> Date sent: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 22:22:21 -0500 (EST)
> Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> From: Gil Skillman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Postone on value form and capitalist production
> Skillman writes:
>
>
> I've just finished reading the chapter in Moishe Postone's _Time, Labor, and
> Social Domination_ that Rakesh recommended to me, and it strikes me that
> the point made above is emphatically borne out in Postone's (otherwise quite
> insightful and interesting) analysis: his application of value analysis in
> understanding the development of capitalist production is based on a
> consistent fallacy, just as in Marx, leading to consistently misleading
> conclusions, just as in Marx.
>
> The fallacy, specifically a form of the fallacy of division, asserts itself
> early on.
> Postone's argument in Ch. 9, "The trajectory of production" is premised on
> the claim that "...the expansion of surplus value [is] the systemic goal of
> production in capitalism."
>
> Now, ascribing goals to *systems* rather than conscious beings, as Postone
> does here, is necessarily a dicey proposition, but in any case it is clear
> that *capitalists* direct production, not *capitalism*. Capitalists want to
> make profits; Marx made this point in describing the circuit of capital
> M-C-M', and the fact that M' must on average be greater than M for this
> circuit to make sense depends not at all on whether the elements of the
> circuit are represented in terms of labor values.
I think you are correct that systems do not have "goals", individuals
do. But does it follow from this that capitalism can only be
understood in terms of the purposive action of individual
capitalists? Is it not better to say simply that the social structures
created by purposive capitalists act as constraints within
which they act?
Why do you say so casually that "no one has shown that
machinofacture makes direct
human labor superflous in the production of commodities - it just
changes the character of that labor"? Marx says as much in
the Grundrisse, as I showed in two previous missives. Here he writes
unequivocally that the application of science and technology makes
direct labor superflous, and suggests that the ltv does not apply in
advanced capitalism.
ricardo
>
> Thus individual capitalists will adopt innovations in the production process
> so long as they increase profit by reducing costs or increasing revenues for
> given inputs. A typical capitalist *necessarily* cannot think in terms of
> "increasing surplus value" when organizing production, since value is
> determined by "socially necessary labour time"--"the labour time which is
> necessary *on average*--and a single capitalist in a large capitalist
> economy necessarily cannot affect that average. Thus, for example, a single
> capitalist under such conditions cannot possibly create relative surplus
> value. What the capitalist *can* do is increase individual profits for
> *given* values.
>
> Now it is of course *possible* that the cumulative effect of such an
> innovation, once generally adopted, is to increase surplus value. But that
> is a (contingent) consequence of the original motivation, and should not be
> confused with that motivation itself. Thus, when Postone states later (p. 342)
>
> "...because the goal of capitalist production is surplus value, it gives
> rise to an incessant drive for increased productivity..."
>
> he puts the cart before the horse. Capitalists strive to increase
> productivity because this increases profits, and don't (can't) care what is
> the ultimate effect of their individual actions on surplus value, which
> pertains to the system as a whole.
>
> A related example of such backwards reasoning is found in another passage (327)
>
> "Thus, for example, [Marx] states that 'the law of valorization...comes
> fully into its own for the individual producer only when he produces as a
> capitalist and employes a number of workers simultaneously, i.e. when from
> the outset he sets in motion labour of a socially average character.' This
> passage reinforces my earlier claim that Marx's determinations of value do
> not refer to market exchange alone but are intended as determinations of
> capitalist production."
>
> But the passage Postone quotes does no such thing: rather it states that the
> the conditions of capitalist production inform the "determinations of value"
> rather than vice-versa.
>
> Surprisingly (at least it was surprising to me), Postone's subsequent analysis
> **confirms my point**, at least as it applies through the manufacturing
> stage of capitalist production (i.e. through the argument in V. I of Capital
> as developed up to Ch. 14): Marx's analysis of the nature of capitalist
> production *does not depend* on value categories. Striving to make a
> somewhat different point, Postone writes (p 334):
>
> "So long as human labor remains the essential productive force of material
> wealth, production for the purpose of creating material wealth at a high
> level of productivity necessarily entials the *same* form of the labor
> process as when the goal of production is an increase in surplus value."
> {Emphasis in original.}
>
> Well, exactly. Suppose we ignore value categories entirely and just state
> the obvious: capitalists direct production so as to increase their material
> wealth in the form of profit. The resulting process of production would be
> exactly the same, as Postone affirms.
>
> But this is a double _non sequitur_. First, if it were really true that
> "labor ...has ceased to be essential to the production of material
> wealth..", individual profit-maximizing capitalists would refuse to hire
> that unnecessary labor, and thus would save themselves wage costs at no loss
> in production. When reproduced in the aggregate, that decision may hurt
> capitalists *as a whole*, but to insist that therefore individual
> capitalists will avoid it is precisely to commit the fallacy of division.
> [To put this another way, this may be a form of the "prisoners dilemma" in
> which individually rational decisions lead to collectively irrational
> outcomes.] But second, I restate that no one has shown that machinofacture
> makes direct human labor *superfluous* in the production of commodities--it
> just changes the character of that labor.
>
> My conclusion is as in my earlier post: the application of value theory in
> analyzing capitalist production relations represents a fundamental error of
> logical type. Postone's analysis, which is often quite insightful on other
> grounds, suffers exactly because of this error, just as Marx's did.
>
> Gil Skillman
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >>Marx's valid
> >>insights into the operation of capitalist firms are obscured by, rather than
> >>dependent on, his value-theoretic categories.
> >
> >Gil, have you read Hans-Dieter Bahr's "The Class Structure of Machinery:
> >Notes on the Value Form" in Outlines of A Critique of Technology, ed. Phil
> >Slater. Humanities Press, 1980. An argument like this you will not find in
> >the journals of managerial science. If you can't find Slater's book, do
> >tell me what you think of Moishe Postone's last chapter, also based on the
> >value form. I really am interested in what someone of your analytical
> >prowess makes of such arguments.
> >
> >Thank you,
> >Rakesh
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
