Reconstructing Value-Form Analysis

Abstract

(p . 511), an abstraction which `exists in the form o' average labour which in a given society, the average persoi can perform, productive expenditure of a certain amount o' human muscles, nerves, brains etc .' (p. 511 quoting Marx Cont., 1971 : 30f). And he further adds as proof, agaii quoting Marx, that the fact that average labour exists ii capitalist society is provided . by the circumstance thai `individuals can with ease transfer from one labour to an other . . .' (p. 512 quoting Marx, Grund . : 1973 : 104f) . Thu , for Marx and Rosdolsky, in these passages, the reduction which practically constitutes abstract, value-creating labour is not the equivalence of all the various products of labour ix commodity exchange, but rather the purported existence o, average labour in our society (referred to by Krause (1979 121f) as `the dogma of homogeneous labour'). The reduction performed by exchange is thereby confused with the 'ab straction' of simple average labour . Rosdolsky thus finall; concedes that `the laws governing this reduction' (Rosdolsky 1977 : 515 quoting Marx, Cont. : 1971 : 31) of concretlabour to simple average labour, and, in particular of skillet labour to simple average labour, have to be be given and st turns to `Marx's Probable Solution' (p . 515ff.) of how thes: factors of reduction are to be defined . According to Rosdolsky the solution lies, again followin' Marx, in the differing values of labour-power of various kindf of labour, and he quotes Capital : `All labour of a higher or more complicated character thaw average labour is expenditure of labour-power of a more costly kind, labour-power whose production has cosy more time and labour than unskilled or simple labour power, and which therefore has a higher value . This powe , Bibliography VALUE-FORM 59 being of higher value, it expresses itself in labour of a higher sort, and therefore becomes objectified, during an equal amount of time in proportionately higher values' (Rosdolsky, 1977 : 518f quoting CI : 191f; KI : 211f) . The focus of attention thus shifts from the magnitude of value of commodities produced by skilled and unskilled labourers to the value of labour-power of skilled and un- skilled labourers. This shift, however, provides no solution, for it does not escape circularity . The value of labour-power, as Marx determines it (we do not agree, however, (cf . Eldred/ Roth, 1978 : 69ff .)),'resolves itself into the value of a definite quantity of the means of life' (CI : 169 ; KI: 186) . Means of life (we refer to these as 'articles of (individual) consumpt- ion' (cf . p . 31)), however, are industrial commodities with magnitudes of value determined by the amount of abstract, associated labour objectified in them . According to Marx's concept of magnitude of value, these magnitudes of value can only be known once the coefficients reducing concrete, individual labours to abstract, associated labour are determined. In this way, we come back to the beginning of the problem without having solved it . 23 The abstractness of abstract labour does not depend on the mobility of labourers between branches of production, which makes abstract labour into 'average labour' . The way lies open to conflate the abstractness of abstract labour as accomplished by universal exchange relations, wherein all the various industrial products of concrete labour are made, equivalent, with this other meaning of 'abstract' labour, which is also to be found in some passages in Marx, for example, in the Grundrisse (1973 : 104f ; cf . above fn . 22) . The argument for the reduction of concrete labours to abstract labour depends on the existence of universal exchange relations in our society and not on the levelling of all kinds of labour in capitalism to average labour. An analysis of the capitalist production process reveals that, far from levelling labours to average labour, a developed division of labour gives rise to many specialised, non-interchangeable kinds of labour . 24 Cf. CIII : 638f ; KIII : 651f; Rosdolsky, 1977 : 125f; Rubin, 1972: 62, 96f. 25 On closer reflection, we have discovered that the concept of old-value developed here is still too close to Marx's corres- ponding concept. The criticism of Marx and presentation of an alternative, however, would have sprung the architecture of the present paper. We leave the alternative, therefore, to our forthcoming book (Roth et al ., 1981), when the reader will be able to make a critical comparison . BACKHAUS H-G., 1969 'Zur Dialektik der Wertform' in A. Schmidt (ed .) . Beitraege zur marxistischen Erkenntnistheorie Frankfurt a.M. An English translation appears in Thesis Eleven, No . 1, Melbourne 1980 .