Value

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Tue Jun 23 23:10:28 PDT 1998


I would like to come back on the concept of value being wider than exchange value, which Andrew Kliman has argued. This appears to me to be important but from Andrew's post of 2nd June, there is an issue about whether Marx should be interpreted as regarding that wider concept of value as limited to capitalist or existing in all human societies.

I have looked at the reference Andrew gave to Capital Volume 1, the last pages of the last section of Chapter 1 ("The fetishism of the commodity and its secret") and I would like to take the debate further.

I would also prefer to read the Notes on Wagner in a context where I am discussing specific points since the medium is inherently daunting, to try to piece out what are marginal sometimes sarcastic remarks by Marx about a rival, and what are core ideas of his.

With no offence to Doug, the success of LBO-talk does not really lend itself to this sort of debate. I am wondering if Andrew has any other suggestion. Marxism-thaxis to which I am subscribed appears much quieter and more theoretical these days. If PEN-L is quieter perhaps I could subscribe there.

Obviously I will be guided by Andrew's suggestion hoping the idea is agreeable to him, but marxism-space is becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated, and it may be that others have a suggestion.

Chris Burford

London.

At 02:52 PM 6/2/98 -0400, you wrote:
>I thank Chris Burford for his kind words.
>
>I'd be delighted to send you the paper by snail-mail, Chris, if you will
>give me your address (off-list?). Or maybe I should try again
>electronically?
>
>"One idea I received from Andrew more than two years ago, before he
>understandably left an unmoderated list, was that Marx's theory of exchange
>value needs to be placed in the context of an overall concept of social
>value, which was not specific to capitalist economies.
>
>[...]
>
>"What I would appreciate now, and hopefully is reasonably to hand, and is
>suitable to communication on an internet list, is whether Andrew could give
>the references to where Marx appears to refer to an overarching concept of
>value."
>
>The core truth here is that Marx didn't think value is transhistorical.
>("Value" is the term he used to refer to that which commodities have in
>common; "exchange-value" is the *form of appearance* of a commodity's value.
>E.g., we say a coat is worth 1 oz. of gold; the value of the one commodity,
>coat, *appears as* a physical amount of another commodity, gold. However,
>Marx shows, this appearance is misleading, because it is actually impossible
>for any commodity to be the "substance" of value, as the gold appears to
>be.)
>
>But I apologize to Chris for having given the impression that Marx thereby
>thought value (of commodities) is one species of a larger category of value.
>I don't think he had an overarching concept of value. Indeed, he rejected
>this more or less explicitly.
>
>The best reference here is his "Notes on Wagner"; I use the text in Terrell
>Carver, _Karl Marx: Texts on Method_ (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975).
>(The most relevant passages are cited in the above paper.) He makes clear
>that Ch. 1 of _Capital_ is not a discourse on the concept of "value," or of
>"exchange-value," but an analysis of the form taken in capitalism by the
>product of labor, i.e., the commodity. (The two main purposes of my paper
>are to clarify the meaning of this difference, and to explain the
>distinction between value and exchange-value, through a reading of the
>opening section especially.)
>
>There are also many passages throughout his work (and Engels') that argue
>that value is not transhistorical, that it pertains only to commodity
>production and especially to comprehensive commodity production (i.e.,
>capitalism), and that value will not exist under socialism. One important
>citation is near the end of Ch. 1 of _Capital_ I (pp. 174-75 of the
>Penguin/Vintage ed.) in which he says that value belongs to a society in
>which "the process of production has mastery over man, instead of the
>opposite." Many other passages are cited in Ronald Meek, _Studies in the
>Labor Theory of Value_ (NY and London: Monthly Review Press), pp. 256ff.
>Get the latest edition possible, because I'm not sure this stuff is in the
>first ed.
>
>Various postmodernists do try to say that exchange-value is one species of
>value. I think this runs counter to Marx's method, which is to begin from
>determinate forms of human activity, or the artifacts of that activity
>(e.g., commodities) rather than from abstractions. I also think it
>misunderstands his distinction between value and exchange-value.
>
>Not being one of Doug's "The Best and the Fastest," I'm finding it hard to
>participate on this list, but I will try to stick it out a bit longer.
>Volume was only one of the problems I had with the proto Marxism list.
>
>Ciao
>
>Andrew
>
>
>Andrew ("Drewk") Kliman Home:
>Dept. of Social Sciences 60 W. 76th St., #4E
>Pace University New York, NY 10023
>Pleasantville, NY 10570
>(914) 773-3951 Andrew_Kliman at msn.com
>
>"... the *practice* of philosophy is itself *theoretical.* It is the
>*critique* that measures the individual existence by the essence, the
>particular reality by the Idea." -- K.M.



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