====== From the commodity to communism ====== 

Peter Åström ((This is an extended version of “Varan, värdet och kommunismen”,
//riff-raff// no. 10, April 2022. Exact copies may be shared in accordance with
[[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/|CC BY-ND 4.0]]. Many thanks to
GE, HJ, AW, ALB, SF and AK for comments and suggestions.))

===== 1 Introduction =====

Capital is self-expanding value, dead labour that enslaves living labour. It is
therefore easy to see why some might wish to make value and abstract labour the
main target of social critique. If abstract labour is the root out of which the
categories of capital spring -- wage labour, profit, modern land rent,
accumulation, etc. -- then it must be abolished for a classless community to be
established. This could conceivably take place in a revolution where the means
of existence are made available to all without restriction (gratis), since the
compulsion to work for a wage then falls away. A social reorganisation that, on
the contrary, relies on //work// as a distinct social activity, would retain
abstract labour and thus constitute a dead-end. At least that was formerly the
opinion of the undersigned.((See e.g. Peter Åström, “Crisis and communisation”,
//Sic// no. 1, 2011.))

Under the influence of the Arab Winter,((That is the counter-revolution in the
Middle East and North Africa that began in 2012. See
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Winter|Arab Winter]], //Wikipedia//.)) I
came to abandon this perspective which rests on a peculiar form of
anti-capitalism.((One of its more extreme proponents, the author of
[[en/sic1-the-suspended-step-of-communisation|“The suspended step of
communisation”]], saw the introduction of communism necessitating a
situation of “chaos” in which “all book-keeping is abolished, since accounting
for ‘products’ in itself supposes the separation between production and
consumption.” //Sic// no. 1, 2011, pp. 154, 165.)) I became convinced that the
positive side of the revolution must be emphasised, not dismissed as mere
speculation. Calculation of productive resources including labour is crucial,
for despite being completely unsustainable in the long term, the dynamic of the
capitalist mode of production does in fact, in the normal case, satisfy basic
human needs such as food, water and shelter. For communism to constitute a real
alternative, it must therefore take seriously the question of how to secure
material reproduction. If not, in the event of a social crisis, one or the other
reactionary perspective will surely be put forward instead, for example
nationalism or religious fanaticism.

When, in the light of this revaluation, I returned to //Capital// and other
canonical writings, I realised something that should have been obvious from the
very beginning: Marx does not take //value// as his point of departure but //the
commodity//, which puts the question of the former in a very different
light. The present article, taking the //commodity form// as its point of
departure, is an attempt to summarise important parts of Marx’s analysis of
capital so as to answer

   * what is value;
   * what does the abolition of capital imply; and
   * how can a communist reorganisation of social reproduction be envisaged?

The entire line of argument rests on logic reasoning, not because history is
unimportant, but because the question of communism -- as I will try to show --
is intimately tied to the “internal organisation”((Karl Marx, //Marx’s Economic
Manuscript of 1864–1865//, Leiden 2016, p. 898)) of the prevailing mode of
production.

===== 2 The commodity =====

Marx begins his critical exposition in //Capital// and //A contribution to the
critique of political economy// with an analysis of the commodity, more
precisely “the commodity form of the product of labour”((Marx/Engels Collected
Works (henceforth MECW) 35, p. 8)). As pointed out by Ricardo, products of
labour constitute by far the greatest share of all commodities, because “they
may be multiplied […] almost without any assignable limit, if we are disposed to
bestow the labour necessary to obtain them.”((David Ricardo, //On the principles
of political economy and taxation// (London 2002 [1821]), p. 6.)) On a higher
level, production, exchange and consumption of commodities is the specific way
in which social reproduction takes place in the capitalist epoch.((See for
example MECW 28 p. 26 and “Notes on Wagner’s Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie”
in MECW 24, pp. 531--559.))

==== 2.1 Use value ====

A product of labour is, to begin with, the result of human activity which --
together with a larger or smaller amount of natural substrates -- turns it into
something useful, a //use value//.((MECW 35, p. 51)) Its character as a use
value or its use-value form “is independent of the amount of labour required to
appropriate its useful qualities”.((MECW 35, p. 46. Things can thus be useful
without being products of labour.)) On the other hand, a use value may be
considered higher or lower depending on the degree to which other use values
(and thus other labour processes) form a part of it as a precondition.((See MECW
30, p. 58.))

Products of labour that satisfy human wants can be found in all human societies;
they are a necessary part of human existence.((“As the former of use-values, as
//useful labour//, labour is thereby the precondition of existence for man –
independent of all social forms – and an eternal necessity of nature for the
sake of mediating the material interchange between man and nature (i.e., human
life).” From the first chapter of the first German edition of //Capital//. See
Albert Dragstedt, //Value: Studies By Karl Marx//, New Park Publications,
London, 1976, pp. 7--40.)) From this general point of view, the determination as
use value “lies outside the sphere of investigation of political economy.”((MECW
29, p. 252. This is further developed on p. 270.)) Marx therefore discusses the
concept of use value primarily from the point of view of present social
relations where the means of production are dispersed “among many independent
producers of commodities”,((MECW 35, p. 361)) the division of labour “is brought
about by the purchase and sale of the products of different branches of
industry”((MECW 35, p. 360)) and where the products are consumed not by the
producers themselves but by “consumers”. In order to be saleable, i.e. to
function as a //commodity// in exchange, the product of labour must thus be
useful to some buyer.((“Whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of
his own labour, creates, indeed, use values, but not commodities. In order to
produce the latter, he must not only produce use values, but use values for
others, social use values.” MECW 35, p. 51)) The product of labour is //not use
value for the producer//; its use value emerges only if and when it meets a
buyer on the market.((“To //become// a use value, the commodity must encounter
the particular need which it can satisfy. Thus the use values of commodities
//become// use values by a mutual exchange of places: they pass from the hands
of those for whom they were means of exchange into the hands of those for whom
they serve as consumer goods. Only as a result of this universal //alienation//
of commodities does the labour contained in them become useful labour.” MECW 29,
p. 283)) Finally, the use value only exists as an object for consumption and “is
realised only in the process of consumption.”((MECW 29, p. 269))

==== 2.2 The form of value ====

The seller’s use of the product of labour comes from what it can fetch by being
exchanged -- its //exchange value//.((Use value as an active bearer of exchange
value becomes a means of exchange. Here the commodity is a use value for its
owner only in so far as it is an exchange value.)) In this function it presents
itself in a //value form// that is separate from its bodily form.((“Commodities
come into the world in the shape of use values, articles, or goods, such as
iron, linen, corn, etc. This is their plain, homely, bodily form. They are,
however, commodities, only because they are something twofold, both objects of
utility, and, at the same time, depositories of value. They manifest themselves
therefore as commodities, or have the form of commodities, only in so far as
they have two forms, a physical or natural form, and a value form.” MECW 35,
p. 57.))

What interests us in this section is not any actual exchange of commodities --
especially not barter where commodity is exchanged directly for commodity -- but
//the expression of commodity value//. In everyday life, the latter takes the
form of money through the price form. This form is complicated, however, and
requires its own explanation. We shall therefore begin by ignoring money and
instead investigate how commodity value is expressed through other ordinary
commodities.

The value form of a product of labour is completely absent when you look at it
in isolation. Then only its bodily form, which gives it its specific properties
of utility, appears. If placed in a relation of exchange to some other
commodity-body, however, then it becomes apparent that the product of labour has
something more to it.

Below follows a summary and interpretation of Marx’s value form investigation,
from the simple form of value to the price form, without going into value as
such. We assume, like Marx, that the commodity values are equal quantities, but
what is important is that they are commensurable.


=== 2.2.1 Simple form of value ===

> 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, or
> 20 yards of linen are worth 1 coat.

Here we see on the one hand a quantitative relation. On the other hand the value
of 20 yards of linen is expressed in the use value of some other arbitrary
product of labour, a coat. The latter is //different// from the point of view of
use value but still interchangeable with the linen and therefore qualitatively
equal to it. The relation expresses the commodity of the seller, 20 yards of
linen, as specific //coat value//; its value appears in the shape of a
coat. This may sound mysterious, but if we are to ignore the price form for now,
then we cannot say that they both cost the same amount of money. We have only
these two commodities -- two use values and a relation of exchange that
expresses some kind of value. The linen does not need the coat in order to see
that it is linen, but when the relation to the coat shows to the linen that it
is something more than just linen, i.e. a useful thing, then this happens in the
form of exchangeability for coats; it does not know anything else.

=== 2.2.2 Developed form of value ===

In the simple form of value, the value of linen was indeed expressed although in
an insufficient manner, for coat value is not an expression of value or
interchangeability //in general// but only in relation to some arbitrary
commodity separate from itself.((See “Ergänzungen und Veränderungen zum ersten
Band des Kapitals”, in MEGA II.6, p. 25.)) By placing the linen in the same kind
of exchange relation to //all other use values//, however, this insufficiency is
overcome and a new, developed form of value enters into it place.

<code>
20 yards of linen	=	1 coat or
				10 lbs of tea or
				40 lbs coffee or
				1 quarter wheat or
				2 ounces gold or
				½ ton iron, etc.
</code>

When the product of labour 20 yards of linen is valued in the bodily forms of
all other commodities, it assumes, in addition to coat value, a tea-, coffee-,
corn-value, etc. Here, the linen presents itself as interchangeable for every
other commodity, but its expression is complicated and ungainly because the
product of labour valued is placed next to “a many-coloured mosaic of disparate
and independent expressions of value.”((MECW 35, p. 74)) In addition, the
expression of value grows longer over time as new types of commodities come into
the world.


