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en:communist-values.-or-a-positive-theory-of-socialism-a-propos-peter-astroem-s-critique-of-communisation-and-value-form-theory [2022/12/16 22:12]
eaustreum [IX] |
en:communist-values.-or-a-positive-theory-of-socialism-a-propos-peter-astroem-s-critique-of-communisation-and-value-form-theory [2023/01/01 09:10] (current)
henriksson |
| Further, I will try to show how Åström’s critique of the value-form paradigm misses its point, and that his understanding of value, labour, and Marx’s theory is both substantialist and essentialist, suffering from a kind of positivist sclerosis. The problem with his programme is not only and not primarily his preoccupation with value and abstract labour logically, as it were, or quantitatively. His problem lies deeper: With his focus on value proportions he can’t see that value expresses a specific relation of production; a social relation, at once constituting and constituted by the capitalist classes. | Further, I will try to show how Åström’s critique of the value-form paradigm misses its point, and that his understanding of value, labour, and Marx’s theory is both substantialist and essentialist, suffering from a kind of positivist sclerosis. The problem with his programme is not only and not primarily his preoccupation with value and abstract labour logically, as it were, or quantitatively. His problem lies deeper: With his focus on value proportions he can’t see that value expresses a specific relation of production; a social relation, at once constituting and constituted by the capitalist classes. |
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| At the same time, however, he has exposed some weak spots in certain articulations of both the communisation perspective and the value-form paradigm, and this merits a continuation of the discussion. At best, Åström suggests a non-answer to the flaws he locates in communisation theory; at worst, the alternative he suggests, in its practical implementation, would take the shape of a state-planned economy, where some socialist engineering, rationality and instrumentality, instead of capital, rules and dominates the individuals, specifically the immediate producers. | At the same time, however, he has exposed some weak spots in certain articulations of both the communisation perspective and the value-form paradigm, and this merits a continuation of the discussion. At best, Åström suggests a non-answer to the flaws he locates in communisation theory; at worst, the alternative he suggests, in its practical implementation, would take the shape of a state-planned economy, where socialist engineering, rationality and instrumentality, instead of capital, rules and dominates the individuals, specifically the immediate producers. |
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| On the terrain Åström directs his critique, the controversy is not so much about communist revolution in a historically determined, specific form as communisation, but in a more abstract realm where we try to project a revolutionary overcoming as such. It may be illustrated by the frequent references in this discussion to the theory of Marx from the mid-decades of the 19th Century. | On the terrain Åström directs his critique, the controversy is not so much about communist revolution in a historically determined, specific form as communisation, but in a more abstract realm where we try to project a revolutionary overcoming as such. It may be illustrated by the frequent references in this discussion to the theory of Marx from the mid-decades of the 19th Century. |
| Åström claims that the communisation perspective as it has been promoted by, specifically, Théorie Communist (TC) and the //Sic// journal is characterised by an apocalyptic notion of revolution, which risks to annihilate the current level of productivity which, Åström argues, is the very precondition for the establishing of communism. Against this, Åström claims that communism may rationally solve the capitalist contradiction constituted by the fact that abstract labour is posited as the measure of wealth, while capital, at the same time, strives to reduce this labour to a minimum – ‘it does not need to blow everything up’ (Åström).((The position of Åström in what follows is a reconstruction of his argumentation in private conversations and in E-mail discussions within Sic in 2013. He has read and accepted this reconstruction of his arguments.)) | Åström claims that the communisation perspective as it has been promoted by, specifically, Théorie Communist (TC) and the //Sic// journal is characterised by an apocalyptic notion of revolution, which risks to annihilate the current level of productivity which, Åström argues, is the very precondition for the establishing of communism. Against this, Åström claims that communism may rationally solve the capitalist contradiction constituted by the fact that abstract labour is posited as the measure of wealth, while capital, at the same time, strives to reduce this labour to a minimum – ‘it does not need to blow everything up’ (Åström).((The position of Åström in what follows is a reconstruction of his argumentation in private conversations and in E-mail discussions within Sic in 2013. He has read and accepted this reconstruction of his arguments.)) |
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| According to Åström, the value form and the commodity form are not internally related, i.e. necessarily and dialectically related. Value is not exclusive for capitalism and generalised commodity exchange, and may–should–exist also in communism. Abstract labour, as the substance of value, is to be the basis for the allocation of resources also in a communist society, to make possible the successive reduction of ‘necessary labour’ by making use of the development of the productive forces historically achieved in capitalism, and, as a result, make free up time for voluntary and creative work. He insists that it is not logically necessary that the value form be tied to the commodity form, although ‘logically possible and historically true’. The reason, according to him, is that abstract labour (‘labour in general’) is something transhistorical and not a kind of labour belonging exclusively to capitalism. Nevertheless, it is from the emergence of capitalism that abstract labour has become something real. It is no coincidence that value historically took a specific form with the commodity form. It is so due to the fact that the capitalist mode of production is the first mode of production in which abstract labour becomes ‘practically true’ when the immediate producers are no longer tied to a particular, concrete form of labour (agricultural labour) but forced to find employment wherever possible, as ‘labour in general’, to get hold of money–i.e. wage labour. | According to Åström, the value form and the commodity form are not internally related, i.e. necessarily and dialectically related. Value is not exclusive for capitalism and generalised commodity exchange, and may–should–exist also in communism. Abstract labour, as the substance of value, is to be the basis for the allocation of resources also in a communist society, to make possible the successive reduction of ‘necessary labour’ by making use of the development of the productive forces historically achieved in capitalism, and, as a result, make free up time for voluntary and creative work. He insists that it is not logically necessary that the value form be tied to the commodity form, although ‘logically possible and historically true’. The reason, according to him, is that abstract labour (‘labour in general’) is something transhistorical and not a kind of labour belonging exclusively to capitalism. Nevertheless, it is from the emergence of capitalism that abstract labour has become something real. It is no coincidence that value historically took a specific form with the commodity form. It is so due to the fact that the capitalist mode of production is the first mode of production in which abstract labour becomes ‘practically true’ when the immediate producers are no longer tied to a particular, concrete form of labour (agricultural labour) but forced to find employment wherever possible, as ‘labour in general’, to get money–i.e. wage labour. |
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| Capitalism, according to Åström, is characterised by the circumstance that ‘we’ are ruled by value production, while communism must mean that ‘we’ take control over this production, in a first step towards the abolition of this form of production. In a society of ‘associated producers’ all labours are brought together in one total labour producing a total product, the distribution of activities is made on the basis of ‘socially necessary labour time’ and exchange is replaced by the plan. The product of labour is no longer a commodity since labour is not ‘private labour’ and the individual countributions are counted only as parts of //one// total product that, logically, cannot be exchanged for any other product – thus, it can no longer be an exchange value. It is, however, Åström claims, a value product since ‘the expended labour is calculated’ (Åström). Production and distribution are governed on the basis of this information. If there is no mechanism to take the place of commodity exchange, then there is no possibility to keep track of socially necessary labour-time. | Capitalism, according to Åström, is characterised by the circumstance that ‘we’ are ruled by value production, while communism must mean that ‘we’ take control over this production, in a first step towards the abolition of this form of production. In a society of ‘associated producers’ all labours are brought together in one total labour producing a total product, the distribution of activities is made on the basis of ‘socially necessary labour time’ and exchange is replaced by the plan. The product of labour is no longer a commodity since labour is not ‘private labour’ and the individual countributions are counted only as parts of //one// total product that, logically, cannot be exchanged for any other product – thus, it can no longer be an exchange value. It is, however, Åström claims, a value product since ‘the expended labour is calculated’ (Åström). Production and distribution are governed on the basis of this information. If there is no mechanism to take the place of commodity exchange, then there is no possibility to keep track of socially necessary labour-time. |
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| > It is always hazardous to speak of the future […].((Åström, “Crisis and communisation”, //riff-raff//, no 9, 2011; //Sic//, no. 1, 2011.)) | > It is always hazardous to speak of the future […].((Åström, [[en/crisis-and-communisation|“Crisis and communisation”]], //riff-raff//, no 9, 2011; //Sic//, no. 1, 2011.)) |
