Mill had followed Ricardo in explaining such divergences as being only exceptions, whilst claiming that commodities could “soak up” labour, where their production time was extended. McCulloch took this absurdity, that was for Mill only the exception, and turned it into a general principle. McCulloch redefines labour for this purpose. He argues that labour is the same as operation, and consequently every operation is labour which creates value. Such operation then need not be undertaken by a labourer, but could be performed by a machine or an animal, or it may be an operation performed by a chemical process, as with wine fermentation.
And, as Marx says, on this basis it is not only the instruments of labour, which perform such operations, because the materials which are operated upon, thereby also take part in such operation. On this basis, everything that takes part in production, be it land, machines, or materials is transformed into labour, and thereby contributes to the value of the commodity. In other words, McCulloch has thereby undermined the whole of the Ricardian theory of value, and set forth a factor product theory of value.
So, McCulloch writes,
““… labour may properly be defined to be any sort of action or operation, whether performed by man, the lower animals, machinery, or natural agents, that tends to bring about any desirable result” (op. cit., p. 75, Note I).” (p 179)
Marx notes,
“In reality, this is merely a paraphrase, a new name for Say’s “productive services of capital”, “productive services of land”, etc., which Ricardo attacked continuously and against which Mac—strange to say—himself polemicises in the same “dissertation” or “note” where he pompously presents his discovery, borrowed from Mill and embellished still further. In criticising Say, McCulloch makes lavish use of recollected passages from Ricardo and remembers that these “productive services” are in fact only the attributes displayed by things as use-values in the production process. But naturally, all this is changed when he calls these “productive services” by the sacramental name of “labour”.” (p 180)
McCulloch then goes further than this, and argues that the wages of the workers are themselves only commodities, which are accumulated labour.
“These wages of the commodities are pocketed by the capitalists per procurationem; they are “wages of accumulated labour”—alias profit. And this [according to McCulloch] is proof that equal profit on equal capitals, whether they set large or small amounts of labour in motion, follows directly from the determination of value by labour-time.” (p 180)
What is extraordinary, Marx says, is the way that, in all this, McCulloch, whilst supposedly defending Ricardo, by basing himself on Mill, against Say, actually appropriates the arguments of Say to undermine Ricardo, whilst he “hurls Ricardian phrases against Say.” (p 180) McCulloch simply takes Say's factor product theory of value, which speaks of each factor of production contributing value by its action, and replaces “action” with “labour”. Marx says this, at best, can be seen by looking at some passages where Ricardo criticises Say.
““M. Say … imputes to him” (Adam Smith) “as an error, that ‘he attributes to the labour of man alone, the power of producing value. A more correct analysis shows us that value is owing to the action of labour, or rather the industry of man, combined with the action of those agents which nature supplies, and with that of capital. His ignorance of this principle prevented him from establishing the true theory of the influence of machinery in the production of riches.’ In contradiction to the opinion of Adam Smith, M. Say … speaks of the value which is given to commodities by natural agents… But those natural agents, though they add greatly to value in use, never add exchangeable value, of which M. Say is speaking…” (David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation, third ed., London, 1821, pp. 334-36).
“… machines and natural agents might very greatly add to the riches of a country,” but they do “not … add anything to the value of those riches” (loc. cit., p. 335 [note]).” (p 180-1)
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