=== 2.2.3 General form of value ===

If, at this point, the expression is reversed and we let the commodities
individually be valued in linen, this new limitation is superseded.

<code>
1 coat			=	20 yards of linen
10 lbs of tea		=	″
40 lbs coffee 		=	″
1 quarter wheat		=	″
2 ounces gold		=	″
½ ton iron		=	″
x commodity A		=	″
</code>

Now the coats, tea, coffee, etc. each receive a //simple// as well as a
//common// expression of value -- in the shape of linen. This does not apply to
the linen itself, but the body of the linen serves as a value mirror to all
other commodities.((“By counting as //the form of value// of all other
commodities the //natural form// of the body of the commodity linen is //the
form of its property of counting equally// (//Gleichgültigkeit//) or //immediate
exchangeability with all elements of the world of commodities//. Its //natural
form// is therefore at the same time //its general social form//.”  Karl Marx,
“The Value-Form: Appendix to the 1st German edition of Capital, Volume 1”,
//Capital and Class//, No. 4 Spring 1978 [1867], pp. 130--150
<https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/appendix.htm>.)) Marx calls
the specific role here assumed by the linen //general equivalent// in that the
commodity presents itself as exchange value in general.((In the first edition of
//Capital I// -- subsequently omitted -- Marx makes the obscure statement that
here “the form of value corresponds with the concept of value”. Karl Marx, “The
Value-Form: Appendix to the 1st German edition of Capital, Volume 1”, //Capital
and Class//, No. 4 Spring 1978 [1867], pp. 130--150
<https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/appendix.htm> or MEGA II.5,
p. 43)) This is also the final form of value if one disregards its specific
expression (e.g. linen).

=== 2.2.4 The money form ===

With the general form of value, the thing that expresses commodity value could
be chosen arbitrarily. In practice, however, the role as universal equivalent is
established by custom. Historically it came to be awarded things that, because
of their specific properties, are well suited for it -- the precious metals
which can be formed into arbitrarily large pieces and fused together again
without being destroyed.((MECW 35, p. 100))

<code>
20 yards of linen	=	2 ounces gold
1 coat			=	″
10 lbs of tea		=	″
40 lbs coffee 		=	″
1 quarter wheat		=	″
½ ton iron		=	″
x commodity A		=	″

or if 2 pounds sterling is the coin name for 2 ounces of gold:

20 yards of linen	=	2 pounds sterling.
</code>

By switching places between the 20 yards of linen and 2 ounces of gold, all
commodities (except gold) can still be expressed in a simple and for all other
commodities common form of value.

> Now the //specific// type of commodity with whose //natural form the equivalent form coalesces (verwächst) socially// becomes the //money-commodity// or functions as //money//. Its //specific social function// and hence its //social monopoly// becomes the playing of the role of general equivalent //within the world of commodities//.((Karl Marx, “The Value-Form:
Appendix to the 1st German edition of Capital, Volume 1”, //Capital and Class//, No. 4 Spring 1978 [1867], pp. 130--150 <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/appendix.htm>.))

> The exchange value of commodities thus expressed in the form of universal equivalence and simultaneously as the degree of this equivalence in terms of a specific commodity, that is a single equation to which commodities are compared with a specific commodity, constitutes //price//.((MECW 29, p. 305))

In its role as equivalent, a money commodity cannot express its own value, but
if cast into developed form (2.2.2), its value appears in relation to all other
commodities in definite proportions (2 ounces of gold = 20 yards of linen or 1
coat, etc.) Thus, the expression appears if you read commodity prices
backwards.((MECW 35, pp. 104--105))

By the early 1870s, the most important currencies were tied to the gold and it
was therefore natural for Marx to assume gold to function as money-commodity
throughout //Capital//.((Strictly speaking, they were tied to the pound sterling
which in turn was tied to gold.)) Today, the gold standard is abolished, but
states can generally still uphold stable commodity prices thanks to their power
of taxation and direct ownership of natural and industrial resources.((See
Duncan Foley, “Marx’s Theory of Money in Historical Perspective”, in Fred
Moseley (red.), //Marx’s Theory of Money: Modern Appraisals//, pp. 36–49. See
also the
[[https://www.ecb.europa.eu/mopo/strategy/pricestab/html/index.en.html|Two per
cent inflation target]] by the European Central Bank.)) Thus, it is not
necessary for a specific product of labour to serve as measure of value and
express commodity prices in a society, but this //function// of money is
necessary and must be grounded in value relations.

There is an important point to be made by looking at exchange value from the
simple form of value to the price form: The analysis shows that as soon as
products of labour start to relate themselves to each other as commodities, the
money form is a logical development. Commodity exchange without money is
therefore an absurdity.((“The difficulty in forming a concept of the money form,
consists in clearly comprehending the universal equivalent form, and as a
necessary corollary, the general form of value, form C. The latter is deducible
from form B, the expanded form of value, the essential component element of
which, we saw, is form A, 20 yards of linen = 1 coat or x commodity A = y
commodity B. The simple commodity form is therefore the germ of the money form.”
MECW 35, p. 81))

==== 2.3 Value ====

The value form has now been analysed for itself. The next step is to determine
the substance and magnitude of value.

=== 2.3.1 The common third ===

In the foregoing analysis of the value forms of the labour product, nothing was
said about “what lies beneath these forms.”((MECW 35, p. 91)) But what is the
//value content// that is equal in two mutually interchangeable commodities that
belongs to each of them //independently// of their relation to each other?

For Samuel Bailey, no such thing could exist.((MECW 32, pp. 312--314.))
According to him, Ricardo correctly spoke of //relative// value but then
mistakenly came to treat value as something //absolute// -- as the quantity of
labour expended upon the production of two commodities, despite the fact that
this labour quantity evidently may change for either one of them. If, for
example, the value of commodity A increases, this only means that //the value is
estimated// in exchange for B, C and so on in new proportions.((MECW 32,
p. 316)) But, Marx replies,

> To //estimate// the value of A, a book for instance, in B, coals, and C, wine, A, B, C must be as value something different from their existences as books, coals or wine. To estimate a value of A in B, A must have a value independent of the estimation of that value in B, and both must be equal to a third thing, expressed in both of them.((MECW 32, p. 316))

The value of a commodity, Marx continues, is furthermore not something absolute
but

> is to such an extent relative that when the labour time required for its reproduction changes, its value changes, although the labour time really contained in the commodity has remained unaltered.((MECW 32, p. 316. Here Marx refers to the individual commodity. What it “actually contains”, both in terms of the footprint of the labour expressed in the body of the commodity and the labour time actually expended during its production, cannot change as long as the use value remains unaltered. If the //necessary// labour time changes for the commodity in question, then the //value// will change, since the arithmetic mean of all commodities now //actually contains// a different quantity of labour. See 2.3.3 below.))

Marx thus subscribes, albeit critically, to the tradition which holds that the
magnitude of value, or the proportions in which commodities are exchanged for
one another, depends on the necessary quantity of labour.((Or rather, the labour
time required at any one time, on the average, to produce a new commodity. See
e.g. MECW 28, p. 533.)) But how can A, a book, be equal to B, a certain quantity
of coal, through their relation to labour which is //the same//, when we know
that it is qualitatively //different// kinds of labour that produce the
commodity-bodies book and coal, respectively?

We have seen (2.2) that commodities as useful objects are created by
labour. From this aspect, the labour that is expressed or leaves its mark on the
product is simply “useful”.((MECW 35, p. 51)) //Use value// is however distinct
from //value// and the body of the commodity as such cannot be considered equal
to either money or any other type of commodity. The qualitative differences of
the kinds of labour that created them are thus a condition of existence for
commodity exchange as such.((“Coats are not exchanged for coats, one use value
is not exchanged for another of the same kind.” MECW 35, p. 52))

> In a community, the produce of which in general takes the form of commodities, i.e., in a community of commodity producers, this qualitative difference between the useful forms of labour that are carried on independently by individual producers, each on their own account, develops into a complex system, a social division of labour.((MECW 35, p. 52))

When production is based //simultaneously// on an advanced social division of
labour and private property, it can be organised neither communally nor as
islands of self-sufficiency. A bridge is needed between the social and
individual spheres of the system. The various enterprises must, to be viable,
find their niche in the social division of labour, so that the individual
products of labour can be recognised as subsets of the total social
product. They do that only by appearing as commodities and by being valued in
money.((“[I]t is only on the basis of capitalistic production that products take
the general and predominant form of commodities” MECW 35, p. 582.)) //Different
kinds// of products of labour can then be considered //equally good// from a
social point of view. And when they have been realised in money (i.e. sold) the
value equivalent in the seller’s hand does not reveal if it was weaving,
tailoring or some other kind of labour that had shown itself to be a valuable
contribution to society. Therefore, leaving aside for now those commodities
where the price is far removed from the labour expended upon their production,
we can say that a sum of money is labour in object form where the definite
useful character is disregarded, //labour in general//.

Here we seem to have discovered the common third thing, which, however, is not a
thing in the ordinary sense, but that which remains of a commodity after one has
abstracted

> from all that which makes it to be really a thing. Any objectivity of human labour which is itself abstract (i.e., without any additional quality and content) is necessarily an abstract objectivity – a //thing of thought//.((Albert Dragstedt, //Value: Studies By Karl Marx//, New Park Publications, London, 1976, pp. 7--40. <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm>.))

