I believe it is Foss who writes (after his _ad hominem_ attack on Marx
for schtupping Lenchen):
>>The labour theory of value seems to apply, in the strict sense, to the extent
>>that the product, or “article,” is not only standardized, but is produced as
>>a “commodity,” entirely as part of “material reproduction.” The article, or
>>object, or Thing, as Marx says, “fulfills a need. It does not matter whence
>>that need arises, whether from biology or from fancy.” Tip of the hat here to
>>“culture,” provided we then exclude the latter as extraneous to the process
>>of capitalist production; and here Marx has shut us off from the future of
>>capitalism, its cultural industries, and the utter incongruity of the
>>fabrication of cultural products with the theory of Value associated with the
>>pure ideal of material production.<<
This kind of comment is so common that it's driving me crazy: what in
heck does it mean that Marx's so-called labor theory of value
"applies"? For some reason, the most respected academics think they
don't have to be clear about their definitions and meanings (or
thinking) when criticizing Marx. The usual (unstated) theory is that
the whole point of Marx's law of value (a more accurate phrase) is to
explain prices, so that it "applies" when price = value. (This assumes
Marx = Ricardo.) But for most of CAPITAL (volumes 1 and 2), price =
value is an _assumption_ and not something that Marx believed actually
applies in the real world. This assumption allowed him to get an idea
of the totality of social relationships under capitalism. The law of
value is all about: "who's doing the work? who benefits?"
There's nothing in the theory about items being "standardized";
rather, Marx _abstracts from_ specific use-values in order to
understand commodities _in general_ and (exchange) value. Marx does
not "shut us off" from cultural studies. That is just not the subject
matter of CAPITAL. When those who do cultural studies ignore
machinery, does that shut us off from studying machines? No. There is
no inherent contradiction between Marx and cultural studies.
It's not pure "material production," since the commodity labor-power's
value depends on cultural ("moral and historical") elements.
>> Marx gives examples in terms of quintals of wheat, yards of cloth, so many
>> hours of socially average labour time, so and so many pounds sterling or
>> thaler. Bulk and standardized production dominates the age of
>> Industrialization, and this gets more pronounced in the nineteenth century
>> with every expansionist phase of the trade cycle; most notably is this true
>> with the invention of interchangeable parts; then still more so when the
>> Germans pioneered continuous-flow processes. This is an old story. In
>> principle, the article, object, Thing corresponding to the pure ideal of the
>> commodity - that is, having materiality, which fulfills the “need” in
>> question, but without cultural content otherwise affecting its desirability
>> - has a “use-value” insofar as it fulfills the aforementioned “need,”
On the first page of the main text of CAPITAL, vol. 1, makes it clear
that wants and thus the use-value of a commodity sometimes springs not
from need but from "fancy." A commodity may be wanted but not needed.
>> and an “exchange-value” corresponding to the quantity of dead labour
>> embodied in the material inputs to the process of production, plus the
>> variable capital consumed by the capitalist in the production process, part
>> of the latter being “surplus value.” Surplus, because only part of the
>> variable capital is paid to the labourers in wages. The balance is what the
>> capitalist has extracted, pumped out of the living labour in capitalist
>> production, analogous to the feudal lord's allowing his serfs to support
>> themselves on their family holdings - minus rent, of course - whilst the
>> lord confiscates the entirety of the crop grown on his demesne.
>> Actually, the Marxian theory of surplus extraction works better for
>> feudalism than it does for capitalism; but let's not open that can of worms
>> at this time.<<
Actually, one of the main points of CAPITAL is that despite the
absence of the direct application of force under _laissez-faire_
capitalism (or social-democratic capitalism, for that matter) is that
the nature of capitalism as a society means that workers are exploited
_despite their freedom_. As Marx wrote, “the laborer purchases the
right to work for his own livelihood only by paying for it in
surplus-labor.” Despite a free-market transaction in the labor-power
market, the structural inequality of the power of the two main classes
means that workers _volunteer_ to be exploited.
>> One industry Marx should have considered, after he'd fully developed his
>> theory, was publishing. Consider the daily newspaper. The quantity of
>> socially average labour power embedded in an issue of a daily newspaper is
>> the same on Wednesday as it is on Tuesday. But. whereas the wretch minding
>> the news kiosk can get sixpence for the Times of London on Tuesday, for the
>> same day's paper, on Wednesday, he can get nothing; it is fit only to wrap
>> fish in. And the reason why it cost sixpence yesterday, not tuppence, has to
>> do with newspapers being heavily taxed, which had to do with the sphere of
>> political reproduction; and the paper consequently was something like the
>> ruling classes whispering in your ear.<<
Of course, Marx wasn't talking about prices. He also ignored sales
taxes, since his focus in CAPITAL was _laissez-faire_ capitalism.
