Capital - Chapter 1 - Reduction of Complex to Simple Labour

[ItWillNeverWork]

yes you are on the right lines here (and you shouldn't be surprised that you can attach things to a physical process as these are generally how the concepts are derived in the first place)

In general though, you should be surprised if you're not annoyed at what seems like an 'overly abstract & detached from material foundation' analysis, in the first three chapters of Capital. It's been mentioned a lot of times before, but in these sections a lot of stuff is just presented as though it's a priori true - with little reasons or even hints as to why Marx thinks these are true

This comes down to a difference between his method of exposition (i.e. starting Capital with some fairly abstract concepts) and method of enquiry (i.e. the real world observations that leads to these concepts developing)

So while in Capital it may looks like the abstract stuff comes before (or in the absence of) the concrete, this is just how it's setout - the method of inquiry, i.e. the way he got to those concepts is very much the real/concrete analysed and then the concepts built around it

This diagram below gives a pretty good overview of Marx's dialectical method of enquiry, which should give you some comfort as to how the things you are reading in those early three chapters actually came around

View attachment 17961

So briefly:-

Moment 1 is the observation of the concrete and the appropriation of the material in detail

Moment 2 sees that material used to develop first simple abstract concepts and then on to more complex/richer concepts to establish a 'totality of thoughts', it's the logical construction of the essence and the interconnected organic whole, i.e. the understanding of the inner connections and them as a totality

Moment 3 continues the logical process, but not in terms of essence, but in terms of how that essence appears, how to explain that appearance and the various forms in which the essence is manifested, and indeed how that totality of that essence must appear

So Moments 2 & 3 are still theory and conceptual at this stage, Moment 4 then goes on to relate the concepts that have been generated to the real concrete world, the testing stage so to speak. Here is when the 'concept of the real' and the 'concrete in the mind' (i.e. the abstract thought developed in moments 2 & 3) is reconciled to the real objective concrete, which is also a return to the starting point and the point of departure again as the process goes on and on.

As Marx says of this process in the afterword to volume 1:-



This moment 4 in the whole thing is the real test of the results of the power of the abstraction (done in steps 2 & 3) and thus is absolutely critical. An example of this process in action is highlighted by Marx in a letter to Engels in the year Capital Vol1 was first published

Good post. I'd been musing over how Marx's method seems completely different to the standard way that economists present their arguments - i.e. the style of presentation usually mirrors the process by which the subject was analysed to begin with. That diagram certainly makes it all a bit clearer. I reckon that once I've ploughed through Capital, I will have to seek out some books on the topic of his method. I don't suppose you have any recommendations, do you?

eta: I particularly like the way in which the process loops back on itself to reconnect to the material foundation. It appeals to my control engineering background, and reminds me of a control loop - i.e. there is an error correcting mechanism build in.

 

[love detective]

yep, it's what a lot of critics of Marx (who haven't read him) never seem to give him credit for

One good book which focuses on Method (amongst other things) is Following Marx: Method, Critique, and Crisis by Michael Lebowitz (which is where that diagram above is from)

What does it mean to follow Marx? In this examination of Marx’s methodology combined with specific applications on topics in political economy such as neo-Ricardian theory, analytical Marxism, the falling rate of profit, crisis-theory, monopoly-capital, advertising, and the capitalist state, this volume argues that the failure to understand (or the explicit rejection of) Marx’s method has led astray many who consider themselves Marxists.

He also done another great book called Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class - which is worth reading once you've finished capital

 

[danny la rouge]

as i said, it would be good if someone other than me (butchers, danny) could come along and debunk his latest lunancy

Sorry, I've been away, so I've just seen this. I think it's best if we leave these threads for people tackling Capital for the first time. I think I'm going to restrict my comments to answering their queries where I can. Hope you understand.

 

[danny la rouge]

I have read part/chapter 1 and am about half way through part/chapter 2. In my version, that's the first 5 chapters. In yours it's probably the first five sections. I shall refrain from commenting further for a bit, though.

Is that the Oxford World Classics abridgement? I know some people think it's good in that it leaves out a lot of the "accountancy" lists etc, but it's incomplete by its very nature.

