Why is human labour the only thing possible to produce value?

[Broletariat]

Or to speak my question more directly, why cannot a fully automated assembly line produce value? It seems like if raw materials went in and out came shiny new products they'd be able to be worth more than the machinery and parts that went into them. I could understand if maybe in one industry or another it was the case that human labour alone produced value, by why is it the rule? Why does the cost of the raw materials plus the cost of constant capital never equal more than what they alone are worth?

[Blake's Baby]

Because 'value' comes from one person putting in effort that another doesn't. If we had machines that built other machines, which were less than the cost of the second machine, no-one would ever 'buy' a car, they'd buy a car-making machine, which would build the care. Of course, the car-making machine would be a machine built by people (with value) unless it was built by a machine-building machine... but if it was that easy to replicate stuff it would have no trading value because someone else would go "OK I could pay you 20 grand for that car, or I could use my 20 dollar replicator to make one from household rubbish." So a car becomes worth about 22 dollars (cost of replicator plus a few dollars' time to find rubbish and wait for car to be processed).

And if replicators can replicate replicators then the cost is 22 dollars divided by the number of replicators you can make...

If no labour goes into reproducing something, it has no value - eg, you can't sell 'air' though you can sell cylinders of oxygen which have been manufactured. If labour has gone in it means that to reach that state starting from raw materials you'd need more effort. So machines don't 'make' any wealth, they just spread it out.

[M-26-7]

So machines don't 'make' any wealth, they just spread it out.

Hmm, this is kind of a weird way of saying it, because machines do create wealth (i.e. use-values). They just don't create value unless they are combined with human labor. Replace "wealth" with "value" in your sentence and I'd agree with it.

Wealth (i.e. use-values) does not need to be a product of human labor:


Labor is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labor, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labor power.

However, once your sentence is changed to say "value" - and if I understand what you're getting at when you say that machines "spread out" value - then I think I agree:


an increased quantity of material wealth may correspond to a simultaneous fall in the magnitude of its value....However then productive power may vary, the same labour, exercised during equal periods of time, always yields equal amounts of value. But it will yield, during equal periods of time, different quantities of values in use; more, if the productive power rise, fewer, if it fall.

I'm not a Marxist, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong on something, but to me that passage from Capital says that a fixed amount of value can be "spread around" (i.e. imparted to a greater amount of commodities) by a rise in productivity. In a case where a factory was completely automated, you would merely have a case of extremely high productivity, where the only human labor (value) required to produce all those products would be the labor that goes into the maintenance of the machines.

[Blake's Baby]

I find holding Marx's terminology in my head to be quite a struggle (wealth versus use value versus exchange value). I know what I mean by 'wealth' (I was using it in the sense of 'socially-produced use-value'), but you're right, those passages do demonstrate that Marx used 'wealth' differently to me.

[BAM]

a fully integrated, automated assembly line would simply transfer its own value into the end product, but would produce no surplus value.

Imagine the scenario:

I am a capitalist who introduces a fully automated production process involving no human labour into my branch of production. The final cost of the commodities I produce is made up simply of constant capital (tools, machinery and raw materials). Initially, because I am able to sell above my own price of production but below the price of production of my competitors (thus at below the market value in my sphere of production) I am able to draw profit from my competitors by underselling them. However, if my production method spreads through this branch of production profits amongst all firms would fall to nothing.

So, why is it labour alone that produces value?

Well, it's not labour as such that is the substance of value, but abstract labour. Human labour in general, in other words. The reason is because we live in a society of market exchange where we are constantly buying and selling commodities, which are all the products of human labour. They are congealed forms of human labour. Thus market exchange is the continual exchange of products of labour.

Because labour-power is itself a commodity, it is treated in the marketplace as human labour in general. It doesn't matter what commodity each individual instance of labour (ie, concrete labour) makes. What matters is how this labour confirms to a level of social demand determined in the marketplace. Labour time must conform to social standards of productivity, and only the labour performed that measures up to this level counts. If I am only productive in 15 hours what the rest of the branch of production produces in 10, then the extra 5 hours of my labour create no value.

The extent to which this labour is value creating is the extent to which it conforms to the expectations of the market. Because of competition, there is a huge pressure in the market to innovate, to introduce labour-saving technology and/or increase productivity, in order to reduce the labour time socially necessary to make such and such a commodity.

[Broletariat]

*stuff you just saw that I'm merely quoting so you know who I'm addressing, which makes me ponder why I don't just say @BAM but it's too late now as I've already typed this up*


Thanks everyone, but the post that really helped me out was BAM's due to putting it in relation inside competition, eventually if everything was automated all Capitalists would strive to lower their prices so as to undercut their competition, but a commodity cannot be sold at less than its cost of production. Eventually price would equal cost in this case, thanks yo.

