The big problem with Marx is that everyone who talks about him thinks they already know what he said without having actually read anything he wrote. This includes most "Marxists". Trying to explain Marx to someone who already has a fully-formed preconception is futile. Same thing with Keynes, Freud, Darwin and probably just about any authority other than the most banal.
On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 9:31 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Hans, Jim and everyone, > > I am almost done my article, "The Vampire at Work, If Marx’s Math is > Fundamental, Why do so few Teach it?" > > I went to an anthropology list and found a few who love Marx and teach it, > but several anthros wrote to me that it is bunk. I have pasted the three > comments below. If anyone wants to take a stab at critiquing them, I'll > thank you dearly and I'll place you in the piece. > > You can read it from the bottom up, beginning with Daniel Foss, author of > Beyond Revolution. > > Thank you, > Brian ****** > > > > _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ > > Bingo! > > Each product has differing values to different consumers and even > sometimes to the same consumer when the situation varies. Additionally > there is value to distribution of the product between the producers and the > consumers. Consequently there are different values for the labor involved > in any particular product depending at least in part on who consumes. > Immediately the missing link in Marxist dialectic is exposed - that labor > has relative value in every case of production as a basic feature. There > are at least three legs to the consideration: labor, capital, and consumer > with the value that each can be held responsible for varying by situation. > > IOW the basic Marxist premise, the labor vs capital *dialectic*, is so > dramatically over-simplified as to be inherently inaccurate; it is a least > a trilectic of variables. Free market competitive economics is as badly > over-simplified in the opposite direction often even worse in that it > commonly becomes a uni-lectic, so to speak, since vendor competition is > only part of the value, itself, and nowhere ever the be all and end all. > They both ignore vital components that are vital to the consideration to > the point that neither one of them is actually capable of being applied, > unless so drastically modified as to be untrue to the original premise. > > Dale > > On 10/29/2012 11:33 PM, John McCreery wrote: > > If I were teaching, I would mention the labor theory of value and then go > on to explain why, to me, it is nonsense. > > Why? I run a business in which we negotiate prices with clients. Our > product is mostly translated words. Sometimes, the number of words is small > but the labor invested in them is large, At other times the number of words > is large but the labor invested in them is small. The first might be a > difficult piece of art-related translation, the second a market research > report for which the language is utterly conventional. In either case, the > piece rate paid by the client depends on the client's budget and > willingness to say "Yes," when we provide an estimate. Some clients will > pay the Japanese yen equivalent of a hundred U.S. dollars for the same > amount of text for which another can afford only fifty dollars. On our side > of the negotiation, a lot depends on how busy we are. We can almost always > make time for a client willing to pay top dollar. One who asks for a lower > rate when we are already busy? We politely decline the job. And all of > these considerations apply mainly to the translation side of our business, > where per-character or per-standard page (number of characters agreed upon > in advance) quotes are normal business practice. > > If the job is copywriting or speechwriting, both of which involve > original writing starting with a blank page the scale of the negotiations > changes radically. But the number of hours invested in producing copy that > satisfies the client can vary widely. On the side of the agencies that hire > us, the budget allocation for copy depends on the amount that the agency > expects to make on the media buy for the advertising in question. For a > quarter-page, one-off ad in a local newspaper, I may be happy to do the > work for the Japanese yen equivalent of a couple of hundred dollars. For a > multinational campaign in placed in multiple vehicles, I'd expect to make > at least a couple of thousand. The labor invested in the one-off local > newspaper ad might turn out, with a difficult client, to be more than that > invested in the multinational campaign, if one of my bright ideas catches > the client's fancy early in the presentation cycle. > > In sum, there is no necessary correlation between the amount of labor I > invest in a project and what I am paid for it. > > I would, however, go on to ask when assigning a fixed value to labor is > plausible. There, too, the answer is straightforward, when calculating the > costs associated with mass production. Even then, however, the > business-political-moral judgment involved requires assessment of the > labor's relation to other costs and the profits generated by the > enterprise. If the owners live like fat cats while the workers are nickeled > and dimed, something is clearly wrong. If workers' raises rise faster than > management's, something is, to my mind at least, clearly right. Ditto, if > things go poorly, and management cuts its take before asking for reduced > wages or benefits from workers. In either case, however, the income > generated and distributed more or less fairly depends on sales, which > depend in turn on customer judgments about the relation of the price asked > to the value delivered. > > The notion that labor alone produces value? Not in my world. > > John > > On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 12:34 PM, Daniel A. Foss <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hello