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| Since //riff-raff// no. nine (and //Sic// no. one) was published in 2011, and Peter Åström wrote his text on “Crisis and communisation”, he has come to develop a critique of the communisation perspective–a critique of the dignity of a veritable break with this entire perspective. In the same process, he has also re-valued his understanding of the conceptual apparatus of Marx, in particular the key categories “value” and “abstract labour”, with implications for both the understanding of the present situation and of a possible, future communist society, as well as for the path leading there.((From what can be seen in his new text (in this issue of //riff-raff//), “Commodity, value, and communism”, Åström seems, at least partially, to have re-valued his understanding of Marx and value once again.)) | Since //riff-raff// no. nine (and //Sic// no. one) was published in 2011, and Peter Åström wrote his text on “Crisis and communisation”, he has come to develop a critique of the communisation perspective–a critique of the dignity of a veritable break with this entire perspective. In the same process, he has also re-valued his understanding of the conceptual apparatus of Marx, in particular the key categories “value” and “abstract labour”, with implications for both the understanding of the present situation and of a possible, future communist society, as well as for the path leading there.((From what can be seen in his new text [[en/the-commodity-and-communism|“From the commodity to communism”]] (in this issue of //riff-raff//), Åström seems, at least partially, to have re-valued his understanding of Marx and value once again.)) |
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| It seems to be one text in particular that provoked Åström's fierce critique of the communisation perspective: (the late) BL’s “The suspended step of communisation” in //Sic// no. 1 (2011). What may have triggered his critique, and after a while his abandonment, of this entire milieu and “paradigm” may eventually be illustrated by the following quotations: | It seems to be one text in particular that provoked Åström's fierce critique of the communisation perspective: (the late) BL’s “The suspended step of communisation” in //Sic// no. 1 (2011). What may have triggered his critique, and after a while his abandonment, of this entire milieu and “paradigm” may eventually be illustrated by the following quotations: |
| In his text “Crisis and communisation” from 2011, Åström emphasised that a global crisis of exploitation will not automatically lead to revolution, but that a revolution is not conceivable in the absence of such a crisis; at the same time, ‘a communist revolution today is one of the most difficult and dangerous things one can imagine […]’. The communisation perspective, he claimed at the time, is not to be understood as a strategy or method among others, as if the proletariat stand in front of ‘a smörgåsbord of possible revolutionary solutions’. It is, to the contrary, to be understood as a material necessity to be confronted by means of ‘communist measures’. | In his text “Crisis and communisation” from 2011, Åström emphasised that a global crisis of exploitation will not automatically lead to revolution, but that a revolution is not conceivable in the absence of such a crisis; at the same time, ‘a communist revolution today is one of the most difficult and dangerous things one can imagine […]’. The communisation perspective, he claimed at the time, is not to be understood as a strategy or method among others, as if the proletariat stand in front of ‘a smörgåsbord of possible revolutionary solutions’. It is, to the contrary, to be understood as a material necessity to be confronted by means of ‘communist measures’. |
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| Today, he characterises such a scenario as an apocalyptical notion of revolution where its advocates prefer and even emphasise a situation of chaos, rather than descriptively project in what kind of circumstance it is plausible to speak of communist measures at all, a process of communisation as a revolution within the revolution (TC). Åström claims that such a perspective of revolution threatens to extinguish decisive elements of the forces of production that humanity has developed historically, in particular during the era of capitalism. The result would be that we remain within the ‘realm of necessity’. Socialism, according to Åström, must be understood as a positive abolition of capitalism, an //Aufhebung// that will preserve but restructure the achieved level of material production and reproduction in capitalism. Humanity, then, would master technology instead of the opposite, as today, to be subsumed under technology in the form of capital, personified by the capitalist. | Today, he characterises such a scenario as an apocalyptical notion of revolution where its advocates prefer and even emphasise a situation of chaos, rather than descriptively project in what kind of circumstance it is plausible to speak of communist measures at all, a process of communisation as a revolution within the revolution (TC). Åström claims that such a perspective of revolution threatens to extinguish decisive elements of the forces of production that Man has developed historically, in particular during the era of capitalism. The result would be that we remain within the ‘realm of necessity’. Socialism, according to Åström, must be understood as a positive abolition of capitalism, an //Aufhebung// that will preserve but restructure the achieved level of material production and reproduction in capitalism. Man, then, would master technology instead of the opposite, as today, to be subsumed under technology in the form of capital, personified by the capitalist. |
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| Be that as it may. The problem is inadequately posed. What should be emphasised is the social praxis of humanity, not its object or result.((Cf. Dauvé, //From crisis to communisation// (PM Press), 2019.)) With praxis we focus on social relations. Communism, fundamentally, is about praxis and social relations. Expressed abstractly, what we will have to do is to de-reify capitalist categories //qua// material forms of appearance of the inverted relations of bourgeois society. | Be that as it may. The problem is inadequately posed. What should be emphasised is the social praxis of Man, not its object or result.((Cf. Dauvé, //From crisis to communisation// (PM Press), 2019.)) With praxis we focus on social relations. Communism, fundamentally, is about praxis and social relations. Expressed abstractly, what we will have to do is to de-reify capitalist categories //as// material forms of appearance of the inverted relations of bourgeois society. |
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| Concerning the discussion about the level and extent of the forces of production as the precondition for a post-capitalist, socialist society, what should be brought to the front is science in the broad sense, and with social humanity itself as the most important force of production. ‘The productive forces and social relations—two different aspects of the development of the social individual—appear to capital merely as the means, and //are// merely the means, for it to carry on production on its restricted basis. IN FACT, however, they are the material conditions for exploding that basis’.((//Grundrisse//, MECW 29, p. 92. That being said, we must concur with the critique of the exclusive position of (natural) science, positivism and scientism, as well as instrumental reason, from a dialectical perspective, such as Hegel’s, Marx’s, Adorno–Horkheimer, etc.)) In a post-capitalist context, in ‘a society in which the full and free development of every individual forms the ruling principle’ (//Capital I//),((MECW 35, p. 588.)) other goals and aims will apply than profits, not even the most efficient way to produce, to expend the least amount of ‘socially necessary labour-time’ in order to increase ‘surplus labour-time’, now in the form of the greatest amount possible of disposable, free time. | Concerning the discussion about the level and extent of the forces of production as the precondition for a post-capitalist, socialist society, what should be brought to the front is science in the broad sense, and with it social Man himself as the most important force of production. ‘The productive forces and social relations—two different aspects of the development of the social individual—appear to capital merely as the means, and //are// merely the means, for it to carry on production on its restricted basis. IN FACT, however, they are the material conditions for exploding that basis’.((//Grundrisse//, MECW 29, p. 92. That being said, we must concur with the critique of the exclusive position of (natural) science, positivism and scientism, as well as instrumental reason, from a dialectical perspective, such as Hegel’s, Marx’s, Adorno–Horkheimer, etc.)) In a post-capitalist context, in ‘a society in which the full and free development of every individual forms the ruling principle’ (//Capital I//),((MECW 35, p. 588.)) other goals and aims will apply than profits, not even the most efficient way to produce, to expend the least amount of ‘socially necessary labour-time’ in order to increase ‘surplus labour-time’, now in the form of the greatest amount possible of disposable, free time. |
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| It is, therefore, one-sidedly and, thus, faulty to consider forces of production as mere technology. Such a one-sidedness results in and expresses the reification of social relations in capitalism. It limits the perspective to a narrow infra-capitalist perspective that is incapable of seeing beyond the horizon of bourgeois society. It has a hard time seeing the implications of those phenomena through which the capitalist mode of production points beyond itself. Material forces of production are immensely important, but do not by themselves define the very level of the forces of production claimed to be necessary for the overthrow of the capitalist relations. Of greater importance is the intellectual capabilities of humanity in the widest sense, our compiled and historically developed ‘objectified power of knowledge’ [Wissenskraft], as Marx expressed it in the //Grundrisse//.((MECW 29, p. 92.)) Humanity carries the real achievements and level of science as ‘the repository of the accumulated knowledge of society’.((MECW 29, p. 97.)) As a separate activity and specialised domain, however, science will be abolished too to be included in communist praxis as a totality. | It is, therefore, one-sidedly and, thus, faulty to consider forces of production as mere technology. Such a one-sidedness results in and expresses the reification of social relations in capitalism. It limits the perspective to a narrow infra-capitalist perspective that is incapable of seeing beyond the horizon of bourgeois society. It has a hard time seeing the implications of those phenomena through which the capitalist mode of production points beyond itself. Material forces of production are immensely important, but do not by themselves define the very level of the forces of production claimed to be necessary for the overthrow of the capitalist relations. Of greater importance is the intellectual capabilities of Man in the widest sense, our compiled and historically developed ‘objectified power of knowledge’ [Wissenskraft], as Marx expressed it in the //Grundrisse//.((MECW 29, p. 92.)) Social Man carries the real achievements and level of science as ‘the repository of the accumulated knowledge of society’.((MECW 29, p. 97.)) As a separate activity and specialised domain, however, science will be abolished too to be included in communist praxis as a totality. |
