| This question <73|66> overall <74|76> Hans: <65|77>. |
| Question 120: When Marx wrote that labor is the father and the earth the mother of use-values, should he also have included produced means of production in addition to nature and labor? |
| [75] Hans: Can Nature be Useful Without Labor? Yes! Josh writes in [66]: “Marx did not include produced means of production ... because the produced means of production is a product of labor.” When I first read this, I thought it was an oversight, because produced means of production clearly are a product of labor and the earth, just like everything else. Apparently, SamHouston thought the same thing; when he quoted the above sentence in [67], he added “and nature” although Josh had not included nature. (When Marx writes in his metaphor “the earth,” he really means all of nature.) |
| But reading on in Josh's answer, Josh really seems to be serious with his exclusive emphasis on labor. The whole submission [66] is a praise of labor. It also brings the following Marx quote: “The values coat and linen ... are merely congealed quantities of homogenous labor.” Does this mean Marx holds the view that that what makes things valuable only comes from labor, that nature without labor is only, as Josh says, a “jumble of rocks”? |
| No, Marx wanted to say something completely different. He wanted to say that exchange relations between commodities are only governed by labor content, not by nature's contribution to the use-values. On the other hand, his sentence with the father and the mother affirms that nature does contribute to use-values. |
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