[danyboy27]

Or to speak my question more directly, why cannot a fully automated assembly line produce value? It seems like if raw materials went in and out came shiny new products they'd be able to be worth more than the machinery and parts that went into them. I could understand if maybe in one industry or another it was the case that human labour alone produced value, by why is it the rule? Why does the cost of the raw materials plus the cost of constant capital never equal more than what they alone are worth?

you will always need humans to maintenance, repair and create other machines.

this is a coponent you will never be able to take away from the system.

[Dimentio]

Or to speak my question more directly, why cannot a fully automated assembly line produce value? It seems like if raw materials went in and out came shiny new products they'd be able to be worth more than the machinery and parts that went into them. I could understand if maybe in one industry or another it was the case that human labour alone produced value, by why is it the rule? Why does the cost of the raw materials plus the cost of constant capital never equal more than what they alone are worth?

Ultimately, value doesn't exist outside the sphere of your mind. Some things are needed for physical survival, while others are needed for social status. I think that an automated assembly line would be a great idea, and would advocate that we work to bring as much as possible on an automated assembly line.

[BAM]

Ultimately, value doesn't exist outside the sphere of your mind. Some things are needed for physical survival, while others are needed for social status.

you're talking there about use-value, as opposed to value. Marx defines value as the social substance that two qualitatively equal commodities have in common, eg: 1 coat = 20 yards of linen. Value is the "third thing" that each has in common, but which is neither one nor the other. What the two commodities have in common is that they are products of human labour - human labour in general, abstract labour.

But even there, use-value is not only in the mind. The properties of a thing make it a use-value. Sure, the usefulness of something to you is subjective, but your needs - no matter what they are, whether they spring from your body or your mind, culture, etc. - are satisfied by the material qualities of the use-value in question.

[Dave B]

What ultimately underpins the value of useful things or use values is the amount of free time that needs to be given up to produce or obtain it.

And ultimately free time or freedom (from necessary work) is all that matters.

And thus value resides in the sphere of physical effort; and in the case mental effort in the mind as well.

For those that don’t have to work I suppose exchange value is all in the mind; as they only know the relative values or price of everything and the value (or amount of effort to obtain it) of nothing.


The underlying basis of labour time for a theory of value has been debated before with some critics of the theory in the past for instance saying why not base it on the amount of corn (food) required to produce something or anything.

Interestingly I believe that kind of argument has been resurrected by others; with energy accounting.

I suppose theoretically if ultimately all that mattered or what mattered most socially was say energy consumption or the associated ecological considerations then that may well enter into how we evaluate the usefulness of stuff.

[Dimentio]

you're talking there about use-value, as opposed to value. Marx defines value as the social substance that two qualitatively equal commodities have in common, eg: 1 coat = 20 yards of linen. Value is the "third thing" that each has in common, but which is neither one nor the other. What the two commodities have in common is that they are products of human labour - human labour in general, abstract labour.

But even there, use-value is not only in the mind. The properties of a thing make it a use-value. Sure, the usefulness of something to you is subjective, but your needs - no matter what they are, whether they spring from your body or your mind, culture, etc. - are satisfied by the material qualities of the use-value in question.

Objective "value" are things like fresh water, fresh air, nutrients and energy which you need in order to do things which either satisfy your own mind, your body or your social status within your community. Those later things are not intrinsically necessary in order to achieve anything.

The idea that human work adds an extra objective value to stuff is reeking of idealism. A tractor without a human to utilise it will be meaningless. The same for a telly, a telephone, a yacht or a mansion.

[BAM]

Objective "value" are things like fresh water, fresh air, nutrients and energy which you need in order to do things which either satisfy your own mind, your body or your social status within your community. Those later things are not intrinsically necessary in order to achieve anything.

Like I said, it doesn't matter if a need is a result of our biology or culture, whether it "springs from the stomach or the fancy". In fact, things such as fresh air have no value in an economic sense becuase no human labour is required to reproduce them. They are, however, use-values. Value in the Marxist sense isn't about how people "value" things - that is use-value. A commodity is both a use-value and a value. You are conflating the two different aspects. Marginal utility does this too: utility (use-value) is the determinant of value.


The idea that human work adds an extra objective value to stuff is reeking of idealism. A tractor without a human to utilise it will be meaningless. The same for a telly, a telephone, a yacht or a mansion.