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| What should be in our focus when it comes to forces of production, their level and preservation in, and after, a revolution is the very capabilities we carry inside, as it were, in the form of the level of science in its widest sense, and in our intellectual capabilities and possibilities expressed in reason. With this in mind, the material rebuilding in and after revolution, after capital has unleashed its destructive forces against humanity and its conditions of existence–and not, as claimed by Åström, because the revolutionary process will destroy machinery, etc. as some apocalyptic communisation movement–, seems to be a practical-material problem not too hard to handle. And we disregard here already those means of production that are immediately destructive today and therefore must be abolished, or, when possible, made use of in other, sustainable forms. Concerning the latter, Åström’s argument is to consider revolution as ‘de-accumulation’, the successive abolishing of destructive and redundant technology.((The inspiration, in his case, comes from Amadeo Bordiga and his 1953 text ‘The immediate program of the revolution’. In //From crisis to communisation// Dauvé draws on this source. When it comes to our relation to Time, those prone to historical comparisons may consider two historical revolutions: Is the (communist) revolution of our time to shoot down the clocks at the town hall, as done by French revolutionaries in 1789, or is it about taking control over, and to further develop, Taylor’s stop-watch?)) These are complex problems, and cannot be further developed within the confines of this text. | What should be in our focus when it comes to forces of production, their level and preservation in, and after, a revolution is the very capabilities we carry inside, as it were, in the form of the level of science in its widest sense, and in our intellectual capabilities and possibilities expressed in reason. With this in mind, the material rebuilding in and after revolution, after capital has unleashed its destructive forces against Man and matter–and not, as claimed by Åström, because the revolutionary process will destroy machinery, etc. as some apocalyptic communisation movement–, seems to be a practical-material problem not too hard to handle. And we disregard here already those means of production that are immediately destructive today and therefore must be abolished, or, when possible, made use of in other, sustainable forms. Concerning the latter, Åström’s argument is to consider revolution as ‘de-accumulation’, the successive abolishing of destructive and redundant technology.((The inspiration, in his case, comes from Amadeo Bordiga and his 1953 text ‘The immediate program of the revolution’. In //From crisis to communisation// Dauvé draws on this source. When it comes to our relation to Time, those prone to historical comparisons may consider two historical revolutions: Is the (communist) revolution of our time to shoot down the clocks at the town hall, as done by French revolutionaries in 1789, or is it about taking control over, and to further develop, Taylor’s stop-watch?)) These are complex problems, and cannot be further developed within the confines of this text. |
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| Today, in 2022, we seem to be standing in front of the very same smörgåsbord of possible revolutionary solutions Åström criticised a Decade ago. We seem to face a rational consideration of the advantages of communism when it comes to production and reproduction as opposed to market anarchy and the exploitation by capital of humans and nature. It seems to rest on premises that take for granted, as if we ‘could undertake reconstruction in some sort of void’ (Pannekoek),((Pannekoek, ‘World revolution and communist tactics’, 1920 [https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1920/communist-tactics.htm])), and to postulate ‘revolutionary change without revolution’ (Dauvé).((Dauvé, ‘Value, labour time & communism: Re-reading Marx’, 2014 [https://www.troploin.fr/node/81])) That this is impossible, Åström most certainly agrees with. After all, he does not advocate ‘temporarily liberated zones’ (including a piece of land you just may have bought and from which you may contemplate a coming insurrection) or some aristocratic ‘withdrawal’. The immediate problem with his perspective, however, is practical. It would seem to be impossible, and futile, to apply your plan elaborated in advance, according to the scheme of Åström, in the absence of a rather calm sea and an acceptable level of immediate subsistence (food, clothing, shelter, infrastructure (including the Internet), etc., so you will have the time and resources to start putting into action a planned reconstruction. No less important, it postulates the absence of any counter-revolutionary force–ultimately, it would amount to the absence of a revolutionary situation. And as noted in the introduction above, already ‘class’, and thus class struggle, is absent from Åström’s programme. | Today, in 2022, we seem to be standing in front of the very same sample-card of possible revolutionary solutions Åström criticised a Decade ago. We seem to face a rational consideration of the advantages of communism when it comes to production and reproduction as opposed to market anarchy and the exploitation by capital of humans and nature. It seems to rest on premises that take for granted, as if we ‘could undertake reconstruction in some sort of void’ (Pannekoek),((Pannekoek, ‘World revolution and communist tactics’, 1920 [https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1920/communist-tactics.htm])), and to postulate ‘revolutionary change without revolution’ (Dauvé).((Dauvé, ‘Value, labour time & communism: Re-reading Marx’, 2014 [https://www.troploin.fr/node/81])) That this is impossible, Åström most certainly agrees with. After all, he does not advocate ‘temporarily liberated zones’ (including a piece of land you just may have bought and from which you may contemplate a coming insurrection) or some aristocratic ‘withdrawal’. The immediate problem with his perspective, however, is practical. It would seem to be impossible, and futile, to apply your plan elaborated in advance, according to the scheme of Åström, in the absence of a rather calm sea and an acceptable level of immediate subsistence (food, clothing, shelter, infrastructure (including the Internet), etc., so you will have the time and resources to start putting into action a planned reconstruction. No less important, it postulates the absence of any counter-revolutionary force–ultimately, it would amount to the absence of a revolutionary situation. And as noted in the introduction above, already ‘class’, and thus class struggle, is absent from Åström’s programme. |
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| Still more important are the implications indicated when the image is drawn //ad absurdum//. To begin with, the distinction between a realm of necessity and one of freedom implies a split into two of the social working-day, which would also imply that labour has not been abolished as an activity distinctly separated from other aspects of life. That is, the proletarians would not yet have turned ‘against the existing “production of life” itself’, but would rather act within the same logic as earlier–non-proletarian–revolutions that have only tried to revolutionise ‘the separate conditions of the existing society’.((Marx & Engels, //The German ideology//, MECW 5, p. 54.)) Communism, however, is about the overthrow of precisely human activity, praxis, and not merely a successive reduction of ‘necessary labour-time’ to set free disposable (surplus) time. This pair of categories is obsolete with communist practical relations.((Cf. Dauvé, ‘Value, labour time & communism’, on the opposites work–play: they are historical and not natural categories. Also //Endnotes//, ‘Communisation and value-form theory’ (in this issue of //riff-raff//), and Henriksson, ‘Marcel Crusoe’s ex-communists in Intermundia’, //riff-raff//, no. 9, 2011.)) | Still more important are the implications indicated when the image is drawn //ad absurdum//. To begin with, the distinction between a realm of necessity and one of freedom implies a split into two of the social working-day, which would also imply that labour has not been abolished as an activity distinctly separated from other aspects of life. That is, the proletarians would not yet have turned ‘against the existing “production of life” itself’, but would rather act within the same logic as earlier–non-proletarian–revolutions that have only tried to revolutionise ‘the separate conditions of the existing society’.((Marx & Engels, //The German ideology//, MECW 5, p. 54.)) Communism, however, is about the overthrow of precisely human activity, praxis, and not merely a successive reduction of ‘necessary labour-time’ to set free disposable (surplus) time. This pair of categories is obsolete with communist practical relations.((Cf. Dauvé, ‘Value, labour time & communism’, on the opposites work–play: they are historical and not natural categories. Also //Endnotes//, ‘Communisation and value-form theory’ (in this issue of //riff-raff//), and Henriksson, ‘Marcel Crusoe’s ex-communists in Intermundia’, //riff-raff//, no. 9, 2011.)) |
| Philosophically stated: communism is a //vita activa//. We should not fear seriousness and effort. We may therefore concur with Marx’s position, that ‘really free work, e.g. the composition of music, is also the most damnably difficult, demanding the most intensive effort’.((//Grundrisse//, MECW 28, p. 530.)) In Åström’s argument we see a notion of necessary labour as ‘repulsive’ (Adam Smith)–which it very well may be, but that is of lesser importance when we discuss communist versus capitalist (wage-labour) activities. | Philosophically stated: communism is a //vita activa//. We should not fear seriousness and effort. We may therefore concur with Marx’s position, that ‘really free work, e.g. the composition of music, is also the most damnably difficult, demanding the most intensive effort’.((//Grundrisse//, MECW 28, p. 530.)) In Åström’s argument we see a notion of necessary labour as ‘repulsive’ (Adam Smith)–which it very well may be, but that is of lesser importance when we discuss communist versus capitalist (wage-labour) activities. |
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| Further, a revolution is not soely necessary as the only way to overthrow the powers that be, but because the force that shall overthrow the old shite itself will have to be revolutionised and capable of constitute the new (cf. //The German ideology//). Communist individuals are not the precondition for, but the result of a revolution as well as its means. Communism is done, conscious-self-reflectively, spontaneous and experimenting–rather than as following a plan. You make a revolution–and that will change people, as Martin Glaberman once said. The proletariat makes revolution–warts and all; all forms of oppression obviously have to be opposed in each and every situation, already today. | Further, a revolution is not solely necessary as the only way to overthrow the powers that be, but because the force that shall overthrow the old shite itself will have to be revolutionised and capable of constitute the new (cf. //The German ideology//). Communist individuals are not the precondition for, but the result of a revolution as well as its means. Communism is done, conscious-self-reflectively, spontaneous and experimenting–rather than as following a plan. You make a revolution–and that will change people, as Martin Glaberman once said. The proletariat makes revolution–warts and all; all forms of oppression obviously have to be opposed in each and every situation, already today. |
