| This question <25|33> overall <25|28> Hans: <24|29>. |
| Question 70: 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 keep the value of the output of a slow worker below the time actually used for its production? How is it enforced? |
| [26] Hans: Surface enforces Core DuckSoup's [25] is an excellent answer. He uses his own words to reformulate Marx's argument, and he takes my Annotations as guide. It is a clear A. In my response here, I will nevertheless be nitpicky about a few of DuckSoup's formulations, since this allows me to emphasize some of the points in the text which I'd like you to remember. I will make three separate, unrelated comments about three passages from DuckSoup's answer. DuckSoup's first sentence is: |
| The socially necessary labor time required to produce the commodity determines the value of the commodity. |
| It should be: determines the magnitude of the value of the commodity. DuckSoup's formulation as it stands suggests that value=time, i.e., value is a theoretical construct. It is one of the central points in Marx's analysis to say that value has a quality, it consists of “congealed abstract labor”. It is therefore not a mental construct but it is a real thing, which has its own real tendencies. Compare what I wrote on p. 35 of the Annotations, just before Question 60. Just as an acid has the inherent tendency to eat up and corrode most other substances, we will see that value has the inherent tendency to increase itself. |
| This pricing is determined at the core level, by the median value of all of the articles. Value is enforced from the surface by the price that the buyers are paying for the average workers commodity. |
| This is basically right, but I'd like to elaborate. Price, like exchange value, is a surface category, while value is a core category. Of course, in the final analysis, the price of something is determined by its value, i.e., in the core, in this way the above formulation is justified. But pure surface interactions between the commodity can also affect prices. The fact that commodity traders will not pay different prices for commodities which have the same use value, even if one is produced under much more difficult circumstances than the other, is a pure surface interaction. However it fits together perfectly with the relations between the producers in the core, and therefore enforces the core laws. |
| The skilled person has no incentive to utilize his or her ability and the inept person soon may be forced to find other employment. This would seem to reinforce the average, creating less likelihood of improvement either aesthetically or technologically by individuals. |
| DuckSoup is right that on the face of it, the laws of commodity production which we have derived right now do not seem to imply technical change. We will see in Chapter Twelve Marx's explanation why capitalism has such strong incentives for technical change. |
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