I already said that usefulness is subjective. If there are no human beings there is no use-value. However, the satisfaction of needs can only be provided by the material qualities of the object in question. It's a materialist theory.

And as for your statement that "the idea that human work adds an extra objective value to stuff is reeking of idealism", you are just cutting down a straw man. Commodities are products of human labour, so unless you think that labouring is not a material process, Marx's labour theory of value is a materialist theory.

Also, it is not that human work adds "extra" value, but that in commodity producing society - capitalist society - human labour takes the form of value. The reason is becuase all commodities are products of human labour. Human labour-power itself is a commodity.

[M-26-7]

Objective "value" are things like fresh water, fresh air, nutrients and energy which you need in order to do things which either satisfy your own mind, your body or your social status within your community. Those later things are not intrinsically necessary in order to achieve anything.

The idea that human work adds an extra objective value to stuff is reeking of idealism. A tractor without a human to utilise it will be meaningless. The same for a telly, a telephone, a yacht or a mansion.

No, it's not idealism, actually it just means that Marx defined his terms differently than bourgeois (market) economists do, and you are using the definitions of the bourgeois economists.

In Marxian terms, the things you are talking about - fresh air, fresh water, productive soil, wild plants, etc - are use-values, but they do not have any value. And these things are free, as Marx's theory would have predicted (because having no value, they have no exchange value).

To me, these types of things -air, water, dirt - support Marx's theory of value. They are free, not because they are un-useful (quite the opposite), but because appropriating their useful qualities requires no labor.

Just to reiterate: For Marx, usefulness = use-value; for bourgeois economists, usefulness = value. But for Marx, value means something entirely different, it does not mean usefulness.

Again, a Marxist should correct me if I'm wrong.

[Lyev]

Or to speak my question more directly, why cannot a fully automated assembly line produce value? It seems like if raw materials went in and out came shiny new products they'd be able to be worth more than the machinery and parts that went into them. I could understand if maybe in one industry or another it was the case that human labour alone produced value, by why is it the rule? Why does the cost of the raw materials plus the cost of constant capital never equal more than what they alone are worth?But that has to be built and designed by someone, using human labour, in the first place. So, we just come right back to the beginning again, because the process of production starts with human labour, always. And "raw materials" need to be mined, excavated, extracted etc. from natural sources, as well. As I said, value starts with labour.

[BAM]

You're more or less correct.


No, it's not idealism, actually it just means that Marx defined his terms differently than bourgeois (market) economists do, and you are using the definitions of the bourgeois economists.

I forgot to mention that I also thought it was a bit rich for someone whip out the tedious "idealist" slur, especially after writing earlier:


Ultimately, value doesn't exist outside the sphere of your mind.

Still, I agree with most of this:


In Marxian terms, the things you are talking about - fresh air, fresh water, productive soil, wild plants, etc - are use-values, but they do not have any value. And these things are free, as Marx's theory would have predicted (because having no value, they have no exchange value).

To me, these types of things -air, water, dirt - support Marx's theory of value. They are free, not because they are un-useful (quite the opposite), but because appropriating their useful qualities requires no labor.

except for the fact that appropriating natural wealth does require labour, but it would only be value-producing in so far as entered into commodity production and exchange. For example, if I pick wild strawberries for a snack, I have exerted labour but not created value. If however, I cultivate and sell strawberries on the market, assuming they were all sold, this would create value.


Just to reiterate: For Marx, usefulness = use-value; for bourgeois economists, usefulness = value. But for Marx, value means something entirely different, it does not mean usefulness.

I would go further and say that for the "bourgeois" economists, they don't have a theory of value as such. The problem, as you say, is definitional.


Again, a Marxist should correct me if I'm wrong.

you're not wrong.

[BAM]

But that has to be built and designed by someone, using human labour, in the first place. So, we just come right back to the beginning again, because the process of production starts with human labour, always. And "raw materials" need to be mined, excavated, extracted etc. from natural sources, as well. As I said, value starts with labour.

while you are completely correct, the question was a hypothetical one, and indeed one that should be answered, so it's not enough to say simply that it already implies a labour process. We still have to show that if there were no human labour in a given branch of production profits would quickly fall to zero.

[Dimentio]

Also, it is not that human work adds "extra" value, but that in commodity producing society - capitalist society - human labour takes the form of value. The reason is becuase all commodities are products of human labour. Human labour-power itself is a commodity.

What we are measuring here is time and energy really. It takes time and energy to turn a piece of rock into a statue of Napoléon for example. But that doesn't necessarily add extra value. If I for example take a hammer and crush a window, I have not added any value to the window whatsoever, no matter how much time and energy I've put into the effort.

