| This question <130|130> overall <129|131> SamHouston: <67|219>. |
| Question 275: Marx criticizes in 166:2/o that even after the discovery of labor as the the substance of value, this was generally considered an “immutable fact.” What else should people have thought and done? |
| [130] SamHouston: Immutable. The view that labor as the source of value is an immutable fact seems to be derived from the idea that the labor of the commodity is part of its nature. The labor is something that society can see in the commodity. The nature of the commodity exhibits the labor that was involved in producing it. The need to see the social value of labor is not considered because the social value is not exhibited in the physical properties of the commodity, while the actual labor involved to produce is. A coat could not be produced without the proper tailoring. The consumer can see the tailor's work in the commodity. This gives society the idea that the value is derived from the tailor putting in labor not from deeper society relations that the commodity carries. It makes sense for society to look to the physical characteristics of a commodity for value. This is something they can rationally look to for evidence of value. |
| What else should people have thought and done? They should have thought “Why does labor change the value of the commodity?” From the Marxian view, there is something in labor that brings value to a commodity. That something is a constant social relation throughout all labor that has determined that society should allocate a certain amount of labor to a specified commodity. People should be asking, why does society devote more labor to this commodity than this other commodity. |
| Hans: Very good. Even after finding out that labor creates value, they still do not consider this a social property of the commodity but a natural property, since they see the effects of labor in the use-value of the commodity. Their error is that the use-value is the result of concrete labor, while the labor which creates value is abstract labor. |
|
|
|||||