Corn or Labour Theory of Value?

[Tim Cornelis]

A while ago I read in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that the Corn Theory of Value would be identical to the Labour Theory of Value. I didn't think much of it, but I saw Stalinist Paul Cockshott repeat that indeed corn would be as much a determinant of labour if the LTV is interpreted in a particular way. (I'm guessing this is more of a mathematical than a logical issue, that if you take corn or labour as your variable in a particular formula it would give the same output.) Can anyone explain this?

[Kill all the fetuses!]

Well, the idea pretty much is that you can take any other commodity and say that it determines value in the way as Marx presumably merely asserts that labour(-power) creates value. So you can take, for instance, corn and say that workers need to eat corn in order to live and produce commodities so when they are producing commodities, they aren't creating value, but rather corn is or any other product for that matter. In so far as you can sell X amount of corn for X+Y amount of money and then buy even more corn, it presumably shows that corn is creating value. The point of the criticism is to show the uselessness of any attempt to form a theory of value on the basis of products. So you could take any other products and in the same way as Marx "assume" that it is this product creating value and so such theory of value becomes useless and pointless.

Now, of course, this argument is nonsensical to begin with, resting on an assumption that Marx simply says that labour is the source of value (presumably due to ideological reasons!) and then goes on to build on his theory on this assumption. All of this is obviously nothing but ignorance of Marxism. Marx goes on through a rigorous process to establish how and why labour is the source of value and what it even means, it isn't merely an assumption. But then again, Cockshott is of course wrong to say that the LTV is a theory of prices or that it even matters (if we are talking about the same comment on critical-theory).

[Rafiq]

Where does corn, among other commodities, come from? How can I apply a theory of value upon corn production?

Labor is axiomatic, commodities are not.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

Where does corn, among other commodities, come from? How can I apply a theory of value upon corn production?

Labor is axiomatic, commodities are not.

In so far as my reply is concerned, I should have said "product" instead of "commodity".

But either way, it would be easy to respond to you were somebody to argue or play a devil's advocate. One could say that labour isn't axiomatic and it presupposes existence of food in so far as the worker has to consume it in order to live. So there is a mutual relation between products (like food) and workers. Both are equally axiomatic in the sense in which you are using the word.

[Rafiq]

But either way, it would be easy to respond to you were somebody to argue or play a devil's advocate. One could say that labour isn't axiomatic and it presupposes existence of food in so far as the worker has to consume it in order to live. So there is a mutual relation between products (like food) and workers. Both are equally axiomatic in the sense in which you are using the word.

The point is that food doesn't become a commodity with value until it enters the domain of capitalist relations. If the transition to capitalism amounts to agricultural revolution, as Bordiga put it, than the specific means (labor-relation) by which crops like corn are produced is definitive of their value, not the existence of corn itself. The food that is necessary, let's say to have sustained the first wage-laborer produced under feudal relations of life doesn't become a commodity until it is produced and consumed in a new way. Corn will always be corn and food will always be food, but it is how food is produced which gives it its value. Not its mere existence. Let's say water remains free forever, until it's privatized and commodified. The very process by which water becomes commodified pre-supposes some kind of new relationship of labor. It therefore never constitutes an axiomatic source of value, but labor always does. Marx was very thorough about this - labor which is the sole medium by which things are produced, axiomatically.

We can try to form a "Corn theory of value" if we want, but in doing so we'd have to place corn production and consumption as axiomatic and in the process, disallow ourselves from an analysis of how corn itself is produced. The "source" of labor, conversely, is life itself, or the process of transforming nature to human needs. Or let's be more precise - corn isn't the source of value because while we can always consume corn, the specific relationship of labor is what constitutes the difference, irrespective of whatever mode of production corn will never change anything.

Another problem is the temporal nature of corn as a vital source of food. That is, another vital commodity for life could come to replace corn and relations of labor will remain the same. Labor as a commodity will, however, always have the same nature - one could argue that "doesn't this amount to there being different workers? Doesn't that work as an argument too" but this is just as worthy as an argument as the existence of different individual corn in a field.

[Comrade #138672]

Corn?

Well, yes, any quantity of a commodity x can in terms of value be expressed in another quantity of a commodity y, as Karl Marx demonstrated in the first chapter of the first volume of Das Kapital.

[Collective Reasons]

Josiah Warren's equitable commerce actually used corn as a measure of value, in the sense that the cost-price for goods to be exchanged was denominated in terms of hours of harvesting corn, a relatively well-known activity where his experiments were taking place.

[Rudolf]

Josiah Warren's equitable commerce actually used corn as a measure of value, in the sense that the cost-price for goods to be exchanged was denominated in terms of hours of harvesting corn, a relatively well-known activity where his experiments were taking place.

So corn taking the place of the money commodity as ofc the value of corn is determined by the abstract labour hours of its production. It doesn't work though as corn degrades pretty quickly and thus isn't suitable for a society of generalised exchange.

[RedMaterialist]

A while ago I read in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that the Corn Theory of Value would be identical to the Labour Theory of Value. I didn't think much of it, but I saw Stalinist Paul Cockshott repeat that indeed corn would be as much a determinant of labour if the LTV is interpreted in a particular way. (I'm guessing this is more of a mathematical than a logical issue, that if you take corn or labour as your variable in a particular formula it would give the same output.) Can anyone explain this?