One can //think of// “labour in general” in the physiological sense since the
human brain, muscles and so on are to some extent always consumed in the labour
process, and requires rest, food and so on to be recreated,((See MECW 35, p. 54;
MECW 28, pp. 226--227.)) but it is not the individually perceived effort that
determines the proportions under which different commodities are
exchanged.((There //is// a connection between physical and mental exploitation
of the human organism and the value substance itself -- otherwise commodity
value would not be limited to products of labour --, but it is impossible to
estimate value creating labour by measuring for example the heart rate or the
calorie consumption. First of all, the effort itself is only value creating if
it is shown to be (or validated as) useful to others and otherwise simply a
waste of energy. Secondly, different kinds of labour differ with regard to the
//kinds// of bodily and mental abilities that are actually put to use, and
therefore they cannot constitute the common third. For the latter point, see
Michael Heinrich, //How to read Marx’s Capital//, 2021, p. 84. Human labour pure
and simple must therefore be an abstraction also from specific physiological
processes.)) On the contrary, these are “established by a social process behind
the back of the producers, and appear to them consequently as given by
tradition.”((Albert Dragstedt, //Value: Studies By Karl Marx//, New Park
Publications, London, 1976,
pp. 7--40. <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm>))
And not simply any social process:

> The equalisation of the most different kinds of labour can be the result only of an abstraction from their inequalities, or of reducing them to their common denominator, viz., expenditure of human labour power or human labour in the abstract, and only exchange produces this reduction, by bringing the products of the most diverse kinds of labour into relation with each other on an equal footing.((Cf //Le Capital. Traduction de M.J.Roy, entièrement revisée par l’auteur. Paris 1872–1875//, MEGA II.7, p. 55 or “Ergänzungen und Veränderungen” in MEGA II.6, p. 41. In the second German edition of //Capital// (and the English translations based upon it), this paragraph ends with “in the abstract”, see MECW 35, p. 84. The English translation of the continuation was taken from Isaak Rubin, “Abstract Labour and Value in Marx’s System”, //Capital and Class// 5, Summer 1978 <https://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/abstract-labour.htm>.))

=== 2.3.2 The measure and double character of labour ===

The commensurability between different kinds of commodities is the result of
equating //qualitatively// different products of labour.  The definite
proportions are the expression of a //quantitative// dimension of the labour
expended.

The value form, as we have seen, represents value in //bodies of commodities//,
and in units that are suitable for these -- //numbers of// coats, //yards of//
linen, //tons of// iron, gold and so on. If one of the bodies, for example gold,
occupies the position of general equivalent, then all commodity values can be
expressed in definite physical quantities of one and the same material. Money
value is objectified labour but not labour itself. How is the latter measured?

> The quantity of labour itself is measured by its //temporal duration// and the //labour-time// in turn possesses a measuring rod for particular segments of time, like hour, day, etc.((Albert Dragstedt, //Value: Studies By Karl Marx//, New Park Publications, London, 1976, pp. 7--40. <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm>))

In order to use time as a measure of abstract commodity-producing labour, all
hours or days of labour must be equivalent, otherwise they cannot be given a
common expression of value and price, and labour productivity (the concrete
output per unit of time) cannot be compared.((“It is often difficult to
ascertain the proportion between two different sorts of labour. The time spent
in two different sorts of work will not always alone determine this
proportion. The different degrees of hardship endured, and of ingenuity
exercised, must likewise be taken into account. There may be more labour in an
hour’s hard work than in two hour’s easy business; or in an hour’s application
to a trade which it cost ten years’ labour to learn, than in a month’s industry
at an ordinary and obvious employment. But it is not easy to find any accurate
measure either of hardship or ingenuity.” Adam Smith, //The Wealth of Nations//
(New York 1991), p. 27.)) Marx himself mentioned as one of his unique
contributions that he was the first to critically demonstrate //the double
character of labour//, that what //appears// in commodities as a //double form//
-- use value and exchange-value -- is represented on the one hand by a concrete
useful labour and an abstract value-forming labour, i.e. two aspects of one and
the same labour.((See MECW 35, pp. 51–56 or the corresponding pages in //Le
Capital//, pp. 25–29.))  However, such labour is itself an abstraction --
//simple average labour//. It “varies in character in different countries and at
different times, but in a particular society it is given.”((MECW 35, p. 54. On
the contrary, Smith believed that labour is equal and comparable between
entirely different periods of history. Cf. //The Wealth of Nations//,
pp. 31--32.)) Simple labour (and Marx explicitly refers to the English term
//unskilled labour//) can be performed with only basic skills.((According to the
ISCO-08 system, e.g. “Vehicle, Window, Laundry and Other Hand Cleaning Workers”,
“Food Preparation Assistants” and “Labourers in Mining, Construction,
Manufacturing and Transport”, belong to “Major Group 9: Elementary
Occupations”. See “ISCO-08 Structure, index correspondence with ISCO-88”
<https://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/stat/isco/isco08>. In the EU-27 group
of countries, 8.5 per cent of occupations belonged to this group in 2021. In
Sweden, it was just 4.2 per cent (//Ekonomifakta//
<[[https://www.ekonomifakta.se/fakta/arbetsmarknad/sysselsattning/lagkvalificerade
-jobb-internationellt]]>).)) Moreover, the labour is assumed to take place under
average intensity. That which is performed under higher or lower intensity must
be multiplied by a factor to be transformed into simple labour. An hour of
labour of say 20 per cent higher-than-average intensity that produces 20 per
cent more use values of the same quality is then multiplied by 1.2. If this
higher level of intensity becomes the norm in all branches of industry, however,
then the factor must be reduced to 1, i.e. loses its significance, although it
can still be regarded as more (or less) intensive “in an international
application of the law of value”,((//Le Capital//, p. 453)) corresponding to
greater (or smaller) amount of money.

Different kinds of labour also differ in //complexity//, which has an impact on
the magnitude of value. If we take a tailor’s shop as an example, we can assume
that one part of the work is carried out by apprentices, another by journeymen
and a third by the master tailor himself. Even if everyone works equally hard,
the journeymen, who are fully trained in the trade, will on average get more
done than the apprentices in the same period of time and the master probably
even more. When differences in work performance is not due to labour-saving
//technology// implemented in the objective conditions of labour but, as here,
//skill//, i.e. a subjective factor, then the effect is the same as if work was
performed with different intensity.((See //Le Capital//, in MEGA II.7, p. 27,
MECW 35, p. 54 and MECW 33, pp. 384--385.)) There are tasks, however, that
neither the apprentice nor the journeyman but only the master tailor //can//
perform. As long as these constitute //necessary labour// there will be a need
for such specially qualified labour.

Education or experience that contributes to a higher production output gets
counted as more labour per hour, so to speak, but only if the labour power is
used efficiently.((“All labour of a higher or more complicated character than
average labour is expenditure of labour power of a more costly kind, labour
power whose production has cost more time and labour, and which therefore has a
higher value, than unskilled or simple labour power. This power being of higher
value, its consumption is labour of a higher class, labour that creates in equal
times proportionally higher values than unskilled labour does.” MECW 35,
p. 208. A master tailor creates more value exactly in his role as tailor master
but not as a hand packer of finished trousers.)) So the apprentice, the
journeyman and the master tailor not only receive different amounts of
remuneration, but they also //create different amounts of value// in the same
period of time. Labour power capable of performing //complex labour// has a
higher, refined //use value//, just as dead things can have it (stainless versus
ordinary steel, for example), and if its particular properties are socially
necessary, then all the labour that is socially necessary for its reproduction
must be included in its value.((See MECW 28, p. 249.)) In the case of the price
of labour power specifically, wages must be sufficient to purchase food,
shelter, clothing and other articles necessary to perform labour of a particular
kind, but it must also be sufficient for the production of the worker’s
substitute.((See MECW 35, p.  182 and MECW 30, pp. 42–50. In a country like
Sweden, highly qualified workers receive a relatively small monetary wage
compared with other developed countries, e.g. the United States. An important
reason for this is that in the former case, education and healthcare are
financed by taxes to a much greater degree and must therefore not be paid for by
the worker directly.))


=== 2.3.3 Individual and social value ===

> Properly speaking, all products of the same kind form a single mass, and their price is determined in general and without regard to particular circumstances. (Le Trosne, //De l’intérêt social//)((Quoted by Marx in MECW 35, pp. 49--50.))

When Marx speaks of commodity value in general, i.e. without further
specification, he refers to its //real// or //social// value. Its magnitude is
determined by the labour time required on average for the production of one
unit.((“The real value of a commodity is […] not its individual value, but its
social value; that is to say, the real value is not measured by the labour time
that the article in each individual case costs the producer, but by the labour
time socially required for its production.” (MECW 35, p. 322); “The labour time
socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal
conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity
prevalent at the time. The introduction of power-looms into England probably
reduced by one-half the labour required to weave a given quantity of yarn into
cloth. The hand-loom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same
time as before; but for all that, the product of one hour of their labour
represented after the change only half an hour’s social labour, and consequently
fell to one-half its former value. We see then that that which determines the
magnitude of the value of any article is the amount of labour socially
necessary, or the labour time socially necessary for its production. Each
individual commodity, in this connection, is to be considered as an average
sample of its class.” (MECW 35, p. 49).)) This //general// (social)
determination cannot come from nothing, however, but is itself determined //with
regard to// the //particular// (individual) circumstances. In fact, there is
usually a long range of independent production processes, each of which requires
different amounts of labour to produce commodities of one and the same kind, and
it is therefore analytically useful to also speak of their //individual//
values. When these goods exist on the market they have //the same value// and
also //the same price// (which may be different from the former) if regarded as
//identical from the point of view of use value//. In order to calculate, in a
particular case, the labour expended in the production of a commodity, we must
therefore take the total quantity of labour consumed individually -- both dead
and living labour -- and divide it by the volume of production.

