Law of value as social relation?

[Traveller]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bettelheim


From the Cuban debate to the critique of "Economism"

"In the Cuban (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba) debate of 1963, Bettelheim was opposed to the voluntarist ideas of Che Guevara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara), who wanted to abolish free market and the production of merchandise through a very rapid and centralized industrialization, morally mobilizing "the new man." Bettelheim took a position against this plan - to which Fidel Castro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro) had also subscribed : both Che Guevara and Castro preferred the monoculture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoculture) of sugar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar) as the basis of Cuban economy, rather than a strict analogy to the economy of the Soviet Union. In Cuba, Bettelheim recommended a diversified economy, based on agriculture, prudent industrialization, broad central planning, mixed forms of property ownership with market elements—a pragmatic strategy similar to the "New Economic Policy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy)" begun in Russia by Vladimir Lenin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin) in 1922. Opposing Guevara, Bettelheim argued (in line with the last writings of Stalin) that the "law of value (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_value)" was the manifestation of objective social conditions which could not be overcome by willful decisions, but only by a process of long-term social transformation.


This debate demonstrated the profound differences which, from then on, separated Bettelheim from Marxist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist) "orthodoxy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Marxism)", which considered Socialism as the result of "the development of maximum centralization of all forces of industrial production". For Bettelheim, socialism is rather an alternative voice in development ; a process of transformation of social understandings. Inspired by the Chinese Cultural Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution) and the thought of Mao Zedong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong), and in cooperation with the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Althusser), Bettelheim was opposed to "economism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economism)" and to the "primacy of the means of production" of traditional Marxism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism): against the idea that socialist transformation of social bonds was a necessary effect of the development of the forces of production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_forces) (liberating those bonds from them, according to Marxist orthodoxy, since private property dominates them in "bourgeois" society), he affirmed the necessity for actively and politically transforming social connections. In his book Economic Calculations and Forms of Ownership (Calcul économique et formes de proprieté), Bettelheim re-thinks the problems of transition to socialism, while criticizing the supposition that nationalization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalization) and state ownership of the means of production was already "socialist"—it is not the legal form of property, but true socialization of the web of production, which characterizes such a transition ; the crucial problem in socialist planning is the replacement of the form of "value" with the development of a method of measurement which takes into account the social utility of production."


I hear sometimes that Marx was a forerunner of modern sociological theories because he wrote in the Capital that Capital is not necessarily a mere economic phenomenon but it is actually a more deep social relation between human beings that precede capitalism. So is it true for the law of value too?What is realtion between the two thing in this context?



So,what do you think?

[subcp]

There have been debates about the penetration of the law of value into 'life' via the commodity form for awhile. A lot of Situationist texts describe this (Society of the Spectacle is basically an argument that after WWII, there was a profound change in the economy- manifested in unproductive capital like advertizing as well as phenomenon like consumerism).

The formal to real subsumption of labor theories argue that after capitalism had expanded to create the world market (via colonialism for ex) there was a turn inward to greater exploitation, development of the productive forces by commodifying in new ways, the transition from absolute to relative surplus value extraction and greater penetration of the law of value into everyday life; and that a second phase of the real subsumption of labor starting with the crisis of 1973 ended with global restructuring of capitalism and increased exploitation based on generalized extraction of relative surplus-value (under the guise of neo-liberalism).

The Cuban debates you reference argue that the central planning and mixed-market (state capitalism outside of a command economy) are 'good' things, progressive steps. I take issue with that entire line of thought by so-called communists. But, in accord with the needs of global capitalism in that era, Bettelheim was a good pragmatic bourgeois state theorist and economist- regimes based on a command economy very rarely survive under the weight of international capital's needs (and crises) and the internal political contradictions (like the competing nationalisms of Yugoslavia and USSR). SR Vietnam and PR China are good examples of adopting that kind of pragmatic strategy for keeping the regime alive by adopting a similar economic program to the Western capitalist nations. But again, it's outside of the realm of Marxism for communists to make capitalism work better.

[cyu]

Not a Marxist here (nor even a particular fan of any economist I know) and not really getting into traditional views of the law of value. The rest is basically a tangent - feel free to ignore ;)

Personally I would divide the things that a person considers "valuable" into (1) what is personally of value to him, and (2) what is socially valuable (in that other people want it).

If I have one hotdog at lunch time, that could be valuable to me, since I could actually eat that hotdog. However, if I have 1000 hotdogs at lunch time, it's not so valuable to me. I can't eat that much and would only be of the same value if I could preserve them for future use.

However, if other people want some of those 1000 hotdogs, then they have social value - so I could trade some of them for things that actually do have personal value to me.