Maybe Cockshott was talking about corn being used as money. Supposedly wheat or barley (bread, you might say) were used as money in the middle east, later becoming abstracted as the shekel.

Also, Cockshott may have been referring to labor chits or notes functioning as money. Instead of using a commodity (say, gold) or an abstract commodity (money) he would use a direct measure of the labor time performed by a worker. One hr of time producing corn would be equal, in some way, to one hour's time producing gold.

The Stanford encyclopedia says that the labor theory of value has been discredited. It doesn't say by whom. The only people who have "discredited" it are bourgeois economists employed by institutions like Stanford. It also says the decline in the rate of profit predicted by the labor theory of value has not happened. Over the last 10 yrs or so many leftist economists (including Cockshott and his students at Glasgow University) have shown a declining rate of profit since at least as far back as 1900. As more and more machinery (robots, etc) is used in production the profit margin continues to shrink, until, now only the largest corporations can continue to operate and even they need massive govt bailouts, subsidies, and other forms of protection to stay in business.

Marx was right.

[RedMaterialist]

So corn taking the place of the money commodity as ofc the value of corn is determined by the abstract labour hours of its production. It doesn't work though as corn degrades pretty quickly and thus isn't suitable for a society of generalised exchange.

Corn (what they used to call wheat in pre-20th century Europe) can be stored for a fairly long time, especially if it is ground into meal. Two other problems with using it as money is that it is hard to transport heavy sacks of corn around, and, a sack of corn or wheat only contains a fraction of the labor time that an ounce of gold contains.

[John Nada]

Khrushchev may have believed this after visiting the US:rolleyes:, but the corn would likely fulfill the role of gold or paper money. Merely a placeholder for value produced by labor on the market.
It doesn't work though as corn degrades pretty quickly and thus isn't suitable for a society of generalised exchange.Ah, but corn degrading can increase it's value. When the starches degrade into alcohol that keeps both the worker and her/his machinery(cars) running.:grin: In fact, one need not use the corn itself as the measurement of value. The starch content, joules of energy stored inside, or it's fermentability can be the standard by which value is measured relative to other commodities. In fact, the US dollar is colloquially called a buck because in colonial times farmers in the backwoods would trade whiskey made from corn for buckskins. I'm pretty sure the discoverer of the labor theory of value, Benjamin Franklin(who Marx cited) would've been aware of some of this.

[Tim Cornelis]

Maybe Cockshott was talking about corn being used as money. Supposedly wheat or barley (bread, you might say) were used as money in the middle east, later becoming abstracted as the shekel.

Also, Cockshott may have been referring to labor chits or notes functioning as money. Instead of using a commodity (say, gold) or an abstract commodity (money) he would use a direct measure of the labor time performed by a worker. One hr of time producing corn would be equal, in some way, to one hour's time producing gold.

The Stanford encyclopedia says that the labor theory of value has been discredited. It doesn't say by whom. The only people who have "discredited" it are bourgeois economists employed by institutions like Stanford. It also says the decline in the rate of profit predicted by the labor theory of value has not happened. Over the last 10 yrs or so many leftist economists (including Cockshott and his students at Glasgow University) have shown a declining rate of profit since at least as far back as 1900. As more and more machinery (robots, etc) is used in production the profit margin continues to shrink, until, now only the largest corporations can continue to operate and even they need massive govt bailouts, subsidies, and other forms of protection to stay in business.

Marx was right.

You misunderstood my post much the same as you misread Marx (and what the withering away of the state means). Sorry to drag that up, but there's a pattern.

The critique is that you can take corn as the source of value of commodities on the basis of the same assumptions as Marx assumed labour was. This is what's been referred here.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The objection is purely formal. If a commodity has an exchange value of X, and a kilogram of corn has an exchange value Y, then the commodity in question has a "corn value" (or rather an exchange value expressed in terms of kilograms of corn) of X/Y. This does not mean a "corn theory of value" makes any sense, however. The point is not to express the exchange value of a commodity in its "true" units (units are arbitrary) but to explain the workings of the capitalist system. And corn, first of all, does not directly participate in the production of most commodities, and more importantly, the quantity of corn is beyond the conscious control of humans in the capitalist society (in socialism, of course, the production of corn will be planned, as will the production of everything, but in socialism value does not exist), whereas humans can decide how to employ their labour-power.

[RedMaterialist]

You misunderstood my post much the same as you misread Marx (and what the withering away of the state means). Sorry to drag that up, but there's a pattern.

The critique is that you can take corn as the source of value of commodities on the basis of the same assumptions as Marx assumed labour was. This is what's been referred here.

In that case you can't understand Marx although, apparently, you can read. Labor is the only commodity which can create more value than it uses in its production. A sack of corn doesn't create anything. In fact, reading Marx without understanding him is one of the characteristics of 20th century "Marxists." You can drag up whatever you like, but you still can't explain the collapse of the Soviet Union in non-bourgeois terms and you don't even try.

[Creative Destruction]

The Stanford encyclopedia says that the labor theory of value has been discredited. It doesn't say by whom. The only people who have "discredited" it are bourgeois economists employed by institutions like Stanford..

