| This question <722|722> overall <721|723> Daru: <637|96>. |
| Question 126: Carefully explain the meaning of the statement: “The dissolution of all commodities into labor-time is no greater an abstraction, and is no less real, than the dissolution of all organic bodies into air.” |
| [722] Daru: Commodities are nothing but Air! Reading up past submissions revealed that people attempted to explain the two issues in the question in the sequence they appear. I shall here try to do it in reverse. I think it would be easier to understand the question this way rather than the more common approach as used by student in previous submissions. |
| All organic bodies are primarily arrangements of Carbon (C) and Hydrogen (H) atoms in different combination. One particular arrangement yields methane, another propane and yet another butane. There are numerous other combinations possible as well that result into different organic compounds, all having both similar and different characteristics and properties. The important point here is that all these organic compounds are essentially made up of Carbon and Hydrogen atoms. Hence, one can argue that organic compounds can be “abstracted” simply to arrangements of Carbon and Hydrogen atoms. This is only a mental abstraction; we all know it in our heads (Hans [2005fa:1954]). |
| But there is one further abstraction that can be made here, which in my opinion is more real than the mental abstraction made earlier. Every time organic compounds combust, they burn to give off Carbon-di-Oxide and Water and disappear into thin air. This what Marx means by “dissolution of all organic bodies into air.” This is more real than the mental abstraction because it takes place in reality - organic compounds cannot combust with us just imagining it in our heads. I think burning of organic compounds and its constituents dissolving into air is also real because it is a common occurrence in nature itself. Lightening during storms sometime burn trees - organic compounds burning and dissolving into air. One can therefore say that combustion or burning of organic compounds transforms them into a mixture of gases and dissolve in the most common mixture of gases - air (Hans [2005fa:1954]). There is nothing ‘great’ about this abstraction because, as I alluded, it takes place in nature all the time and as Hans [2005fa:1954] puts it, this abstraction does not go beyond reality itself. I think the idea of organic compounds dissolving into air is settled here. We shall move to the other important issue at hand. |
| The question remains: how dissolution of all commodities into labour-time is an abstraction in the first place and also not a greater but just as real an abstraction as “dissolution of organic bodies into air.” The first part here can be answered in the Marx explanation of the exchange process. We will not delve into great detail about the exchange process here since a lot has already been said about it elsewhere. Essentially, Marx said that when commodities are exchanged they must have something in common that makes them exchangeable. He argued against the notion that it must be their use-values and instead explained that its value of the two commodities that is common between them and makes them “exchangeable.” Value, in commodities, results only because the (socially necessary) labour-time invested in it. So, all commodities are essentially products of labour (time) invested in them. For Marx this abstraction does not end here. Since, his this first attempt of abstracting commodities into labour-time posits a new challenge to him. We ‘know’ that labour invested in the commodities is not the same. The labour performed to carve wood into a table top is different from labour expended to write a poem. If they are different then how can they be the same. For that is what Marx intended them to be with his idea of abstracting all commodities into labour-time. Our casual use of the word labour in two different process above hides something about the labour expended here. For Marx, I would only be talking about concrete labour here. The specific activity performed to produce a particular type of commodity. Hence, labour time being spent on a piece of wood to carve it into a table top is only concrete labour i.e. activity specifically desired to produce the table top. The same is true for labour spend in writing a poem - it only represents the concrete-labour. Workers (or humans in general) can only perform concrete labour. Every activity that they perform at the workplace is concrete labour (Hans [2005fa:1954]). Marx equalizes this concrete labour in all commodities by saying that it is nothing but abstract human labour i.e. all labour is essentially manifestation of human muscle power and its intellectual ability. That is why to him all labour or concrete labour can be termed as abstract labour power and all commodities can therefore be dissolved into labour time because the commodities in essence represent only human abstract labour power. |
| Now the second, part; how is this abstraction real? This is to say that how this abstraction is not like a mental abstraction but has some real effects. I think it is real because abstract human labour is real - all humans have muscle power and ability to think and act. Obviously it exists in varying degrees in humans but that is not of any concern here. The fact remains that my muscle power, weak or strong, is real because it produces real effects when utilized - carving of wood into table top is a case in point. This is why Marx states that abstraction of commodities into labour time is just as real as organic compounds dissolving into air. It is not any greater abstraction than combustion of organic compounds because it does not go beyond reality i.e. the commodities would have have existed without the labour time invested in them (Hans [2005fa:1954]) |
| In many ways my above answer is only a summary of Hans's [2005fa:1954]. I have ignored Hans's [2004fa:34] since he incorporated it in his 2005 explanation. I read other submissions as well by Copenhagen [2004fa:31], BonzoIsGod [2005fa:1846], Geo [2005fa:1869], Sonja [2005fa:1953] and Garfield [2003fa:267-2]. However, I found all these lacking at many levels and thought it best to construct my own argument out of what Hans has discussed in his submission of 2005fa. |
| Well, I guess this is it, my last submission to the group. Finals start from Monday or may be for some of you they have already started. In any case I wish all of you all the best in your exams and hope all of us do well. |
| Hans: For the abstraction to be real it is not sufficient that abstract labor itself is real. Commodity prices can be considered so-to-say the “ash” generated by the real social process abstracting all commodities to the abstract human labor required to produce them. |
|
|
|||||