> OK. Your reasoning is that in Marx, the value of a good is the labor > socially necessary to reproduce it. So, the amount of labor socially > necessary to reproduce a given act of concrete labor is the labor > necessary to reproduce the laborer's labor power. Am I right?
Yes, though I can see why this is about to cause problems. > If so, this gets all confusing. It comes down to the labor required to > reproduce the thing vs. the thing itself. Why wouldn't the labor being > performed be counted in the labor necessary to reproduce the labor being > performed? Because although "labor" is involved in both clauses, they inform different economic categories. Here, "labor necessary to reproduce..." speaks to the cost of supplying the good in question--a "supply side" issue--while "labor performed" speaks primarily to the use value that employers get out of a given worker--a "demand side" issue. Now, Marx in Capital V. I is clearly working in a "supply side" theoretical framework, to the extent that he insists that commodity prices are ultimately regulated (only) by production conditions, i.e. ultimately by the labor time necessary to produce commodities (see, e.g., the last part of the long footnote ending Ch. 5). Taking this as given for the sake of argument, the only things that affect a commodity's exchange value are things that affect its production cost--thus, in terms of Marx's value theory, things that affect the labor socially necessary to reproduce the commodity. The use value of the good, *assuming it has a sufficient use value* to have willing consumers at its exchange value, plays no role in the quantitative determination of that exchange value. Thus, "labor performed", which has primarily to do with the use value of labor power, can play no direct role in determining the value of the labor power expended in providing given labor services. It can play an indirect role only if the labor performed affects the rate of depreciation of labor power. But if a worker, say, expends the same calories working at a computer as sitting around humming to him- or herself, then labor performed wouldn't even have this indirect effect. Suppose we avoid the potentially confusing double use of "labor" by talking about a refrigerator and refrigeration services rather than labor power and labor services. If we have a supply-side theory of price or exchange value, then the exchange value of a refrigerator is determined by its cost of production. That would be true however and how much given purchasers chose to make use of the refrigerator's refrigeration services, so long as variations in use didn't affect the rate of depreciation--whether they pack it full or leave it relatively empty, whether they unplug it for half a year or run it most of the time. Thus "refrigeration services performed" plays no direct role in the exchange value of the refrigerator, so long as consumers get sufficient use value from it that they're willing to pay the purchase price or rental rate. It might be that variations in use affect the rate of depreciation of the refrigerator, with consequent differences in (say) maintenance costs, but you wouldn't then want to say that the "refrigeration services" *themselves* determine the resulting higher exchange value--rather, the costs involved in providing whatever extra maintenance is necessitated by a given stream of refrigeration services determine that. So: the "labor performed" by labor power isn't directly counted in determining "the labor necessary to reproduce the labor services being performed" by that labor power, although it may play an indirect role by affecting the cost of reproducing that labor power. Now say that five times fast. Gil >> Hi, Walt. You write: >> >>> It is obvious that when an employer and worker make a contract (in the >>> realm of C in Marx's famous schema) the contract doesn't specify the >>> concrete labor to be performed, it just says the parameters within >>> which >>> the boss will direct the worker. This seems like a classic case of the >>> sale of LP. >> >>> But what if someone argued that in the realm of P, we were still >>> implicitly in the realm of exchange because for every act of concrete >>> labor workers were asked to perform, they had the power to weigh that >>> against the wage they were paid. Thus, the wage is really payment for >>> specific acts of concrete labor? >> >> The first question to ask here is if workers and firms are able to >> bargain >> over the provision of specific labor services after workers have been >> hired, why couldn't these after-hiring transactions have been >> anticipated >> and bargained over at the point of hire? The answer that makes most >> sense >> to me harks back to the "incomplete contracts" story I mentioned earlier >> (in contrast to the scenario of *asymmetric information*, in which >> employers can never observe some key aspect of workers' contribution). >> Initial contracting might be incomplete for any of a number of reasons: >> too many contingencies to anticipate and write into a feasible contract, >> contingencies that are unverifiable and thus unenforceable by an >> external >> enforcement agency, bounded rationality on the part of the transactors, >> whatever. But whatever the reason, then we potentially have the >> scenario >> you describe above: first workers are hired, then a particular >> contingency is realized, then firm and employees bargain over services >> to >> be provided and compensation to be paid under that contingency. >> >> The second question is, how does this scenario affect the canonical >> Marxian story from V I, part 2 of capital? In the most general view, >> not >> necessarily at all: as confirmed by the Fundamental Marxian Theorem, so >> long as workers expend more labor than is embodied in their wage >> bundles, >> capitalist profit arises. Beyond that, it's just a matter of >> interpretation that doesn't seem to affect Marx's canonical account all >> that much. On one hand, you could reasonably say it's still true that >> at >> the point of initial hire, only labor power is purchased, since no one >> knows yet exactly what the workers will do (or, perhaps, what they'll be >> paid). >> >> On the other hand, as you suggest above, someone could insist that we're >> still in the realm of exchange until after the production contingency is >> realized and the subsequent wage bargain is concluded. In that case, >> it's >> true that employers would be purchasing specified labor services rather >> than labor power--that is, this is just like the case of complete >> contracting I mentioned in an earlier post, just more involved. But >> other >> things equal, Marx's value theoretic account might still obtain: what >> capitalists pay for is the value of the labor power expended in >> providing >> those labor services, and the necessary basis of profit is that they >> must >> extract more labor than is embodied in the labor power used up. >> >> In other words, there are two distinct issues at stake in Marx's >> canonical >> account: one is the strategic contracting issue of the form taken by the >> labor exchange, and one is the value theoretic issue about what >> capitalist >> firms ultimately pay for vs. what they ultimately receive. Variations >> in >> the former *need not* (although they might) imply alterations in the >> latter. The parenthetical comment just previous is the subject of >> another >> post. >> >> Gil >> >
