Re: do we have problem with the labour theory of value

From;

Anti-Dühring by Frederick Engels 1877
Part III: Socialism

Theoretical

For a bit of dialectical magic, now you see it now you don't, a bit 
like the fairground shell game.


"In mediaeval society, especially in the earlier centuries, 
production was essentially directed towards satisfying the wants of 
the individual. It satisfied, in the main, only the wants of the 
producer and his family. Where relations of personal dependence 
existed, as in the country, it also helped to satisfy the wants of 
the feudal lord."

Ahh, I see Fred, so the Lord of the Manor was a "personal" 
dependent, like a young child or one of your own kids with a big 
appetite. Like a cuckoo in the nest. Because the workers are stupid 
enough, like now,  to feed it of their own free will, it is not 
exploitation.  

"In all this there was, therefore, no exchange; the products, 
consequently, did not assume the character of commodities."

No! just a straightforward case of robbing the stupid, again, a bit 
like now.

 "The family of the peasant produced almost everything they wanted: 
clothes and furniture, as well as means of subsistence. Only when it 
began to produce more than was sufficient to supply its" the 
peasants  "own wants"

As before.


 That  " payments in kind to the feudal lord "became "commodities"


BOLLOCKS !!!






--- In WSM_Forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "balmer_dave" <balmer_dave@...> 
wrote:
>
> Just to introduce myself as I am new to the forum, I am Dave of 
> Manchester, active member 20 years and, in case it seems otherwise 
> still committed.
> 
> The party position is that (feudal) peasants do not produce 
surplus 
> value. In itself this is an extremely trivial issue. However I 
> believe it has highlighted a deep misunderstanding of the labour 
> theory of value that others in the party use to underpin the party 
> case.
> 
> This same misunderstanding appears to have been debated amongst 
the 
> Leninists. I have become aware of the Leninist position on this 
> subsequently, after discussing the issue with some Trot friends I 
> have. 
> 
> It looks like they may have all overlooked an absolutely crucial 
> passage right at the beginning of Vol I as it is so difficult to 
> read.
> 
> I am not nor do I wish to become a Marxist geek but if we insist 
on 
> claiming to be true Marxists, not my position, we need to make 
sure 
> we understand it correctly. 
> 
> The answer to the question do peasants produce surplus value 
> according to the "New Speakers Handbook" produced by the Education 
> Committee in 1982, is:  "Strictly speaking no. They certainly 
> performed surplus labour upon the fields of the lord or rendered 
him 
> a portion of their own produce and these were both unpaid labour. 
> But the products of this surplus labour did not uniformly come 
onto 
> a market, they were for consumption in the manor or for exchange 
in 
> the village locally.
> 
> And much more importantly-:
> 
> "Surplus value is a peculiarity of the wage relationship under 
> capitalism".
> 
> Now for some of the foot soldiers and village idiots in the party 
> like myself this has always proved a bit of a difficulty. While 
our 
> intellectuals were reading clever stuff we were watching Robin 
Hood 
> films, "Gone With the Wind" and reading feudal love stories like 
> Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.
> 
> I couldn't help asking myself where did the feudal aristocracy in 
> Anna Karenina get all their money from to buy all the nice stuff 
> that they seemed to have in abundance. Surely all the gold, 
diamonds 
> and silk dresses were not produced in the local village. Similarly 
> with the Sheriff of Nottingham who always appeared to be loaded, 
> although he did have a proper job. I think Robin  had similar 
ideas 
> to my own and suspected that this wealth was the surplus value 
> expropriated from the peasants and was attempting to redress the 
> situation. 
> 
> Also whilst keeping the cotton picking slaves in the background, 
> Scarlet O'Hara and family were demonstrably equally well endowed 
> with silk dresses and nice things without doing an ounce of work.
> 
> I have been told that our American comrades, to their credit, 
after 
> much head scratching and wrangling decided that their slaves did 
> indeed produce surplus value.
> 
> They might have saved themselves a bit of bother if they had 
looked 
> up "Slavery" in the index of Vol III and found-:
> 
> "Take for instance, the slave economy. The price paid for a slave 
is 
> nothing but the anticipated and capitalised surplus-value or 
profit 
> to be wrung out of the slave."
> 
> Vol III pg 809 L&W  1974
> 
> And on page 804
> 
> " The entire surplus-labour of the labourers, which is manifested" 
> easily noticed "here in the surplus product, is extracted from 
them 
> directly by the owner of all instruments of production, to which 
> belong the land and, under the original form of slavery, the 
> immediate producers themselves. Where the capitalist outlook 
> prevails, as on American plantations, this entire surplus value is 
> regarded as profit;"
> 
> The later form of slavery is the condition we are all in I think 
ie 
> wage slavery.
> 
> 
> Maybe they did know about this quote, I don't know. I am going to 
