In a direct repudiation of one of the tenets of the use of historic prices, Marx says,
“We have seen that the whole of production presupposes simultaneous reproduction of the required constituent parts and products in their different forms as raw materials, semi-manufactured goods, etc. But all fixed capital presupposes future labour for its reproduction and for the reproduction of its equivalent, without which it cannot be reproduced.” (p 292)
Workers always have to rely on past labour that has been stored up to some extent, because of the nature of the product. Things like agricultural products that have prolonged production times have to be stored up so that they can be consumed during the whole of the period where their replacement is being produced. As Marx pointed out earlier, for things like meat prior to the introduction of refrigeration, it meant that various types of preserved meat products had to act as alternatives. Other products only wear out slowly, and it is not at all for the worker's benefit that the labour contained in them is stored up.
“This does not apply to a house, for example. As regards use-values which, by their nature, only wear out slowly, are not consumed at once, but gradually used up, it is not due to any action specially devised for the benefit of the workers that these products of previous labour are available on “the market”. The worker also used to have a “dwelling” before the capitalist “piled up” deadly stink-holes for him.” (p 292)
But, in general, production and consumption become more contemporaneous. With the rise in the rate of turnover, with the development of globalisation, whereby the limitations placed on production, by the seasons and climate, are removed, and where rapid transport and communications can make trade match consumption and production, the more that becomes the case, and,
“therefore, if one considers society as a whole, consumption depends more and more on simultaneous production, or rather on the products of simultaneous production.) But when operations extend over several years, the worker must “depend” on his own production, on the simultaneous and future producers of other commodities.” (p 292)
This reliance on future labour becomes most notable in relation to the provision of services.
“The worker always has to find his means of subsistence in the form of commodities on the market (the “services” he buys are ipso facto only brought into being at the moment they are bought); as far as he is concerned they must therefore be the products of antecedent labour, that is of labour which is antecedent to their existence as products but which is by no means antecedent to his own labour with whose price he buys these products. They can be—and mostly are—contemporaneous products, especially for those who live from hand to mouth.” (p 293)
Marx has in mind the services that predominated at the time he was writing, which were mostly personal services. The cook, or domestic servant cannot provide the particular service prior to being employed, in the way, for example, a potter produces teapots, which they take to market, in the hope of finding a buyer. A singer or actor cannot provide a service of performing a song or play, and then seek to find a buyer for it, after they have done so. But, that is not necessarily the case with modern capitalist service industries. The multi-billion dollar entertainment industry produces many things speculatively, in anticipation of selling them. The majority of the value of a film is not the medium on which it is stored, but is the complex labour of the actors, special effects teams, CGI artists, computer programmers and so on.
No comments:
Post a Comment