Actually, the source of this claim of being the labor theory of value being discredited largely comes from Marxist or Marxian economists themselves, along with neo-Ricardians. It started with Nobou Okishio, who misinterpreted the labor theory of value and has had a lot of Marxian followers. Since the 80s, though, there have been re-interpretations (rather, corrections of Okishio's misinterpretation) that defend the labor theory of value; the school is called the Temporal Single-System Interpretation. Bourgeois economists have always decided that the LTV wasn't worth addressing because it doesn't jibe with their economic theories, simply. The Austrian school, etc.

Andrew Kliman is kind of the lead of the TSSI school, along with Alan Freeman. They go over this (using the corn analogy) in this video [more videos if you click-through on the utube link]:

xqeyq4H1aIQ

Regardless of what Cockshott might have been saying, Marx was never saying that corn is a commodity used as money. The "corn" thing was merely an example he used to illustrate the labor value theory.

[RedMaterialist]

The objection is purely formal. If a commodity has an exchange value of X, and a kilogram of corn has an exchange value Y, then the commodity in question has a "corn value" (or rather an exchange value expressed in terms of kilograms of corn) of X/Y. This does not mean a "corn theory of value" makes any sense, however. The point is not to express the exchange value of a commodity in its "true" units (units are arbitrary) but to explain the workings of the capitalist system. And corn, first of all, does not directly participate in the production of most commodities, and more importantly, the quantity of corn is beyond the conscious control of humans in the capitalist society (in socialism, of course, the production of corn will be planned, as will the production of everything, but in socialism value does not exist), whereas humans can decide how to employ their labour-power.s

I think the objection is more than formal. If labor-power is a commodity (and it is) then it has an exchange value which can be compared to corn. One hr of labor is equal to one pound of corn, one-half pound of sugar, etc. All are equal to one hr of labor. Labor-power, sugar, whatever, can be defined in terms of corn. In these terms corn is the basis of value.

The essential difference is that the capitalist does not pay for the full value of the hour of labor-power. He pays for the full value of the corn, he takes the value of the labor-power for less than it is worth.

Why is this even an issue? Because of an article in the bourgeois Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy?

[Creative Destruction]

s

I think the objection is more than formal. If labor-power is a commodity (and it is) then it has an exchange value which can be compared to corn. One hr of labor is equal to one pound of corn, one-half pound of sugar, etc. All are equal to one hr of labor. Labor-power, sugar, whatever, can be defined in terms of corn. In these terms corn is the basis of value.

What? This doesn't wash at all. Corn is no more the "basis of value" than sugar, diamonds, etc., are the "basis of value" or that money itself is the "basis of value." Labor is. That's the entire goddamned point of the labor theory of value.

You're, again, confused about this, just as you are in every other bit of Marxism.

[Creative Destruction]

Khrushchev may have believed this after visiting the US:rolleyes:, but the corn would likely fulfill the role of gold or paper money. Merely a placeholder for value produced by labor on the market.Ah, but corn degrading can increase it's value. When the starches degrade into alcohol that keeps both the worker and her/his machinery(cars) running.:grin: In fact, one need not use the corn itself as the measurement of value. The starch content, joules of energy stored inside, or it's fermentability can be the standard by which value is measured relative to other commodities. In fact, the US dollar is colloquially called a buck because in colonial times farmers in the backwoods would trade whiskey made from corn for buckskins. I'm pretty sure the discoverer of the labor theory of value, Benjamin Franklin(who Marx cited) would've been aware of some of this.

In fact, the citation that Marx used of Franklin's does take into account corn, but Franklin, like Marx, never pinned value at the commodity itself but at labor:


It is a man of the New World – where bourgeois relations of production imported together with their representatives sprouted rapidly in a soil in which the superabundance of humus made up for the lack of historical tradition – who for the first time deliberately and clearly (so clearly as to be almost trite) reduces exchange-value to labour-time. This man was Benjamin Franklin, who formulated the basic law of modern political economy in an early work, which was written in 1729 and published in 1731. [7] He declares it necessary to seek another measure of value than the precious metals, and that this measure is labour.

"By labour may the value of silver be measured as well as other things. As, suppose one man is employed to raise corn, while another is digging and refining silver; at the year’s end, or at any other period of time, the complete produce of corn, and that of silver, are the natural price of each other; and if one be twenty bushels, and the other twenty ounces, then an ounce of that silver is worth the labour of raising a bushel of that corn. Now if by the discovery of some nearer, more easy or plentiful mines, a man may get forty ounces of silver as easily as formerly he did twenty, and the same labour is still required to raise twenty bushels of corn, then two ounces of silver will be worth no more than the same labour of raising one bushel of corn, and that bushel of corn will be as cheap at two ounces, as it was before at one, caeteris paribus [other things being equal]. Thus the riches of a country are to be valued by the quantity of labour its inhabitants are able to purchase" (op. cit., p. 265).

From the outset Franklin regards labour-time from a restricted economic standpoint as the measure of value. The transformation of actual products into exchange-values is taken for granted, and it is therefore only a question of discovering a measure of their value.

To quote Franklin again: “Trade in general being nothing else but the exchange of labour for labour, the value of all things is, as I have said before, most justly measured by labour” (op. cit., p. 267).

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/ch01a.htm

[Dave B]

The corn theory of value is a little bit more intricate than has been laid out I think.

