> On Nov 9, 2009, at 9:47 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > > Use-values, by way of contrast, cannot > > generally be expressed in financial terms. > > > Marx consistently speaks of quantity of use-value. The only > quantitative unit common to commodities is market price. Exchange- > value created is by definition the same thing as labor time. If use- > value cannot be expressed quantitatively the productivity of labor > (output per unit time) becomes meaningless because there is no > numerator for the ratio whose denominator is quantity of labor time. > > Shane Mage > Use-values differ qualitatively, and this difference is essential. One thing's use-value cannot necessarily be substituted for another. For example, one needs air to breathe, and water to drink. One cannot replace the necessary air by any amount of water, or one dies of suffocation. And one cannot replace the necessary water by an additional amount of air, or one dies of thirst. The air and water are qualitatively different, and as use- values, they cannot be quantitatively equated.
But the essence of financial value is that things are exchangeable and that they can be quantitatively compared. It is only the act of exchange, the existence of the market, that creates the quantitative equivalence between things, which become commodities. Marx emphasizes the qualitative differences characteristic of different use- values, and the quantitative differences characteristic of the financial measure of commodities, and the resulting contradictions. Thus he states: "...As use-values, commodities are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange-values they are merely different quantities, and consequently do not contain an atom of use-value." (Capital, vol. I, Book I, Part I, Chapter 1, about 3 pages into Section 1, p. 45 of the excellent Kerr edition, as reproduced by Modern Library) And Marx goes on to say: "If then we leave out of consideration the use-value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labor. But even the product of labour itself has undergone a change in our hands....Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labor embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labor; there is nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract." Thus Marx distinguishes between concrete labor, in which the labor of one person under certain conditions, differs qualitatively, from that of another person under other conditions, and abstract labor, which differs only in its quantity. It is this abstract labor which is the stuff of exchange-value, and Marx says that this is what is left after we have "left out of consideration" the concrete use-values of both labor and the product. He makes a similar point in writing: "...Thus, economy of time, along with the planned distribution of labour time among the various branches of production, remains the first economic law on the basis of communal production. It becomes law, there, to an even higher degree. However, this is essentially different from a measurement of exchange values (labour or products) by labour time. The labour of individuals in the same branch of work, and the various kinds of work, are different from one another not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. What does a solely quantitative difference between things presuppose? The identity of their qualities. Hence, the quantitative measure of labours presupposes the equivalence, the identity of their quality." (Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft), Translated and with a Foreword by Martin Nicolaus, "The Chapter on Money", pp. 172-3, emphasis as in the original.) I.e., the quantitative measure of labour by abstract labor-time presupposes what Marx has pointed out is a falsehood, the identity of the qualities of different labors. Similarly, the quantitative or financial measure of commodities presupposes a similar falsehood, the identity of their quality as use-values. This is one of the contradictions underlying capitalist production. -- Joseph Green _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