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| What I suggest is that the communisation perspective is both relevant and adequate for our understanding of communism and revolution based on the contemporary actually existing capitalism. For this, TC’s participation can serve as a point of departure. Åström’s critique of the more wild or speculative (in the ordinary sense) aspects of the communisation perspective, may hit some soft-spots in this theoretical system; nevertheless, it misses the hard kernel of the revolutionary perspective of a notion of communisation. | What I suggest is that the communisation perspective is both relevant and adequate for our understanding of communism and revolution based on the contemporary actually existing capitalism. For this, TC’s participation can serve as a point of departure. Åström’s critique of the more wild or speculative (in the ordinary sense) aspects of the communisation perspective, may hit some soft-spots in this theoretical system; nevertheless, it misses the hard kernel of the revolutionary perspective of a notion of communisation. |
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| Åström’s, explicit and implicit, alternative is, at best, a huge leap back in history, at least to a revolutionary program à la 1920. At worst, where his argument ends, as it were, an image is conjured up of a planner state, constituted by a rational and instrumental socialist engineering effort. Even this image, however, seems to be unlikely, already from the fact that both class and class struggle is absent from his scheme, and that revolution, thus, seems to be a revolution without revolutionary overthrow, or rather a revolutionary overthrow without revolution, in which ‘production’ (‘labour’) is kept as a separate sphere–to be able to maintain the achieved level of labour productivity (understood most narrowly). Only distribution is to be altered from the anarchy of the market to the regulation of the departments of planning and prognosis. One could even argue, that this scheme is based on a Schumpeterian ‘socialism’ as a bureaucratic overgrowth into a socialist planned economy, in which bureaucrats and intellectuals regulate the economy, or, in a more dramatic scenario, as an office revolution. The invisible hand of the market is replaced by the visible and transparent hand of bureaucracy. | Åström’s, explicit and implicit, alternative is, at best, a huge leap back in history, at least to a revolutionary program à la 1920. At worst, where his argument ends, as it were, an image is conjured up of a planner state, constituted by a rational and instrumental ’socialist engineering’. Even this image, however, seems to be unlikely, already from the fact that both class and class struggle is absent from his scheme, and that revolution, thus, seems to be a revolution without revolutionary overthrow, or rather a revolutionary overthrow without revolution, in which ‘production’ (‘labour’) is kept as a separate sphere–to be able to maintain the achieved level of labour productivity (understood most narrowly). Only distribution is to be altered from the anarchy of the market to the regulation of the departments of planning and prognosis. One could even argue, that this scheme is based on a Schumpeterian ‘socialism’ as a bureaucratic overgrowth into a socialist planned economy, in which bureaucrats and intellectuals regulate the economy, or, in a more dramatic scenario, as a palace revolution. The invisible hand of the market is replaced by the visible and transparent hand of bureaucracy. |
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| The somewhat dismal image I have felt obliged to conjure up from Åström’s argument has its theoretical ground in Åström’s reconsideration of Marx’s conceptual apparatus, first and foremost of ‘value’ and ‘abstract labour’, and in the remaining part of this text I will focus on this aspect. | The somewhat dismal image I have felt obliged to conjure up from Åström’s argument has its theoretical ground in Åström’s reconsideration of Marx’s conceptual apparatus, first and foremost of ‘value’ and ‘abstract labour’, and in the remaining part of this text I will focus on this aspect. |
| Concerning the (implicit) claim by Åström that value and value form are accidentally and externally related, it immediately seems to contract Marx’s spirit and letter. Value (as such) is to be considered as a purely qualitative determination, socially necessary labour time as a purely quantitative determination, and the value form as uniting and expressing these determinations as exchange value, price, money. Thus considered, they are necessarily, and not accidentally related. Marx highlights this //internal// relation between value and value form most clearly in the first edition of //Capital I// (1867), in which, immediately before what from the second edition (1872) is known as the doctrine of the fetish character of the commodity, he notes: ‘What was decisively important, however, was to discover the inner, necessary connection between value-//form//, value-//substance//, and value-//amount//; i.e., expressed //conceptually// [//ideell//], to prove that the value-//form// arises out of the value-//concept//’.((Marx, //Capital I 1867//, ‘The commodity’, in //Value. Studies by Karl Marx// (ed. & trans. Dragestedt, 1976), p. 34 (cf. MEGA II.5, p. 43). In the same edition Marx explains that ‘//Social form// of the commodity and //value form//, or form of //exchangeability// are thus one and the same thing’ (p. 29). See also //Capital I//, MECW 35, pp. 95–6, fn; cf. p. 48: ‘the common substance [Das Gemeinsame] that manifests itself in the exchange value of commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value. The progress of our investigation will show that //exchange value is the necessary [nothwendigen] form in which the value of commodities can manifest itself or be expressed//. For the present, however, we have to consider the nature of value independently of this, its form’ [amended, italics by PH] (cf. MEGA II.6, p. 72.)) In other words, this is to be understood as the historical form of a product of labour as commodity being internally related to its aspect as object of value, the supersensible, social aspect of a commodity, carried by its sensuous-concrete aspect as object of utility and use value. ‘Value’ is thus not to be understood as some substance that exists without form or context, as some natural, positive substance of a thing as soon as it has been touched and transformed by a human hand, produced for some useful purpose whatsoever. Value does not dangle in mid-air, waiting for some form to enter. In the same sense, the value form does not exist positively without content, as some arbitrary container waiting to be filled by a substance. Both create and are created by each other by way of the exchange of products as commodities against, and through, money.((Cf. Rubin, ‘Abstract labour and value in Marx’s system’, trans. K. Gilbert, in //Capital & Class//, no. 5, 1978 [1926] (in Swedish in //riff-raff//, no. 10, 2022. One point made by Rubin is the relation between content and form in Marx’s doctrine of value compared to Hegel’s //Encyclopaedia// as internally, i.e. necessarily, and not externally, contingently related.)) | Concerning the (implicit) claim by Åström that value and value form are accidentally and externally related, it immediately seems to contract Marx’s spirit and letter. Value (as such) is to be considered as a purely qualitative determination, socially necessary labour time as a purely quantitative determination, and the value form as uniting and expressing these determinations as exchange value, price, money. Thus considered, they are necessarily, and not accidentally related. Marx highlights this //internal// relation between value and value form most clearly in the first edition of //Capital I// (1867), in which, immediately before what from the second edition (1872) is known as the doctrine of the fetish character of the commodity, he notes: ‘What was decisively important, however, was to discover the inner, necessary connection between value-//form//, value-//substance//, and value-//amount//; i.e., expressed //conceptually// [//ideell//], to prove that the value-//form// arises out of the value-//concept//’.((Marx, //Capital I 1867//, ‘The commodity’, in //Value. Studies by Karl Marx// (ed. & trans. Dragestedt, 1976), p. 34 (cf. MEGA II.5, p. 43). In the same edition Marx explains that ‘//Social form// of the commodity and //value form//, or form of //exchangeability// are thus one and the same thing’ (p. 29). See also //Capital I//, MECW 35, pp. 95–6, fn; cf. p. 48: ‘the common substance [Das Gemeinsame] that manifests itself in the exchange value of commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value. The progress of our investigation will show that //exchange value is the necessary [nothwendigen] form in which the value of commodities can manifest itself or be expressed//. For the present, however, we have to consider the nature of value independently of this, its form’ [amended, italics by PH] (cf. MEGA II.6, p. 72.)) In other words, this is to be understood as the historical form of a product of labour as commodity being internally related to its aspect as object of value, the supersensible, social aspect of a commodity, carried by its sensuous-concrete aspect as object of utility and use value. ‘Value’ is thus not to be understood as some substance that exists without form or context, as some natural, positive substance of a thing as soon as it has been touched and transformed by a human hand, produced for some useful purpose whatsoever. Value does not dangle in mid-air, waiting for some form to enter. In the same sense, the value form does not exist positively without content, as some arbitrary container waiting to be filled by a substance. Both create and are created by each other by way of the exchange of products as commodities against, and through, money.((Cf. Rubin, ‘Abstract labour and value in Marx’s system’, trans. K. Gilbert, in //Capital & Class//, no. 5, 1978 [1926] (in Swedish in //riff-raff//, no. 10, 2022. One point made by Rubin is the relation between content and form in Marx’s doctrine of value compared to Hegel’s //Encyclopaedia// as internally, i.e. necessarily, and not externally, contingently related.)) |
