Marx gives the example of reducing different rectilinear shapes to triangles, as the means of determining their area as an analogy for reducing the relation of commodities to some other third thing. The triangle is not obvious in various rectilinear shapes, and, in the same way, value is not obvious as the third thing that allows different commodities to be compared one to another. It requires scientific analysis to provide this objective basis of measurement and comparison. Indeed, as stated earlier, with the product, the concept of value never arises, i.e. the amount of labour required for production, and value/worth, is only considered in terms of use value. As Marx puts it, in Theories of Surplus Value, value and use-value are inextricably linked, in the product, and it is only in the commodity that this link is broken, just as production and consumption, and supply and demand are separated.
Its no wonder, therefore, that when commodities are considered, and the relationship between them, it is their qualities, as commodities/products/use values that seems to be the most obvious basis of the proportions in which they exchange, i.e. a relationship between things rather than between people. It is this concept of use-value/utility that the subjectivist economists have tried to build their theory of value around. Yet, its quite clear that its impossible to establish any relation between the utility of an apple as against the utility of an orange, as the basis of value, and the exchange-relation between them.
In terms purely of exchange, as described in the water-diamond paradox, in which a man, dying of thirst, exchanges a diamond for a glass of water, individuals may place a high value, in this case, on water, as something providing them with greater utility. But, this tells us nothing about the actual production of commodities, their value, and the proportions in which they exchange. As I have set out, elsewhere, in discussing that paradox, would a capitalist advance capital to produce a glass of water, and, then, have an employee sit in the desert with it, waiting for a dying man, to come along and exchange a diamond for it? What would be the real cost of production/value of this glass of water?
And, this point is also illustrated from the other perspective. If the basis of the exchange-value of commodities – the proportion in which they exchange - was their respective utility for consumers, what would be the consequence? If the cost of production/universal labour-time required to produce apples and oranges is the same, i.e. their value is the same, but consumers prefer oranges to apples in a ratio of 2:1, so that they are prepared to exchange 2 apples for 1 orange, then a great incentive arises for oranges to be produced, and for apples not to be produced, because one hour of labour spent producing oranges now gets you the equivalent of 2 hours of labour spent producing apples. Some producers of apples will switch to producing oranges, so that the supply of oranges rises, and supply of apples declines. As a consequence, the exchange relation between apples and oranges will change.
So long as its possible to get more labour in exchange by producing oranges than apples, production will shift to orange production, and away from apple production, until, eventually, one apple exchanges for one orange. This will not have changed the fact that consumers prefer/get greater utility from oranges than apples, in a ratio of 2:1, but this will not, and cannot determine the actual exchange ratio between them. It simply determines that two-thirds of total labour-time goes to produce oranges, and one third to produce apples.
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