Would Value Be Abolished Under Lower Part Communism?

[BornDeist]

The question is in the title.

[freecommunist]

What is "Lower Part Communism?"?

[Slavic]

No. Value represents the man hours required to produce a commodity. Regardless the point of the development of socialism, commodities would still need to be produced and they will still retain a value.

[Decolonize The Left]

The question is in the title.

Value cannot be abolished. Consider that two people in the woods with no contact with society can still value a stick, or a rock, or a leaf, in many different ways both according to utility and emotion.

What is abolished is surplus value - that value, which is currently stolen by the capitalist class, is returned to the working class by the working class itself through the possession of the means of production.

[Thirsty Crow]

No. Value represents the man hours required to produce a commodity. Regardless the point of the development of socialism, commodities would still need to be produced and they will still retain a value.


Value cannot be abolished. Consider that two people in the woods with no contact with society can still value a stick, or a rock, or a leaf, in many different ways both according to utility and emotion.
No, and no.

It is precisely the point that developed communism presupposes the abolition of generalized commodity production. As opposed to this way that social development goes on (as this is actually a question of the sources and imperatives of social development based on definite class relations), the so called lower stage of communism has as its projected basis the social planning of production of necessities of both life (personal consumption) and production (productive consumption). If the projected renumeration through performed labor time is the only possible element that would enable the talk of value, then we'd also need to recognize that this value relation is not at all the capitalist value relation. Anyway, the point is that the de-commodification of labor power needs to be actually completed if one were to talk of a lower stage communism; and I think any talk of commodity production and consequently of value is misleading here.

[Slavic]

No, and no.

Anyway, the point is that the de-commodification of labor power needs to be actually completed if one were to talk of a lower stage communism; and I think any talk of commodity production and consequently of value is misleading here.

If within a communist society, I go into a factory and work for three hours and produce 1 car part which is distributed to society. How many hours of labor are within said car part and what would its value be?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

If within a communist society, I go into a factory and work for three hours and produce 1 car part which is distributed to society. How many hours of labor are within said car part and what would its value be?

Nothing - while labour-power will need to be expended to produce objects in the communist society the socially-necessary labour-time expended to produce an object will not be realised as an exchange value, because objects will no longer be commodities to be exchanged. To the extent that we can talk about value in the communist society, we are talking about the remnants of bourgeois norms.

By the way, the notion that the labour-value of the car part is equal to the three hours you spent producing it is really simplistic - it ignores the difference between socially-necessary labour time and actually expended labour-time, it ignores that production is a social process and that the expended socially-necessary labour time can't be neatly divided into contributions from individual workers etc.

[Thirsty Crow]

If within a communist society, I go into a factory and work for three hours and produce 1 car part which is distributed to society. How many hours of labor are within said car part and what would its value be?
Loaded question.

The point, to follow your example, would be that said car part wouldn't be produced as a commodity; therefore, wouldn't sell for a profit and through wage labor, and profit is only the income phenomenon corresponding to the existence of capital; consequently, the factory itself wouldn't function as a discrete unit of production, as an enterprise based on society wide value relation directing production and social development.

On the other hand, the issue with labor time renumeration, at least if we limit the discussion to Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme, is strictly related to the development status of the productive apparatus which is postulated to reach the levels of abundance enabling free access in what is termed the higher stage of communism.

[Tim Cornelis]

If within a communist society, I go into a factory and work for three hours and produce 1 car part which is distributed to society. How many hours of labor are within said car part and what would its value be?


Owen’s ‘labour money,’ for instance, is no more ‘money’ than a theatre ticket is. Owen presupposes directly socialized labour, a form of production diametrically opposed to the production of commodities. The certificate of labour is merely evidence of the part taken by the individual in the common labour, and of his claim to a certain portion of the common product which has been set aside for consumption. But Owen never made the mistake of presupposing the production of commodities, while, at the same time, by juggling with money, trying to circumvent the necessary conditions of that form of production.


Let us finally imagine, for a change, an association of free men, working with the means of production held in common, and expending their many different forms of labour-power in full self-awareness as one single social labour force. All the characteristics of Robinson’s are repeated here, but with the difference that they are social instead of individual. All Robinson’s products were exclusively the result of his own personal labour and they were therefore directly objects of utility for him personally. The total product of our imagined association is a social product. One part of this product serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another part is consumed by the members of the association as means of subsistence. This part must therefore be divided amongst them. The way this division is made will vary with the particular kind of social organization of production and the corresponding level of social development attained by the producers. We shall assume, but only for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour-time. Labour-time would in that case play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the correct proportion between the different functions of labour and the various needs of the associations. On the other hand, labour-time also serves as a measure of the part taken by each individual in the common labour, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, both towards their labour and the products of their labour, are here transparent in their simplicity, in production as well as in distribution.


On the basis of communal production, the determination of time remains, of course, essential. The less time the society requires to produce wheat, cattle etc., the more time it wins for other production, material or mental. Just as in the case of an individual, the multiplicity of its development, its enjoyment and its activity depends on economization of time. Economy of time, to this all economy ultimately reduces itself. Society likewise has to distribute its time in a purposeful way, in order to achieve a production adequate to its overall needs; just as the individual has to distribute his time correctly in order to achieve knowledge in proper proportions or in order to satisfy the various demands on his activity. Thus, economy of time, along with the planned distribution of labour time among the various branches of production, remains the first economic law on the basis of communal production. It becomes law, there, to an even higher degree. However, this is essentially different from a measurement of exchange values (labour or products) by labour time.

http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/marx’s-critique-of-socialist-labor-money-schemes-and-the-myth-of-council-communism’s-proudhonism.html

[Slavic]

I've never referred to exchange value, none of my statements or examples used an exchange value or a market.

