Re: [ox-en] extrinsic motivation = coercion
- From: Stefan Meretz <stefan meretz.de>
- Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 11:57:30 +0200
On 2009-05-02 15:05, Diego Saravia wrote:
Behind money
there is exchange _value_, which does only exist, because we do
not produce societally, but isolated. Isolated producers have
to exchange their products, societal producers do not.
all we produce is in a huge system, formed by "families" or
something like that
I don't mean families, but private producers, companies,
capitalists.
if you speak about a producer, you are thinking about producing for
others, so exchange
Producing for others does not imply exchange. Look at free software.
Free software is produced for general (unknown) others, but it is not
exchanged. Producing and taking is independent from each other. Free
software ist not exchanged, but spread simply by downloading (taking).
could you spoecify better what are you thinking about?
Could you specify your question?
what is a societal producer?, how it works, for whom do they produce?
A societal producer produces the things s/he like only from her/his need
of selbstentfaltung. These things are useful for others, who can take
these things and satisfy their needs. The others are general others, not
personal ones (like in a family), thus they produce for the society.
Producers are well informed about the needs of others via feedback loops
and other ongoing communication. Like in free software.
Thus talking about value in the sense of objective value is
more correct then talking about money.
yes, but diferenet concepts.
value is about work inside a product
Nope. Value is only a social relation. There is nothing "inside" a
product which creates value.
yes, accumulated work.
Nope, too simple.
mm, when we speak about value I think about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value
what are you thinking about?
LTV is a vulgar version of Marx' value theory, it is more Smithian.
The key point, that the value is "related to the labor needed to
produce" the commodity is fine. But this value is not "material", is
not a "thing" or "stuff" which can be measured or viewed at some piece
of commodity. It is only defined in relation to other commodities and
the labor being necessary to produce them. Thus, there is no
accumulation of work which is observable by any means. No way. It is
only defined in relation to other commodites as a societal exchange
relation. Thus value and the labor it represents is a societal relation.
If the relation vanishes, because there is no longer a private
isolated production and no a-posteriori exchange, then there is no value
at all -- as sketched above for the whole society and as free software
shows already today being an island.
"monetary value" or beter "price value" or better "exchange
value" is diferent and not proportional with value
Yes, price and value are different. Price is a local phenomenon,
local? there are global markets.
I mean "local" in the sense of the moment of transaction at one place.
This can be an internet click. On global markets prices are nevertheless
fluctuating.
value is
a societally average measure of exchange relations. Prices are
fluctuating around their value.
mmm, that's not always true.
In which cases is it not true?
I could have a product that today have a ?-value and tomorrow
have other, without changing it
True in a very general sense, but in average this does not happen,
because social relations did not change so rapidly.
did you review petroleum prices in las two years?
Yes, but oil prices increase due to boom or drop due to the crisis. But,
you are right, social relations is a reason, e.g. when workers
achieve wage increases. This supports my interpretation: Value is a
social relationship and nothing absolute.
But you are right:
value is only a social relation. The bad thing is: We can't escape
from this social relation, it determines our actions, which is
named fetishism or alienation.
alienation - work for others - exchange
This is an invalid equalization, see above. You give some arguments, not
simply throw key words.
In any society where you continue to have value (or money) as an
objective measure of social relationships,
value only in exchange of goods, not all social relationships
Yes, I did not write "all". Values reflect the social relations around
producing and exchanging the commodities, namely the labor necessary to
do so.
you have alienation. This
never can be a free society.
you can have value in non exchange societies,
Where? Value then only in the sense of subjective value.
as you can have work
This is an invalid shortcut, see above and previous mails.
value is related to work, and exchange value is related to work and
capital
Yes, more precisely: value reflecting a social relationship of isolated
private producers exchanging their commodities is related to work and
capital.
we must agree in a value definition, work definition, exchange
definition, before we can advance.
So, do you agree or not? If not, why? I explained my position carefully.
and not societally. Again: In a society where producers act
societally, value and thus money has no longer any function,
because the role of ex- post mediation (via markets) was replaced
by an ex-ante-communication -- like in free software.
again, what is societally?
It is the adjective of the noun "society". More explanations regarding
the content see above at the "societal producer".
