Bourgeois economists saw money arising as the solution to the problems encountered by barter, whilst seeing barter itself as a perfect expression of exchange relations. Yet, they failed to recognise that it is precisely these exchange relations which create the problems arising with barter. Money does not arise as a conscious decision to resolve the problems encountered by barter, but arises naturally out of the development of commodity production itself.
“Economists usually reason that the emergence of money is due to external difficulties which the expansion of barter encounters, but they forget that these difficulties arise from the evolution of exchange-value and hence from that of social labour as universal labour. For example commodities as use-values are not divisible at will, a property which as exchange-values they should possess. Or it may happen that the commodity belonging to A may be use-value required by B; whereas B’s commodity may not have any use-value for A. Or the commodity-owners may need each other’s commodities but these cannot be divided and their relative exchange-values are different. In other words, on the plea of examining simple barter, these economists display certain aspects of the contradiction inherent in the commodity as being the direct unity of use-value and exchange-value. On the other hand, they then persistently regard barter as a form well adapted to commodity exchange, suffering merely from certain technical inconveniences, to overcome which money has been cunningly devised.” (p 50-51)
Adam Smith believed that the division of labour was a consequence of trade. In fact, that is back to front. The division of labour begins within the primitive commune, because it is by this means that its members realised that they could raise labour productivity, and so reduce the unit value of the products they consumed. It is the manifestation of The Law of Value, as it applies to such direct production. Contrary to Smith, it is a social division of labour which is a prerequisite for trade, and so for the development of commodity production and exchange.
“The world of commodities presupposes a developed division of labour, or rather the division of labour manifests itself directly in the diversity of use-values which confront one another as particular commodities and which embody just as many diverse kinds of labour. The division of labour as the aggregate of all the different types of productive activity constitutes the totality of the physical aspects of social labour as labour producing use-values. But it exists as such – as regards commodities and the exchange process – only in its results, in the variety of the commodities themselves.” (p 51)
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