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Re: Labour theory of value, was: Re: [ox-en] Free market and the Internet



On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, Russell McOrmond wrote:


  I am aware of the labour theory of value, and this is one of those areas
where I diverge considerably from the traditional "left".

  I see this as a case of de-valuing non-human inputs, and I consider
devaluation of non-human inputs to be a large source of our current
social, ecological and economic problems worldwide.

  To extend the issue as I see it, de-valuing other humans is also what is
used to conduct war, and to create through various economic means the
conditions that create poverty, hunger, etc.

  Humans are interdependant, both with all humans and with nature.  Things 
have value far beyond the (often insignificant) human value add, and we 
need to start to recognize this value.

I don't think there's any diagreement there (though Chris may yet disagree
with me ;-) The LTV (at least Marx's version of it) is specific to
capitalism, and the whole point is that as the scale of production grows,
measuring what's produced by prices which ultimately stem from labour
values becomes more and more ridiculous because of the growth in
automation, where the actual direct labour involved is tiny, and more
generally because of the growing importance of science and technology
compared with any physical input. There are a lot of passages in the
Grundrisse which have been discussed on the list before which talk about
this. That agrees with what you're saying, in that measuring by labour
values is a ridiculously short-sighted thing to do.

Where the difference is more likely to be is that for Marx measuring by
labour values was inevitable in this society, and it would take a
revolutionary change to escape from it. 20 years ago I think anyone who
defined themselves as 'marxist' would have said that means you're stuck
with labour values until the Revolution. Now what's changed things is free
software - large scale creation of something useful, where there is
intentionally not even an attempt to measure the usefulness by price, and
hence in terms of labour values. Most marxists continue to say that can't
happen before the revolution, and we're deluded if we think it has...
Anyway, how far it can be generalised (ie. if it can spread to production
of rivalrous goods) without major political changes is still an open
question in practise.

Graham



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