Proudhon argues that the most useful things require the least time to produce, and society begins by producing the easiest things, and only moving on to the more time consuming things as it satisfies its basic needs. But, no such relation exists. The most useful thing humans require is food, but, to provide the required food might take many hours, depending on the material conditions, whereas, again, depending on the conditions, pieces of gold may lie on the ground, only requiring a short time to collect.
And, what Proudhon omits is any consideration of class antagonism, and its role in determining both demand and supply, consumption and production.
“The very moment civilization begins, production begins to be founded on the antagonism of orders, estates, classes, and finally on the antagonism of accumulated labour and actual labour. No antagonism, no progress. This is the law that civilization has followed up to our days. Till now the productive forces have been developed by virtue of this system of class antagonisms. To say now that, because all the needs of all the workers were satisfied, men could devote themselves to the creation of products of a higher order – to more complicated industries – would be to leave class antagonism out of account and turn all historical development upside down.” (p 59)
Marx gives a number of examples, from throughout history, in different modes of production, in which, not only were the needs of the masses not met, but many of them lived at below subsistence levels, whilst society devoted labour-time to satisfying the luxury consumption needs of ruling classes. Marx's argument, in this regard is not entirely sustainable either, where he writes, “The price of food has almost continuously risen, while the price of manufactured and luxury goods has almost continuously fallen”, and “In our age, the superfluous is easier to produce than the necessary.” (p 59-60)
As Marx's later analysis, in Capital, demonstrates, the value of necessary commodities is drastically reduced too, and capital needs to do that, in order to reduce necessary labour, and raise surplus labour, so as to increase relative surplus value. Marx's argument is somewhat strained, in trying to put the opposite view to Proudhon, in relation to utility, rather like, later, Lenin used to “bend the stick” in his polemics with opponents. The argument that wool and flax were somehow of greater utility than cotton looks odd, and the argument, in relation to spirits as against beer and wine, does too, because not only did the ruling-class enjoy their consumption of spirits, but they also, increasingly, saw the consumption of spirits by workers as detrimental to their interests of having an adequate supply of functioning labour-power. It is why they promoted temperance.
That “bending of the stick” detracts slightly from Marx's correct argument that the reason many of these cheaper commodities are produced in great quantities is not because of their great utility to the mass of consumers, but precisely because they are cheap, and so enable the exploiting class to reproduce the labourers at least cost.
“To say now that because the least costly things are in greater use, they must be of greater utility, is saying that the wide use of spirits, because of their low cost of production, is the most conclusive proof of their utility; it is telling the proletarian that potatoes are more wholesome for him than meat; it is accepting the present state of affairs; it is, in short, making an apology, with M. Proudhon, for a society without understanding it.” (p 60-61)
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