The dead labour //transferred// to the product is determined by the consumption
of its respective components during production, including the used up raw
materials, waste, wear and tear as well as depreciation of fixed capital.((Fixed
capital is the part of capital advanced that can be reused over multiple periods
of production, e.g. machines and buildings. The remaining part (raw materials,
labour power, etc.) is called circulating capital. See //Capital, Volume 2//,
department 2.)) None of this can be measured in labour time in a process of
production where these products are expended as means of production, but we can
assume a labour quantity corresponding to the //purchase price//. This is
because the latter represents the number of simple hours of labour required by
the producer to //acquire// the means of production, regardless of what may be
socially necessary to //reproduce// them.((Cf Andrew Kliman, //Reclaiming Marx’s
Capital// (Lanham 2006), p. 34. This assumption is part of the temporal
single-system interpretation (TSSI) which is a reading of //Capital// that
avoids the so-called transformation problem.))

Let us take coat production as an example. We assume that all producers buy
means of production at the same average market price but that there exist
individual differences with regard to the relative efficiency of the processes
of production. In this situation, the producer who has a particularly
resource-efficient process can make do with relatively few yards of the raw
material linen and thus transfer a relatively smaller amount of value to the
product than the competitors. The //per-unit price// of the means of production
is therefore given in advance, i.e. socially determined, but the quantity needed
is determined by technical and organisational conditions at the level of the
individual firm.

Also labour power is purchased at a socially determined price that can be
assumed to represent the amount necessary to acquire the necessary means of
subsistence. The size of the salary may differ depending on whether the labour
capacity is of a simpler or more complicated kind, if for example it is that of
a journeyman or master tailor. During the process of production, labour power is
consumed, just like the raw materials, etc., but in contrast with the latter the
labour power involved does not //transfer// its value to the product, but its
//labour// creates a //new value//.((See MECW 35, pp. 321--324.)) A part of the
new value covers the salary of the worker and the remainder constitutes
//surplus value//.((The wage relation does not affect the character of new value
but only its division between worker and non-worker. Someone who produces
commodities by employing their own means of production owns the entire product
-- use value and value, including surplus value -- but the laws of competition
will make sure that the amount //realised// will differ from what was
individually //produced//.)) This labour could theoretically be measured in
hours, days, etc, but not without an estimation of both its intensity and
complexity as well as a conversion into simple hours of labour. It has already
been mentioned however that in practice “only exchange produces this reduction”
and the value contribution of living labour is therefore expressed in the price
of the product.

Let us now look at how, on the basis of the specific cases, we can arrive at a
general determination, i.e. how a number of individually produced articles form
a general, social value. In the example below we assume social production of
identical coats and that the entire market consists of three producers that
supply the same number of items each. This production has a number of “value
contribution categories” where the sum represents a coat’s total individual
value. The mean value per category represents the socially necessary quantity of
labour expressed in money and the sum consequently the social value.((If we had
assumed that they supplied different quantities of commodities then the value
contributions of the three producers would have had to be weighted. One such
example is provided under section 2.5.)) //The latter is the real commodity
value, since it represents the total quantity of labour divided by the total
quantity of articles, i.e. the amount of labour it costs society to produce one
specimen of the commodity in question.//

^ Table 1. Individual and social coat value (pounds sterling) ^^^^^
^ Value contribution     ^     I^    II^   III^     Mean^
| Linen fabric           |  0.89|  0.82|  0.81|     0.84|
| Fuel                   |  0.14|  0.09|  0.12|     0.12|
| Tool wear              |  0.26|  0.27|  0.25|     0.26|
| Tailoring, journeyman  |  0.50|  0.49|  0.46|     0.48|
| Tailoring, master      |  0.29|  0.31|  0.30|     0.30|
| Total                  |  2.08|  1.98|  1.94|     2.00|

None of the processes of production in our example result in an //individual
value// per unit which corresponds to the //social value//; one of them is above
and two below the mean. Each individual coat forms material for the
“congelations of undifferentiated human
labour”((https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm)) that
flows down and crystallises into the coat form that on the market is equivalent
to 2 ounces of gold.((“In the expression of relative value: 20 yards of linen =
1 coat (or, x linen is //worth// y of coat), one must admit that the coat counts
only as //value// or coagulation of labour, but it is precisely through that
fact that the coagulation of labour counts as //coat//, and coat as the form
into which human labour flows in order to congeal.” Albert Dragstedt, //Value:
Studies By Karl Marx//, New Park Publications, London, 1976, pp. 7--40.)) The
coat value in money is thus 2 pounds sterling. What it corresponds to in hours
we do not know, but under our assumption it is as many as required to produce,
say, 20 yards of linen.((Even if we could provide the number of man-hours and
the exact level of intensity and complexity for each category, e.g. time spent
sowing and harvesting flax, making shovels, etc.  we would have difficult
regression problems, because a shovel embodies a certain amount of labour that
went into mining and processing iron, which in turn was made possible because of
a long series of other labour processes.)) If one would like to perform
calculations in labour time, however, it is possible to //assume// a monetary
value per hour, for example .1 pound sterling (2 shillings in Marx’s days),
which gives 20 simple labour hours for one coat, 20 yards of linen or 2 ounces
of gold.((This form of expression (money per hour) is called MELT (Monetary
Expression of Labour Time) and has become a popular method for converting
between money and labour time. “Multiplying labor-time figures by the MELT, we
get dollar figures; dividing dollar figures by the MELT, we get labor-time
figures.” Andrew Kliman, //Reclaiming Marx’s Capital//, pp. 25--26.))

If we assume that the three producers represent the conditions of coat
production within a society, then these are reflected exactly in the value of
the commodity. But what if e.g. producer III -- all else being equal --
withdraws its coats from the local market and sends them off to some other
region? The same quantity of “undifferentiated human labour” will now, so to
speak, flow down into two forms of coat instead of one -- one in the region of
production and another in the more distant geographic location. What will happen
to the commodity value in the first case? The answer follows by taking the mean
value of I and II: (2.08 + 1.98) / 2 = 2.03; it rises by 1.5 per cent.((The
market price will likely rise even more, because of the imbalance between supply
and demand, which, for reasons of space, we cannot go into here. It should be
noted, however, that //value// in this case has nothing to do with //market
value//. The latter is a //price// for which a commodity may be sold if it lies
within the interval of (the individual values of) those producing under the most
and the least favourable conditions (see MECW 37, pp. 177--184). A market value
that coincides with something other than the weighted average of the individual
values constitutes a “false social value”. Karl Marx, //Marx’s Economic
Manuscript of 1864–1865//, Leiden 2016, p. 817.)) In the latter case, the
commodity value is determined by the labour supplied by III together with all
other coat producers that direct their output to the more distant market. If III
happens to be alone here, then the (real) value of the coat is determined
entirely by its individual value, i.e. 1.94. This example shows that,
technically, the value of a commodity is determined not by the conditions of
production of such articles within a society (producers I, II and III) but by
the conditions of production of those firms from which the supply on a
particular market originate (e.g. producers I and II only), constrained by
demand on the same market.((Only in this sense is value fully determined already
at the level of production (cf. Andrew Kliman, “On Capitalism’s Historical
Specificity and Price Determination: Comments on the Value-Form Paradigm”, in
//[[https://copejournal.com/critique-of-political-economy-vol-1/|Critique of
political economy]]//, vol. 1, September 2011).))

The fact that the (real) value of a commodity exists on the market does not mean
that “the act of sale” is required to make social the labour expended upon a
single commodity.((Cf Patrick Murray, “Avoiding bad abstractions”, in
//[[https://copejournal.com/critique-of-political-economy-vol-1/|Critique of
political economy]]//, vol. 1, September 2011.)) The latter does not have
value because its owner happens to find a buyer, i.e. because of //particular
circumstances//; it has value because there is //demand in general// for
products of labour that can satisfy a particular social want. In other words,
the (social) value is always identical for identical use values. Nevertheless,
it is necessary to supply a finished product for the individual labour content
to be recognised as socially useful. The stitches performed by the average
tailor can therefore be considered socially useful and value producing only
after they have been materialised in an actual commodity (a coat), not the
moment they are performed. The individual labour that //was// expended in
production thus //becomes// recognised as social labour of a definite
quantity.((“The point of departure is not the labour of individuals considered
as social labour, but on the contrary the particular kinds of labour of private
individuals, i.e. labour which proves that it is universal social labour only by
the supersession of its original character in the exchange process. Universal
social labour is consequently not a ready-made prerequisite but an emerging
result.” MECW 29, p. 286))



==== 2.4 Production and redistribution of surplus value ====

Having investigated individual and social value, we shall now look closer at the
components of the commodity with regard to the distinction between paid and
unpaid labour, as well as the latter’s redistribution based on different forms
of property.

The life cycle of an individual capital is best described from the point of view
of the cycle of money capital, M – C – M′, that is from that a sum of money (M)
is invested in the two commodity classes means of production and labour power
(C) until a value in money form (M′) is realised that is greater than the amount
originally advanced. Should the value not be increased, it would be irrational
to convert money into factors of production, since the product is made only so
that it can be sold. Return on capital comes from surplus value, but is in this
specific form called profit.((Profit is divided between interest and profit of
enterprise and the latter category into industrial profit and commercial
profit. See //Capital III//, parts 4 and 5. For the sake of simplicity, we shall
in all examples assume that profit is equal to industrial profit and that the
capital advanced is provided by the industrialist himself.))