> find it hard I think to reconcile American plantation slavery 
> to "peculiarity of the wage relationship under capitalism". 
However 
> it takes a load of my mind as "Gone With the Wind" now makes a lot 
> more sense. 
> 
> Now I will return to the thorny problem of Robin Hood and his 
> slightly confused merry men and the rich bastards in Anna 
Karenina. 
> 
> Vol. III, chapter XLVII, Genesis of Capitalist Ground Rent, 
section 
> II,pg 790 we have-:
> 
> " during part of the week and works during the remaining days upon 
> the estate of the feudal lord without any compensation from the 
> feudal lord, the situation here is still quite clear, for in this 
> case rent and surplus value are identical. Rent, not profit, is 
the 
> form here through which unpaid-surplus labour expresses itself." 
> 
> To avoid any possible doubt about what this rent is later we have-:
> 
> "rent i.e. the enforced surplus labour to be surrendered to the 
> landowners."
> 
> The serf is in effect renting the land that the serf works for 
> himself from the Lord, paying that rent in the form of unpaid 
> labour, labour rent. 
> 
> 
> So it looks like the feudal peasants produce surplus value too, 
> another load off my simple mind. It looks like something funny is 
> going on here though. How can rent, "enforced surplus labour" 
> be "identical" to surplus value, this would imply surplus labour 
is 
> surplus value and surplus value is surplus labour. Has Karl made a 
> slip? I will come back to this later, but no he hasn't, he rarely 
> does, clever bastard.
> 
> To avoid any doubt on page 792 we have-:
> 
> "But this identity of surplus value with unpaid labour" surplus 
> labour "of others need not be analysed here, because it still 
exists 
> in its visible, palpable form, since the labour of the direct 
> producer for himself is still separated in space and time from his 
> labour for the landlord"
> 
> Yet another identity.
> 
> Palpable means obvious to the mind and senses, it is probably the 
> strongest word in the English language for obvious.
> 
> What I think he is saying here is that in wage labour it is not 
easy 
> to see surplus labour. There is no clear division between 
necessary 
> labour and surplus labour, a bell doesn't ring at 2pm to tell you 
> that you are no longer working for yourself and you should go 
home. 
> Also both types of labour are done in the same place. For the 
feudal 
> peasant it is obvious when and where he is working for himself and 
> for his Lord.
> 
> It has been put to me something like, that Vol III is not a proper 
> book and just a compilation of notes put together by Fred and 
> therefore it is not be relied upon. An allegation that I reject as 
> did Fred in his supplement to Vol III. We should be careful not to 
> adopt a pick and mix attitude to Capital like the Leninists do. 
> 
> However I can accept it for arguments sake. 
> 
> Corvee labour is defined in my dictionary as a days unpaid labour 
> owed by a feudal vassal to his lord.
> 
> Section 2, chapter X, Vol I, pg 238 
> 
> "The ratio of the corvee???..to the necessary labour??????..Gives 
a 
> much smaller rate of surplus value"
> 
> ie it seems feudal vassals produce surplus value too.
> 
> 
> There are other cases elsewhere in Capital of Slaves in antiquity, 
> ancient slaves, small Roman peasants (under five feet six) etc 
> producing surplus value.
> 
> I would like now to return to this "identity" of labour to value. 
> Identical is, being the same, exactly alike, equal. Only since 
> reading Vol.I, I have picked up a difficult and completely 
different 
> understanding of the labour theory of value to the one held by 
> members of the party. I have carried this understanding with me 
> through Vol II and III and with it everything he has said has been 
> consistent and made sense. 
> 
> (What follows applies to Karl's time when everything was on the 
gold 
> standard, money was effectively gold, the universal money 
commodity. 
> It is more complicated now.)
> 
> My mad Idea.
> 
> It is that Labour is Value and Value is Labour, an identity in 
fact. 
> Value is just a measure of the labour embodied in an article 
> measured by the equivalent amount of labour in another article eg 
> gold. So a table contains 5 hours labour and is thus equivalent to 
a 
> quarter of an ounce of gold because a quarter of an ounce of gold, 
> £57, contains 5 hours of labour.
> 
> This is the substance of a table is worth £57.
> 
> This is Karl's idea of "The General Form of Value" pg 65 and "The 
> Money Form" pg 69
> 
> I came up with what I thought was a clever analogy for this and 
> subsequently found out that a Trot Marxist theoretician had beaten 
> me to it, Mick Brooks.
> 
> You have to think of labour as weight and lbs as value. A bag of 
> potatoes has weight (expended labour) and the quantity of weight 
is 
> 5lbs (its value). But what is this 5lbs? One lb (value) is nothing 
> but another weight, a standard weight(expended labour in an ounce 
of 
> gold) of a block of brass in some institution.
> 
> Brooks says lbs and value are phenomenal abstractions, they don't 
> really exist except in relation to something real ie a block of 
> brass and a piece of gold, and gold is nothing but expended 
labour, 
> I agree.
> 
