Can the law of value be preserved to an extent in a socialist society?

[benko12345678]

You can eliminate capitalist categories in the organization of the economy but you can’t get rid of the law of value. Even Che Guevara conceded 'the possibility of using elements of this law [of value] for comparative purposes (cost, "profit" expressed in monetary terms)'. One loaf of bread can never have the same exchange value as a Jet.

Yes, a jet cannot have the same exchange value as a jet, as it does not have an equivalent use value. In a sense, yes, the law of value applies as long as commodities exist, as it wouldn't make sense if a loaf of bread had equivalent value as say, a train. However, uniform prices are in contradiction with the law of value. If labour hours are equal to the commodity's exchange value, then there should not be uniform prices for a certain commodity. If five hours of labour go into one loaf and seven go into another, if we follow the law of value, their exchange value should be unequal, however, in socialism they are equivalent.

So, what do you think? Is it preserved in socialism?

[Rudolf]

You can eliminate capitalist categories in the organization of the economy but you can’t get rid of the law of value. So in other words you can't eliminate capitalism.



One loaf of bread can never have the same exchange value as a Jet. theoretically it could



Yes, a jet cannot have the same exchange value as a jet, as it does not have an equivalent use value.

Exchange value is a total abstraction from use value and the concrete labour process required to produce it. If the socially necessary labour time for the production of a jet and a loaf of bread is the same then they would have the same value regardless of the fundamentally different use-values and its concrete labour processes.



If five hours of labour go into one loaf and seven go into another, if we follow the law of value, their exchange value should be unequal, however, in socialism they are equivalent.

I'd disagree, the amount of socially necessary labour is the key. Two loafs of bread under capitalism one taking 5 hours the other seven have the same amount of value because the magnitude of value is not just labour time it is socially necessary labour time. It takes the form of a social average.



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.

The bakery making the 7 hour loafs will be at a massive disadvantage compared to their competitors and would be producing less surplus value.


As for socialism there is no commodity production, there is no value production.

[Tim Cornelis]

No it's categorically impossible. It necessarily withers away. That 'even' Che (a theoretical lightweight) concedes such proves he is a capitalist. The law of value applies as long as commodities exist, but commodity production necessarily ceases in socialism. It's pretty straightforward that according to Marxist theory under directly associated or immediately social labour commodity production disappears.

Also, I have no idea what you mean with "it wouldn't make sense if a loaf of bread had equivalent value as say, a train". Could you explain how that is related to the law of value? Two more comments, uniform prices is not an option and you write as if all this is optional, a voluntaristic approach to society.

[benko12345678]

Well, I think that the law of value is the fundamental law of the capitalist mode of production. There is no socialist mode of production, as it is the early stage of communism, in which some elements of the outgoing capitalist system remain. So, the law of value continues under socialism, but it presents the danger of the restoration of capitalism, especially when government policy encourages that direction. Moving away from the law of value, as in replacing production for exchange with production for use, is one of the primary tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

[benko12345678]

Last time I check a socialist economy works by production of the means of production. The profits used in sale of commodities is used to cross subsidize heavy industry which in turn produces more commodities. Profit implies that there is a difference in what the workers produce and what they receive for their upkeep, an extraction of surplus value. If the law of value is not used to govern the exchange relation between commodities, the axis around which I can price the commodity then I can’t turn a profit. I don’t know whats so counter revolutionary about basic economic calculation. As Adam Smith (and Marx agreed with) said “labour alone is the ultimate and real standard by which the value of commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared.” The law of value has a diminished role in a socialist economy but it cannot be completely ignored. I’m not saying make profit the regulator of industry but the law of value has to be taken into consideration when making economic calculations. Correct me if i'm wrong comrades.

[contracycle]

If labour hours are equal to the commodity's exchange value, then there should not be uniform prices for a certain commodity. If five hours of labour go into one loaf and seven go into another, if we follow the law of value, their exchange value should be unequal, however, in socialism they are equivalent.

Not precisely. The exchange value of a loaf of bread is equal to its socially aggregated labour time. That is to say, if across the whole economy, the aggregate production time for a loaf is 5 hours, then it can always be exchanged for 5 hours worth of other people's production, even if that loaf took you, individually, 7 hours to make.