All theory of value systems faced the problem of having to adequately explain ‘net’ surplus value or surplus product or in reality for us the accumulation of unconsumed wealth or capital if you like.

Eg canals, roads, steam engines, ploughs, houses, or even gold etc.


As an Idealised Simple Reductionist Model


Corn theory of value (which in reality was just a agricultural food products theory of value) stated that a farmer or farming ‘business’ would produce ‘a lot’ more ‘corn’ or surplus corn than was required to sustain the activities of the ‘farmers’.

Thus you start off at the beginning of the year with one bushel of seed corn and a farm worker and at the end of the year you have a well fed farm worker and 10 bushels of corn.

To at first idealise it as a model somewhat and cut out an analysis of the myriad of intermediate steps and stages etc etc.

The idea was that in effect somehow or other some of that surplus corn, due to the nefarious and double dealing activities of industrial manufacturers and merchants etc ended up in the possession of said double dealing industrial manufacturers and merchants.

Who then used it to ‘feed’ workers who made for them the ‘surplus products’ with the value of the surplus corn required to make that 'surplus product'.

Going into a more detailed analysis;



gold money would obviously have a corn value as well and be the amount of corn required by the gold miner to produce it.

So when the farmer sold or exchanged his corn to the merchant for gold he would give the merchant more corn for the gold than was required to produce the gold.

And the merchant would realise a corn profit or ‘surplus corn’ when he used only a proportion of his recently ‘obtained’ corn (value) to buy more gold at its exact corn value.

Likewise ‘farmers’ would sell or exchange their corn for the products of industrial manufacturers.

Likewise with the theory; the industrial products would have required less corn to make them than the farmers exchanged corn for.

Thus 'farmers' might buy a coat from a 'capitalist' manufacturer for two bushels of corn; one bushel might be used pay (feed) the workers who made the thing including the chain of raw materials etc.

And the surplus bushel of value would end up in the hands of the industrial manufacturers etc etc.


in a way the merchants and 'capitalist' manufacturers where one and the same beast; double dealing cheats.


It was much more of a superficially tenable idea when agricultural production quantitatively played a more important part in overall production.

I have not seen it done; but I suspect it might even be possible to some extent to ‘cross pollinate’ or investigate the idea within the paradigm of ‘Marxist’ primitive accumulation.

In a way I think the same basic idea may have sort have been resurrected in a somewhat different way with the ‘energy or fuel theory of value people’.

As you might expect when fuel generated mechanical power or whatever seemingly becomes a more ‘obvious’ central component in the production of useful things.

THIS IS NOT A INVITATION TO ASK ME TO DEFEND THE CORN THEORY OF VALUE!

[Rudolf]

s

I think the objection is more than formal. If labor-power is a commodity (and it is) then it has an exchange value which can be compared to corn. One hr of labor is equal to one pound of corn, one-half pound of sugar, etc. All are equal to one hr of labor. Labor-power, sugar, whatever, can be defined in terms of corn. In these terms corn is the basis of value.


That doesn't follow. All you have shown is that labour power like all commodities have a potentially infinite amount of different exchange values as the ratio of one commodity is exchanged for another. It does not show anything about value itself other than the obvious: that these commodities are commensurable.




The essential difference is that the capitalist does not pay for the full value of the hour of labor-power. He pays for the full value of the corn, he takes the value of the labor-power for less than it is worth.


It seems here that you have a misunderstanding of Marx's point. The capitalist does pay the full value for labour-power.



The change of value that occurs in the case of money intended to be converted into capital, cannot take place in the money itself, since in its function of means of purchase and of payment, it does no more than realise the price of the commodity it buys or pays for; and, as hard cash, it is value petrified, never varying. Just as little can it originate in the second act of circulation, the re-sale of the commodity, which does no more than transform the article from its bodily form back again into its money-form. The change must, therefore, take place in the commodity bought by the first act, M-C, but not in its value, for equivalents are exchanged, and the commodity is paid for at its full value. We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that the change originates in the use-value, as such, of the commodity, i.e., in its consumption. In order to be able to extract value from the consumption of a commodity, our friend, Moneybags, must be so lucky as to find, within the sphere of circulation, in the market, a commodity, whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labour, and, consequently, a creation of value. The possessor of money does find on the market such a special commodity in capacity for labour or labour-power.



You seem to have this errenous notion that the value of labour-power is determined by its use-value (producing value) but the value of a commodity is an abstraction from its use-value.


As Marx goes onto say in the same chapter:


The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article. So far as it has value, it represents no more than a definite quantity of the average labour of society incorporated in it. Labour-power exists only as a capacity, or power of the living individual. Its production consequently pre-supposes his existence. Given the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer.

[RedMaterialist]

What? This doesn't wash at all. Corn is no more the "basis of value" than sugar, diamonds, etc., are the "basis of value" or that money itself is the "basis of value." Labor is. That's the entire goddamned point of the labor theory of value.

You're, again, confused about this, just as you are in every other bit of Marxism.

x corn = y wheat - z cotton = a gold = b automobiles. Marx showed that all these commodities have one thing in common: abstract labor which creates exchange value. The original post seemed to say that any commodity can be used as the basis of value. I agree that labor is the source of value. The point of this thread was to try to show that any commodity could be the source of value.