 

[eoin_k]

I am having another go at reading Capital, so I'll subscribe to this thread. hopefully I'll get there!

I have to say I am finding his 'mode of exposition' in Chapter 1 a little frustrating:

As use-values, commodities differ above all in quality, while as exchange-values they can differ only in quantity, and therefore do not contain an atom of use-value.
If then we disregard the use-value of commodities, only one property remains, that of being the product of labour... the same kind of labour, human labour in the abstract.

P.128 (Penguin/NLB edition)

Having watched the first Harvey lecture and read the Prefaces I appreciate that he is laying out his conceptual tools at this stage and it might make more sense to go along with things rather than trying to pick them apart. But it is frustrating that the labour theory of value is just asserted rather than developed. I appreciate that the this theory - in one form or another - was common to most classical political economy and that Marx's critique was a big factor in it being abandoned by Neo-Classical economists. I don't necessarily have a problem with the labour theory of value but this section leaves me wondering what if anything can be taken from his analysis without it.

The rigid distinction he draws between qualitative and quantitative analysis also seems a bit problematic and feeds into his need to introduce the concept of 'intensity of labour' later in the chapter on P.129 which seems to be a bit of a fudge. Does this matter? I'm vaguely aware that intensity of labour is one of the tools used by more recent (post) Marxists whichis one of the reasons it sticks out for me.

The other section I am struggling with is the distinction between the relative and equivalent forms of value. I think I understand the line of argument but it does lead to a strange distinction between:
xA=yB
and
yB=xA
Logically, this seems hard to accept. But in the real world it makes sense. If I have a coat to sell and I need linen the situation isn't the same as having linen and wanting to exchange it for a coat.

 

[magneze]

Having watched the first Harvey lecture and read the Prefaces I appreciate that he is laying out his conceptual tools at this stage and it might make more sense to go along with things rather than trying to pick them apart. But it is frustrating that the labour theory of value is just asserted rather than developed. I appreciate that the this theory - in one form or another - was common to most classical political economy and that Marx's critique was a big factor in it being abandoned by Neo-Classical economists. I don't necessarily have a problem with the labour theory of value but this section leaves me wondering what if anything can be taken from his analysis without it.

Yes, it seems pretty central to the entire thing. According to Harvey there are even some Marxists who now dispute it, which seems somewhat counterintuitive.

The rigid distinction he draws between qualitative and quantitative analysis also seems a bit problematic and feeds into his need to introduce the concept of 'intensity of labour' later in the chapter on P.129 which seems to be a bit of a fudge. Does this matter? I'm vaguely aware that intensity of labour is one of the tools used by more recent (post) Marxists whichis one of the reasons it sticks out for me.

Why do you see it as a fudge?

The other section I am struggling with is the distinction between the relative and equivalent forms of value. I think I understand the line of argument but it does lead to a strange distinction between:
xA=yB
and
yB=xA
Logically, this seems hard to accept. But in the real world it makes sense. If I have a coat to sell and I need linen the situation isn't the same as having linen and wanting to exchange it for a coat.

I think that this explanation about the equivalent form of value is a roundabout way of getting into explaining why money exists as the universal equivalent which happens a bit later.

 

[eoin_k]

Another passage from Chapter 1 that I found interesting is Engel's note on page 138:

“The English language has the advantage of possessing two seperate words for these two separate aspects of labour. Labour which creates use-values and is qualitatively determined is called ‘work’ as opposed to ‘labour’; labour which creates value and is only measured quantitatively is called ‘labour’ as opposed to ‘work’.”

This is followed by a note by the translators claiming that this usage would not have worked, which I find unconvincing. For example page 133 reads:

“Labour, then, as the creator of use-values, as useful labour, is a condition of human existence which is independent of all forms of society; it is an eternal natural necessity which mediates the metabolism between man and nature, and therefore human life itself.”

Now my reading of Engels notes suggests that labour should be replaced by work in this passage which seems to be perfectly coherent.

