1. The Opposition Between Use-Value and Exchange-Value
Marx begins by quoting Proudhon.
““The capacity for all products, whether natural or industrial, to contribute to man’s subsistence is specifically termed use value; their capacity to be given in exchange for one another, exchange value.... How does use value become exchange value?... The genesis of the idea of (exchange) value has not been noted by economists with sufficient care. It is necessary, therefore, for us to dwell upon it. Since a very large number of the things I need occur in nature only in moderate quantities, or even not at all, I am forced to assist in the production of what I lack. And as I cannot set my hand to so many things, I shall propose to other men, my collaborators in various functions, to cede to me a part of their products in exchange for mine." (Proudhon, tome I, chap.II {pp 33-34].)” (p 31)
Straight away, here, can be seen the perspective and mindset of the petty-bourgeois, individual producer. Everything starts from this individualistic world view. The individual sits at the centre of the universe, with everything revolving around them, just as with the Earth in the biblical Genesis. The individual determines their needs, and their relation to other individuals flows from it.
In the same way that, for Rousseau, the starting point is a free individual, living in a state of nature, but who, everywhere, ends up in chains, because, to obtain the benefits of society, he must propose to other individuals that they form a social contract, in which they agree to abide by laws that bind them, so too with Proudhon. He starts with the individual and their need to consume use-values, and, then, noting their inability to produce all of the use-values they require, presumes that, as a result of some thought process, going on in their head, they propose to other individuals a social division of labour, and from it the mutual exchange of their products.
As Marx describes, in A Contribution To The Critique of Political Economy, the same view can be seen in the approach of Ricardo, and others, in relation to the development of money. They see it arising, not naturally out of the process of exchange of commodities itself, but as being the result of a conscious decision of individuals to facilitate that exchange, i.e. they begin their analysis of money, not from money itself, but from its later manifestation as currency.
Unfortunately, a similar approach is taken by most socialists, going back to the vulgar socialism described by Marx. In other words, Socialism is viewed, not as it was by Marx and Engels, as a natural evolution of human society, and the social organism, driven forward by the natural law that is The Law of Value, which necessitates ever rising social productivity, and so continual revolutions in the forces of production, which leads to new social relations and forms of property, but more as simply just a good idea, or worse, some kind of moral imperative.
The development of this idea then becomes, once again, the preserve of philosophers, or professional politicians, be they reformists or revolutionaries. This division only determines whether this idea is to be brought into the material world gradually, by the actions of the existing capitalist state, or by some future state, created by the revolutionaries on behalf of the workers. In both versions, the central role, as agent of change, is the state, and not, as it was for Marx and Engels, the independent activity and self-government of the working-class.
““A man” sets out to “propose to other men, his collaborators in various functions,” that they establish exchange, and make a distinction between ordinary value and exchange value. In accepting this proposed distinction, the collaborators have left M. Proudhon no other “care” than that of recording the fact, or marking, of “noting” in his treatise on political economy “the genesis of the idea of value.” But he has still to explain to us the “genesis” of this proposal, to tell us finally how this single individual, this Robinson [Crusoe], suddenly had the idea of making “to his collaborators” a proposal of the type known and how these collaborators accepted it without the slightest protest.” (p 33)
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