We continue to use the coat industry and the producers I–III in our examples. In
the following, we borrow from Table 1 (2.3.3) but create a new
categorisation. The value of the product (individual and social) is denoted
//w//. Dead (materialised) labour is represented under the category of constant
capital, //c//, and the materialisation of living labour under new value,
//n//. The latter is then divided into a paid part -- variable capital, //v// --
and two categories representing the unpaid part -- produced surplus value,
//s//, and realised profit, //p//. Here we also assume conditions in which the
profit’s share of both the value and the price of the individual commodity
coincides quantitatively with that of surplus value.((We assume that the capital
composition of the industry, i.e. the cost distribution between labour power and
means of production, coincides with the composition of total capital and that
all capitals turn over in the same period of time. The latter assumption implies
that differences in depreciation cost (referred to above as “tool wear”) merely
represent different degrees of efficiency with regard to fixed capital use.))
The sum of //c// and //v// in a commodity is called the cost price, //k//, and
represents the amount the individual article has cost the capitalist.((See
//Capital III//, chapter 1. The sum of //c// and //v// as capital advanced is
usually referred to as //C//. In all examples provided here, //C// and //k//
happen to coincide quantitatively, but it is important to be aware of the
difference.))

The rate of surplus value, //s/v//, is assumed to be 50 per cent and expresses
that working conditions are the same across the three producers. The workers
keep two-thirds of the individual new value in the form of wages. The profit,
//p//, is determined by the selling price, which coincides with the commodity
value of 2 pounds sterling, minus the cost price, //k//.

^ Table 2. Components of the coat value (pounds sterling) ^^^^^
^ Component          ^     I^    II^   III^        Mean^
| //w//              |  2.08|  1.98|  1.94|        2.00|
| //c//              |  1.29|  1.18|  1.18|        1.22|
| //v//              |  0.53|  0.53|  0.51|        0.52|
| //k//              |  1.82|  1.71|  1.69|        1.74|
| //n//              |  0.79|  0.80|  0.76|        0.78|
| //s//              |  0.26|  0.27|  0.25|        0.26|
| //p//              |  0.18|  0.29|  0.31|        0.26|

Table 1 showed that producer I “takes out” a smaller value than what it “puts
in” while the reverse is true for producer II and III. From Table 2 it becomes
clear how producer I can nevertheless realise surplus value in the form of
profit because //k// is less than the selling price. The rate of profit, //p/ (c
+ v)//, for the three producers is 10, 17 and 19 per cent respectively (15 on
average).

Under unchanged conditions of production and demand this relationship could
hypothetically be reproduced year in and year out, but as the commodity category
itself reveals, the producers who contribute a relatively small (large) amount
of value-creating labour per article are favoured (disadvantaged) when they sell
it at the higher (lower) social value. Those who are relatively wasteful in
expending labour even risk a devaluation of their capital, for if the selling
price were to fall below the cost price, there would be no funds to support
either the capitalist’s individual consumption or to pay the full cost of the
means of production and wages. In the absence of a reserve fund, a temporary
increase in the price of any input is sufficient to make the individual capital
shrink immediately, and, as already mentioned, the purpose of production is lost
if there is no profit to be made.  There is therefore a double interest of every
commodity producer in //reducing the necessary labour time//. Such a reduction
takes place, among other things, by that the more efficient producers’ methods
are adopted by the others and through research and development of entirely new
ways of reducing the necessary labour.  Normally, this leads to a levelling out
of the differences in production conditions, but they cannot be completely
eliminated.

We will now look at an example where a new category of unpaid labour is
expressed in the price of the individual commodity -- //land rent//. It appears
when the existence of natural monopolies preserves differences in the conditions
of production over time. It takes both dead and living labour to grow wheat for
example, but some farmland gives a much higher yield at an equal investment than
others. The same is true of mining, oil extraction, etc.((See //Capital III//,
departments 2 and 6 as well as MECW 31, pp. 250–389 and 457–551.))

If demand is sufficiently high, agricultural land of even very low
fertility can be exploited commercially. The average commodity price then comes
close to the individual value of the producer with the lowest yield per
labour input (dead and living, i.e. capital advanced, C). As long as this land is needed to cover the market’s //entire//
demand for wheat -- i.e. to supplement the supply from the others --, then
the necessary labour of the producer who rents 
this particular piece of land will set the floor for how low the price can fall.((Capitalists
expect an average profit from their investment. When the profit
is low, capital migrates to industries where it is higher, equalising the
profit rate. This also applies to capitalists engaged in
agriculture.)) This floor is then raised up a notch by the landowner who 
has no interest in letting the capitalist farmer make use of it gratis. The other
landowners can then extract just as much land rent from their respective
producers that the latter only make a normal (average) profit.

It was assumed above (2.2.4) that the //value// of 1 quarter of wheat is 2
pounds sterling and we shall keep this assumption in our next example, but we
now say that its //price// is at 3 pounds. We also assume the same proportion of
dead and living labour as for the coat but let the individual differences be
greater. The differences in individual profits are now no longer assumed to be
due to the relative skills of the producers (economy of labour) but are fully
determined by the //general rate of profit//. The latter category follows by
dividing the total surplus value by the total capital advanced in the whole
economy, //s / (c + v)//. Since we assume the same relationship between //c//
and //v// as in the coat industry, and this happens to represent the average
production conditions in society at large, we know that the general rate of
profit is 15 per cent. Each individual profit is given by multiplying the
individual capital advanced with the general rate of profit, i.e.

> //p = (c + v) • (s / (c + v)).//

The price of production, //P//, is the price at which the commodity must be sold
in order to replace both the means of production and the labour force as well as
to generate the average profit, i.e. //c// + //v// + //p//. Ground rent, //r//,
is then given by subtracting //P// from the price of the commodity (3 pounds).

^ Table 3. Components of the wheat price (pounds sterling) ^^^^^
^ Component          ^     I^    II^   III^        Mean^
| //w//              |  2.95|  1.80|  1.25|        2.00|
| //c//              |  1.66|  1.00|  0.99|        1.22|
| //v//              |  0.86|  0.53|  0.17|        0.52|
| //k//              |  2.52|  1.53|  1.16|        1.74|
| //n//              |  1.29|  0.80|  0.26|        0.78|
| //s//              |  0.43|  0.27|  0.09|        0.26|
| //p//              |  0.38|  0.23|  0.17|        0.26|
| //P//              |  2.90|  1.76|  1.34|        2.00|
| //r//              |  0.10|  1.24|  1.66|        1.00|

Agricultural producers I–III all make 15 per cent profit on their respective
investments, which come from unpaid labour. Comparing the size of the last
component, ground rent, with the total capital advanced, //r / (c + v)//, we see
that the mere ownership of land yields about 4, 80 and 143 per cent (58 per cent
on average) return on capital //invested by other people// in the three
plots.((Land owners can be capitalists at the same time and, so to speak, lease
the land to themselves, but that does not make land ownership disappear as a
distinct form of property.)) The value produced in the sector is just enough to
provide wage-earners and capitalists with a normal income. Ground rent must
therefore, in this example, come from other industries, which is possible
because the price of the commodity wheat exceeds the price of production.((For
surplus value to flow out of an industry, it is sufficient that surplus value
exceeds average profit and that the commodity is sold at a price below its
value.))

Should the price of wheat fall to 2.9 pounds, ground rent disappears completely
for landowner I. It is then in his interest to demand rent at the expense of a
part of the profit and otherwise terminate the lease. Should the price rise,
then all lands become more profitable, but especially those of the poorest
quality. If this situation persists for some time, it leads to poorer, unused
agricultural land being brought into use.

With new technical innovations, labour productivity can increase also in
industries where ground rent plays a major role, but they cannot eradicate
differences in natural fertility and therefore not rent as an entirely passive
source of income.

> The identity of the market price for commodities of the same kind is the manner whereby the social character of value asserts itself on the basis of the capitalist mode of production and, in general, any production based on the exchange of commodities between //individuals//. What society overpays for agricultural products in its capacity of consumer, what is a minus in the realisation of its labour time in agricultural production, is now a plus for a portion of society, for the landlords.((MECW 35, p. 654))

It is the surplus labour in commodity production, not the land itself, that
makes the land owner rich. The latter can therefore “spend his whole life in
Constantinople, while his estates lie in Scotland.”((MECW 35, p. 612)) The
situation is similar for those who sell the commodity money capital to
industrialists at an interest, i.e. provide loans,((Cf //Capital III//, chapter
24)) but even the owner of entrepreneurial capital can live a life without
economic hardship when the shares are spread out between different industries
and management has been handed over to paid agents with a mandate to reinvest
(capitalise) part of the profits.