[RedMaterialist]

That doesn't follow. All you have shown is that labour power like all commodities have a potentially infinite amount of different exchange values as the ratio of one commodity is exchanged for another. It does not show anything about value itself other than the obvious: that these commodities are commensurable.

The distinction between labor and labor-power is no longer useful. The capitalist buys labor at its market value (wages), then she puts it to use. The labor in use creates more value than its cost in wages. Labor is the only commodity which can produce more value than its cost.



It seems here that you have a misunderstanding of Marx's point. The capitalist does pay the full value for labour-power.


That is true. In Marxist terms labor-power is the commodity.



You seem to have this errenous notion that the value of labour-power is determined by its use-value (producing value) but the value of a commodity is an abstraction from its use-value.


The value of labor (the commodity) is determined by its cost of production. The value of a commodity is determined also by its cost of production: The cost of the labor + the cost of the value created by the labor. The capitalist pays for the first cost but not for the second cost which become profit.

The commodity is created by abstract social labor.. In capitalist production all labor is reduced to one general, abstract, standard of value. The only difference is the amount paid to different workers for this abstract value.

Labor-power is labor, surplus-value is profit, and exchange-value is price.

[RedMaterialist]

Actually, the source of this claim of being the labor theory of value being discredited largely comes from Marxist or Marxian economists themselves, along with neo-Ricardians. It started with Nobou Okishio, who misinterpreted the labor theory of value and has had a lot of Marxian followers. Since the 80s, though, there have been re-interpretations (rather, corrections of Okishio's misinterpretation) that defend the labor theory of value; the school is called the Temporal Single-System Interpretation. Bourgeois economists have always decided that the LTV wasn't worth addressing because it doesn't jibe with their economic theories, simply. The Austrian school, etc.

Andrew Kliman is kind of the lead of the TSSI school, along with Alan Freeman. They go over this (using the corn analogy) in this video [more videos if you click-through on the utube link]:

xqeyq4H1aIQ

Regardless of what Cockshott might have been saying, Marx was never saying that corn is a commodity used as money. The "corn" thing was merely an example he used to illustrate the labor value theory.

But Marx did say that corn, or any other commodity could be used as money: corn, wheat, shells, gold, cows, humans, anything that used labor for its production.

Thanks for the post. The "TSSI." When I first read it several years ago I couldn't understand it. What exactly does it mean, in simple, easy to understand English?

Kliman says that the input-cost cannot be equal to the output-price. A farmer sows corn; at the beginning of the season the seed, plows, etc are the price of input. At the end of the year the farmer harvests the corn. The value of the corn cannot be equal to the value of the seed, etc. Well, he is right. What he left out was the value of farmer: it costs something to produce the farmer; the work of the farmer produced the corn. The value of the corn is equal to the costs of seeds, machinery, etc; the cost of keeping the farmer and her family alive; and the cost of the labor of the farmer in doing all this work. The question is who gets to keep the value added by the farmer.

Marx specifically pointed out that the value of any commodity would be reduced if the cost of production were reduced, say by the use of machines. But not only that commodity's value would be reduced but also the value of any previous commodity produced by the old technique. This is because the value of any commodity is equal to the social labor necessary for its production. Last year's model quickly loses its value.

[RedMaterialist]

Corn obviously be used as money, it can be a measure, a store of value, an accounting of value. It doesnt follow that corn itself is a source of value, anymore than shells, cattle, gold, or cigarettes in prison are the source of value.

[Dave B]

I think when you apply this kind of scientific method, or logic if you like, to theories you have to engage in a remorseless reductionism following back as far as possible using your own logical framework.


The immediate and what should be obvious problem with the corn theory of value is that it includes applied labour.

However if we take the corn theory of value why not strip out the awkward labour and even not stop at the corn product itself?

Why not continue and logically move it back to arable land, photosynthesis, rain, and sunlight with a Monsanto like copyright on the corn genome?

So to reiterate; you could argue that corn requires labour just as labour requires corn.

However labour theory of value would say that if you take the labour out of corn (or the labour out of the product) all that you are left with is arable land, photosynthesis, rain, and sunlight (with a Monsanto like copyright on the corn genome?) theory of generated value.

Run with it if you like?

I think has been a bit easier for the labour theory of value model to continue to work without the overarching concerns of the wealth generating processes of sunlight and nature etc.

It is not as if however Karl didn’t consider it; the use value or wealth of nature etc; it formed an important part of the opening pages of Capital.

[RedMaterialist]

Corn and wheat (as Marx noted somewhere) began as wild grass, which was domesticated by labor. Humans are now in the process of directly changing corn and wheat with genetic engineering.

If all the labor was removed from corn it would have no exchange value, there would be only use value, which is the result of production under communism. Even now, corn production is almost entirely automated; the gigantic agro corporations could easily triple production and reduce the price of bread to pennies a loaf. To do that, however, would cause a collapse in their market, a glut in the market.

Auto companies could easily increase the number of cars produced (or buses or trains) by half. That would reduce the price of cars by probably more than half, resulting in the collapse of the capitalist market in auto sales.

The forces of production (gigantic factories, robots, genetic engineering, etc.) are quickly overtaking the profit (private property) relations of capitalist production, exactly as Marx predicted.

