[2003fa:54]

This question <39|39> overall <53|55> Hans: <45|55>.

Question 70: Regarding the question how to measure the quantity of value, Marx first gives the wrong answer and then corrects it. Why doesn't he give the right answer right away?

[54] Hans: Value and labor time. Why does Marx first take the naive approach of measuring the value of a commodity by the actual labor-time spent by the person producing this commodity, and then he says: we cannot do this, we have to use the socially necessary labor. Why doesn't he say right away that it must be socially necessary labor? This is a question which any reader of the text might have. The answer cannot be found in the Annotations, because I am not sure about the answer myself.

Catfish gives a somewhat plausible answer in [39]: Marx is doing this for didactic reasons, he wants to drive home to the reader that one cannot use the concrete labor but must use abstract labor in this case. I am still not convinced. Marx is taking pains to clarify some difficult and subtle connections here, and throwing in something that is wrong just for didactic purposes would be counterproductive. Besides, this is not how Marx operates. He is trying to use a style that is appropriate for the subject. He is not throwing loops into his prose just to have a specific effect on the reader.

Since the question came up I did some more research about it in the last two days, and my best explanation right now is the following: The reader needs to know how the concept of value relates to the actual labor-time used, because the concept of value is intrinsically connected with labor-time. In section 4 of chapter one of Capital Marx says, for instance:

In all states of society, the labor time it costs to produce the means of subsistence must necessarily concern mankind, although not to the same degree at different stages of development.

Marx therefore did not just pick a mistake out of the blue, but he explains here how the general concern about labor-time, which all societies have, is handled in commodity-producing societies. The explanation of value by abstract human labor has a lot of plausibility because the reader knows that labor-time is a central concern of society. This is why Marx explains here in detail how this concern is reflected in the values of individual commodities, and therefore on the market place (since these values are the “centers of gravity” for their market prices).

Here are some additional remarks for those interested in these subtle matters. You you may skip it if you want to, it will not be asked on the exam:

I came to this conclusion by comparing how Marx had argued this point in Contribution, an earlier published version of the first three chapters of Capital. There, Marx had said: “Regarded as exchange-values all commodities are merely definite quantities of congealed labor-time.” I.e., there the link between value and labor-time is much more explicit than in Capital.

Then, a short paragraph later, he had written: “To measure the exchange-value of commodities by the labor-time they contain, the different kinds of labor have to be reduced to uniform, homogeneous, simple labor, in short to labor of uniform quality, whose only difference, therefore, is quantity.”

This had been a somewhat surprising retreat from what Marx just had said: first he had declared that as values, commodities are nothing but congealed labor-time, and immediately afterwards he had said that one can not directly measure the value of an individual commodity through the labor-time used up to produce this commodity. In Capital, Marx brings at this point the story of the lazy or inept laborer, in order to make this retreat more plausible.

There are some interesting differences between Marx's argument in Capital and in the earlier Contribution. The very first term paper opportunity (due date: October 6 and 7) is a paper comparing these two works. This is a term paper recommended for those who already know more about the subject, and perhaps also the graduate students involved in this class.