A not insignificant part of the value of a commodity is thus made up of unpaid
labour which falls to the owner of the means of production.((In this discussion
we have left out the costs of circulation (buying and selling, bookkeeping,
etc.), but these also require their share of the surplus value contained in the
commodity.)) A part of it is consumed unproductively as revenue, in the form of
servants, vehicles, jewellery, real estate, etc., while another is converted
into additional capital. But whether the rate of surplus value is low or high,
for example 30 or 300 per cent, the real wealth of society depends on //labour
productivity//, i.e. “how much use value [...] [is] produced in a definite time,
hence also in a definite surplus labour time.”((MECW 35, p. 807))


==== 2.5 Competition and accumulation ====

It is up to the owner of an enterprise if he wants to consume all the profit as
revenue, but in that case he will eventually cease to be a capitalist, because
competition between firms encourages accumulation.((“Except as personified
capital, the capitalist has no historical value [...]. And so far only is the
necessity for his own transitory existence implied in the transitory necessity
for the capitalist mode of production. But, so far as he is personified capital,
it is not values in use and the enjoyment of them, but exchange value and its
augmentation, that spur him into action. Fanatically bent on making value expand
itself, he ruthlessly forces the human race to produce for production’s sake; he
thus forces the development of the productive powers of society, and creates
those material conditions, which alone can form the real basis of a higher form
of society [...]. Only as personified capital is the capitalist respectable. As
such, he shares with the miser the passion for wealth as wealth. But that which
in the miser is a mere idiosyncrasy, is, in the capitalist, the effect of the
social mechanism, of which he is but one of the wheels. Moreover, the
development of capitalist production makes it constantly necessary to keep
increasing the amount of the capital laid out in a given industrial undertaking,
and competition makes the immanent laws of capitalist production to be felt by
each individual capitalist, as external coercive laws. It compels him to keep
constantly extending his capital, in order to preserve it, but extend it he
cannot, except by means of progressive accumulation.” MECW 35, pp. 587--588))
Let us see why with another example.

It has already been mentioned (see 2.4) that it is in the interest of every
commodity producer to adopt the most successful methods of production. So far
the implicit assumption has been that this is possible on the basis of the
existing scale of production.

There is room for many different kinds of improvement that reduce necessary
labour without involving any additional costs, for example in the choice of
input components or making the organisation of labour more efficient. However,
it is often possible to quickly achieve productivity gains by investing in new
instruments of production or founding entirely new factories.

In the following example, we start from Table 2 and our coat producers.
Previously, we assumed that all three supplied the market with an equal number
of commodities and therefore the total investment and production volume was not
of interest to us. They will be now, when we shall assume that producer III
increases his capital with new modern sewing machines and additional hands to
operate them. Let’s say that the original production volume was 100 coats per
producer. III is now assumed to increase the output by 20 per cent but his
constant and variable capital grows by only 10 and 5 per cent respectively. At
the same time, producers I and II carry on with the existing productive capital
and production volume. In addition, we assume that the market is able to absorb
the industry’s much larger total product at the new slightly lower price of
production.

In the table below, //q// represents the production volume (number of coats) and
//C// the total capital advanced, //c// + //v//. The variables //w//, //s//,
//n//, //P// and //p// represent, as before, commodity value, surplus value, new
value, price of production and profit.  We assume that the industry as a whole
yields an average profit of 15 per cent. This allows us to determine the total
quantity of //p// and //P// in the same way as in Table 3. In Table 4, the
individual price of production is determined by the producer’s share of the
total production volume of the industry multiplied by the total price of
production. In other words, all commodities are sold at the same social
price. The individual profit is then determined by subtracting the capital
advanced from the individual price of production, i.e. //p = P - C//.

^ Table 4. Components of the coat industry (q = production volume; the rest = pounds sterling) ^^^^^
^ Component          ^       I^      II^     III^           Sum^
| //q//              |  100.00|  100.00|  120.00|        320.00|
| //c//              |  129.00|  118.00|  141.60|        388.60|
| //v//              |   52.67|   53.33|   53.29|        159.20|
| //s//              |   26.33|   26.67|   26.60|         79.60| 
| //n//              |   79.00|   80.00|   79.89|        238.89|
| //C//              |  181.67|  171.33|  194.80|        547.80|
| //w//              |  208.00|  198.00|  221.40|        627.40|
| //P//              |  196.89|  196.89|  236.27|        630.06|
| //p//              |   15.23|   25.56|   41.47|         82.26|

Now, dividing the components in Table 4 by the production volume, Table 5
representing the price components of the individual coat can be compiled.

^ Table 5. Components of the coat price (pounds sterling) ^^^^^
^ Component          ^     I^    II^   III^        Mean^
| //c//              |  1.29|  1.18|  0.18|        1.21|
| //v//              |  0.53|  0.53|  0.44|        0.50|
| //s//              |  0.26|  0.27|  0.22|        0.25| 
| //n//              |  0.79|  0.80|  0.67|        0.75|
| //k// (=//C//)     |  1.82|  1.71|  1.62|        1.71|
| //w//              |  2.08|  1.98|  1.85|        1.96|
| //P//              |  1.97|  1.97|  1.97|        1.97|
| //p//              |  0.15|  0.26|  0.35|        0.26|

The //value// and the //price of production// represented in the commodity have
fallen from 2 to 1.96 and 1.97 pounds respectively (compared to Table 2).  The
investment by producer III in a relatively large amount of constant capital in
relation to variable has the effect of bringing the value composition of the
industry above the social average. This means that the profit and thus also the
production price (which we here assume coincides with the selling price) is
slightly greater than the surplus value and value. Unaltered conditions of
production here causes the rate of profit for producer I to fall from 10 to 8
per cent and for producer II from 17 to 15 per cent. For producer III who
increased his capital, it rises from 19 to 21 per cent. For the industry as a
whole, the rate of profit remains the same.

If all 320 commodities (//q//) //cannot// be sold at the price of production but
just below it, III still has much to gain from his investment. He can, for
example, sell at a price that gives him the same rate of profit as before but
results in a larger mass of profit. This gives him both a stronger position on
the market and a larger fund for individual consumption. Producers I and II will
still be able to sell their coats at a profit but their maneuvering room -- in
both investment and individual consumption -- will be substantially
reduced. Producer III may also aim to drive I and II out of the market by
temporarily dumping the commodity price to a level just above the individual
cost price (e.g. £1.65), which means that for producers I and II it falls below
it (and their capitals start to shrink). Since no producer can expect the others
to refrain from accumulating, the safest bet is to reinvest at least part of the
profits.((According to the historian David Landes, in the period after the
Napoleonic Wars, entrepreneurs in France, Belgium and Germany were sometimes
reluctant to adopt the latest production equipment. The cost of investment was
greater than what an individual entrepreneur could afford or was willing to
pay. Instead, inferior equipment was purchased, sometimes second-hand, which was
a contributing factor to Britain retaining its leading position. See David
S. Landes, //The unbound Prometheus: Technological change and industrial
development in Western Europe from 1750 to the present, Second edition//
(Cambridge 2006), pp. 146--147.))

==== 2.6 Summary ====

The commodity has been examined from both a qualitative and quantitative
aspect. The commodity form of the product of labour expresses a unity of
opposites: use value and value. The former represents need satisfaction and the
latter abstract human labour whose magnitude is determined by the total amount
of necessary labour divided by the volume of production. As a consequence of
differences in individual conditions of production but sameness in the social
determination of value, commodity producers are led to reduce the necessary
labour time and thus the magnitude of value in relation to the quantity of use
values. We also saw how productive labour becomes a source of surplus value for
the owners of the means of production and finally how competition forces
producers to transform part of this surplus value into capital. The commodity
form is thus the bearer of a historically specific social relationship.((Cf MECW
30, pp. 38--39.))

===== 3 Capitalism and communism =====

In this concluding part capitalist production will be discussed in more general
terms, from the perspective of the reproduction and accumulation of the total
product. Then follows a discussion on how a transformation of society might take
place under conditions where the economic laws of capital have been abolished:
under communism, socialism or the “free association of produces”.

==== 3.1 The society of labour and its guarantors ====

Since the interest in reducing necessary labour is built into the capitalist
mode of production, it will affect the conditions of production in all
industries. The result is a general increase in labour productivity in any
society dominated by this mode of production. Still, the total amount of labour
performed does not decrease accordingly. The working day in the developed
countries is shorter now than it was two hundred years ago, but the requirement
to work for a wage (or to get an education to become employable) continues to
dominate the lives of the majority of people. In addition, the number of workers
has constantly increased, partly due to population growth, partly at the expense
of other modes of production. At the same time, therefore, there is a tendency
to //conserve value-creating labour// as the pillar of social production. In the
capitalist epoch, commodity producers are driven to accumulate at least part of
the realised surplus value and to //increase the scale of production// (2.5). An
increase in labour productivity in one sector may therefore coincide with a
maintained or temporarily increased demand for both dead and living
labour. Despite of this, in the slightly longer term, fewer workers will be
required in relation to the population as a whole to meet the demand for a
specific kind of commodity. This does not lead to chronic unemployment -- we
have seen historically -- but to so-called structural transformation where
workers that have been made redundant in one sector are reabsorbed and put to
work under new circumstances. In broad terms, capitalist societies have moved
from engaging labour in agriculture to shifting it increasingly towards first
manufacturing and then services.

The re-employment of redundant workers is far from an automatic process. A
fundamental precondition of capitalist production is that the immediate
producers (the workers) are propertyless, i.e.  separated from the means of
production so that they cannot survive without selling their labour power to the
owners of capital; this is what it means to be a //proletarian//. The state
stands as guarantor of the continued ownership of the means of production by the
non-workers. Unemployment creates incentives to find employment, and as long as
surplus value can be generated by putting proletarians to work, there will be a
demand for their labour power.

The following table is an attempt to illustrate in a schematic way capitalist
reproduction in terms of both value and use value. //t// represents time (in
calendar years), //c// and //v// the total social capital, i.e. the amount of
labour invested in the form of means of production and labour power in all
branches of production; //w// and //s// the total value and surplus value
respectively; //q// the volume of production and //l// the working
population. The initial values are chosen arbitrarily. Both the population and
the social capital are assumed to grow by 1 per cent per year, the volume of
production by 2 per cent, and both the rate of surplus value, //s/v//, and the
value composition, //c/v//, are kept at 100 per cent.