[Creative Destruction]

x corn = y wheat - z cotton = a gold = b automobiles. Marx showed that all these commodities have one thing in common: abstract labor which creates exchange value. The original post seemed to say that any commodity can be used as the basis of value. I agree that labor is the source of value. The point of this thread was to try to show that any commodity could be the source of value.

No, that's not what the point of this thread was. The point of it was to find out how Cockshott arrived to his wrong conclusion -- iow, "what the hell is he talking about?" It was just a request for an explanation of where he was going with it.

And now that we know where he was going with it, it's wrong. The string you gave above does not show that "any commodity" could be the source of value. The only thing it shows is how one commodity relates to another. The point of the labor value theory is to show the basis of value in a commodity. Marx never said anywhere that corn is a source of value. Unless you have a citation for this (which I highly doubt that you do), you need to stop claiming it.

[Creative Destruction]

But Marx did say that corn, or any other commodity could be used as money: corn, wheat, shells, gold, cows, humans, anything that used labor for its production.

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/000/554/facepalm.jpg

That wasn't the point of the corn analogy. He was using is solely to illustrate value. That was my only point.


Thanks for the post. The "TSSI." When I first read it several years ago I couldn't understand it. What exactly does it mean, in simple, easy to understand English?

Sure. It doesn't have to do with labor as the source of value directly, but with the law of the tedential rate of profit to fall. But I was responding to your post about bourgeois economists discounting the labor value theory, whereas it actually comes from Marxian and Marxist economists themselves.

In the 40s, iirc, Nubou Okishio released a theorem that he purported was the thing that disproved Marx's value theory, specifically the law of the tendential profit rate to fall. The consequence of this being that the labor value theory was internally inconsistent and all the conclusions in it were suspect, including labor as a source of value. In the theorem, it states that, basically, profit, as general course, will rise at the end of a season. The TSSI corrects this and says that they're not taking into account changes that happen throughout the season that might yield a profit, but would cause the general profit rate to fall. It's basically setting back on course Marx's law and proving that the labor value theory isn't logically inconsistent.

Those are the cliff notes. Kliman and Freeman go into much more detail in the videos, without using language that would go over everyone's heads. They also employ the corn analogy to illustrate this, as Marx did.


Kliman says that the input-cost cannot be equal to the output-price. A farmer sows corn; at the beginning of the season the seed, plows, etc are the price of input. At the end of the year the farmer harvests the corn. The value of the corn cannot be equal to the value of the seed, etc. Well, he is right. What he left out was the value of farmer: it costs something to produce the farmer; the work of the farmer produced the corn. The value of the corn is equal to the costs of seeds, machinery, etc; the cost of keeping the farmer and her family alive; and the cost of the labor of the farmer in doing all this work. The question is who gets to keep the value added by the farmer.

This doesn't prove Cockshott's contention that corn is a source of value. Also, Kliman didn't "leave" it out. It's a foregone conclusion, the value that the farmer produces, since the labor the farmer is expending is going to be the value of the corn. The value of the corn doesn't rise and fall based on what the farmer and his family had for breakfast. The only thing that matters in this formulation is the labor-power put into growing and harvesting corn through the season. That -- labor-power -- is the source of value.


Marx specifically pointed out that the value of any commodity would be reduced if the cost of production were reduced, say by the use of machines. But not only that commodity's value would be reduced but also the value of any previous commodity produced by the old technique. This is because the value of any commodity is equal to the social labor necessary for its production. Last year's model quickly loses its value.

No, you're getting things confused again. The value of a commodity is always rooted in the amount (temporally) of labor-power taken to produce it. A baseball bat made in 3 hours is worth 3 hours of value, and a baseball bat made in 1.5 hours is worth 1.5 hours of value. The operating principle, where it regards exchange value is socially necessary labor time needed to produce a commodity; that is, the average in which you can produce a bat given average skills and machinery. If the socially necessary labor time for a baseball bat is 2 hours, then the person who is selling their bat that represents 3 hours of value is going to lose money. It's too expensive, they're moving too slow and not producing cheaply enough. The people who are producing their bat at 1.5 hours of labor time are able to move more bats, cheaper and for more money.

It has nothing to do with taking an individual commodity and saying that the socially necessary labor time is 2 hours, thus the commodity is worth 2 hours of value, regardless of the time and skills spent making it. Marx never said that. The socially necessary labor time is just the mechanism whereby the market fluctuates and tries to equalize given technology and skills available in general. If the SNLT was dragged down to 1.5 hours, that doesn't mean that the previous year's bats as worth 1.5 hours of value all of the sudden. It just means that if the previous year's bats aren't sold at a price that reflects the social value, then the company manufacturing and selling them will lose money.

[RedMaterialist]

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/000/554/facepalm.jpg

The socially necessary labor time is just the mechanism whereby the market fluctuates and tries to equalize given technology and skills available in general. If the SNLT was dragged down to 1.5 hours, that doesn't mean that the previous year's bats as worth 1.5 hours of value all of the sudden. It just means that if the previous year's bats aren't sold at a price that reflects the social value, then the company manufacturing and selling them will lose money.

Marx:Capital, Ch. One


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 product...fell to one-half its former value.

That is about as clear a statement as you can get that last year's bats were all of a sudden worth only 1.5 hrs of value.