Anything involved in self-sufficiency I would put in the category of personal value. Stuff like mediums of exchange (fiat money, "precious" metals, stocks, bonds, bank accounts, etc) only have social value - if I were the last person on earth, all that stuff would be useless.

If you have a job and you produce X widgets a day, if you can't personally use all those widgets, then the rest only have social value. There would be no point in producing them if nobody else wanted them.

Similarly on a macro level, "personally" valuable things to a nation (or some other group) would be things that the nation (or group) would actually use. If they can produce 5 tons of certain metals a day, it would be "personally" valuable if they then used that to produce stuff they themselves wanted. It wouldn't matter if no other country wanted to trade with them or wanted to buy from them - as long as they could use it themselves, it has value to them.

However, if they can't use 5 tons a day, then the extra could only have social value.

I would say this view has implications for "protectionism" in an economy. Many economists treat the word "protectionism" as if it were taboo - something one simply does not do. However, I would say protectionism in industries that produce goods of "personal" value to the local population is just another way of increasing the wealth of the nation. It doesn't really matter if no other country wants the goods in your protected industries - as long as you are producing stuff your own economy could use, then it has value to you.

Even if you usually rely on the fire department to put out your fires, having the ability to put out fires by yourself is good, even if you never use that ability.

[subcp]

Marx's "lost/rediscovered" notes that were to be Chapter 6 of Capital (not published and translated until the 1960's-1970's) goes in-depth in exactly how value (use and exchange value) relate to production, at the point of production. It's a big part of the work of a small number of communists that argue the real subsumption of labor (a first and at least second phase of which has taken place) entails the law of value penetrating into more and more aspects of life on a deeper level. Camatte's Capital & Community is an overview and explanation of the ideas in Ch.6 aka 'Results of the Immediate Process of Production', ex.:



But let us return to the immediate process of production:

"...the labour process is single and indivisible. The work is not done twice over, once to produce a suitable product, a use-value, to transform the means of production into products, and a second time to generate value and surplus-value, to valorize value." (Results p. 991)
The immediate process of production is the indissoluble unity of the labour process and the valorization process; here the characteristics therefore proceed to the level of production.

"The process of production is the immediate unity of labour process and valorization process, just as its immediate result, the commodity, is the immediate unity of use-value and exchange-value." (ibid.)
To get a better grasp of this becoming of value that valorizes itself in the course of the production process, two more concepts should be specified: dead labour and living labour. We have seen that to understand circulation, we needed to know that every commodity has a use-value and an exchange-value, corresponding respectively to concrete and abstract labour. To understand the transformation of money into capital, it was necessary to go into the production process, which divides into labour process (use-aspect) and valorization process (exchangeaspect); now, inside this labour process, we must distinguish between labour that is dead, accumulated, objectified; that is the means of production have the character of exchange-value (constant capital), and living labour, labour-power with the character of use (variable capital).

"The distinction between objectified and living labour manifests itself in the actual process of labour... Furthermore, in the labour process, objectified labour constitutes an objective factor an element for the realization of living labour. (ibid. p. 993)
In this sense, dead labour has a use-aspect, nevertheless it primarily appears with the determination of exchange-value.


The argument that the command economies were approaching eliminating the law of value by producing primarily for use-value (even if this were true, which is not backed up by history) is not valid because of this unity between use-value and exchange-value at the point of production (and the moment of production of commodities) in capitalism.


Value does precede capitalism, as do a lot of things. But the 'social inertia' of capitalism is a unique social relation and mode of production.



This bit from the wiki article-



Bettelheim re-thinks the problems of transition to socialism, while criticizing the supposition that nationalization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalization) and state ownership of the means of production was already "socialist"—it is not the legal form of property, but true socialization of the web of production, which characterizes such a transition


is something that Lenin came up with 50 years earlier in 1918 (at least):



Yesterday, the main task of the moment was, as determinedly as possible, to nationalise, confiscate, beat down and crush the bourgeoisie, and put down sabotage. Today, only a blind man could fail to see that we have nationalised, confiscated, beaten down and put down more than we have had time to count. The difference between socialisation and simple confiscation is that confiscation can be carried out by “determination” alone, without the ability to calculate and distribute properly, whereas socialisation cannot be brought about without this ability.


-Left-Wing Childishness, Lenin, 1918


A party or a state (or in the confines of national boundaries) cannot decide to create new social relations; Marx and Engels wrote a good deal about class consciousness, the working-class abolishing classes and class society itself- a process of social revolution, not decree or statecraft. Social relations aren't determined by the conscious decision of a minority and then followed by everyone else, it'd take the effort of the great majority of the working-class population of the world to accomplish.