^ Table 6. Accumulation (t = years; c, v, s, n, w = labour hours; q = production volume; l = number of working people in the population) ^^^^^^^^^^
^   t^      c^       v^     s^      n^      w^      q^      l^   q/l (%)^  n/l (%)^
|   0|  20.00|  10.00|  10.00|  20.00|  40.00|  40.00|  20.00|     200.00|    100.00|
|  10|  22.00|  11.00|  11.00|  22.00|  44.00|  48.00|  22.00|     218.18|    100.00|
|  20|  24.20|  12.10|  12.10|  24.20|  48.40|  57.60|  24.20|     238.02|    100.00|
|  30|  26.62|  13.31|  13.31|  26.62|  53.24|  69.12|  26.62|     259.65|    100.00|

The choice of numbers and rate of change can be debated, but here at least we
get the picture of a mode of production that constantly puts an equal proportion
of the population to work despite the fact that a smaller one would have been
sufficient to maintain the level of production, adjusted for population growth.

In capitalist commodity production, productive labour creates an abstract form
of wealth -- commodity value -- the realisation of which provides an income for
the various classes of society. At the same time, production is geared towards
making this labour superfluous //in each individual case//. Technologies are
continuously developed which are ever more efficient. They could be employed to
reduce pollution and the extraction of resources, but the drive to constantly
expand the total social product leads instead to catastrophic over-exploitation
of the earth’s ecosystems. This is how society evolves when the satisfaction of
needs is merely a means to achieve the goal of a constant expansion of value.


==== 3.2 The lower phase of communism ====

The commodity form carries the capitalist society within it, but also the seed
of an entirely different kind. Capitalist expansion has swept away all previous
modes of production and made humanity dependent on a world-wide network of
production and communication. Production of commodities is now the obvious way
to organise human labour and distribute its products, yet this takes place
behind the backs of the producers. Taking conscious control of material
production must entail that humanity establishes new social relations that
abolish the logic of the commodity form. No one can say exactly what these will
look like, but some general principles can be established on the basis that the
profit motive and the compulsion to accumulate come to a halt. If this becomes a
reality, the level of productivity achieved under capitalism and previous epochs
could for the first time in history contribute to the liberation of humanity
from the compulsion to work and at the same time put an end to the destructive
exploitation of the natural environment. This requires, initially, that labour
be reorganised on the basis of the //existing// technical conditions. Thus far,
the productive powers have been used to keep humanity down in a contrived
existence of necessity, but can now become a vehicle for emancipation.((Cf MECW
37, p. 807.)) As soon as the means of production come under the control of the
associated producers and the obligation to accumulate is lifted -- not in one
country but on a world scale -- a fundamental rupture with the old society has
taken place and communism is established, no matter how much or little labour is
still required for production. And no matter how the fruits of labour are
distributed, there will be, as Marx said, inevitable defects “in the first phase
of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth
pangs from capitalist society.”((Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme”,
in MECW 24, p. 87.))

The existence of labour and surplus labour is not capitalism per se, any more
than production of things is the same as production of commodities. However,
many of the forms of labour developed within capitalism are harmful to both the
individual and society; they could be carried out under much freer forms. The
notion of a product is hardly harmful in itself; that, however, is the case for
many of the actual products of modern society whose production better stop or be
radically transformed. Production as a whole will have to be reorganised. Some
things need to be made in greater quantities -- especially in the poorest
regions of the world --, but on the whole, a controlled “downsizing” of the
economy is what needs to be put on the agenda. That is also what is required to
stop global heating and the extinction of species. To illustrate such a
transformation from the perspective of the total economy, we can continue the
series above (Table 6), but assume that accumulation and population growth come
to a halt. Since the additional capital and luxury consumption of the former
property owners fall away we can assume a much lower rate of surplus labour, say
1/3.((The products of the soil will cost society substantially less labour when
land rent is abolished: “The determination of the market value of products,
including therefore agricultural products, is a social act, albeit a socially
unconscious and unintentional one. It is based necessarily upon the exchange
value of the product, not upon the soil and the differences in its fertility. If
we suppose the capitalist form of society to be abolished and society organised
as a conscious and planned association, then the 10 quarters would represent a
quantity of independent labour time equal to that contained in 240 shillings
[instead of 600]. Society would not then buy this agricultural product at two
and a half times the actual labour time embodied in it and the basis for a class
of landowners would thus be destroyed. This would have the same effect as a
reduction in price of the product to the same amount resulting from foreign
imports. While it is, therefore, true that, by retaining the present mode of
production, but assuming that the differential rent is paid to the state, prices
of agricultural products would, everything else being equal, remain the same, it
is equally wrong to say that the value of the products would remain the same if
capitalist production were superseded by association.” MECW 37, p. 654)) The
remaining surplus labour is what is needed to support the children, the elderly,
administrative activities and so on.((See Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha
programme”, in MECW 24, p. 85.)) This means that the annual labour time, as well
as the means of production measured in the same unit, can in our example be cut
to two thirds in one stroke, as illustrated in Table 7 below.

^ Table 7. Accumulation halted and surplus labour reduced (t = year; c, v, s, n, w = labour hours; q = volume of production; l = number of working people in the population) ^^^^^^^^^^
^   t^      c^      v^      s^      n^      w^      q^      l^   q/l (%)^  n/l (%)^
|  40|  17.75|  13.31|   4.44|  17.75|  44.37|  48.38|  26.62|    181.76|    66.67|

A conscious and efficient management of labour will be crucial to accomplish
such a reorganisation of production. It will undoubtedly be very different
compared with that which takes place in a capitalist society. Without
commodities and money, there is no obvious mechanism for reducing complex labour
to simple. The future society can, however, //estimate// the amount of necessary
labour in both concrete and abstract sense. It can see that particular forms of
labour are needed in definite quantities to achieve //particular// results and
draw certain conclusions about the amount of labour will then be expended //in
general//, including the cost of education. It can also, conversely, start from
the total amount of socially available labour time and evaluate the potential
useful effects.((Cf Friedrich Engels, //Anti-Dühring//, in MECW 25,
pp. 294--295.)) Abstraction from the concrete side of labour therefore continues
to take place, not just in thought but also practically in the planning of
social production.((See Isaak Dashkovsky, “Abstract labour and the economic
categories of Marx”
<https://libcom.org/library/abstract-labour-economic-categories-marx-isaak-dashkovskij>.))

There is no reason to believe, however, that decision-making on the basis of
relative labour time costs alone can replace all the functions of money
prices. The former will be one very important factor, another will be the
relative scarcity of various natural resources, for even if two means of
producing an article may be equivalent in terms of labour expenditure, one may
be more sustainable or otherwise preferable than another.((Cf David Ramsay
Steele, //From Marx to Mises// (1999) which contains many interesting
reflections on the so-called economic calculation problem.))

==== 3.3 Developed communism ====

> Freedom in this field [physical necessity] can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working day is its basic prerequisite.((MECW 37, p. 807))

With the means of production held in common and the livelihood of the human
species secured, it should be possible to go forward with a plan of
de-accumulation or disinvestment.((See Amadeo Bordiga, “[[https://www.
quinterna.org/lingue/english/historical_en/immediate_program_of_the_rev.htm|The
immediate program of the revolution]]” [1953], in //The science and passion of
communism. Selected writings by Amadeo Bordiga (1912--1965)//, Chicago 2021,
pp. 476--480. Camatte, inspired by the former, uses the term
[[https://revueinvariance.pagesperso-orange.fr/glossaire.html|inversion]]. Bordiga’s
list of measures were meant to be taken immediately after “the future taking of
power in a country of the capitalist West” (ibid.). My view is that a programme
of disinvestment will be difficult to put into action before the introduction of
socialism. See also the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth|“degrowth
movement”]] (“décroissance” in French). Just like the “globalisation movement”
at the turn of the millennium, this movement carries some communist tendencies
within it.))

Let’s continue the series beyond the step illustrated in Table 7 but now assume
a negative rate of accumulation, say -1 per cent. Continued technological
advances will gradually reduce the workload further, although perhaps not as
quickly as under capitalism. Let’s assume that labour productivity increases by
half a per cent per year. The result is shown in Table 8, where we use the same
denominations as before.

^ Table 8. De-accumulation (t = year; c, v, s, n, w = labour hours; q = volume of production; l = number of working people in the population) ^^^^^^^^^^
^   t^      c^      v^      s^      n^      w^      q^       l^   q/l (%)^  n/l (%)^
|  50|  15.97|  11.98|   3.99|  15.97|  31.94|  45.72|  26.62|     171.76|    60.00|
|  60|  14.37|  10.78|   3.59|  14.37|  28.75|  43.21|  26.62|     162.31|    54.00|
|  70|  12.94|   9.70|   3.23|  12.94|  25.87|  40.83|  26.62|     153.39|    48.60|
|  80|  11.64|   8.74|   2.92|  11.64|  23.29|  38.59|  26.62|     144.95|    43.74|
|  90|  10.48|   7.86|   2.62|  10.48|  20.96|  36.46|  26.62|     136.98|    39.37|

With the development of communist production through the process of
de-accumulation, the //necessity// of performing labour //in the service of
society//, can be reduced considerably. It would completely revolutionise
today’s notions of work/leisure and production/consumption. As Marx put it:

> In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and thereby also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of common wealth flow more abundantly -- only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!((MECW 24, p. 87. Henriksson criticises
me for stepping back to “a revolutionary programme of 1920” (see [[en/communist-values.-or-a-positive-theory-of-socialism-a-propos-peter-astroem-s-critique-of-communisation-and-value-form-theory|“Communist values. Or a positive theory of socialism?”]]. The Swedish original appeared in //riff-raff// no. 10, 2022). The main inspiration, however, is to be dated 1875.))