(This guy goes for the worst of academic excesses, taking advantage of
your attention to pontificate on stuff he's thinking about, whether or
not it's relevant or interesting.)
>> In the late capitalist economy, a new car is immediately and substantially
>> devalued in Sep-tember, when the New Models Come Out. This is due to
>> capitalist control of the culture surrounding the market for new cars; it
>> permits the capitalist to reliably sell new cars whose novelty is the newest
>> feature of their guaranteed “advanced” high-technological design; and this
>> in turn implies a “relative use value” imparted to the product via the
>> capitalist's access to culturally manipulative and even oppressive devices
>> to extend and expand the market for cars as a whole, while sustaining the
>> appeal of particular brands and models, where the latter would otherwise
>> shrink. This is to say nothing of supposedly market-neutral, State-designed
>> and State-built “infrastructure” which has the effect of enhancing the
>> desirability, nay, necessity of car ownership. This year, possessing a
>> driver's licence has emerged as a new, compulsory requirement for exercising
>> the right to vote in the USA.<<
Contrary to this fellow's assumption, Marx did not reject supply &
demand as far as the explanation of prices is concerned. If his topic
had been the day-to-day determination of prices, he would have talked
more about supply & demand. In volumes 1 and 2, his theory is that (in
competitive product markets) changes in supply and demand meant that
prices are constantly gyrating around the "centers of gravity"
determined by the prices of production (which did not equal values).
It's only in volume 3, after he's analyzed the totality of capitalism
and starts looking at it from the inside (as its participants do, see
the first page of text in volume 3) that he gets to a more complete
story of supply and demand (which is unfinished, like the entire
book). He starts with the context (volumes 1 and 2) before he gets to
the details.
>> Cultural products, or “pseudo-commodities,” in terms of Marx's definition of
>> the “commodity” - in Capital, Volume I, Chapter 1 (see above) - are now
>> nearly or wholly emancipated from the “article-object-Thing” form or
>> character in terms of which the “commodity,” strictu sensu, was defined. In
>> popular music, the CDs, and in films, the DVDs, were hitherto made for a few
>> cents each, plus the plastic “jewel box,” maybe some barely scrutable liner
>> notes, and Special Whatsit Included thrown in. Today, with downloading, pop
>> albums, even classical music, and many - not yet all - films are
>> downloadable, as are e-books. In digital form, all these cultural artifacts
>> are copied from originals or copies for nothing, in any sense you please;
>> and the whole up-front market is supplemented by peer-to-peer torrents,
>> pirate sites, and so on. Those who cannot abide nuisances will pay the low
>> corporate charge; those who find it exciting to circumvent the behemoth will
>> pay less. Purely digital content, such as social science data sets,
>> scholarly databases, and the like, have been available on similar terms even
>> longer. <<
see my comments above.
>> What determines whether a cultural product has a market price? Or else, the
>> author or artist or researcher sinks into the ooze? One place to start is:
>> the product must be Meaningfully Different from other entities wherewith it
>> is in competition. One quails at the prospect of saying that some popular -
>> for three weeks, on some list published by Billboard, for instance -
>> non-silence is “better” than some clearly offensive dreck which the masses
>> do not like, either. Think of “Gangnam Style.” Or not. One billion people
>> adore this cut; and may still do so next week. But it's, well, hey, popular.
>> We are certainly adding it to our collection here. This is key. Cultural
>> products, whether Wagner's Ring cycle, or some film “in wide release,” get
>> Collected. One wants one's collection to have entries which are Meaningfully
>> Different from all other entries; or covers of “Hallelujah!” (Leonard Cohen)
>> different from all other covers, including that on X-Factor (or was that
>> Britain's Got Talent?).
>> Professors of social science are cultural products. They are entries in
>> Collections called Departments. They are employable if and only if and to
>> the extent that they are Meaningfully Different from all other members of
>> the same Department and from others with national or other widely reputed
>> reputations.<<
Right: this fellow may not know it, but he's a product of bourgeois
culture. And (likely because he has tenure) he's been able to blather
all he wants without being criticized, so he keeps on doing it.
>> ... So, Brian, Marx is not to be believed; or believed In. Marx, like
>> everyone, everything Else, is to be seen in Historical Perspective, even
>> you. But don't let that slow you down. It's just one of those Things about
>> Time. <<
I guess it's inevitable that this chap would end on a patronizing note
(or rather, a more patronizing note than those above). And of course,
Marx (like everyone or everything else) should be seen in historical
perspective. But what this guy is totally missing is what Marx was
talking about. He's read Marx very superficially.
JD
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