[BAM]

What we are measuring here is time and energy really. It takes time and energy to turn a piece of rock into a statue of Napoléon for example. But that doesn't necessarily add extra value. If I for example take a hammer and crush a window, I have not added any value to the window whatsoever, no matter how much time and energy I've put into the effort.

No, we are talking about commodity production and market exchange. If you smash a window, it is no longer a use-value, no-one would buy it, and hence you have wasted/destroyed value.

[Ismail]

What we are measuring here is time and energy really. It takes time and energy to turn a piece of rock into a statue of Napoléon for example. But that doesn't necessarily add extra value. If I for example take a hammer and crush a window, I have not added any value to the window whatsoever, no matter how much time and energy I've put into the effort.Are you seriously using the "mud pie" (or "shit sandwich") argument used by libertarians and thus constituting the dumbest "refutation" possible concerning the LTV? (Right up there with "If evolution was real, why do monkeys still exist?")

"What if I spend four years making a mud pie? IT HAS NO VALUE! NO ONE WILL BUY IT! TAKE THAT, MARX!"

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UltE6U4t8Vc

Come on, you've probably been a Communist longer than me.

Labor doesn't have some magical "value" added into it which is mysterious and unobservable. You should read up on the Marxist concept of socially necessary labor time, and note the social production of commodities in general. Some individual guy baking a mudpie or throwing a rock through a window (which is somehow even dumber as an argument) has nothing to do with anything.

[M-26-7]

Are you seriously using the "mud pie" (or "shit sandwich") argument used by libertarians and thus constituting the dumbest "refutation" possible concerning the LTV? (Right up there with "If evolution was real, why do monkeys still exist?")

"What if I spend four years making a mud pie? IT HAS NO VALUE! NO ONE WILL BUY IT! TAKE THAT, MARX!"

See: [youtube video]

Come on, you've probably been a Communist longer than me.

Labor doesn't have some magical "value" added into it which is mysterious and unobservable. You should read up on the Marxist concept of socially necessary labor time, and note the social production of commodities in general. Some individual guy baking a mudpie or throwing a rock through a window (which is somehow even dumber as an argument) has nothing to do with anything.

Yeah...I've only read the first chapter of Capital, and even that was a long time ago, but honestly, you only have to make it about 10 pages in before he addresses (and refutes) all the most common objections you hear against the labor theory of value, including the "mud sandwich" one.




Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour spent on it, the more idle and unskilful the labourer, the more valuable would his commodity be, because more time would be required in its production. The labour, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labour, expenditure of one uniform labour power. The total labour power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labour power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units. Each of these units is the same as any other, so far as it has the character of the average labour power of society, and takes effect as such; that is, so far as it requires for producing a commodity, no more time than is needed on an average, no more than is socially necessary. The labour time socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time. The introduction of power-looms into England probably reduced by one-half the labour required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth. The hand-loom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same time as before; but for all that, the product of one hour of their labour represented after the change only half an hour’s social labour, and consequently fell to one-half its former value.

We see then that that which determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the amount of labour socially necessary, or the labour time socially necessary for its production.[9] Each individual commodity, in this connexion, is to be considered as an average sample of its class.[10] Commodities, therefore, in which equal quantities of labour are embodied, or which can be produced in the same time, have the same value. The value of one commodity is to the value of any other, as the labour time necessary for the production of the one is to that necessary for the production of the other. “As values, all commodities are only definite masses of congealed labour time.”[11]

...

Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value.

For Marx, a thing can be a use-value (a useful thing) without having value, if it is like air or water, and required no labor to appropriate its useful qualities.

However, the reverse is not true: for a thing to have value, it must be a use-value. It can't be a mud pie that took four hours of labor to make.

[Sir Comradical]

To me, these types of things -air, water, dirt - support Marx's theory of value. They are free, not because they are un-useful (quite the opposite), but because appropriating their useful qualities requires no labor.

This is dead-on point.

I'd also add that we have to assume that humans must be paid for their labour and that only humans can purchase and consume commodities. A capitalist chooses to replace humans with machines only if the cost of paying workers is greater than the cost of maintaining a machine - which is usually the case. Once all competitive capitalists have re-configured their workplaces in this way, competition would cause prices to fall. Therefore, the new commodity represents less "value".

Computers are a great example of this, the amount of labour involved in producing computers has fallen dramatically as have prices, and if you take Moore's law into consideration, the drop in price is absolutely huge, the price per gigabyte of hard drive space has fallen massively.