum up. The reality is there, the permanence and reliable reproduction
of social relations is there. Already. It's actually in place. It won't go
away by you just thinking about it. But if you do think about it, you can
remove the fetishized swampy quagmire of money and uncover bedrock
underneath, the real foundations of these real processes of constant social
reproduction in value, its significance for commodities and its whole
process of production and distribution in the capitalist mode of production.
Then your teeth will be as strong, gleaming and resilient as those fangs in
the commercials that pling off all the little red nasties trying to smear
them up with bacterial decay. (And your mind will no longer get slimed by
the likes of Henwood and other denizens of the swamp -- no stench, no
mosquitoes, no iridescent surface slicks, just nice solid rock underfoot,
warm, clean and bright in the sun...)
Cheers,
Hugh
==============================
"Changes dictated by social necessity are sure to work their way sooner or
later, because the imperative wants of society must be satisfied, and
legislation will always be forced to adapt itself to them."
Karl Marx, "The abolition of landed property -- Memorandum for Robert
Applegarth, December 3 1869"
http://csf.Colorado.EDU/psn/marx/Archive/1869-Land/
This is published in the Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol 23
1871-74, p. 131, under the title of "The Nationalisation of the Land". It
was written in 1872 as notes for Eugene Dupont, the organizer of the
Manchester section of the Working Men's International Association. Dupont's
report at the May 8 meeting of the section was published in the
International Herald on June 15, 1872. This report, which differs slightly
from the notes published in the M-E Archives, is the text published in the
Collected Works.
* * *
"Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat
with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat
of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its
own bourgeoisie."
Communist Manifesto, 1848, end of first section "Bourgeois and Proletarians"
* * *
"The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by
a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat."
Transitional Programme -- The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of
the Fourth International, 1938, perhaps the most important programmatic
document for which Trotsky bore major responsibility. Introduction.
* * *
And on a lighter note:
His lockid, lettered, braw brass collar,
Shew'd him the gentleman and scholar.
[Rabbie Burruns, The Twa Dogs, 1.13]
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