Theories of Surplus Value Chapter 3
Smith's absurd dogma flows from his taking the fact that the new value added by labour, in the value of a commodity, resolves into revenues – wages, profit and rent – and turning it upside down to, thereby, determine the value of commodities by the sum of these component parts. He, thereby moved from a labour theory of value to a cost of production theory of value, as Marx describes in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 3, and section 6, in particular. This, in turn, flows from Smith confusing the value of commodities, determined by the labour required for their production with its converse, the amount of labour that can be bought with a given quantity of commodities.
As Marx demonstrates, if all commodities are produced by independent producers, then Smith's argument holds. Ignoring the value of means of production, as a component of the value of a commodity, its value is equal to the labour required for its production. This labour divides into necessary labour and surplus labour, but, as the seller of the commodity, the independent producer appropriates all of this value. The category of wages does not exist. If A produces cloth, and B produces wine, 1 litre of wine requires 10 hours labour, as does 1 metre of cloth, then 1 litre of wine will exchange for 1 metre of cloth. Put another way, 1 litre of wine will buy 10 hours of labour, represented by the 1 metre of cloth. It does not matter that, for the wine producer, the 10 hours they expend is composed of 8 hours necessary labour, and 2 hours surplus labour, whereas for the cloth producer it is composed of 7 hours necessary labour and 3 hours of surplus labour, because, in both cases, the surplus labour is subsumed in the value of the commodity, alongside the necessary labour. It is the total labour-time that determines the value of the commodity, not these different fractions of it. Marx does, however, point out, in Capital III, that, where such divergences exist, the producers would tend to move into those spheres of production where their surplus labour represented a larger proportion, as against their necessary labour (rate of surplus value), and the more commodity production becomes generalised, the more this results in an average rate of surplus value applying in all spheres. That is not to be confused with the development of an average rate of industrial profit, which only arises under capitalist production.
Under capitalist production, however, Smith's argument does not hold, precisely because the labourer does not sell the product of their labour, but sells their labour-power itself, as a commodity, in exchange for wages. The value of this labour-power is itself determined by the labour required for its production, and that is equal only to the necessary labour. So, now, 10 hours labour of the wine producing labourer, employed as a wage worker, can be bought with just 8 hours of labour, in the form of wages (wage goods or money equivalent) in the hands of the capitalist (variable-capital), and 10 hours of labour of the cloth producing labourer can be bought with just 7 hours of labour in the form of wages in the hands of the capitalist. Smith failed to make this distinction, because he failed to distinguish between labour as the value creating activity, and labour-power, as a use-value/commodity.
“Lauderdale is right in this respect—that Adam Smith, after explaining the nature of surplus-value and of value, wrongly presents capital and land as independent sources of exchange-value. They are sources of revenue for their owners in so far as they are titles to a certain quantity of surplus-labour, which the labourer must perform over and above the labour-time required to replace his wages.” (p 93)
As Marx points out, capital and land are not sources of value, but they are sources of revenue for their owners. Neither capital nor land create any new value. They are a source of revenue for their owners only to the extent that they enable them to appropriate a portion of the surplus value already created by labour, and which forms a part of the value of the commodity.
“But the distribution or appropriation of value is certainly not the source of the value that is appropriated. If this appropriation did not take place, and the workman received the whole product of his labour as his wage, the value of the commodities produced would be just the same as before, although it would not be shared with the landowner and the capitalist.” (p 94)
For the same reason, wages are not an original source of value either. The source of value is the labour undertaken to produce the commodity, and it is only the realisation of this value, in the sale of the commodity, that enables it to be resolved into revenues, be they profits, rent, interest or wages.
“Wages are only already existing value, or if we consider the whole of production, the part of the value created by the labourer which he himself appropriates; but this appropriation does not create value. His wages can therefore rise or fall without this affecting the value of the commodity produced by him.” (p 94)
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