For the seller of commodities, therefore, they are constrained by the value of all these commodities, which they must, in turn, buy, to produce the commodity they sell. But, also, when it comes to demand, the buyer must also have – under barter – a commodity to exchange, or – under money economy – money to buy the commodity, which implies that, previously, they, or someone else, sold a commodity, and obtained this money in return. And, that commodity was also, thereby, a marketable value, as with the one they, now, seek to buy.
“The producer, the moment he produces in a society founded on the division of labour and on exchange (and that is M. Proudhon’s hypothesis), is forced to sell. M. Proudhon makes the producer master of the means of production; but he will agree with us that his means of production do not depend on free will. Moreover, many of these means of production are products which he gets from the outside, and in modern production he is not even free to produce the amount he wants. The actual degree of development of the productive forces compels him to produce on such or such a scale.” (p 40)
Under commodity production and exchange, as against the conditions where individual peasants merely exchanged surplus products, neither buyers nor sellers, producers nor consumers, exercise free will as Proudhon assumes. The producer, having produced, must sell, and take what price they can obtain. But, to produce, they must also buy, and must also pay the market price. And, consumers must also buy, and pay the market price, because they must live, which requires food, clothing, shelter and so on. Of course, what they buy, and how much they buy is a different matter.
“True, the worker who buys potatoes and the kept woman who buys lace both follow their respective judgments. But the difference in their judgements is explained by the difference in the positions which they occupy in the world, and which themselves are the product of social organisation.” (p 41)
In setting up the opposition of supply and demand, Proudhon also creates a false dichotomy in which these are monolithic blocs confronting each other. In reality, of course, all producers are in competition with each other, in search of buyers, to expand their market share, whereas all consumers are in competition with each other to try to ensure that their consumption requirements are fulfilled.
“The competition among the suppliers and the competition among the demanders form a necessary part of the struggle between buyers and sellers, of which marketable value is the result.” (p 41)
Proudhon eliminated demand in order to arrive at his contradictory opposition of abundance and scarcity, the one representing use-value, and the other representing exchange-value, and supply and demand. He then eliminated cost of production, and reintroduced demand as the sole determinant of “estimation value”, based upon the free will of the buyer. And, then, he eliminated competition amongst sellers on the one hand, and buyers on the other.
“And what was he aiming at?
At arranging for himself a means of introducing later on one of the elements he had set aside, the cost of production, as the synthesis of use value and exchange value. And it is thus that in his eyes the cost of production constitutes synthetic value or constituted value.” (p 42)
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