>But surplus value in the quantitative sense of workers producing more than
>is required to reproduce their laborpower (that is, variable capital
>defined quantitatively) presupposes a concept of LP in the qualitative
>sense, that is, variability of LP not in terms of more or less but
>"different." Flexibility is of course the universal word today.
>2)
Jim, here is a formulation in a cutting edge work in Marxian political economy most highly recommended by Dick Walker (Michael Webber and Bruce Rigby The Golden Age Illusion):
"in the first place, deskilling and homogenization in one sphere (workers' jobs) require new skills in another sphere (producing an doperating numerically controlled machinery). In the second place, while monopolizable skills are being eliminated under capitalism, a new skill is being created: adaptability, the ability to change jobs and acquire new, temporary 'skills'. Despite the homogenization of labor...there remain differences in skill between laborers. If value is to be measured, these differences must be accounted for."
By the way, I am quite confused by their sophisticated theorisation of 'value'. They argue that in order for value to be an objective standard, "value must be measured as the quantity of labor power invested in an article, under socially normal (average) conditions of produciton by labor of average skill and intensity. The value created by 1 hour of labor power of a person of average skill must be the same as that of an any other person of average skill no matter what the concrete form of their labor. This is not a matter of dogma but of necessity if the measure of value is to be logically indepedent of price." They also argue that value is "an objective standard...the only possible possible universal standard (across all capitalist forms of production) that permits the prices of different commodities or commodities produced in different places to be compared."
But what would be the meaning of such a comparison in terms of this 'objective standard'? If what counts as average skill and intensity is changing from period to period, what actual comparison are we making if we compare the value produced in one period to another? It could be that less value has been produced in the second period but that same labor would have counted as above average labor in the previous period. The values of output in two years are not really being compared; history remains precluded from the analysis.
That is, if the metric changes with the changes it is measuring, then it seems hardly true that value allows for objective inter-temporal comparisons. At least objective in the sense they seem to mean. For example earlier they had written: "Labor power of average intensity and skill has the same value creating capacity no matter what industry it is applied to. Labor power of average intensity and skill has the same value creating capacity as labor power of average intensity and skill in any other country or any other year *even if the average intensity or skill has changed in the meantime.*"
Of course we can define value produced in a period as the hours logged by labor of average intensity and skill in that period (assuming that these qualifications can be known somehow independently of prices). But then value seems to be a mental generalisation, a concept useful for comparison and analytical purposes but that does not prove that value is a real abstraction, certaintly not real enough that a diminishing flow thereof could actually throttle capitalist production.
yours, rakesh