One of the reasons this distinction appeals to me is the etymology of labour. Labour comes from the latin Laborem which implies toil and hardship. Work has slightly wider connotations of creative activity for example "a life's work" as well as a "workhouse".

One of the reasons I find this interesting is that I am aware of arguments that have come out of autonomist marxism about the abolition of work. If this distinction was maintained maybe it would be clearer that it isn't the creative aspect of work - producing use values to meet human needs - which is the problem, but rather the exploititative aspect of labour to produce commodities for exchange. I'm not trying to argue that this distinction was lost on anyone but maybe 'Zero-Labour' would be clearer than 'Zero-Work'.

I also like this distinction because it is a reminder that the labour party is the party of toil and hardship.

 

[eoin_k]

Why do you see it as a fudge?

Marx makes a very rigid distinction between qualitative and quantitative. It isn't clear to me exactly why - or if - he needs to do this, but he does. I just wonder if 'intensity of labour' is a way of ironing out qualitative differences between different sorts of labour. A brain surgeon's labour is qualitatively different from that of someone on a production line. Perhaps, that is one of the reasons they are paid differently under capitalism. I can go along with the abstraction to socially necessary labour time. Obviously, just because I make a chair really slowly it won't be worth more than one made quickly by an experienced chair maker. I can also see how their is a tendency in capitalism for everything to be reduced down to the quantitative. Hand crafted furniture is the exception rather than the rule and if brain surgery could be reduced down to process work no doubt it would be.

 

[magneze]

Maybe some of the pay differentials come from supply & demand logic rather than intensity of labour arguments? Very few people can perform brain surgery.

 

[love detective]

don't quite understand the point about the quantitative/qualitative fudge, and don't have the book in front of me to look at the text on the page numbers quoted - but at a basic level - just like any other commodity, the value of a particular labour power (i.e. wage) is the socially necessary labour required to (re)produce it - so the reason (in Marx's terms) why highly skilled jobs are paid more than lower skilled jobs is not because of supply & demand, but because the value of that labour power (measured by the value of the bundle of commodities required to produce/reproduce it) is higher. And the assumption made by Marx (in volume 1) is that commodities are exchanged at their value, so wage = value of labour power - meaning there is no (other than a couple of sentences) analysis of supply/demand on the price of commodities at this stage in Marx's analysis

the ongoing increases in productivity/deskilling of labour in general throughout society both across and within industries (through division of labour, automation, process, increases in productivity etc..) allows for a reduction in the value of labour power in two different ways

1) the more it's skilled content is emptied out the socially necessary labour time required to produce the labour power to do those jobs gets less and less, and

2) increased productivity in general reduces the value of commodities that goes into the reproduction of labour power (i.e. they are made cheaper), so even if the bundle of commodities required to produce the labour power adequate for a particular job stays the same over a period of time, their value (and therefore the value of the labour power they help produce) decreases

(all the above though is moving away from the early chapters of volume 1 and onto the production of absolute & relative surplus value which span chapters 7 to 18, so sorry for jumping ahead)

In use value terms what is produced by the labour of one job is qualitatively different from that of another - but in value terms the only difference in production (of value) is a quantitative one - not sure what's problematic with what Marx says here, it's pretty much definitional and implicit in the terms rather than anything else I would say

 

[phildwyer]

Marx makes a very rigid distinction between qualitative and quantitative.

It's the basis of his whole analysis. When we look at something quantitatively we get exchange-value, when we look at it qualitatively, we get use-value. Use-value is what something is; exchange-value is what something represents, what it can be exchanged for, what it is not.

In fact there is no other way of looking at anything than (a) as what it is, and (b) as what it is not.

So it is hard to see how this distinction could ever be too "rigid."

 

[phildwyer]

One of the reasons this distinction appeals to me is the etymology of labour. Labour comes from the latin Laborem which implies toil and hardship. Work has slightly wider connotations of creative activity for example "a life's work" as well as a "workhouse".

What is sold by the worker, and alienated as financial value, is not labor but life itself.

 

[magneze]

What is sold by the worker, and alienated as financial value, is not labor but life itself.

Why do you make that distinction?

