[γ) Confusion of Value and Price. Bailey’s Subjective Standpoint]
Correctly identifying the fact that a commodity that acts as a money-commodity, measuring exchange-value, does not have to be invariable, Bailey writes,
“…the capability of expressing the values of commodities has nothing to do with the constancy of their values…” (p 159)
And, as seen earlier, not only is this not necessary, but it is impossible, because every commodity, including a money-commodity, by necessity, must also possess value, and that value will vary as a consequence of changes in social productivity. As the general commodity, against which the exchange-value of other commodities are measured, all that is required is that changes in its own value are then proportionately represented in its exchange-value against every other commodity. Any other changes in the exchange-value of particular commodities are then identifiable as resulting from a change in the value of these particular commodities, as opposed to changes in the value of money.
But, that illustrates the problem for Bailey, and other theories of subjective value, because, whilst it is not necessary, and indeed not possible for a money commodity to be an invariable measure, this all the more highlights the requirement for some other invariable measure of value that the money-commodity has in common with all commodities whose value it acts to express. In other words, it is not necessary to have an invariable measure of exchange value, but it is necessary to have an invariable measure of value, and that measure is abstract labour-time. It is why, as Marx says, in his letter to Kugelmann, it is only the form of the law of value, under commodity production and exchange, that exchange-value represents. Outside commodity production and exchange, including the form that takes under capitalism, the form of that law as expressed by exchange-value (prices of production under capitalism) no longer applies, because exchange-value no longer applies. It no longer applies because the law of value can operate openly, without the interference of commodity fetishism, so that values can be measured not indirectly (exchange-values, prices, price of production) but directly in terms of their intrinsic measure – abstract labour-time.
As Marx says,
“...after the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, but still retaining social production, the determination of value continues to prevail in the sense that the regulation of labour-time and the distribution of social labour among the various production groups, ultimately the book-keeping encompassing all this, become more essential than ever.”
Or, as he says in the Critique of the Gotha Programme,
“Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labour, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labour in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labour in another form.”
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