Mill reconciled himself to the problems of the Ricardian system, by taking on board the exceptions to the law of value set out by Ricardo. There was just one of these exceptions that Mill did not accept. Mill recognised that different commodities produced by capitals of a similar size, sell at different prices where it takes longer for those commodities to be sold. That might be because the particular commodity, such as wine, has to sit in a fermentation stage, when no labour is being applied to it, or because the circulation time for the commodity is longer than the average. If labour was not being expended on the production of the commodity during this time, and yet it appeared that the value of the commodity increased due to this longer period of time required for production, or sale, it was clear that this increase in value was not attributable to the quantity of labour required for production. The only conclusion would be that time itself was a producer of value. That was a particularly objectionable conclusion for Mill, who had declared that, “time as such is “sound and fury”.” (p 178)
The problems with the Ricardian system, described above, come down, on further analysis, Marx says, to the difference between the role of constant capital and variable capital in the production process. Constant capital, in the shape of materials, or wear and tear of fixed capital, can only transfer its own value to the end product.
“For it only has value insofar as it is embodied labour and the labour contained in it is in no way altered by its entry into the production process. It is to such an extent independent of the production process into which it enters and dependent on the socially determined labour required for its own production that its own value changes when more labour or less labour than it itself contains is required for its reproduction.” (p 178)
In other words, there is nothing arising out of the production process which changes the value of the elements of constant capital that goes into it. The only changes in respect of the elements of constant capital within the production process are changes in its use value. Changes in the value of the elements of the constant capital, whilst they are still in the production process, or in the circulation process, are a result not of changes arising from that process, but from changes in the production process of those elements. So, a machine, or a kilo of yarn, used in the production of cotton cloth does not change in value as a result of the production process. The use value of these elements is transformed, because a part of the use value of the machine is used up in the production process, as yarn is spun into cloth, and the use value of yarn becomes transformed into the use value of cloth. The value of neither the machine nor the yarn is changed by this process. However, the value of the machine, or of yarn is changed as a result of changes in the production process of machines, and of yarn. In other words, if social productivity rises then the value of machines and yarn will fall, including the value of those machines, and that yarn going through the process of transformation into cotton cloth.
“... i.e., it undergoes a change as use-value. And all operations undergone by the raw material or carried out by the instrument of labour are merely processes to which they are submitted as specific kinds of raw material, etc., and particular tools (spindles, etc.), processes which affect their use-value, but which, as processes, have nothing to do with their exchange-value. Exchange-value is maintained in this change. That is all.” (p 178)
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