The SNLT explains why the market price fluctuates above and below the natural price (labor value) of a commodity. If the use of machinery can reduce the labor time necessary to produce the commodity then that commodity as well as all previously produced commodities of that kind are cheapened. On the other hand if, for some reason, the SNLT increases (maybe drought, war, etc.) then the price will rise.

This doesn't mean that prices usually fall, just that commodities become cheaper. And that over time only giant monopolies can compete by selling cheap stuff. What has more value, a 1955 Buick in Havana or a ten year old Honda in the US? The Buick probably has ten times as much labor contained in it.

[RedMaterialist]

A while ago I read in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that the Corn Theory of Value would be identical to the Labour Theory of Value. I didn't think much of it, but I saw Stalinist Paul Cockshott repeat that indeed corn would be as much a determinant of labour if the LTV is interpreted in a particular way. (I'm guessing this is more of a mathematical than a logical issue, that if you take corn or labour as your variable in a particular formula it would give the same output.) Can anyone explain this?

Where is the link to the Cockshott article?

[Creative Destruction]

Marx:Capital, Ch. One



The product...fell to one-half its former value.

That is about as clear a statement as you can get that last year's bats were all of a sudden worth only 1.5 hrs of value.

Alright. I concede this point.

[Rudolf]

That is true. In Marxist terms labor-power is the commodity.

Yet you stated its opposite: that labour power is paid for at below its value but it's paid for at its value.

[Tim Cornelis]

Again, misreadings on your part leading to pretty absurd statements. The point of this thread was to ask what the logic behind this critique of the LTV is. Labour is common to all commodities, corn isn't. So that's why I initially didn't think much of this critique, but Cockshott said something similar:

"Hence, the theory can only predict the total value

produced in a capitalist economy, while individual prices can vary based

on monopoly, demand or whatever else."

It seems to have escaped the author that a theory of value that

if you take that position you reduce Marx and the classical political

economists to a joke scientifically speaking. If you think that the

labour theory of value only predicts the total quantity of value

produced then it predicts absolutely nothing since there remains one

free variable – the value of money – so the theory becomes compatible

with any observation you care to make.

Let us take the theory as you present it , then we have the equation

Net national product = hours worked * value of money

If you had some independent way of determining the value of money this statement

would not be vacuous, but if you measure the value of money by this same equation,

then you end up saying nothing. There is no possible observation of the economy

that your theory would contradict. You are also unable to distinguish between

this theory and a whole bunch of other ones. How can you establish that the

labour theory of value rather than the corn theory of value is correct.

I could formulate an exactly similar equation for the corn theory

Net national product = tons of corn harvested * value creating power of corn"

http://www.critical-theory.com/3-strawmen-arguments-surrounding-marxism/

So I was wondering if someone could further explain this.

[John Nada]

What struck me while reading Capital is unlike most bourgeois economists, it's the economy from the worker's perspective. Most other economists think in terms of buyers and sellers, either from a businessperson's point of view or like we're all a deserted island. At best they view the workers as consumers, potential customers, or with a Fordist(keep them efficient but comfortable) view on their utility.

The Stanford article, with some corrections:grin:
It appears to follow from this analysis that as industry becomes more mechanised, using more constant capitalland and less variable capitalplants, the rate of profit ought to fall. For as a proportion less capital will be advanced on labourcorn, and only labourcorn can create value. In Capital Volume 3 Marx does indeed make the prediction that the rate of profit will fall over time, and this is one of the factors which leads to the downfall of capitalism. (However, as pointed out by Marx's able expositor Paul Sweezy in The Theory of Capitalist Development, the analysis is problematic.) A further consequence of this analysis is a difficulty for the theory that Marx did recognise, and tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to meet also in Capital Volume 3. It follows from the analysis so far that labour intensive industriescrop dense farms ought to have a higher rate of profit than those which use less labourplants. Not only is this empirically false, it is theoretically unacceptable. Accordingly, Marx argued that in real economic life prices vary in a systematic way from values. Providing the mathematics to explain this is known as the transformation problem, and Marx's own attempt suffers from technical difficulties. Although there are known techniques for solving this problem now (albeit with unwelcome side consequences), we should recall that the labourcorn theory of value was initially motivated as an intuitively plausible theory of price. But when the connection between price and value is rendered as indirect as it is in the final theory, the intuitive motivation of the theory drains away. But even if the defender of the theory is still not ready to concede defeat, a further objection appears devastating. Marx'sStrawperson's assertion that only labourcorn can create surplus value is unsupported by any argument or analysis, and can be argued to be merely an artifact of the nature of his presentation. Any commodity can be picked to play a similar role. Consequently with equal justification one could set out a cornbullshit theory of value, arguing that cornbullshit has the unique power of creating more value than it costs. Formally this would be identical to the laboursubjective theory of value.Source: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/#3

The corn would have the relation to humans like the workers do to the capitalist. The land(constant capital) is where the crops(labor) grow. Agriculture is constantly revolutionized with new advances. The corn works hard, photosynthesizing and growing. The farmer(bourgeoisie) and her/his laborers(petty-bourgeoisie) give the crops just enough to keep growing and reproduce. Then, after a hard grow season, the corn gives up it's surplus seeds.All that energy, when only a small amount is needed in this day and age to reproduce. The rest gets eaten up by those oppressive humans!:ohmy:

This theory isn't falsifiable, so it's total bullshit. The corns perspective is just subjective. It doesn't produce value. It needs soil, light, air, water, fertilizers and manure. People don't make the earth and the sun, their labor isn't worth shit. But manure is. Hence it was discovered, the bullshit theory of value(BTV (http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Bullshit_theory_of_value) That's what everything has in common! You job, buying, making and selling it is bullshit. Capitalism itself is bullshit!:lol:

The labor theory of value isn't about how-to guide for an investor to make money(though if they read the enemy they'd learn a lot). It about the social relation in capitalist society. The commodities, the cash, aren't sentient(for the most part). That corn cob or dollar bill won't give a fuck what you do to it. Humans and their actions are the common denominator in all of this.

