Is Value transhistorical?

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Wed Aug 26 22:37:33 PDT 1998


This thread has hung on for some time, and I think I have to concede Andrew's point.

In Capital Vol 1 Marx goes to lengths to argue not just the existence of exchange value in association with commodities, but Value, of which exchange value is the form.

In this he is arguing against S. Bailey and his followers.

We could exchange many different quotations, which IMO illustrate intriguing nuances on this question, but which are difficult to pursue on a list of this nature.

One passage at the end of chapter 1 Section 2, states (in the Fowkes translation) "On the one hand, all labour is an expenditure of human labour power, in the physiological sense, and it is in this quality of being equal, or abstract, human labour, that it forms the value of commodities." [On the other... concrete useful labour producing use values etc]

I welcome the value economists for defending Marx's theory of value. I will have to find another way to draw the many connections I think are implicit in Marx between social labour expressed in commodity exchange and social labour expressed in other forms of the social life process.


>From the passage above I would argue that it is clear that physiological
labour relevant for the reproduction of the human society, takes the form of value, but it can also take other forms.

So someone taking paternity leave, is expending labour that he "values" and perhaps we "value" as an appropriate division of the total social labour of society, which might even be backed by legislation or tax concessions, but it is not Marx's concept of Value. At times in Capital and at the end, in notes on Wagner, Marx shows a considerable interest in the etymology of the concept of value in several languages, but insists that the apparent overlap is not scientific.

Possibly at some stage there should be an argument about the neo-classical concept of subjective use-value.

Even more important than finding the term that can see the overarching transhistorical process, is to find the way of conceptualising the current processes whereby people shift their labour in an out of commodity exchange, in a way relevant for the reproduction of the whole society.

This is relevant in Russia today. Can it regenerate in any way short of total surrender to capitalist dominated commodity exchange?

But on Marx's usage, I concede Andrew's point and thank him for the challenge.

Chris Burford

London



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