In the 1970's, a challenge was made on Marx's Theory of Value from a number of angles. That was not surprising. For a long time, from the 1940's on, Marxism was a minority sport, and worse what often passed for Marxism was a grotesque parody of it in the form of Stalinism. In the meantime, the bourgeoisie had poured literally billions of dollars into the development of bourgeois economic theory, and the development of ever more elaborate models.
It was the upsurge of the working class in the 1960's, which provided the material basis for the growth of academic interest in the ideas of Marx once again. On the one hand this renaissance in Marxist Economics had to confront that massive bastion of bourgeois economic theory, whose mathematical models appeared to explain price formation down to the smallest detail. On the other, it had to deal with a movement whose immediate concern was to try to provide a political response to the growing working-class movement, and for whom the niceties of the Labour Theory of Value could be seen as an irrelevance.Furthermore, the 1960's saw the development of Feminism, and it was only natural that it would challenge Marxist Theory as providing solutions still within a paternalistic framework, and which, therefore, had to be challenged. That challenge was represented in debates over “The Family Wage” and the nature of domestic labour. It is of course, only through such challenges, and debate around them that advance is made. But, that is only the case if the conclusions of the debate are correct. If incorrect assumptions or methods are adopted, then rather than clarification, further confusion is created. Reading Bradby's review I find that she has a considerable amount of confusion in the arguments she puts forward.
She attacks some of the arguments put forward to determine what constitutes Capitalism as a distinct Mode of Production. But, these arguments are flawed, and frequently a historical and undialectical.
a) Money. She says, “Firstly, sooner or later, it must face up to the fact that money as we know it is not unique ot Capitalism. Coins were invented in China around the 6th Century B.C. and paper money by the Chinese state in the 7th Century A.D.” (p122) But, as Marx demonstrates coins and paper tokens are not money – one reason why, during crises, when these tokens are unable to act as representatives of money they become worthless, and there is a demand for real money such as Gold.
But, even a Gold coin is not Money, it is merely a coin. A coin, whether it is made of precious metal, or else, like a paper token, merely stands in place of such a Value, is not Money. It may be, or represent a store of value, and be a means of payment, both of which are functions of money, but the concept of Money, for Marx is much more than this.For Marx, the development of Money is analysed not just from a theoretical perspective, but concretely in terms of its historical progress. Before Money can emerge in its present reality, it has to be transformed from these primitive beginnings.
Before it can perform its function as a measure of value, it first has to be possible that commodities themselves can be compared and made commensurate. That cannot happen when the exchange of goods is spasmodic or else simply reflects the immediate desires of one group – be it a tribe or nation – to acquire the goods of some other group by exchanging with them a surplus of their own. If goods are not widely and regularly produced for the purpose of exchange there is no means of determining relative values. Exchange values will be established merely on a whim as the subjectivist economists claim, depending solely upon the strength of the desires of those doing the trading to acquire the others goods. It is only when trade expands, and becomes so regularised, and particularly when it justifies the emergence of a specific group of merchants, who have a vested interest in determining relative costs of production so as to make profits via arbitrage, that commodities can be compared with each other, and exchange values established. Without that, even the value of the money commodity itself cannot be determined, and so it cannot perform that basic function of a measure of Value. We now have plenty of evidence from all over the world from the most diverse societies that the way in which these relative costs of production, and, therefore, relative exchange values were established, is on the basis of labour-time expended. Historical Proofs and Orgins of The Labour Theory of Value. So it is only at this stage, that a Money commodity can emerge that is able to act as a Universal equivalent, and so can truly act as Money.
Bradby confuses the physical manifestation of money as notes and coins for its inner reality. It is like seeing a loom in a Capitalist Manufactory,
and then arguing that because similar looms existed in Mogul Indian villages, Capital has always existed. This is in reality the weakness at the heart of Sraffian economics. A crippling ahistorical, and undialectical approach.In Part 3, I will examine the deficiencies of Bradby's argument in relation to the question of Generalised Commodity production.
Forward To Part 3
Back To Part 1
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