Exchange with Charles Brown:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Abstract labor ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
CB: I believe Marx is explicit in characterizing the quantifying of congealed labor as a fiction. Abstract labor is a fiction. There isn't any material "thing" in a commodity that we can find that corresponds to abstract labor.
Then, isn't quantifying power a fiction too ? If so, then the problem is not using fictions, but ,which fiction best helps us overthrow the actuality of capitalism. A "power" or "power of exclusion" that permeates everything may very well be a better way to think about it. The argument needs to be made more clearly from my standpoint.
JN [new]: We do not pretend to solve the broad philosophical question of “fiction” vs. “reality” here. Our argument rather is: (a) that Marx claims that commodities have a DEFINITE quantity of abstract labor (even if we mortals cannot directly “observe” that quantity); and (b) that this definite quantity is the BASIC UNIT with which capitalism is organized (“organized” in the sense of being the underlying category with which we can critically constructs and empirically explain the pattern of accumulation, relative price trends, distribution, the allocation of labor, crises, long term profit tendencies, and other such aspects of capitalism’s “laws of motion”).
We see both of these claims as deeply problematic. In our view, commodities do NOT have a definite quantity of abstract labor. (a) A basic unit of abstract labor is meaningful only if we accept that different qualities of concrete labor can be converted into a universal quantity of abstract labor. (b) Even if abstract labor does exist, the notion that commodities have a definite quantity of such abstract labor is impossible to defend – that is, unless we can agree on the objective existence and unique structure of the so-called input-output process (i.e. if we can agree on what “inputs” went into the production of what “output”, and precisely in what quantities).
Our own view is that neither of these claims stands, hence our claim that abstract labor cannot – and, indeed, does not -- serve as the basic unit of organizing capitalism. It is in this sense that abstract labor – and, therefore, “real” capital measured in value terms -- are fictitious.
Unlike abstract labor, power is a qualitative/multifaceted relationship. As such, power CANNOT have its own standard unit. It is the capitalist nomos that speculatively “quantifies” this power by discounting it into the universal ratios of differential capitalization.
The difference, then, is that Marx moves from quantities to quantities (from abstract labor to price), whereas our own theory moves from quality to quantity (from power to differential capitalization). A theory of capitalism built on the latter logic can only tell a story that reproduces this speculative reduction. It narrates how the qualitative processes of power are “registered” on the quantitative processes of differential capitalization.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Cosmology ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
JN: A bit of both, although "always" is too strong a word. As our cosmology changes, so do our theories of society. It is hard to judge Marx on many issues by today's standards.
CB: Why has your cosmology changed ?
JN [new]: Another complicated issue. We now have relativity, quantum, holograms, a critique of substance, etc. I think these contribute to a cosmology different that in Marx’s time.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Power ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
CB: I have to tell you that, following Marx, I already thought that capital represents the power of the capitalists to shape the process of social reproduction. Is it your understanding that Marx's theory doesn't already assert that? Are you saying that labor and labor power do not help _at all_ in understanding the quantitative process of accumulation ?
JN [new] Yes, Marx sees capital as representing the power of capitalists to shape society. But the way Marx understands the quantitative constitution of capital in terms of abstract labor prevents him from integrating the concrete nature of this power into the very definition of capital. We develop this argument in the paper and elsewhere in our work.
The qualitative nature of labor and labor power certainly can help us understand the quantitative nature of accumulation, but the so-called “quantitative” nature of labor and labor power cannot (see above note on the impossibility of abstract labor). Accumulation also involves processes that labor and labor power can tell us nothing about.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Organization ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
JN: The owners of Microsoft control an organization. Is this organization (less the building and computers) not "private property"?
CB: I don't mean to ignore your emphasis on the non-importance of labor and labor power, but it seems to me that the private property that remains of the organization, when you take away the buildings and computers is people's labor and labor power.
JN [new] From the perspective of accumulation, the primary function of MS’s organization is to preserve, enforce and enhance exclusion through intellectual property rights and other means. Remove these forms of exclusion, and the labor and labor power of MS’s employees would be worth nothing for the owners. This conclusion holds whether the employees are “productive” or not.
This argument is articulated, along with additional examples, in “Differential Accumulation” (1998) http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/archive/00000009/ and in “Dominant Capital and the New Wars” (2004) http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/archive/00000001/)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Accumulation of what? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
JN: Microsoft's capitalization hinges on the existence and enforcement of intellectual property rights, which involve a combination of the law and government policy. In this sense, part of the "property" of MS owners is their ability to commodify the law and the state organs that enforce this law.
CB: Yes. The Marxist theory is that the support of the state power for the private property rights of the ruling class ( in capitalism the ruling class is the bourgeoisie, owners of capital, accumulators) with major force is a necessary condition of for the system to go on. I guess another way to say this is that the ruling class "owns" the state and the law. Seems to me the classical way of saying it is better. The state and law aren't exactly something the bourgeoisie accumulate, in your sense of explaining things quantitatively. See _The State and Revolution_ by Vladimir Lenin; _The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_ by Frederick Engels.
JN [new]: There is a difference. In classical Marxism, if I interpret it correctly, the state “supports” the accumulation of means of production measured in terms of abstract labor. But if abstract labor does not exist, what exactly is being accumulated? In our view, the answer is power itself.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Socially created categories ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
CB: I have to wonder, if you don't recognize that Marx originated the idea that capitalism is a socially created, not natural, logic, are you understanding Marx enough to make the fundamental critique you claim. Marx poses abstract labor as a fiction, for example. Concrete labor, use-value is "stuff". Abstract labor, exchange-value , is not "stuff" in Marx's approach. You have to say "Marx had a fiction, we have a fiction, and our fiction works better for explaining what it happening."
... Doesn't Marx clearly call the production of use-values the qualitative aspect ? Use-values are qualitative; exchange-values are quantitative in terms of labor TIME, quantities of time. As labor time, labor can contain a quantitative code.
JN [new]: We fully recognize Marx’s insistence on the socially created nature of all capitalist categories, including abstract labor. In our view, this is one of his greatest merits. But as noted, we also think he got entangled (a) in supposing, perhaps under the influence of the chemical revolution, that the qualities of concrete labor could indeed be reduced to some quantitative elementary unit (abstract labor), and (b) that this unit indeed was the building block underlying the process of accumulation.
The issue is not that this is a socially created category, or that it is unhelpful or helpful in some sense. In our view, the issue is whether abstract labor DOES exist as a socially created category, and indeed, whether it CAN exist. We believe that it does not and cannot exist. But we are willing to be persuaded otherwise, preferably with some evidence.
Jonathan Nitzan (“New Imperialism or New Capitalism?” http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/archive/00000124/)
