The commune knows that if it wants to have more of product A, it must have less of product B, C, D etc., and the proportions in which it must forego these other products are also a function of The Law of Value, i.e. a function of the value of A relative to the value B, C, D etc. It also knows, therefore, that if it wants to have more of all these products it can only do so by either a) undertaking additional labour, and, thereby, creating additional value, or b) increasing the productivity of labour, so that more of them can be produced by any given quantity of labour. In other words, it would have to reduce the unit values of A, B, C, D etc., the total value produced remains the same, but is spread over a larger quantity of use values. That is why it engages in a division of labour to raise productivity.
The same is true, as Marx sets out, with the peasant household. It determines what it can produce, and allocates its labour and resources so as to maximise its output of the use values it requires. It also engages in a division of labour in the household to this end. Neither in the commune, nor in the peasant household is this division of labour a basis for trade or commodity production. Neither the members of the commune, nor the peasant household engage in division of labour so as to obtain commodities to trade with other members of the commune/household, but only as a means of increasing the total output, and consequently welfare of their members. Having directly produced this increased output, the commune/household then consume it. There is no requirement, here, for exchange-value, money or prices. The commune and the peasant household operate on the basis of “from each according to their ability to each according to their needs”, albeit that these abilities and needs are dwarfish given the primitive development of the productive forces, which is why these forms are dissolved, along with the development of those forces.
But, the situation in the future communist society is different. At least in the first stage, although the society, as a whole, produces directly to meet the needs of society as a whole, this is no longer a society of a few individuals in the primitive commune or peasant household. It is a society comprising billions of people that still bears the marks of class society. The principle of “from each according to their ability to each according to their needs” cannot be upheld, and even if it could, systems of distribution would be required that are not needed where only small scale production is undertaken. The whole basis of such a communist society is a phenomenal increase in social productivity, brought about by an extensive and global division of labour.
Its true that this production is a collective effort by the whole of society to meet the needs of the whole of society, but it must necessarily take the form, as with commodity production, of millions of labourers engaged in the production of one type of use value, which they essentially exchange for other types of use value produced by millions of other labourers. As Marx says in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, this is essentially a continuation of those relations that exist under commodity production and exchange.
“What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labour. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labour time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labour (after deducting his labour for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labour cost. The same amount of labour which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labour, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labour in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labour in another form.”
Indeed, as Marx says in Capital III, Chapter 49, this manifestation of The Law of Value, in such a post-capitalist society, illustrates that the concept of value, and its measurement become more important than ever.
“... after the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, but still retaining social production, the determination of value continues to prevail in the sense that the regulation of labour-time and the distribution of social labour among the various production groups, ultimately the book-keeping encompassing all this, become more essential than ever.”
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