> You can touch, feel and see 5 lbs of something, but 5 lbs doesn't 
> exist in the real world.
> 
> To pursue this, another Leninist expert has apparently, if only 
> briefly, come to the same conclusion namely none other than the 
> famous Ernest Mandel.
> Theory : Ernest Mandel Archive : Karl Marx 
> Marx's Labour Theory of Value
> Karl Marx - Part 4 The Basic Theories of Karl Marx
> 
>  "Marx inherited the labour theory of value from the classical 
> school. Here the continuity is even more pronounced; but there is 
> also a radical break, For Ricardo, labour is essentially a 
> numeraire, which enables a common computation of labour and 
capital 
> as basic elements of production costs. For Marx, labour is value."
> 
> In some text "labour is value" is in italics for emphasis.
> 
> 
> I would rather spend a week with the Moonies that read too much 
> Mandel. Interestingly from this you might expect surplus labour is 
> surplus value which is my understanding. However in chapter 7 he 
> says something like surplus value is the money value of the 
surplus 
> product. 
> 
> This is a contradiction to Karl's own definition of surplus value
> 
> Chapter IX, pg217, L&W 
> 
> "It is every bit as important, for a correct understanding of 
> surplus value, to conceive it?????.. as nothing but materialised 
> surplus labour?????as it is, for a proper comprehension of value , 
> to conceive of it as??..nothing but materialised labour."
> 
> 
> 
> Just to test this mad idea if we go back to the Vol III and the 
> feudal peasants quote, if labour is value then we have no problem 
> with "enforced surplus labour" being "identical" to surplus value. 
> We have no problem with corvee peasants producing surplus value 
and 
> for that matter our American slaves. Robin Hood and Anna Karenina 
> were all true after all.
> 
> If we go back again to Vol I pg 38, 4 pages in, Karl has been 
> talking about a table, a house and yarn and has put aside the 
> useful, use value, and "concrete" aspects of these things.
> 
> "Let us now consider the residue of each of these products; it 
> consists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere 
> congelation of homogenous human labour of labour power expended 
> without regard to the mode of its expenditure. All that these 
things 
> now tell us, is that human labour power has been expended in their 
> production, that human labour is embodied in them. When looked at 
as 
> crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are-
> Values."
> 
> This is just typical of Karl, when he has something really 
important 
> to say he goes all poetical on you and you have to spend 10 
minutes 
> figuring out what he has just said.
> 
> He is thinking of a table but is ignoring the fact that it is 
> something you eat your dinner off, use value, and the fact that it 
> has four legs and a flat top, the "concrete". He is thinking of it 
> in his mind's eye, in his imagination as a carpenter working away 
> with his saw and chisel, the "unsubstantial reality". 
> 
> This is the "congelation of homogenous human labour" the "labour 
> power expended", the "human labour" that is "embodied in them" and 
> the crystal of social substance. Labour is value.
> 
> Lose sight of this idea, which is very easily done and you are 
lost 
> to confusion and misunderstanding. 
> 
> Concerning the labour and its "mode of its expenditure" this is 
> almost certainly a reference to his normal "mode of production" by 
> which he means wage labour, slave labour, peasant labour, 
> independent handicraft labour etc. In other words they all produce 
> value.
> 
> Regarding peasants Karl does have a special case where surplus 
> products that are not commodities(things produced for exchange, 
but 
> not necessarily for sale) "appear" to be voluntarily handed over 
and 
> this does not constitute exploiters consuming or accumulating 
> surplus value. This is the case, according to Karl, for peasants 
in 
> the "European Middle Ages", 450 to 1450 AD pg 77 and mediaeval 
> peasants pg 41, same thing. 
> 
> I personally disagree, I think he might have benefited from 
watching 
> Robin Hood films like me, he seems to have changed his mind on 
this 
> late in Vol III.
> 
> Answer 59 should be something like-:
> 
> According to Karl peasants in the "European middle ages"  and 
> mediaeval peasants do not produce surplus value. They certainly 
> voluntarily laboured upon the fields of the lord or rendered him a 
> portion of their own produce and these were both unpaid labour. 
But 
> the product did not come onto a market, they were for consumption 
in 
> the manor or for exchange in the village locally. Surplus value is 
a 
> peculiarity of some forms of commodity production. 
> 
> As an addendum strictly speaking, saying that labour is value 
would 
> imply that in a money-less socialism we would still have value as 
we 
> would still have labour. I agree and so does Karl. 
> 
> Vol III Pg 851
> 
> " Secondly, 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 book-keeping encompassing all 
> this, becomes more essential than ever."  
> 
> Consistent to the end, labour is value.
> 
> "it creates surplus labour or, what amounts to the same thing, 
> surplus value;"
> 
> Karl,    The  Grundrisse  NOTEBOOK III  29 November - c. mid-
> December 1857, continued  3rd paragraph
>