Hm, I wonder if the english (or other non-german) translations of the
"capital" and other works of Marx replaced the word "societal" (german:
gesellschaftlich) with "social" (german: sozial).
free software usage is free, no exchange value, nothing to do with
our discussion.
Why not? It is a perfect example for our discussion. Being free of value
does not come from the fact, that there is no price. The other way
around is true: no value - no price (in most circumstances). Free
software is "general work" (Marx) which is per definition free of value,
because general work _is_already_ societal work.
Private work on the other side does have to go the loop way via exchange
and market ruled by value, in order to obtain societal validity, which
general work (like free software) already has. Private work which did
not successfully gets exchanged is societally "invalid", is garbage.
You are already familiar with Marx? Then here is one snippet the
capital, vol. 1, explaining the transformation of private
("particularised") labour into societal validity ("direct social
labour"):
The antithesis, use-value and value; the contradictions that private
labour is bound to manifest itself as direct social labour, that a
particularised concrete kind of labour has to pass for abstract human
labour; the contradiction between the personification of objects and
the representation of persons by things; all these antitheses and
contradictions, which are immanent in commodities, assert themselves,
and develop their modes of motion, in the antithetical phases of the
metamorphosis of a commodity.
Well, not really a good translation of the german original.
we have not work needed to distribute it, so no value involved also
it is not an economic good
Value does not depend on _distribution_ work. If you favor the term
"work" (or labor) and equal it with "value" (following the LTV), then
you have to explain, why free software has no value, because you can not
denial, that there is a lot of "work" (in your sense) involved producing
free software.
you only need work to create it. once its produced (and disponible to
the public via internet), its value goes to 0, also its price.
So free software _has_ value? Going to zero, but it has value to some
extend? Then the same holds true for proprietary software, right?
in fact its not obvious how to create, you can not guarantee a cost
for it. like art. Software creation is an art, not an industrie.
Cost is a debate of prices, this should be separated from the question
of having a value or not. From the price you can't conclude value.
Yes, I know. They can only think in terms of "appropriating value".
what are others ways?
Don't know, ask them?
first time I heard about that definition. I think "objetive" is
not a good word near value.
It is an absolutely necessary clarification. Otherwise you are
moving to the liberal interpretation of economy (based on prices
and subjective value).
but you say sometime before that value is not related to the work
content of an item
No, I didn't say that. It is realted, but not as a "content" or "thing",
but only as a social (societal) relation.
My definition is really not new, you can read at Marx' theory. This
explanantion was only buried under tons of readings of Marx
first chapter of capital.
Exactly.
by the
traditional workers movement, which were handy, but too simple.
They need it for class struggle purposes, which I completely
understand. But it was too simple and it proved wrong when trying
to build new societies
???
I mean socialist countries and social democrat reform policies.
on the ground of their simplistic or substancialistic value theory.
The very core was the assumption, that value (and money) can be
treated in the interests of the people.
thats utility, not marx work
No, value and money, which should be redistributed by the state. But
both wings (communists and social dems) didn't touch the value form (and
thus money).
was not discovery by marx, nor adam smith, its "biblical"
we were expulsed from paradise and coerced to work
Not true. This is one of the big myths of our times. We as
humans do not need to work. This sounds weird, but a proof is
simple. Just look at our daily live. Say you have an
8-hour-job. Then during one third of the (week) day, you "work"
and produce something useful (hopefully). During two third of
the day, you don't "work", but you do other things, most of
them are useful too: Relaxing, child caring, communicating,
writing on ox-list, making history or anything else. Without
these things you are doing -- simply because you live your life
-- society would not exist. These _are_ necessary activities,
but they are not "work"!
why are you not calling them work?
This could be one option: Call everything "work".
not everything.
everything what we usually call work
Well, "usually called" is not a good defintion, at least not a scientific
one.
And indeed there was
and is a tendency in emancipatory theory to extend the realms of
activity which should be called "work" (love work etc.). But then
you loose the potence to discover differences between types of
action, free and coerced/aliened ones.
the only people I know, for wich love is work are prostitutes, paid
ones (exchange prostitutes) or married/slaves ones (in the family)
I don't mean the commercial variants, the sex industry or slavery
relationsships. I mean normal families or friendships. Think of washing
the dishes, watch for your kid when playing on the streets, caring for
your grandparents etc. All work?
