This illustrates a further point analysed by Marx, in Capital II, which is the difference between commodities and capital, and thereby also of the difference between a capitalist as merely an owner of commodities, as opposed to an owner of capital, and similarly of the difference between the owner of the general commodity money, used to buy commodities, and the owner of money-capital. On the basis of the law of value, commodities of equal value, equal amounts of labour-time, exchange for one another. A loaf of bread with a value of 1 day's labour exchanges for a kilo of cheese with a value of 1 day's labour, for example. Or, the owner of the loaf may exchange it directly for 1 day of labour performed on their behalf. In each case, here, a commodity, is exchanged for a commodity or a labour service of equal value. If only half a day's labour is required to reproduce labour-power, this does not change the value of the commodities exchanged, or of the labour service provided, which is still 1 day. It simply means that the baker, the cheesemaker, and the provider of the labour service each undertake ½ day of surplus labour, over and above what is required to reproduce their own labour-power. Each, thereby produce ½ day of surplus value, embodied in the commodity or labour service they exchange.
But, where commodities act as capital, rather than as commodities, this is not the case. If a capitalist owns bread or cheese, which are required by a wage worker, as means of subsistence, wages, so as to reproduce their labour-power, the capitalist is only interested in exchanging these commodities for the workers labour-power, if, in the process, they make a profit from doing so. This profit does not arise from the exchange itself, which continues to take place in accordance with the law of value, i.e. an exchange of equal amounts of value. The difference arises from the social context.
The capitalist exchanges commodities (bread, cheese) with a value of ½ day of labour-time for the worker's labour-power, which the worker also sells as a commodity, whose value is equal to ½ day of labour-time, i.e. that is what is required to reproduce it. And, here is the difference. What the capitalist buys here is not the product of the worker's labour for a day – which by definition has a value equal to 1 day of labour-time – but is the labour-power itself, as a commodity, i.e. the ability to perform value creating labour. The value of this commodity, labour-power, is determined, as with every other commodity, by the labour-time required for its reproduction, which in the case of labour-power is the time required to reproduce the commodities required for the worker's own reproduction.
If this value is equal to ½ day's labour, then the capitalist owner of bread and cheese, with a value of 1 day's labour can use these commodities to buy 2 days of labour-power, and in the performance of these 2 days of labour, 1 day of surplus value is produced. The capitalist, thereby, whilst exchanging commodities wholly in accordance with the law of value, obtains a surplus value of 1 day's labour. The commodities, which themselves have a value of 1 day's labour, as capital, therefore, have a greater value. They have a value of 2 days labour, a command over 2 days of labour, rather than 1. Yet, to talk of this capital having a value of 2 days is also wrong. Value is labour. But, the fact that the bread and cheese, as commodities, have a value of 1 day's labour, the labour required for their reproduction, whilst as capital they have a value of 2 day's labour, shows what is wrong with this description of the value of capital. This additional value of 1 day, as capital, rather than as commodities, is not itself the product of labour. It has not been produced by labour. But, value is labour, and no product, and so no commodity can have value unless it is produced by labour. Capital like land is not a product of labour, and so has no value. Capital, is simply the product of a given set of social relations. Hence Marx’s description of capital, not as a thing, but a social relation. What determines the value of capital is not the labour-time required for its reproduction – which would only determine the value of the commodities that comprise its components, as constant and variable-capital – but is the amount of labour-time it can command, both paid and unpaid labour. In other words, the value of capital is determined by the average rate of profit, and this average rate of profit itself is determined by a given set of objectively determined material conditions.
No comments:
Post a Comment