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| Actual value has to do with the historical social form that is characterised by a general and dominating exchange of commodities, i.e. a capitalist mode of production and a bourgeois society. Value is a social relation of production and not some property of a thing //qua// product of labour.((Cf. Paul Mattick: ‘For Marx, value and price relations are not “economic” relations in the sense of bourgeois economic theory, but //social class relations// which appear as “economic” relations under the conditions of capitalist commodity production. Although they cannot appear otherwise, they are nonetheless only a historical form of social class relations. From this point of view, value and price are equally fetishistic categories for the underlying capital–labor relations and have meaning only so long as these relations exist. While they exist, however, it is necessary to treat the social production relations as value and price relations.’ In ‘Samuelson’s “transformation” of marxism into bourgeois economics’, //Science & Society//, 36:3, 1972.)) As noted by Marx in a letter to Engels (April 2, 1858), value as such is to be understood as a ‘historical abstraction’. An obvious indication for the historical determinateness of value is provided by Marx in the //Grundrisse//: ‘The concept of value wholly belongs to the latest political economy, because that concept is the most abstract expression of capital itself and of the production based upon it. In the concept of value, the secret of capital is betrayed’.((MECW 29, pp. 159–60.)) | Actual value has to do with the historical social form that is characterised by a general and dominating exchange of commodities, i.e. a capitalist mode of production and a bourgeois society. Value is a social relation of production and not some property of a thing //as// product of labour.((Cf. Paul Mattick: ‘For Marx, value and price relations are not “economic” relations in the sense of bourgeois economic theory, but //social class relations// which appear as “economic” relations under the conditions of capitalist commodity production. Although they cannot appear otherwise, they are nonetheless only a historical form of social class relations. From this point of view, value and price are equally fetishistic categories for the underlying capital–labor relations and have meaning only so long as these relations exist. While they exist, however, it is necessary to treat the social production relations as value and price relations.’ In ‘Samuelson’s “transformation” of marxism into bourgeois economics’, //Science & Society//, 36:3, 1972.)) As noted by Marx in a letter to Engels (April 2, 1858), value as such is to be understood as a ‘historical abstraction’. An obvious indication for the historical determinateness of value is provided by Marx in the //Grundrisse//: ‘The concept of value wholly belongs to the latest political economy, because that concept is the most abstract expression of capital itself and of the production based upon it. In the concept of value, the secret of capital is betrayed’.((MECW 29, pp. 159–60.)) |
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| As categories, commodity form and value form are not identical and shall not be blended. The value form is merely one aspect of the commodity form of a product of labour. They are, however, internally related: ‘Every product of labour is, in all states of society, a use value; but it is only at a definite historical epoch in a society’s development that such a product becomes a commodity, viz., at the epoch when the labour spent on the production of a useful article becomes expressed as one of the objective qualities of that article, i.e., as its value’.((Marx, //Capital I//, MECW 35, p. 72.)) In a letter to Engels (July 22, 1859), Marx notes: ‘the //specifically// social, by no means //absolute//, character of bourgeois production is analysed straight away in its simplest form, that of the //commodity//’. By exchanging products of labour as commodities they become objects of value. At the same time, it is only in a specific historical epoch that the ‘objective’ property of the products of labour is expressed as //labour//, as time, as value. For this reason, Marx speak of the value character of a commodity as its ‘ghostly objectivity’ [gespenstige Gegenständlichkeit], as the ‘common [gemeinschaftliche] social substance’ of different commodities.((//Capital I//, MECW 35, p. 48, amended (cf. MEGA II.6, p. 72).)) | As categories, commodity form and value form are not identical and shall not be blended. The value form is merely one aspect of the commodity form of a product of labour. They are, however, internally related: ‘Every product of labour is, in all states of society, a use value; but it is only at a definite historical epoch in a society’s development that such a product becomes a commodity, viz., at the epoch when the labour spent on the production of a useful article becomes expressed as one of the objective qualities of that article, i.e., as its value’.((Marx, //Capital I//, MECW 35, p. 72.)) In a letter to Engels (July 22, 1859), Marx notes: ‘the //specifically// social, by no means //absolute//, character of bourgeois production is analysed straight away in its simplest form, that of the //commodity//’. By exchanging products of labour as commodities they become objects of value. At the same time, it is only in a specific historical epoch that the ‘objective’ property of the products of labour is expressed as //labour//, as time, as value. For this reason, Marx speak of the value character of a commodity as its ‘ghostly objectivity’ [gespenstige Gegenständlichkeit], as the ‘common [gemeinschaftliche] social substance’ of different commodities.((//Capital I//, MECW 35, p. 48, amended (cf. MEGA II.6, p. 72).)) |
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| This circumstance becomes even more clear when Marx, in //Capital III//, in discussing human labour as such as ‘a mere ghost’, notes: ‘“the” Labour, which is no more than an abstraction and taken by itself does not exist at all, […] the productive activity of human beings in general, by which they promote the interchange with Nature, divested not only of every social form and well-defined character, but even in its bare natural existence, independent of society, removed from all societies, and as an expression and confirmation of life which the still nonsocial man in general has in common with the one who is in any way social’.((MECW 37, p. 802.)) This ‘mere ghost’ does not positively exist, as an empirically fact, but it has practical effect in capitalism; it is a poltergeist making its presence known both day and night. It is the phantom that ascribes to the product of labour its objectivity as value, its ‘ghostly objectivity’, as one aspect of the fetish character of commodities: that the aspect of human labour that produces value //seems// to be ‘human labour as such’. This character of being human labour is its specific social character, and what makes it a historically determined form of ‘social labour’. Value producing abstract labour is thereby not ‘labour’ without any form, but a specific (social, historical) form by which labour appears //as// ‘labour’. | This circumstance becomes even more clear when Marx, in //Capital III//, in discussing human labour as such as ‘a mere ghost’, notes: ‘“the” Labour, which is no more than an abstraction and taken by itself does not exist at all, […] the productive activity of human beings in general, by which they promote the interchange with Nature, divested not only of every social form and well-defined character, but even in its bare natural existence, independent of society, removed from all societies, and as an expression and confirmation of life which the still nonsocial man in general has in common with the one who is in any way social’.((MECW 37, p. 802.)) This ‘mere ghost’ does not positively exist, as an empirically fact, but it has practical effect in capitalism; it is a poltergeist making its presence known both day and night. It is the phantom that ascribes to the product of labour its objectivity as value, its ‘ghostly objectivity’, as one aspect of the fetish character of commodities: that the aspect of human labour that produces value //seems// to be ‘human labour as such’. This character of being human labour is its specific social character, and what makes it a historically determined form of ‘social labour’. Value producing abstract labour is thereby not ‘labour’ without any form, but a specific (social, historical) form by which labour appears as ‘labour’. |
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| What in all forms of society is, formally, expressed in the products of labour as objects of utility assumes in capitalism also a purely social objectivity as //value//, constituted by ‘abstract labour’ as a historical determination of human labour. In his marginal notes to Adolph Wagner, from 1881–2, Marx clarifies that ‘the “value” of the commodity merely expresses in a historically developed form something which also exists in all other historical forms of society, albeit //in a different form, namely the social character of labour, insofar as [sofern] it exists as expenditure of “social” labour-power//’.((MECW 24, p. 551.)) The bare expenditure of labour-power is, in capitalism, the social form of value producing labour. Value is the purely social substance of commodities that is established and existent in the relation between (at least) two commodities, as their common ‘third’, as it were. The price-tags of commodities have nothing to do with some metaphysic property of human labour as such. But, as commodities, the labour bestowed upon them nevertheless appear as their value, as, in the words of Marx’s critique of the Gotha programme (1875), ‘a thing-like quality possessed [bessesene] by them’.((MECW 24, p. 85.)) | What in all forms of society is, formally, expressed in the products of labour as objects of utility assumes in capitalism also a purely social objectivity as //value//, constituted by ‘abstract labour’ as a historical determination of human labour. In his marginal notes to Adolph Wagner, from 1881–2, Marx clarifies that ‘the “value” of the commodity merely expresses in a historically developed form something which also exists in all other historical forms of society, albeit //in a different form, namely the social character of labour, insofar as [sofern] it exists as expenditure of “social” labour-power//’.((MECW 24, p. 551.)) The bare expenditure of labour-power is, in capitalism, the social form of value producing labour. Value is the purely social substance of commodities that is established and existent in the relation between (at least) two commodities, as their common ‘third’, as it were. The price-tags of commodities have nothing to do with some metaphysic property of human labour as such. But, as commodities, the labour bestowed upon them nevertheless appear as their value, as, in the words of Marx’s critique of the Gotha programme (1875), ‘a thing-like quality possessed [bessesene] by them’.((MECW 24, p. 85.)) |