Let's say labor isn't a source of value. The value somehow conjures itself into existence. Why does one even get hired in the first place if the boss can't make money off your "privilege" to handle their value? If it's all just subjective, say I am pissed at busting my ass for what I view as an unfair exchange. I don't give a fuck if corporate turns my surplus labor into profit, if I didn't need the job they could go to hell. If I keep the same bullshit job, or get fired, the capitalists are still fucking assholes. The fact that it's even debatable whether it's the chunks of earth and plants, or the workers, that are really the ones racking in all the dough, speaks volumes more than Capital.

The "corn theory of value" reminds me the physiocrats:
To what extent some economists are misled by the Fetishism inherent in commodities, or by the objective appearance of the social characteristics of labour, is shown, amongst other ways, by the dull and tedious quarrel over the part played by Nature in the formation of exchange value. Since exchange value is a definite social manner of expressing the amount of labour bestowed upon an object, Nature has no more to do with it, than it has in fixing the course of exchange.

The mode of production in which the product takes the form of a commodity, or is produced directly for exchange, is the most general and most embryonic form of bourgeois production. It therefore makes its appearance at an early date in history, though not in the same predominating and characteristic manner as now-a-days. Hence its Fetish character is comparatively easy to be seen through. But when we come to more concrete forms, even this appearance of simplicity vanishes. Whence arose the illusions of the monetary system? To it gold and silver, when serving as money, did not represent a social relation between producers, but were natural objects with strange social properties. And modern economy, which looks down with such disdain on the monetary system, does not its superstition come out as clear as noon-day, whenever it treats of capital? How long is it since economy discarded the physiocratic illusion, that rents grow out of the soil and not out of society?It sounds similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiocrats

[clyder]

A while ago I read in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that the Corn Theory of Value would be identical to the Labour Theory of Value. I didn't think much of it, but I saw Stalinist Paul Cockshott repeat that indeed corn would be as much a determinant of labour if the LTV is interpreted in a particular way. (I'm guessing this is more of a mathematical than a logical issue, that if you take corn or labour as your variable in a particular formula it would give the same output.) Can anyone explain this?

I think you have slightly misunderstood this article "Labour time versus alternative value bases: a research note" Cottrell and Cockshott, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1996
The point is that whilst in principle one can compute energy values, iron values etc, these have a very poor correlation between actual prices can the imputed values. Labour values on the other hand have an over 95% correlation with observed prices, so that empirically it can be said that the labour theory of value is the theory that this scientifically accurate.

[clyder]

I am certain that Cockshott is not saying that a corn theory of value is a correct theory. The point is that such a theory can be constructured - or at least an iron or coal theory can be since corn is probably not a basic commodity - but that such theories whilst logically consistent are empirically false.

[Dave B]

I think the corn ‘theory’ of value is interesting and has a certain ‘strength’.

But I would be more inclined to relegate it to a empirically based ‘hypothesis’?

All hypotheses need to be logically scrutinised, or thought about, especially for us I suppose in the context of and counterpoising it to ‘our’ labour theory of value.

What the ‘corn theory of value’ is doing, but refuses to admit I think, is measuring expended or performed labour time or human effort in the consumed calories required to perform that work rather than in ‘time’.

Thus rather than the value of a coat or woven damask being measured by 10 hours of labour time or whatever, it would be the amount of calories (obtained from corn) that are expended and thus needed to be consumed to restore and reproduce that labour power.

Conceptually it is potentially interesting in that you might expect that the corn ‘value’ of the product of a coal miner to be more than that of a ‘damask weaver’?

[For us I suppose we might need to look at that ‘problem’ in terms of intensity of labour/reproduction of labour power?]

The problem for the corn theory of value is that only one type of concrete labour is capable of producing surplus value ie farming.

Ie more calories and thus value out than in?

And thus the general accumulation of surplus value, and in particular in non agricultural industrial production, must be acquired by agricultural products being sold at below their value.

Also all industrial expended labour power paid for with more corn calories than expended; otherwise we would be running around naked and sleeping in caves etc never mind holidays in Spain, the internet and computers etc.


Thus industrial products would need to be sold at above their value; but stuff does sell at above and below their values in the Marxist model as well due to the average rate of profit thing etc.

However as the content of the ‘average shopping basket’ of most workers is less and less that of calories to restore labour power.

And the accumulation of wealth and economic power is more palpably associated with non agricultural expenditure of industrial labour time etc.

Perhaps the calorie theory of value, albeit ‘logically rooted’ as ‘just another’ measure of expended labour, become less and less ‘useful’ as a model; unless you are a Maoist