> Doesn't the "Critique of the Gotha Programme" contain a passage in which
> Marx rants at the Gotha Programme writers for saying that labor is the
> source of all value? Doesn't Marx by contrast contend that nature is the
> source of much use-value, and that labor is the source only of
> exchange-value? (Put to one side for the moment the fact that Marx was
> mistaken about the second, and that nature and capital scarcity are the
> sources of exchange value as well.)
>
> Brad DeLong
Ever hear of the 'Holy Trinity', Brad? It's in chapter 48 of Capital III: 'Capital, land, labour! However capital is not a thing but a definite social production relation... which is manifested in a thing and lends this thing a specific social character... the means of production... are no more capital than gold or silver in itself is money...'
Deciphering the fetishism that can declare 'nature and capital scarcity are the sources of exchange value' is more a task for a cultural anthropologist, say Marvin Harris who studied the magic and ritual of the Yanomami, than a Marxist.
However, now that you mention the Gotha Programme, I must say that you misquote Marx as usual. He says labour is 'not _the source of_ all wealth'. He adds that per contra labour IS the only source of value (not exchange-value). The artificers of German Social Democracy laboured under the same fetished, delusional view of the world that you do, when they (and you) conflate nature with society and wealth with value. By means of these 'verbal rivets' they thus eternised capitalism. But capital is just a passing dream.
Mark