| It is true that in //Capital III// Marx makes the remark that ‘after the abolition of the capitalist mode or production, but still retaining social production, the determination of value continues to prevail in the sense [in dem Sinn] that the regulation of the labour time and the distribution of social labour among the various production groups, ultimately the bookkeeping encompassing all this, become more essential than ever’.((MECW 37, p. 838. On bookkeeping, etc., and its role in social pre-capitalist, capitalist, and ‘collective’ production, cf. //Capital II//, MECW 36, pp. 138–9.)) But as noted by e.g. Paul Mattick, in this context the word ‘value’ is only to be understood as a manner of speech.((Mattick, //Marx and Keynes. The limits of the mixed economy//, Merlin 1969, pp. 29–30.)) When Marx’s conceptual apparatus is strictly applied, the category of value is not to be handled as a mere manner of speech; the determination of the commodity as an object of value is not some value nominalism. | It is true that in //Capital III// Marx makes the remark that ‘after the abolition of the capitalist mode or production, but still retaining social production, the determination of value continues to prevail in the sense [in dem Sinn] that the regulation of the labour time and the distribution of social labour among the various production groups, ultimately the bookkeeping encompassing all this, become more essential than ever’.((MECW 37, p. 838. On bookkeeping, etc., and its role in social pre-capitalist, capitalist, and ‘collective’ production, cf. //Capital II//, MECW 36, pp. 138–9.)) But as noted by e.g. Paul Mattick, in this context the word ‘value’ is only to be understood as a manner of speech.((Mattick, //Marx and Keynes. The limits of the mixed economy//, Merlin 1969, pp. 29–30.)) When Marx’s conceptual apparatus is strictly applied, the category of value is not to be handled as a mere manner of speech; the determination of the commodity as an object of value is not some value nominalism. |
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| Value is the purely social substance of exchange value, constituted by abstract labour, as a social relation–not as a thing-like property, other than //qua// (a socially necessary) illusion (Schein). As such, this relation is reified, and necessarily expressed in and objectified as the autonomised form as money. Without form, value can neither be measured nor observed; value is not something in itself invisible, as, e.g., radioactivity or carbon monoxide. Value does not exist positively without form, without a value form, without its necessary form of appearance as money. When Marx remarks that no chemist has ever found value in a pearl or diamond, it is not only as irony but as a matter of fact. | Value is the purely social substance of exchange value, constituted by abstract labour, as a social relation–not as a thing-like property, other than as (a socially necessary) illusion (Schein). As such, this relation is reified, and necessarily expressed in and objectified as the autonomised form as money. Without form, value can neither be measured nor observed; value is not something in itself invisible, as, e.g., radioactivity or carbon monoxide. Value does not exist positively without form, without a value form, without its necessary form of appearance as money. When Marx remarks that no chemist has ever found value in a pearl or diamond, it is not only as irony but as a matter of fact. |
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| From a bourgeois horizon, the appearance of ‘labour’, as substance, as ‘objectivity’–obviously!–be categorised as ‘value’; then, however, it is not ‘real’ or ‘actual’ value, but value in one-sided, undeveloped (mentally ideal), mutilated form, as an analytical abstraction. In brief, when Marx in his letter to Kugelmann, cited above, speaks of social labour (in general), he does not necessarily speak of //abstract, value-producing labour// or //value//, as something general, transhistorical, that exists in itself, ready to find some (contingent) historical form dangling in mid-air. Value is not a transhistorical category that expresses ‘human labour in general’ and, pace Åström, will prevail in a future communist context. Value is //a historical abstraction// as the (social) substance constituted by a specific form of social labour, that in and through the form of money makes labour count, and be counted, as human labour as such. | From a bourgeois horizon, the appearance of ‘labour’, as substance, as ‘objectivity’–obviously!–be categorised as ‘value’; then, however, it is not ‘real’ or ‘actual’ value, but value in one-sided, undeveloped (mentally ideal), mutilated form, as an analytical abstraction. In brief, when Marx in his letter to Kugelmann, cited above, speaks of social labour (in general), he does not necessarily speak of //abstract, value-producing labour// or //value//, as something general, transhistorical, that exists in itself, ready to find some (contingent) historical form dangling in mid-air. Value is not a transhistorical category that expresses ‘human labour in general’ and, pace Åström, will prevail in a future communist context. Value is //a historical abstraction// as the (social) substance constituted by a specific form of social labour, that in and through the form of money makes labour count, and be counted, as human labour as such. |
| It is precisely the specific manner in which private labours relate to each other that determines the character of labour as ‘abstract labour’, that aspect of commodity producing human labour that produces value. ‘Abstract labour’ is thus not an aspect of human labour as such, but a form-determination taking place in the capitalist mode of production which makes this abstraction take possession of a concrete and particular labour (and product). | It is precisely the specific manner in which private labours relate to each other that determines the character of labour as ‘abstract labour’, that aspect of commodity producing human labour that produces value. ‘Abstract labour’ is thus not an aspect of human labour as such, but a form-determination taking place in the capitalist mode of production which makes this abstraction take possession of a concrete and particular labour (and product). |
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| To pose the question once again: How does the labour of an individual become social labour, as an aliquot part of social total labour? It is emphatically because of the exchange of products on the basis of a social division of labour, in short, because of the exchange of commodities on the (world) market. All particular labours of individuals are being //equalised// in and through this exchange by being exchanged for a general equivalent, viz. money. As Marx remarks in the Ms of 1861–3: ‘But it is only FOREIGN TRADE, the development of the market to a world market, which causes money to develop into world money and //abstract labour// into social labour. Abstract wealth, value, money, hence //abstract labour//, develop in the measure that concrete labour becomes a totality of different modes of labour embracing the world market. Capitalist production rests on //value// or the development of the labour embodied in the product as social labour. But this is only possible on the basis of FOREIGN TRADE and of the world market. This is at once the precondition and the result of capitalist production’.((MECW 32, p. 388; cf. MECW 33, p. 384, MECW 35, p. 580, n1.)) With the world market, serving the presentation of capital by Marx as both precondition and result, the value of commodities are developed on the global level. Only now money fully functions as immediately social form of realisation for ‘human labour in abstracto’; only now is ‘its mode of existence adequate to its concept’.((//Capital I//, MECW 35, p. 153, amended; cf. MEGA II.6, p. 162.)) Money //qua// money is ‘world money’. | To pose the question once again: How does the labour of an individual become social labour, as an aliquot part of social total labour? It is emphatically because of the exchange of products on the basis of a social division of labour, in short, because of the exchange of commodities on the (world) market. All particular labours of individuals are being //equalised// in and through this exchange by being exchanged for a general equivalent, viz. money. As Marx remarks in the Ms of 1861–3: ‘But it is only FOREIGN TRADE, the development of the market to a world market, which causes money to develop into world money and //abstract labour// into social labour. Abstract wealth, value, money, hence //abstract labour//, develop in the measure that concrete labour becomes a totality of different modes of labour embracing the world market. Capitalist production rests on //value// or the development of the labour embodied in the product as social labour. But this is only possible on the basis of FOREIGN TRADE and of the world market. This is at once the precondition and the result of capitalist production’.((MECW 32, p. 388; cf. MECW 33, p. 384, MECW 35, p. 580, n1.)) With the world market, serving the presentation of capital by Marx as both precondition and result, the value of commodities are developed on the global level. Only now money fully functions as immediately social form of realisation for ‘human labour in abstracto’; only now is ‘its mode of existence adequate to its concept’.((//Capital I//, MECW 35, p. 153, amended; cf. MEGA II.6, p. 162.)) Money //as// money is ‘world money’. |
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| Finally, what is the form of value? The simple answer is: exchange value, //the// value form, or price. This is made clear by Marx already in the title of this section in //Capital I//–‘The form of value or exchange value’. If the use value form of a commodity is its material form, such as bread, butter, and beer, its value form is the economic, social form; it is the ‘suprasensible’ aspect of a commodity. | Finally, what is the form of value? The simple answer is: exchange value, //the// value form, or price. This is made clear by Marx already in the title of this section in //Capital I//–‘The form of value or exchange value’. If the use value form of a commodity is its material form, such as bread, butter, and beer, its value form is the economic, social form; it is the ‘suprasensible’ aspect of a commodity. |
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| Only as general form of value does the //value form// correspond to the //concept of value//.((‘The value-form’, in //Capital & Class//, 1978, p. 146.)) This form is a transitional form to the form of general equivalence, i.e. the money form of the commodity and value, and as such the form of value as such. Already the developed form of value makes is clear that the value of a specific commodity is expressed in the world of commodities, and only with this, this value itself ‘//appear// truly as a //jelly of undifferentiated human labour//’, as //abstract labour//. ((//Loc. cit.//, p. 145.)) From this, we may conclude that the value form and the value concept correspond to each other in the money form, as a specific expression of exchange value, the aspect of exchange value of a commodity, as the unity of the quality value in general and the quantity socially necessary labour time. Thus, when, in the discussion about the doctrine of value by Marx, we speak of the ‘value form’ it is the over grasping characterisation of the value form in general, //qua// general form of equivalence, //qua// money form: ‘The universal equivalent form is a form of value in general’.((//Capital I//, MECW 35, p. 80.)) | Only as general form of value does the //value form// correspond to the //concept of value//.((‘The value-form’, in //Capital & Class//, 1978, p. 146.)) This form is a transitional form to the form of general equivalence, i.e. the money form of the commodity and value, and as such the form of value as such. Already the developed form of value makes is clear that the value of a specific commodity is expressed in the world of commodities, and only with this, this value itself ‘//appear// truly as a //jelly of undifferentiated human labour//’, as //abstract labour//. ((//Loc. cit.//, p. 145.)) From this, we may conclude that the value form and the value concept correspond to each other in the money form, as a specific expression of exchange value, the aspect of exchange value of a commodity, as the unity of the quality value in general and the quantity socially necessary labour time. Thus, when, in the discussion about the doctrine of value by Marx, we speak of the ‘value form’ it is the over grasping characterisation of the value form in general, as general form of equivalence, as money form: ‘The universal equivalent form is a form of value in general’.((//Capital I//, MECW 35, p. 80.)) |