In terms of the end result, this perspective is no different from that
championed by the communisation current. However, the path to this end is
different. The communisers, because of their particular notion of value, seem to
identify the perpetuation of socially organised labour with the perpetuation of
capital. This poses extremely high demands on what a communist revolution must
entail, since it implies an immediate leap to the higher phase of
communism. Marx’s analysis of the capitalist mode of production does not impose
such a requirement on future society however. If his theory is incorrect, it
should of course be corrected, but the arguments put forward in that direction
are not very convincing in my opinion. For example, according to Endnotes, the
second phase of communism is “more attractive” than the first.((“Communisation
and value-form theory”, //Endnotes// no. 2, 2010, p. 96)) That may well be the
case, but isn’t it also somewhat “attractive” to secure food supplies, health
care, etc. which are dependent on complex production and distribution networks?
Henriksson warns of “a state-planned economy, where socialist engineering,
rationality and instrumentality, instead of capital, rules and dominates the
individuals, specifically the immediate producers.”((Per Henriksson,
[[en/communist-values.-or-a-positive-theory-of-socialism-a-propos-peter-astroem-s-critique-of-communisation-and-value-form-theory|“Communist
values. Or a positive theory of socialism?”]]))

This is a risk that should not be dismissed, but hopefully it could be reduced
over time as the number of concerns that must be dealt with by the community
decreases.((In his criticism of the views of the undersigned anno 2013,
Henriksson conflates the categories of surplus value and additional capital
(section VII). He therefore does not see before him how it’s possible for the
total surplus labour (or surplus value) to //decrease// from one year to the
next, for example from 4 hours of surplus labour out of a total of 8 in year one
to 3 hours of surplus labour of a total of 6 in year two.)) The individual is
not free if one’s life is subordinated to society -- whatever the degree of
democracy -- but life outside of society is humanly impossible. One way or
another, therefore, a new social organisation is bound to step in when the old
one has reached the end of the road.

==== 3.4 Value without commodities? ====

It has been much debated in various circles whether or not the nominally
“socialist countries” such as the Soviet Union were governed by the capitalist
mode of production. After the October Revolution, the state, the classes and the
wages system were not merely left intact; the modern proletariat was forcefully
created out of an otherwise mostly agrarian population. Mass industrialisation
began at the end of the 1920s, not because it responded to the inhabitants’
self-defined need for modernisation but it was brutally imposed from above in
the name of “national interest”. The directors of the state-owned enterprises
were expected to expand production and the immediate producers work and shut
up. The development was therefore essentially the same as in Table 6, not Table
8. Some still argue that production was not at all governed by the same logic as
that prevailing in the West, because of the extent of state ownership and the
absence of independent enterprises and competition.((This includes several
value-form theorists who are strongly influenced by Rubin. See e.g. Michael
Heinrich, //Introduction to the three volumes of Marx’s Capital// (Monthly
Review Press, 2012), chapter 12 and Christopher Arthur, “Epitaph for the USSR: A
clock without a spring”, in //The New Dialectic and Marx’s Capital//
(Leiden/Boston 2004). Both argue that the capitalism was abolished by the
Bolsheviks but that it was never replaced by socialism/communism. Arthur takes
the position of Hillel Ticktin that the Soviet Union was an inherently unstable
“non-mode of production”.))

State ownership by itself does not stand in the way of capitalist development,
as the fundamental character of social reproduction is determined not by who the
owner is but by the economic laws at work. What about the absence of independent
enterprises? Well, if abstract labour and value are to be understood exclusively
as a “substance held in common by one commodity with another commodity”,((Karl
Marx, “Value-Objectivity as Objectivity Held in Common”, in Michael Heinrich,
//How to read Marx’s Capital// (2021), p. 377.)) existing only in products of
private labour made social by being exchanged for money on a market -- then
these categories probably did not exist within the Soviet Union, and
consequently neither did surplus value and its sub-categories of profit,
interest and rent.

If the substance of value is understood more broadly as //labour in general//,
however, existing in the social product controlled by the bureaucracy, it can be
argued that the means of production and the labour force constituted a social
//capital//.((As Engels noted in //Socialism: Utopian and Scientific//: “The
modern State, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the
state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national
capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more
does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it
exploit. The workers remain wage-workers -- proletarians. The capitalist
relation is not done away with.” MECW 24, p. 319.)) As for competition, foreign
trade was limited, but the country as a whole was engaged in fierce military
competition with the outside world and this required the development of a modern
industry. From this point of view, production was oriented towards the
//self-expansion of value// and thus (state) capitalist. As Aufheben((See
[[https://libcom.org/article/what-was-ussr-part-iv-towards-theory-deformation-value|“What
was the USSR? Part IV: Towards a theory of the deformation of value”]],
//Aufheben// no. 9, 2000)) argues, however, the state enterprises were not
driven by profit but by production targets and if the “Soviet system” was in
some sense capitalist, it may therefore be more adequate to analyse it from the
point of view of the circuit of productive capital. If we use the formula P
... C′ – M′ – C′ ... P′,

> Capitalism [...] appears not so much as ‘production of profit’ but ‘production for production’s sake’. Capitalist production is both the beginning and the end of the process whose aim is the reproduction of capitalist production on an expanded scale. The commodity circulation (C′ -- M′ -- C′) now appears as a mere mediation. A mere means to the end of the relentless expansion [of] capitalist production.”((Ibid.))

In contrast with Western capitalism, sale (C -- M) and purchase (M -- C) were
not decided on the market but by the central plan.

Marx did not foresee the possibility of a state-capitalist development, but on
at least one occasion he actually employed the concept of value when discussing
the regulation of labour time under communism.

> […] after the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, but still retaining social production, the determination of value continues to prevail in the sense that the regulation of 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))

Using the concept of value in this sense, however, could only work for the total
social product,((This is also the context of the former quote. See MECW 37,
pp. 818--819.)) for

> Within the collective society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labour employed on the products appear here //as the value// of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labour no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of the total labour.((Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme”, in MECW 24, p. 85))

In his “1857 Introduction”, Marx states that “the abstract category ‘labour’,
‘labour as such’, labour //sans phrase//”, although existing in all societies,
became “true in practice in this abstract form only as a category of the most
modern society.”((MECW 28, p. 41)) We saw above (2.3.1) that commodity exchange
effectuates the reduction of particular forms of labour into “human labour in
the abstract”.((See also the //Grundrisse//: “For the person who produces an
infinitesimal part of a yard of cotton, it is not a formal definition that it is
value, exchange value. If he had not produced an exchange value, money, he
would have produced nothing at all. Hence, this determination of value
presupposes a given historical stage of the social mode of production and is
itself a historical relationship arising out of that stage.” MECW 28, p. 183.))
In the Introduction, Marx discusses the category of labour in general from the
point of view of modern wage labour “in which individuals easily pass from one
kind of labour to another, the particular kind of labour being accidental to
them and therefore indifferent.”((MECW 28, p. 41)) Dashkovsky argues that since
this would be the case also in socialism, abstract labour would continue to
exist in the future society.((“The absence of any specific dominant type of
labour, easy transfer from one type of labour to another, loss of the connection
of the labour process with determined individuals -- all this occurs under
socialism in its highest development.” Isaak Dashkovsky, “Abstract labour and the
economic categories of Marx”
<https://libcom.org/library/abstract-labour-economic-categories-marx-isaak-dashkovskij>.))

In any case, as Marx stressed in one of his last writings, his analysis does not
proceed from the //concept of value// but from something tangible, //the
commodity//.((“//De prime abord//, I do not proceed from ‘concepts’, hence
neither from the ‘concept of value,’ and am therefore in no way concerned to
‘divide’ it. What I proceed from is the simplest social form in which the
product of labour presents itself in contemporary society, and this is the
//‘commodity’.// This I analyse, initially in the //form in which it
appears//. Here I find that on the one hand in its natural form it is a //thing
for use//, alias a //use-value//; on the other hand, a //bearer of
exchange-value//, and from this point of view it is itself an
‘exchange-value’. Further analysis of the latter shows me that exchange-value is
merely a ‘//form// of expression’, an independent way of presenting the
//value// contained in the commodity, and then I start on the analysis of the
latter.” Karl Marx, “Notes on Wagner’s Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie” in
MECW 24, pp. 544--545.)) It is the internal contradiction of the commodity
between use value and value which defines the law of movement of the currently
existing societies and which I have tried to outline in this text. It may well
be the case that the terms abstract labour and value should be reserved for the
analysis of the capitalist mode of production.((“[W]e can see that in communist
operational life, the amount of work required for the production of individual
objects of daily use means something quite different than ‘value’. And now it is
quite possible [...] that in common usage, the ‘value’ of goods in communism is
spoken of, although the term has acquired a completely different meaning. Here
[...] we do not want to set a bad example by using an old word for a new term,
[...] so we speak of the //production time// of the goods.” Group of
International Communists, //Fundamental principles of communist production and
distribution//, Hamburg 2020 [1935], p. 108.)) It does not follow from this,
however, that the existence of labour in general implies commodity production,
compulsory accumulation or wage slavery.

February 2023