Brian, >> >> The problem social science has had with the "labour theory of value" goes >> back to the problem Marx set himself at the very outset of his construction >> of a theory of capitalist political economy: the Grundrisse (1857) more or >> less opens with a cryptic sentence, "The problem before us, then, is >> material reproduction." What is that? I'm not at all sure. >> >> My supposition, surmise, guess, is that it means: The production or >> fabrication of the material surround of social life such that it looks more >> or less the way it is. Allowing for ongoing change, science, development, >> and so forth. What other kinds of reproduction are possible? There is >> biological reproduction, of course; but of course Marx, like a true >> Victorian hypocrite, has been impregnating the housemaid, while his nobly >> born wife, Jenny, has been out making a living, is not going to go there. >> Where the market in sex flourished, it was harshly criminalized, demonized, >> stigmatized as gross immorality, and poorly paid except for the higher >> reaches of the courtesans. Along with (marital) sex, there would have been >> included in biological reproduction, back in Marx's day, female-gendered >> activities, considered part of the "domestic sphere," which included food >> preparation, sewing, and housecleaning; these were "women's work," >> "Christian duties," etc., and performed by - unremunerated - family members >> wherever possible. This rule made exception for the rich capitalists and >> aristocrats, in whose mansions it was performed by employees not defined as >> workers by their employers or by themselves. >> To Marx, the mass of "servants" - who outnumbered the factory workers >> properly speaking until well into the nineteenth century - were part of the >> sphere of capitalist luxury consumption. In engaging (Downstairs) "staff," >> the Family (Downstairs) seemingly never soiled itself by mentioning money. >> >> To biological and material reproduction I'll add "cultural" and >> "political" reproduction. >> >> Now, to get going here: >> >> The four spheres of social reproduction I've laid out here >> interpenetrate, and the character of this interpenetration has shifted over >> time. To show this, let's get back to the project Marx thought he was >> embarking on, back in 1857: explaining "material reproduction," >> specifically, in the age of "Machinery and Modern Industry." Now, it is >> true that an Awful Lot of Stuff was starting to get made, and Made in >> Britain; and at that, made in stupendous quantities, by prevailing >> standards. All the more plausible, then, to give central, oversimplified >> focus, on the making of standardized products in capitalist factories, to >> which the "Labour Theory of Value" is explicitly addressed. >> >> 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. >> 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," 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. >> >> 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. >> >> In the late capitalist economy, a new car is immediately and >> substantially devalued in September, 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. >> >> 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. >> >> 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. >> How, then, do university administrators differ, in their practice, from >> wealthy collectors of Original Art Works? Well, the collectors of the art >> works don't necessarily understand what they collect, either. And do not >> necessarily even collect what they like. They have Committees to do that >> for them, in either case. >> >> Well after the Victorian era, we have had eras of "hook-ups," but >> prostitutes are now "sex workers," offended by the notion of Unpaid Labour. >> Cooking or food preparation was first redefined by assembly plants whose >> output was slices of roasted ground beef in sliced rolls, stuffing that in >> a box, and selling it with immense quantities of Pepsi. None of the toiling >> masses in these places would I call "luxury consumption of the capitalist >> class." In reaction came the Foodie epidemic, wherein and whereby celebrity >> chefs cooked on live television - in minutes - delicacies dated vicariously >> by viewers at home who were wishing they had the taste to appreciate the >> artistry of the confections they could see, and on special occasions, maybe >> sniff or touch, but still need worship unknowingly. >> >> 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. >> >> Daniel A. Foss >> ======================================== >> On Sun Oct 28, 2012, at 9:48 PM, Brian McKenna wrote: >> >> Dear Anthro-L list, >> >> I am writing this short journalistic article and am in the middle of it. >> I request comments from those who have opinions about why so few >> anthropologists (and other academics) teach the labor theory of value. >> Please also share if YOU do teach it and how. Thanks in advance. Brian >> McKenna >> >> >> ____________________________________________________________________________________________ >> The Vampire at Work, >> If Marx’s Math is Fundamental, Why do so few Teach it? >> Brian McKenna >> “Capital is dead labor, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living >> labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.” >> Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 1, (1867:233) >> >> Subscription options and archives available: >> http://listserv.buffalo.edu/archives/anthro-l.html >> > > > > -- > John McCreery > The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN > Tel. +81-45-314-9324 > [email protected] > http://www.wordworks.jp/ > Subscription options and archives available: > http://listserv.buffalo.edu/archives/anthro-l.html > > > Subscription options and archives available: > http://listserv.buffalo.edu/archives/anthro-l.html > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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