Marx: "Hence, the worker feels himself only when he is not working; when
he is working, he does not feel himself." (Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts of 1844)
so ther are a lot of actions, for example read a book for pleassure,
play soccer, sleep, talk with my family, go to cinema, eat, etc than
nobody calls work
For me work is an aliened activity.
ok, thats your way, but I think most of people use other way
I know, but I am sorry, most people are not right. Theoretical questions
can not be solved by voting.
You do it because you are coerced to
do it. The type of coercion does not matter, be it physical
personal oppression or indirect coercion via money. Nothing
explains it better then the cite: "Who do not work should not eat".
This slogan was used by church _and_ liberals _and_ workers
movements. Creepy.
"should" is the creepy word
but nature have a more "natural" fact. "who do not work, do not eat"
and that has nothing to do with alienation. Its direct
Repeating does not make this assumption true. Don't you see, that this
statement is part of the repressive bourgois ideology?
form wikipedia:
In the labour process
Marx's Theory of Alienation is based upon his observation that in
emerging industrial production under capitalism, workers inevitably
lose control of their lives and selves, in not having any control of
their work. Workers never become autonomous, self-realized human
beings in any significant sense, except the way the bourgeois want
the worker to be realized. Alienation in capitalist
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism> societies occurs because in
work
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_%28economics%29>each contributes
to the common wealth, but can only express this
fundamentally social aspect of individuality through a production
system that is not publicly(socially) owned, but privately owned, for
which each individual functions as an instrument, not as a social
being:form wil
so, its a capitalism problem, not general one.
I am only talking about capitalism. But don't turn capitalist evicences
(you are coerced to work) into ontological statements (humans are always
coerced to work). This part of liberal ideology.
but the point is that a lot of us think of work as something more
general
Well, this is up to you. I propose to better give up this
naturalistic definition of work. I prefer to use the word
producing. We humans are producing our livelihood, but we don't
need to work for that goal. Working is the type of producing
livelihood in non-free societies.
so, for you, you only work in a capitalistic world?
Yes. I prefer to use "produce" as the neutral term. Work is not neutral.
I would say that prosume is about work
child caring is work (prosumed, usually)
How do you distinguish child caring in a kindergarten done by
professionals for money and giving your child a kiss? Is both work?
What is your kiss worth?
you are mixing a lot of stuff
No, you do, and this is what I want to show.
people can (and ussualy do) put love in their work
Yes, because people love to produce, to do useful things. And in
capitalism this is often only possible in aliened work.
I have a lot of friends in my job, and I can show my love for them
in my work
I usualy love my work, also
Alienation usualy happens in mass producing industrial repetitive
tasks.
No, the Wikipedia description given above is misleading (if not wrong in
respect to Marx). Alienation occurs in commodity producing societies.
Thus if you are saying, that you are loving your "work", then you are
loving your alienation. But actually you mean: I love to do what I am
doing, although it is aliened work.
Our society also have people working with his capital, that are not
alienated.
Nope, they are aliened too. Marx called this "character masks". They
only have more power (and may be richer), because they control the means
of production.
You are trying to cuadriculate stuff, to put concepts in black and
white, that is good , abstraction, but you are going to far, you
loose the real stuff if you goes to far with that.
No, I don't, on the contrary I try to argue, that things are not so
simple, I pledge for more differentiation.
No, surely not, as explained above. The type of immediate personal
relationships in families is different from societal non-personal
mediation in society. But in a sense you are right: The challenge
is to develop a type of societal mediation, where humans do and
produce freely what they want resulting in a good living for all.
we have this kind of participations in families. (we share food,
shelter in families)
people work in families, people do not exchange (usualy) inside
families. Families prosume.
Yes, great.
we develop exchange sistems to organize biger groups, people work
also for exchange, not always alienated
perhaps is possible to develop a new system for sharing stuff in
bigger groups not based in exchange
I think this is your wish, ok I have no problem with that. I listen
you.
you think that peer production is a germ for that: Wonderfull
Great! Let's see how things will develop.
Skipping the rest. Please ask again, if you feel uncomfortable with
that.
Ciao,
Stefan
--
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