ZeroNowhere
2nd April 2011, 11:21
A use-value is a useful thing, such as a door or a window. Here, what is useful is the object itself, that is, its physical body. In the market, I may sell one thing to buy another; for example, if 1 door has the same price as 3 windows, I may sell 1 door to buy three windows. Here, the use of the 1 door is to purchase 3 windows, and therefore its utility, or value in exchange, is expressed in the amount of windows it can purchase, rather than in its own physical amount, as in exchanging it I in fact forfeit the use of the door's own physical body. Hence, value in exchange, or exchange-value, is expressed in terms of the physical body of another commodity, so that the exchange-value of 1 door is 3 windows.
Essentially, Marx is concerned with production for exchange. He finds that, in exchange-value, commodities are presented as products of abstract labour, "human labour-power expended without regard to the form of its expenditure," as the purpose of the commodity's production is not the specific object produced by the labour, but rather what it is to be exchanged for. For example, let us say that 1 bed, 2 cars and 3 windows all have a price of $60. As such, I could produce 2 cars in order to sell it for $60 and buy 3 windows; however, I could do the same with 1 bed, regardless of the fact that bed construction and car production are completely different processes physically. As such, bed-making and car-making production are here equivalent in terms of end, as their products have equal exchange-values. In exchange-value, then, the actual useful thing exchanged away does not matter, but rather the useful thing bought, and therefore various combinations of commodities may be sold to buy the same thing (as rooster pointed out above, a lot of bread could, in principle, buy an aeroplane); however, production for exchange is always the production of things to be exchanged away, and the specific physical actions carried out in this production depend upon the specific use-value produced to be exchanged away. As we said, bed-production and car-production are different, as different actions and materials are necessary to produce different commodities. However, in production for exchange, the producer is in fact indifferent to this specific physical form of labour, as their end is a product which they are not producing. As such, I may produce either beds or cars, but in either case receive 3 windows.
Marx then simply defines the product, insofar as it is a product of abstract labour, as a 'value'. Really, the 'labour theory of value' is a fairly silly label for this, and only came about due to the later idea of a 'subjective theory of value' which is opposed to the 'labour theory of value'; Marx did not refer to a 'labour theory of value', only a 'theory of value'. The only thing that a 'subjective theory of value' could seem to mean is the theory that abstract labour is carried out in the imagination; of course, if one imagines oneself producing 2 cars, one has not yet produced 2 cars. The commodity, as a product of abstract labour, is a value. A value is a product of abstract labour. That's pretty much it. Not all objects are products of abstract labour; for example, if I produce some toast for myself to eat, this is not abstract labour, as it is not carried out for exchange. As such, value is only an aspect of a commodity; likewise, the commodity is a mass, but it also has many other aspects. In addition, only social products, products produced for the consumption of others, can be values, as if one consumes a product oneself, one has not exchanged it away.
Looked at as simply a mass, however, it is differentiated from other objects only by its mass differing; for example, by being twice as heavy, equally heavy, and so on. Hence, we may say that it has twice the mass, or the same mass, as another object. We could say the same thing by saying that, as a mass, it has twice the magnitude (looked at only inasmuch as it is a mass, it has twice the magnitude). The same applies to value. As a value, it is a product not only of labour, but of a specific amount of labour. However, in abstract labour, the specific physical form of the labour is disregarded, and labour differs only by length. For example, I could spend 2 hours producing a bed to buy 3 windows, or spend 1 hour producing 2 cars to do the same. In this, bed-production and car-production are equalized as specific, physical forms of labour, as we have seen. However, they nonetheless differ quantitatively; that is, a different amount of abstract labour is requisite in each case. Given this, as a value, a car would have twice the magnitude, as it is a product of half of the labour in the abstract; here, of course, they have equal price, and therefore price is not equal to value, inasmuch as a commodity with twice the value sells for an equal price. Nonetheless, the windows must also be produced as values, as they, too, are exchanged in order to be the price of either 2 doors or 1 bed. As a price, it features as a specific product which is bought as a useful thing in itself, and hence as a product of a specific type of labour, as well as a specific duration of labour, while as a value it features as a product which is produced only to be exchanged away. Because of this, if it exchanges for a product which has had a greater duration of labour expended upon it than itself, then the other product exchanges for a product, the windows, which has had a lesser duration of labour expended upon it than itself, and therefore the two balance out and price equals value on the whole.
A commodity both is a value and has a value in the same sense that an object both is a mass and has a mass.