 

[phildwyer]

The other section I am struggling with is the distinction between the relative and equivalent forms of value. I think I understand the line of argument but it does lead to a strange distinction between:
xA=yB
and
yB=xA
Logically, this seems hard to accept. But in the real world it makes sense. If I have a coat to sell and I need linen the situation isn't the same as having linen and wanting to exchange it for a coat.

It's not a strange distinction even in the abstract.

When I say "A is the same as B," the terms "A" and "B" perform entirely different roles. "A" is that which is being compared, "B" is that to which it is being compared.

 

[phildwyer]

Why do you make that distinction?

Marx makes it, when he distinguishes between "labor" and "labor-power." The latter is not labor but the capacity for labor: the time that the worker sells each day. That time is his life, not his work.

 

[magneze]

Marx makes it, when he distinguishes between "labor" and "labor-power." The latter is not labor but the capacity for labor: the time that the worker sells each day. That time is his life, not his work.

Ok, I see.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

I'm still not 100% convinced by this 'labour-power is life' interpretation of yours, phil. It seems like an unnecessary generalisation of what is a fairly down-to-earth concept; everyone knows what it is to sell labour-time, but why abstract from labour-time to 'life' in general? What purpose is there to doing this?

 

[Greebo]

<snip>why abstract from labour-time to 'life' in general? What purpose is there to doing this?

Because the hours spent working aren't available for leisure or for anything else which you might find a lot more fulfilling than doing paid labour? Not just sleeping and the bare essentials, but the possibility of investing your time in something which could improve your standard of living later on.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Because the hours spent working aren't available for leisure or for anything else which you might find a lot more fulfilling than doing paid labour? Not just sleeping and the bare essentials, but the possibility of investing your time in something which could improve your standard of living later on.

I don't think it requires some philosophical abstraction before people realise that doing one activity means not doing another at the same time. That's just common sense isn't it?

 

[Greebo]

I don't think it requires some philosophical abstraction before people realise that doing one activity means not doing another at the same time. That's just common sense isn't it?

Stating the obvious is still necessary. Suppose you've got two people equally bright, equally talented, who were given the same education and training. Now give one of them 8 hours a day of physically and mentally exhausting work, while the other gets 6 hours. Which one will have more energy to use any of their free time to improve their future life chances?

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Stating the obvious is still necessary. Suppose you've got two people equally bright, equally talented, who were given the same education and training. Now give one of them 8 hours a day of physically and mentally exhausting work, while the other gets 6 hours. Which one will have more energy to use any of their free time to improve their future life chances?

But what does that have to do with Marx's value theory?

 

[phildwyer]

I'm still not 100% convinced by this 'labour-power is life' interpretation of yours, phil. It seems like an unnecessary generalisation of what is a fairly down-to-earth concept; everyone knows what it is to sell labour-time, but why abstract from labour-time to 'life' in general? What purpose is there to doing this?

Because, as Greebo says above, life is actually what you're selling. That's the difference between an independent craftsman, who does sell his labor or the product thereof, and a proletarian, who sells his life, or a large part thereof.

This means that capital is the alienated form not of labor but of life itself.

And that re-introduces a whole range of questions that the materialist Marxism of the last century proved itself unable even to ask, let alone to answer.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

And that re-introduces a whole range of questions that the materialist Marxism of the last century proved itself unable even to ask, let alone to answer.

Such as?

 

[phildwyer]

Such as?

What is the opposite of life?

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

What is the opposite of life?

Death I suppose.

 

[magneze]

Stop being so bloody cryptic. It does you no favours.

 

[phildwyer]

Stop being so bloody cryptic. It does you no favours.

I'm not being cryptic, I'm thinking this through myself.

 

[phildwyer]

Death I suppose.

Death is the end of life, not its opposite.

Obviously the opposite of life cannot be alive, but it cannot be dead either.

What could it be?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Why does life have to have an opposite?

What is the opposite of potato?

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Death is the end of life, not its opposite.

Obviously the opposite of life cannot be alive, but it cannot be dead either.

What could it be?

I honestly have no idea where you are going with this. Can you lay out your theory in one post, please?