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| Åström’s argument can be traced back to Marx’s presentation of the capitalist process of production in //Capital I//: On the one hand, it is a unity of labour process and value producing process; the former corresponds to concrete labour, and the latter to abstract labour. On the other hand, as value producing process it is, when further examined, a process of valorisation, i.e. a surplus value producing process. Following Åström, the former is to be kept, and the latter is to be abolished. Consequently, the labour process is to function as a value producing process, but no longer as a surplus value producing process. An implication of this argument is that Åström collapses value producing process into labour process, as–conceptually–one and the same process, as two words for one and the same thing. This is, to be noted, how it appears in capitalism, as the fetish character of the capitalist process of production that by way of an objective illusion (Schein) appears to be a human process of labour as such. | Åström’s argument can be traced back to Marx’s presentation of the capitalist process of production in //Capital I//: On the one hand, it is a unity of labour process and value producing process; the former corresponds to concrete labour, and the latter to abstract labour. On the other hand, as value producing process it is, when further examined, a process of valorisation, i.e. a surplus value producing process. Following Åström, the former is to be kept, and the latter is to be abolished. Consequently, the labour process is to function as a value producing process, but no longer as a surplus value producing process. An implication of this argument is that Åström collapses value producing process into labour process, as–conceptually–one and the same process, as two words for one and the same thing. This is, to be noted, how it appears in capitalism, as the fetish character of the capitalist process of production that by way of an objective illusion (Schein) appears to be a human process of labour as such. |
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| However, a capitalist process of production is to be understood as a valorisation process; this is the only way it makes sense. It is the pursuit of profit, grounded in capital as self-valorisation of value, that is the motivating force of capitalism, its overarching end.((Cf. ‘Urtext’ (1859): ‘QUOTE’.)) Considered thus, value producing process, as well as labour process, is merely moments of the capitalist process of production //qua// valorisation process, abstract, in itself, as a such one-sided aspect that does not positively exist as such, outside and external to the capitalist process of production.((Cf. //loc. cit.//, p. xxx. For Marx’s methodological approach concerning abstract moments, and ‘in itself’, see the first edition of //Capital I//, in the beginning of the presentation of the value form, the simple form of relative value: ‘The different specifications which are contained in it are veiled, undeveloped, abstract, and consequently only able to be distinguished and focused upon through the rather intense application of our power of abstraction’ (//loc. cit.//, p. 18. In a footnote on the same page, Marx remarks: ‘They are to a certain extent the cell-form or, as Hegel would have said, //the in-itself of money// (MEGA II.5, p. 28, PH trans).)) | However, a capitalist process of production is to be understood as a valorisation process; this is the only way it makes sense. It is the pursuit of profit, grounded in capital as self-valorisation of value, that is the motivating force of capitalism, its overarching end.((Cf. ‘Urtext’ (1859), MECW 29, p. 496: ‘So, fixed as wealth, as the universal form of wealth , as value that counts as value, money is a constant drive to go beyond its quantitative limits; an endless process. Its own viability consists exclusively in this; it preserves itself as self-important value distinct from use value only when it //continually multiplies itself// by means of the process of exchange itself. The active value is only a surplus-value-positing value.’.)) Considered thus, value producing process, as well as labour process, is merely moments of the capitalist process of production as valorisation process, abstract, in itself, as a such one-sided aspect that does not positively exist as such, outside and external to the capitalist process of production.((Cf. Ibid. For Marx’s methodological approach concerning abstract moments, and ‘in itself’, see the first edition of //Capital I//, in the beginning of the presentation of the value form, the simple form of relative value: ‘The different specifications which are contained in it are veiled, undeveloped, abstract, and consequently only able to be distinguished and focused upon through the rather intense application of our power of abstraction’ (//loc. cit.//, p. 18. In a footnote on the same page, Marx remarks: ‘They are to a certain extent the cell-form or, as Hegel would have said, //the in-itself of money// (MEGA II.5, p. 28, PH trans).)) |
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| To toy around some with the argument of Åström’s: The circuit of capital is Money (M) – Commodity (C) – more Money (M’), viz. M–C–M’. To exchange £100 (M) for £100 (M) is absurd in the context of capital. To interrupt the process of production after its value producing aspect, as it were, and to think, with this, that you have reached a point at which capital, as ‘accumulation’, is abolished, and to maintain ‘simple reproduction’ based on ‘value’, understood as socially necessary labour time, is naïve, if not vulgar. As stressed above, labour process and value producing process do not exist in themselves, empirically, positively, when you abstract from the valorisation aspect. They are, as it were, subsumed under, and incorporated in the valorisation process understood as a capitalist process of production. In Marx’s presentation, they are mere conceptual steps in his theoretical development of the capitalist process of production //qua// surplus value producing process. | To toy around some with the argument of Åström’s: The circuit of capital is Money (M) – Commodity (C) – more Money (M’), viz. M–C–M’. To exchange £100 (M) for £100 (M) is absurd in the context of capital. To interrupt the process of production after its value producing aspect, as it were, and to think, with this, that you have reached a point at which capital, as ‘accumulation’, is abolished, and to maintain ‘simple reproduction’ based on ‘value’, understood as socially necessary labour time, is naïve, if not vulgar. As stressed above, labour process and value producing process do not exist in themselves, empirically, positively, when you abstract from the valorisation aspect. They are, as it were, subsumed under, and incorporated in the valorisation process understood as a capitalist process of production. In Marx’s presentation, they are mere conceptual steps in his theoretical development of the capitalist process of production //as// surplus value producing process. |
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| How, then, is a theoretical presentation of capital to be designed, and introduced? These questions are of particular importance for a dialectical presentation such as Marx’s //Capital//. A dialectical, critical-scientific presentation must not presuppose a science before science, as it were. This was one key methodological remark Marx made against Ricardo.((See letter to Kugelmann, July 11, 1868.)) A dialectical presentation is not axiomatic, but a systematic development of concepts, proceeding from the most simple (abstract) to the more complex (concrete).((As a fundamental presupposition, a conceptual presentation of, e.g., the capitalist mode of production, has the practical phenomena of the sensuous world as its foundation, first and foremost human beings living and producing together, socially, and thus reproduce their social relations of production. See, e.g., ‘Introduction’ of 1857 and ‘The German ideology’.)) In the doctrine of value we deal with categories that are internally related and thereby presuppose each other (and are not added to each other as some chain of ‘external’ links). Therefore, it is not self-evident which category is to introduce the presentation. As we know, Marx starts with the commodity, as a concrete, everyday, and seemingly simple object.((It immediately turns out to be a commodity as such, an exemplar, i.e. an abstraction ‘commodity as such’. And the starting point really is the vast accumulation of commodities as the immediate way in which the capitalist mode of production appears to the eye.)) | How, then, is a theoretical presentation of capital to be designed, and introduced? These questions are of particular importance for a dialectical presentation such as Marx’s //Capital//. A dialectical, critical-scientific presentation must not presuppose a science before science, as it were. This was one key methodological remark Marx made against Ricardo.((See letter to Kugelmann, July 11, 1868.)) A dialectical presentation is not axiomatic, but a systematic development of concepts, proceeding from the most simple (abstract) to the more complex (concrete).((As a fundamental presupposition, a conceptual presentation of, e.g., the capitalist mode of production, has the practical phenomena of the sensuous world as its foundation, first and foremost human beings living and producing together, socially, and thus reproduce their social relations of production. See, e.g., ‘Introduction’ of 1857 and ‘The German ideology’.)) In the doctrine of value we deal with categories that are internally related and thereby presuppose each other (and are not added to each other as some chain of ‘external’ links). Therefore, it is not self-evident which category is to introduce the presentation. As we know, Marx starts with the commodity, as a concrete, everyday, and seemingly simple object.((It immediately turns out to be a commodity as such, an exemplar, i.e. an abstraction ‘commodity as such’. And the starting point really is the vast accumulation of commodities as the immediate way in which the capitalist mode of production appears to the eye.)) |