The above is extended to show that the product's value, its magnitude as a product of abstract human labour, is in fact determined by the average time taken to produce it in a given society. We have already seen that a commodity is a value only as a social product, and on the market it counts only as a sample of the total social product of its kind ("The individual commodity counts here only as a sample of its kind"), and hence the value of the individual commodity is in fact determined by this average in its magnitude, rather than simply the specific amount of labour expended upon it. As a product of abstract labour, in other words a commodity on the market, it features only as a sample of its kind, and hence only as a sample of the total labour carried out on the production of its kind. This amount is called the socially necessary labour-time.
If I take 5 seconds to type 'sssss', then this was the total time necessary to produce them. This amount will be determined by, for example, the ease of typing on my keyboard, the skill which I have at typing quickly, and also the effort put into the typing. Now, the time necessary to product the first 's' may have been 1.3 seconds, and this would be its individual necessary labour-time. However, as 5 's'es were produced in 5 seconds, the average of the individual necessary labour-times would be 5 divided by 5, that is, 1, and hence this is called the average necessary labour-time. If I were to put these 's'es on the market (however one puts typed letter 's'es on the market; imagine that each 's' is a car, and took 5 hours rather than seconds to make, if that helps), then the individual 's'es could be swapped around (for example, the third 's' could be sold first instead of the first when a person comes in to buy an 's'), and it would not make a difference, insofar as they are the same product and hence each 's' functions only as a sample of an 's'. As they are undifferentiated on the market in this manner, what comes to count is simply the total quantity of 's'es, and hence the total necessary labour-time; each commodity functions only as an average portion, or sample, of this. As such, as a product of abstract labour they serve only as a sample of the total abstract labour. The average socially necessary labour-time is simply the average necessary labour-time for a given society; we have already seen that a product is a value only as a social product, and hence only by forming a part of the total social product of that commodity.
Finally, it is clear that the product is a value, a product of abstract labour, only inasmuch as it is the form by which the producer comes into relation with society; that is, a social product. In all social production, a social relationship is created, and this social relationship is simply that of social production (not simply of giving to others, but of producing for others). Here, producers come into relation only by bringing their commodities into relation on the market. As such, the social relationship becomes a property of the commodity. Inasmuch as a commodity is a product of abstract labour, it is not a physical thing (a product of a specific type of labour), but a social relation between people. The social relation of social production between the people becomes a property, or aspect, of their commodities, precisely because their social relation consists simply of the exchange of their commodities. In social production carried out independent of exchange, such as producing a window as a part of charity work, where the window features only as a useful thing for somebody and is not sold to them, the product itself becomes the form of appearance of the social relation; in production for exchange, on the other hand, the social relation takes the form of appearance of exchange-value, the other commodity, inasmuch as one's own commodity counts only so far as it has exchange-value; that is, in the other commodity. The purpose of production is the product's exchange-value, not use-value, and hence the social relation is only established by the commodity in its property of exchanging for another, while in the charity work previously established the purpose is the product itself, which therefore becomes the form by which the social relation exists. This is the case even if one is rewarded for one's charity work, as what is characteristic of commodity production is that the product itself, as an object with the ability to be exchanged for others on the market, itself forms this reward. As such, one could have a family in which various people do various aspects of work (such as the 'patriarchal family' which Marx mentions) to produce wealth for the family as a whole, and where the amount which each member receives is made conditional upon their doing their own work (for example, if one member does not do their work, they may be given less of the others' product than usual, although still enough to survive), but this would not make their product a value. One could say that they 'exchange' a specific type of labour useful to the family for their own specific objects of consumption as part of the family (of course, all production is exchange of a specific type of labour for specific objects), but nonetheless their labour does not take the form of abstract labour, because they do not come into relation with their family through commodity exchange.
Marx covers most of this quite well, though, so you should be fine. I was somewhat brief with some aspects here, since Marx generally puts things well already.
ar734
4th April 2011, 20:48
here is an attempt to oversimplify it:
A worker makes a product and a capitalist sells it for $5.00. Now, where does that value, the $5.00 come from? The capitalist says it comes from the costs of labor, land, etc.; the profit, above the costs, comes from the magic of the marketplace. Thus, $4.00 for costs, and $1.00 for profit from the "free market."
Marx showed that the entire value, the entire $5.00, comes from labor: $4.00 from the cost of labor, land, rent, etc. The remaining $1.00 comes from the surplus value added by labor to the commodity. It is this extra value (which can be called value added) that the capitalist appropriates for herself.
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