By value I am referring to the quantitative amount of labor infused in a commodity. I am not referring to the exchange value. All products must be produced, and all production requires hours of labor, thus all products have a quantitative value as measured by their hours of labor.

Also I realize that my use of 'commodity' is wrong in this context, the post-capital context. What term is used for a good that only has a use-value? A good?

[Thirsty Crow]

Also I realize that my use of 'commodity' is wrong in this context, the post-capital context. What term is used for a good that only has a use-value? A good?Whatever you like, really. I'm not aware of any agreed to terminology here.

The way you talk about "value" is applicable to any social formation really; as the quotes provided by Tim show, this merely refers to the fact that any kind of a production needs to work with time constraints.

That on its own means that you're not talking about the capitalist value relation really; and it would seem that value, in this sense, indeed would be abolished in so called lower stage of communism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I've never referred to exchange value, none of my statements or examples used an exchange value or a market.

By value I am referring to the quantitative amount of labor infused in a commodity. I am not referring to the exchange value. All products must be produced, and all production requires hours of labor, thus all products have a quantitative value as measured by their hours of labor.

Also I realize that my use of 'commodity' is wrong in this context, the post-capital context. What term is used for a good that only has a use-value? A good?

Yes, I think "good" is the general term that covers both commodities and objects and services that would be freely available in the communist society. I think the rest of your post is somewhat confusing - use values are not labour values. Labour values are exchange values - they're part of the Marxist analysis of capitalism and the markets. Use values simply represent the utility of certain goods - they're partly a property of the commodity, and partly that of the broader society, unlike labour values which are a property of the production process. They don't change with improvements in the production process, for example.

[Decolonize The Left]

No, and no.

It is precisely the point that developed communism presupposes the abolition of generalized commodity production. As opposed to this way that social development goes on (as this is actually a question of the sources and imperatives of social development based on definite class relations), the so called lower stage of communism has as its projected basis the social planning of production of necessities of both life (personal consumption) and production (productive consumption). If the projected renumeration through performed labor time is the only possible element that would enable the talk of value, then we'd also need to recognize that this value relation is not at all the capitalist value relation. Anyway, the point is that the de-commodification of labor power needs to be actually completed if one were to talk of a lower stage communism; and I think any talk of commodity production and consequently of value is misleading here.

I'm sorry, but this is an incredibly overly dense reply to a simple statement. I said that value can't be abolished because, basically, humans are value-assigning creatures (value is a derivative of meaning in this sense).

You, in reply, said... what?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I think LR was talking about value as the term is used in Marxist economic theory - as was I. You seem to be talking about value-judgments, which are, at best, loosely connected to use-value, and were probably not what the OP had in mind.

[Tim Cornelis]

I'm sorry, but this is an incredibly overly dense reply to a simple statement. I said that value can't be abolished because, basically, humans are value-assigning creatures (value is a derivative of meaning in this sense).

You, in reply, said... what?

You also said this:



What is abolished is surplus value - that value, which is currently stolen by the capitalist class, is returned to the working class by the working class itself through the possession of the means of production.

Which is inaccurate. First, there is no working class in socialism. Second, it implies commodity production and profit-sharing. Surplus value is abolished, as is exchange-value, and the value-form.

[reb]

No, value will cease to exist in communism, both lower and upper. Value manifests itself because there is property and exchange in existence. Any who argues that value will exist in a lower phase of communism are arguing for a capitalist ideology, a disease that affects the proletarian movement from Stalinism and other petty bourgeois elements that call themselves socialist.

[ckaihatsu]

No, value will cease to exist in communism, both lower and upper. Value manifests itself because there is property and exchange in existence. Any who argues that value will exist in a lower phase of communism are arguing for a capitalist ideology, a disease that affects the proletarian movement from Stalinism and other petty bourgeois elements that call themselves socialist.


This issue is being actively discussed at another thread:





The point of communism isn't the abolition of money, but the abolition of value. Of course, the latter entails the former - money would serve no function if there was no value - but proposals such as "vouchers", "labour tickets", "credits", etc., go in the wrong direction; they seek to abolish money without abolishing value. And in so doing, what they actually mean is replacing actual money, an actual universal equivalent, by some kind of backwards imperfect, mangled, money.

We should strive to abolish value. Until we manage to do that, money is what best expresses value, and shouldn't be replaced by things that won't do what money does, but will still reproduce the logic of value...

Luís Henrique





I'll have to respectfully dismiss this as a chimera -- I can't conceive of any state of humanity's existence where (liberated) labor would be purely *valueless*, since that implies a perfect matching-up of all individuals' personal volitions, to the (relatively) objective needs of humanity as a whole. In the absence of such a perfectly smooth social fluidity over production any society would then have to have individuals working in some capacity *outside* their own personal inclinations, to some degree. This, then, would imply a formal social value in their labor, and some kind of accounting for it would have to be present.

Hence my system of labor credits, as previously mentioned.


Ideal currency in Socialism

http://www.revleft.com/vb/ideal-currency-socialism-t187435/index.html?p=2739848#post2739848


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No, value will cease to exist in communism, both lower and upper. Value manifests itself because there is property and exchange in existence. Any who argues that value will exist in a lower phase of communism are arguing for a capitalist ideology, a disease that affects the proletarian movement from Stalinism and other petty bourgeois elements that call themselves socialist.


I'll differ here and say that social value manifests itself -- especially in a post-capitalist context -- because of 'favors' being necessary, as I essentially state at the other thread.

While all socially necessary material production could become fully automated and eventually require only the nod of one's head to initiate the mechanical moving of mountains, literally, not everyone might be so personally inclined to be part of any given mountain-moving operation, since there's more to it (or anything else) than the physical act itself.