Communist production does not inherently preclude there being some degree of distinction between efficient and inefficient producers; it precludes that distinction rising to the point that one person can live off another's labour.

[ckaihatsu]

Well, I think that the law of value is the fundamental law of the capitalist mode of production. There is no socialist mode of production, as it is the early stage of communism, in which some elements of the outgoing capitalist system remain. So, the law of value continues under socialism, but it presents the danger of the restoration of capitalism, especially when government policy encourages that direction.




Moving away from the law of value, as in replacing production for exchange with production for use, is one of the primary tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat.





Last time I check a socialist economy works by production of the means of production. The profits used in sale of commodities is used to cross subsidize heavy industry which in turn produces more commodities. Profit implies that there is a difference in what the workers produce and what they receive for their upkeep, an extraction of surplus value. If the law of value is not used to govern the exchange relation between commodities, the axis around which I can price the commodity then I can’t turn a profit. I don’t know whats so counter revolutionary about basic economic calculation. As Adam Smith (and Marx agreed with) said “labour alone is the ultimate and real standard by which the value of commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared.” The law of value has a diminished role in a socialist economy but it cannot be completely ignored. I’m not saying make profit the regulator of industry but the law of value has to be taken into consideration when making economic calculations. Correct me if i'm wrong comrades.


I think what would be most pertinent would be *how directly* the production of goods goes to the end-user under socialism / dotp / 'market socialism'. It would be a *political* question, of how the logistics of distribution is organized, so as to approach / get as close to a 'direct-distribution' as possible, as quickly as possible, over the broadest scales of geography as possible.

The more the 'middleman' economic function is allowed to persist, the greater will be the global paradigm / regime of exchange-values, instead of non-valuated *use* values.

I'm all for 'fast-forwarding' to a gift-economy situation for as much as possible, right away, so as to bypass the labor-surplus-value-pooled-for-the-production-of-production-goods stage (dotp), since I consider that to be too stagist, especially at this late / mature point in world industrial development.

I really don't see why further heavy industry needs to be 'cross-subsidized' from nominal profits when, given the right revolutionary organizing, such could simply be done as a matter of collectivist liberated-labor self-organization -- a fully *political* initiative rather than an *economic* one.

[contracycle]

I'm a bit curious about your use of "gift economy" there. From my understanding, a gift economy isn't all fun and games, it can involve serious assertions of power and dominance. Is there some particular sense in which you intend this be read?

[ckaihatsu]

I'm a bit curious about your use of "gift economy" there. From my understanding, a gift economy isn't all fun and games, it can involve serious assertions of power and dominance. Is there some particular sense in which you intend this be read?


Well, my own understanding is that a Marxist-type 'gift economy' is wherever the liberated workers collectively control the means of mass production.

The idea is to begin with the most life-critical production and 'essential services' so that it's the *workers* who are clearly in-power and dominant. Given this kind of labor regime, and with a (purely voluntarist) gift-economy economics for the basics, present-day technologies / productivities would be ably leveraged to where a current, roughly-average standard of living would be possible for everyone, barring no one.

We would have to see what actual mass expectations would be of this kind of liberated-labor regime, and how extensive / expansive the scope of the voluntarist gift economy could be (think of it as a constellation of expanding points of production, which may or may not be coordinated and additive).

[contracycle]

I understand the principle of voluntary labour wildly exceeding the level of subsistence. But in societies that have used it, gifting can make one person dependent on another, or even amount to a sort of declaration of war. It's also applied in those contexts to alienable property.

[ckaihatsu]

I understand the principle of voluntary labour wildly exceeding the level of subsistence.


Yes, potentially, given a collectivist liberated labor control of the means of mass production.





But in societies that have used it, gifting can make one person dependent on another, or even amount to a sort of declaration of war. It's also applied in those contexts to alienable property.


Well, you're referring to the *non*-Marxist version of the term, in the context of historical inter-tribal social relations.

Consider that present-day industrial production yields *tremendous* productivities for the amount of labor put in. Once these productive technologies are collectivized it wouldn't matter *who* exactly is voluntarily contributing their labor, or for how long -- what would matter is that the requisite labor time is covered to 'exceed the level of subsistence'.

Anything beyond that point would be a 'bonus' to society as a whole, as discretionary goods and services of convenience and civilization.