| This question <61|64> overall <61|63> Hans: <59|63>. |
| Question 53: The value of a commodity does not increase if it is made by a slow or inept laborer. Explain carefully why not. Whose decision is it to do things this way? How is it enforced? |
| [62] Hans: What is average labor? Gottlieb's answer [32] to Question 53 has many thoughful and interesting points, but also a few gaps and errors. I will go through it sentence by sentence. At the beginning, Gottlieb briefly summarizes Marx's argument leading up to Question 53: |
| Marx makes the argument that the value of a commodity relates directly to the amount of labor it takes to create the commodity. He makes a point to show, however, that a lazy or inept worker does not make his or her commodity more valuable simply because it takes more of their labor time. |
| So far it is very good and helpful. But then Gottlieb continues: |
| Marx says that the worker must be held to a standard, a minimum standard, which is the average of the society. |
| Marx does not say this anywhere. He shows that in capitalist society the worker is indeed being held to a standard, not because there is a need for it and someone steps in and says: this freeloading is getting out of hand, we must introduce some standards here, but by the automatic working of the market. Marx's argument is not as clear as it could be, this is why I am asking Question 57, which can be re-phrased as: which market mechanism is Marx referring to here? Gottlieb is not answering all this, but he brings an interesting implication of the existence of such a mechanism: |
| This would cause those below average to “hurry up” to meet the minimum requirements. He does not follow the thought further as he should. If those below the average are constantly forcing themselves to work faster, then the average would continuously rise, raising the minimum standards for production and raising the output for all of the workers because they all want to “meet the minimum requirements.” |
| You are coming to this conclusion because you are taking the word “average” in the sense of “arithmetic mean”. Had Marx written “median” instead of average, then your conclusion would no longer have been valid. If the outliers are moved towards the median without crossing the median, this does not change the median one bit. |
| Marx's concept of “average” does not specify whether the median is meant or the mean or whatever. These are mathematical formulas which know nothing about the specific circumstances. Marx does not expect any formula to be able to automatically figure out what the socially normal level is in the given circumstance. It is kind of strange that we tend to think that there should be such a formula, isn't it? |
| Having said this, I still agree with you that the mechanisms Marx refers to and which you did not explain tend to push the normal level towards more intensive labor. |
| The only other option in keeping with this “average labor time” rule is that instead of the slower workers having to “hurry up,” the faster workers must slow down lowering the minimum standard. |
| I hope you know now what to think about the ‘average labor time rule’, but you are still broaching an important issue. Indeed, there is no automatic mechanism causing those who work too fast to slow down. This has to be done by peer pressure, union work rules, etc. There is an interesting analogy in international finance: in the Bretton Woods system, countries in balance of payments deficit were penalized and had to scramble in order to adjust to the “average”, but those in balance of payments surplus did not feel any pain and did not have to do anything. Keynes wanted to put more of the burden of adjustment on the surplus countries, but he was voted down in 1944. |
| It is the society as a whole who decides how much value a commodity holds due to the amount of time it allocates to produce the commodity. Marx should have pointed out in more detail the “theoretical” problem of captialistic societies of mismatching labor to different types of production. He says that in a capitalistic society, “Wasted labor will then be a labor in which the producer is not matched to the production in order to make his or her best contribution.” |
| The sentence which you quoted is from me and not from Marx, and it refers to socialism, not capitalism, i.e., to a society in which the law of the average no longer reigns. |
| The CEO will produce no more valuable commodities than the car salesman in a perfect society if they are 1) Producing commodities with the same labor time, and 2) are both matched with the production of a commodity in which they make their best contribution. |
| I hope you are aware that in Marx's view, the CEO does not produce any value. His high income is not a sign of his productivity but is the sign that he is on the receiving end of capitalist exploitative relations. In socialism, these people will be allowed to do something more useful than figuring out the latest tricks how to channel as much of the social surplus value as possible into their pockets. |
| I am confused however which society decides the value of the commodity. Would this be on a local, national, or world level. Surely I cannot type as fast as most secretaries, but I can type faster than most aboriginies. Who constitues the average? |
| Very interesting question. With modern computers and satellite communications, it has indeed become feasible that the aborigines take over certain rote office tasks, like scanning in checks or sorting merchandise coupons. Right now we are using Mexicans to do this, and the question how fast these people are able and willing to work is tendentially affecting the number of coffee breaks in offices in the USA. It is a matter of both technology and the character of the international economic institutions how far beyond the own nation these social norms go. |
| Adherance to this rule is not enforced in a capitalistic society. |
| You haven't described the mechanism which I am looking for, therefore you cannot know how “forceful” these mechanisms are. |
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