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| One key angle of Åström’s critique of the value-form paradigm, as represented by Chris Arthur, and one important point of reference for //Sic// and //Endnotes//, is that if you take your point of departure in the value form, and from it develop the money form and, thereafter, the capital form, and if you introduce value producing abstract labour only after having presupposed the value form, you can only analyse a capitalist economy. If, to the contrary, logically, you start from abstract labour, //qua// human labour in general, there is no logical necessity for exchange-value to be the necessary form of appearance of value, as value form, and, further, the capital form as self-valorising value. In Åström's logical hypothesis, this abstract labour may just as well assume a form that instead of expressing the anarchy of the market may be adequate to a socialist planned economy, in which labour is consciously allocated. | One key angle of Åström’s critique of the value-form paradigm, as represented by Chris Arthur, and one important point of reference for //Sic// and //Endnotes//, is that if you take your point of departure in the value form, and from it develop the money form and, thereafter, the capital form, and if you introduce value producing abstract labour only after having presupposed the value form, you can only analyse a capitalist economy. If, to the contrary, logically, you start from abstract labour, //as// human labour in general, there is no logical necessity for exchange-value to be the necessary form of appearance of value, as value form, and, further, the capital form as self-valorising value. In Åström's logical hypothesis, this abstract labour may just as well assume a form that instead of expressing the anarchy of the market may be adequate to a socialist planned economy, in which labour is consciously allocated. |
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| But, as emphasised above, abstract labour is a purely social form-determination of human labour, internally related to capitalism, to generalised commodity production, and to a general equivalent, i.e. money. It is not an abstraction of labour that merely appears in the realm of shadows of formal logics. Abstract labour, as the substance and source of value, is itself determined by the form and the law of value. This presupposition is itself posited. As noted by Marx, ‘In order to develop the concept of capital, we must begin not with labour but with //value//, or more precisely, with the exchange value already developed in the movement of circulation. It is just as impossible to pass directly from labour to capital as from the different races of men directly to the banker, or from nature to the steam-engine’.((MECW 28, p. 190; also MECW 30, p. 20.)) | But, as emphasised above, abstract labour is a purely social form-determination of human labour, internally related to capitalism, to generalised commodity production, and to a general equivalent, i.e. money. It is not an abstraction of labour that merely appears in the realm of shadows of formal logics. Abstract labour, as the substance and source of value, is itself determined by the form and the law of value. This presupposition is itself posited. As noted by Marx, ‘In order to develop the concept of capital, we must begin not with labour but with //value//, or more precisely, with the exchange value already developed in the movement of circulation. It is just as impossible to pass directly from labour to capital as from the different races of men directly to the banker, or from nature to the steam-engine’.((MECW 28, p. 190; also MECW 30, p. 20.)) |
| To state this a bit vulgar: The abolishing of capitalist categories is about doing and acting in another way, other than today and hitherto; it is to act together within revolutionary circumstances. Often it takes the form of confronting your boss, politician, union official, or the cops, being the incarnations of these abstractions (institutionalisations, social roles). And this is so way before a revolutionary situation. It is, as it were, the chain of command in everyday life in capitalism. At the same time, capital is embodied in the capitalist, it takes material form in machinery, in means of production and subsistence.((Cf. Marx, “Results of the immediate process of production”, p. 411.)) As stated by TC: To abolish a social relation is a material thing. | To state this a bit vulgar: The abolishing of capitalist categories is about doing and acting in another way, other than today and hitherto; it is to act together within revolutionary circumstances. Often it takes the form of confronting your boss, politician, union official, or the cops, being the incarnations of these abstractions (institutionalisations, social roles). And this is so way before a revolutionary situation. It is, as it were, the chain of command in everyday life in capitalism. At the same time, capital is embodied in the capitalist, it takes material form in machinery, in means of production and subsistence.((Cf. Marx, “Results of the immediate process of production”, p. 411.)) As stated by TC: To abolish a social relation is a material thing. |
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| It is a characteristic inversion of the state of things in capitalism that abstractions, such as value and capital, haunt factories and take possession of the individuals of the bourgeois society (workers, capitalists, and others), so that the latter appear on the capitalist stage as character masks, as personifications of economic relations. Shoot your boss, and he will disappear as a private person; but the boss //qua// boss, as a social role and function, will remain, since capital will remain, and there need to be some body to possess for it to make its ghost-walking around the globe. | It is a characteristic inversion of the state of things in capitalism that abstractions, such as value and capital, haunt factories and take possession of the individuals of the bourgeois society (workers, capitalists, and others), so that the latter appear on the capitalist stage as character masks, as personifications of economic relations. Shoot your boss, and he will disappear as a private person; but the boss as boss, as a social role and function, will remain, since capital will remain, and there need to be some body to possess for it to make its ghost-walking around the globe. |
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| We have seen how Åström’s unarguably formal-logical line of argument result in rather obscure conclusions that seem pretty distant from Marx’s dialectical presentation of //Capital//: He wishes to keep ‘value’, but not ‘valorisation’; the aspect of the process of production as ‘value-producing process’, but not as ‘valorisation process’, that, nevertheless, is to produce a ‘surplus’. This, he claims, will abolish capital since ‘accumulation’ will no longer be the overarching and dominating aim and goal of social (re-) production. | We have seen how Åström’s unarguably formal-logical line of argument result in rather obscure conclusions that seem pretty distant from Marx’s dialectical presentation of //Capital//: He wishes to keep ‘value’, but not ‘valorisation’; the aspect of the process of production as ‘value-producing process’, but not as ‘valorisation process’, that, nevertheless, is to produce a ‘surplus’. This, he claims, will abolish capital since ‘accumulation’ will no longer be the overarching and dominating aim and goal of social (re-) production. |
| Further, I have highlighted that communism fundamentally has to do with praxis, with other ways to act socially, individually and in common, and that human activity must assume other forms than in the capitalist division of labour, not only between industries, nations, or genders, but also, and most fundamentally, between ‘labour’ and ‘leisure time’. Such a re-formulation of praxis at one and the same time expresses and makes happen this revolutionised content. As long as labour productivity is regarded as the overarching aim and mean of society, the imperative to increase efficiency, and to exploit the immediate producers–for the best of ‘society’–will remain, and, therefore, the classes and oppression will continue or be able to rise again, as the acute forms of counter-revolution. | Further, I have highlighted that communism fundamentally has to do with praxis, with other ways to act socially, individually and in common, and that human activity must assume other forms than in the capitalist division of labour, not only between industries, nations, or genders, but also, and most fundamentally, between ‘labour’ and ‘leisure time’. Such a re-formulation of praxis at one and the same time expresses and makes happen this revolutionised content. As long as labour productivity is regarded as the overarching aim and mean of society, the imperative to increase efficiency, and to exploit the immediate producers–for the best of ‘society’–will remain, and, therefore, the classes and oppression will continue or be able to rise again, as the acute forms of counter-revolution. |
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| We have seen that on the level which Åström addresses his charges against a communisation perspective, a response necessarily will have to be focused on already the more abstract level of revolution and communism as such, as it were, and not as specific and historical determinations and forms //qua// communisation, as the revolutionary perspective of the present moment. | We have seen that on the level which Åström addresses his charges against a communisation perspective, a response necessarily will have to be focused on already the more abstract level of revolution and communism as such, as it were, and not as specific and historical determinations and forms as communisation, as the revolutionary perspective of the present moment. |
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| In Åström, just like in so many other utopian programmes and sketches throughout history, there is an authoritarian scent, if, however, involuntary and implicit. To return to the initial quote as the motto of this essay, it is a utopian scent to Åström’s charges against a communisation perspective, that he makes his plea to reason when it comes to a post-capitalist alternative to the misery of today. Ad absurdum, however, the position of Åström expresses a mix of naivety–about capitalism, class struggle, and counter-revolution–and dystopia–a planner state. By this, he misses the opportunity to develop a productive critique of both the communisation perspective, as it has been advocated by TC in particular, and the value-form paradigm, as exemplified by Chris Arthur. Luckily for us, however, the last word in this conversation has not yet been spoken. | In Åström, just like in so many other utopian programmes and sketches throughout history, there is an authoritarian scent, if, however, involuntary and implicit. To return to the initial quote as the motto of this essay, it is a utopian scent to Åström’s charges against a communisation perspective, that he makes his plea to reason when it comes to a post-capitalist alternative to the misery of today. Ad absurdum, however, the position of Åström expresses a mix of naivety–about capitalism, class struggle, and counter-revolution–and dystopia–a planner state. By this, he misses the opportunity to develop a productive critique of both the communisation perspective, as it has been advocated by TC in particular, and the value-form paradigm, as exemplified by Chris Arthur. Luckily for us, however, the last word in this conversation has not yet been spoken. |