The distinction between labour as the creator of value, and thereby of wealth, as opposed to leisure time, as real wealth, itself is also significant. It illustrates Marx's point, in Capital, concerning the fallacy about value as a saving of labour-time.
“If everybody has to work, if the contradiction between those who have to work too much and those who are idlers disappears—and this would in any case be the result of capital ceasing to exist, of the product ceasing to provide a title to alien surplus labour—and if, in addition, the development of the productive forces brought about by capitalism is taken into account, society will produce the necessary abundance in six hours, [producing] more than it does now in twelve, and, moreover, all will have six hours of “disposable time”, that is, real wealth; time which will not be absorbed in direct productive labour, but will be available for enjoyment, for leisure, thus giving scope for free activity and development, Time is scope for the development of man’s faculties, etc.” (p 256)
And, again, here, Marx sets out the progressive historic role of capital, by developing the productive forces, so that the product of 12 hours labour can then be achieved in six hours, which facilitates this transition to socialism, and the enjoyment of all this additional six hours of leisure-time, of real wealth. By contrast, he says, if the statement is viewed only in terms of capital ceasing to exist, because the workers work the current six hours, rather than 12, the implication is that the whole of society is reduced to the same inadequate living standards endured by the workers.
“If capital ceases to exist, then the workers will work for six hours only and the idlers will have to work the same amount of time. The material wealth of all would thus be depressed to the level of the workers. But all would have disposable time, that is, free time for their development.” (p 256)
The point, however, being, as Marx sets out in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, and elsewhere, if society is constrained within such a restricted level of development, the ability to undertake this individual development is also stunted. The historic case for capitalism is that it creates the conditions whereby it continually drives to produce the greatest quantity of use values, in the least amount of labour-time, and hence with the least amount of value.
“Here also, the “disposable time” and the enjoyment of that which is produced in the labour-time of others, appear as the real wealth, but like everything in capitalist production—and consequently in its interpreters—it appears in the form of a contradiction. In Ricardo’s work the contradiction between riches and value later appears in the form that the net product should be as large as possible in relation to the gross product, which again, in this contradictory form, amounts to saying that those classes in society whose time is only partly or not at all absorbed in material production although they enjoy its fruits, should be as numerous as possible in comparison with those classes whose time is totally absorbed in material production and whose consumption is, as a consequence, a mere item in production costs, a mere condition for their existence as beasts of burden. There is always the wish that the smallest possible portion of society should be doomed to the slavery of labour, to forced labour. This is the utmost that can be accomplished from the capitalist standpoint.” (p 257)
Though, even that ambition escapes today's Tories who prefer to wish for the greatest number to be in employment, as wage slaves, whilst imposing on them the greatest misery through low wages, poor conditions, and lack of security.
Marx, also, here, provides the antidote to those who claim that The Law of Value only applies to capitalism, and that value, as a category, only has meaning under capitalism. He writes,
“Labour-time, even if exchange-value is eliminated, always remains the creative substance of wealth and the measure of the cost of its production. But free time, disposable time, is wealth itself, partly for the enjoyment of the product, partly for free activity which—unlike labour—is not dominated by the pressure of an extraneous purpose which must be fulfilled, and the fulfilment of which is regarded as a natural necessity or a social duty, according to one’s inclination.
It is self-evident that if labour-time is reduced to a normal length and, furthermore, labour is no longer performed for someone else, but for myself, and, at the same time, the social contradictions between master and men, etc., being abolished, it acquires a quite different, a free character, it becomes real social labour, and finally the basis of disposable time—the labour of a man who has also disposable time, must be of a much higher quality than that of the beast of burden.” (p 257)
This is a restatement of The Law of Value as set out in the Letter to Kugelmann, and of Marx's comment in Capital III, Chapter 49, that in the post-capitalist society, the concept of value, though not exchange-value, and its measurement by labour-time, as opposed to the measurement of exchange value by money, becomes, if anything even more significant, as social labour seeks to maximise the production of use values (wealth) whilst minimising the expenditure of labour-time, to achieve it, which thereby maximises leisure-time – real wealth.
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