David Harvey: Reading Marx’s Capital Vol 1 – Class 2, Chapters 1-2
- - heterogeneity:
labour consists of all different skills, which are embedded in commodities
- - use values
have to be produced, no matter what kind of society you are in
- - material
wealth is not the same as value
- - material
wealth = the total quantity of the use values available to you (Marx’s concept
of “wealth” is about the material assemblage of use values available)
- - “simple
average labour” = standard of value
- - value is
dependent upon human productivity
- - value of a
commodity is “immaterial”:
o because it
is a social relation
o the
commodity is an objectification of a process in a thing
o that process
is “socially-necessary labour time”
-
cannot find
the value internally in some sort of commodity – value is only found when it is
put into an exchange relation with something else
-
In an
exchange relation, I have the relative and you have the equivalent. (“Relative”
means I want to measure its value against another commodity.)
-
In a barter
situation, you would have the relative to my equivalent.
-
Money =
stand-in for the equivalent. Becomes universal equivalent.
o in order for
this to happen, exchange must become generalized.
o It must be
an “ordinary social act”
o It can’t
just be an occasional exchange
o It has to be
systematic
-
Therefore,
he says that the money form arises out of exchange relation (not superimposed
from the outside)
-
Exchange
becomes so large that a universal equivalent is required
-
Logic of
capitalism / capitalist system is that exchange proliferates and becomes a
normal social act; what this means is that money and commodities will enter
into a relationship, no matter what the original foundation of the money form
may have been.
-
Money
becomes an expression of value.
-
Particularity (i.e. gold) stands in as a measure of the universal. This is an issue when the
universal is, itself, also a commodity. (Historical: Went off “gold standard”
due to excess of gold production in the Soviet Union & South Africa.)
-
Fetishism
of commodity: ordinary thing
becomes transcendent.
-
Enigmatic
nature of commodity arises out of the social nature of its character.
-
People under
a Capitalist system do not relate to each other directly as human beings; they
relate to each other through the myriad of products
-
Market
system – and in particular the money commodity – conceals us from so much of
what is going on in the world around us.
-
Marx says
that we have to confront that world and the way it works & recognize that
it is concealed from us by virtue of the way the market is organized
-
Notion of
value arises out of generalization of
the exchange process, and global structure of the world of commodities – it
does not proceed them.
-
Labour
theory of value arose with the rise of Capitalism and was concurrent with the
rise of the bourgeois epoch
-
Destruction
of a bourgeois epoch / capitalist structure would require the construction of
an alternative value system -> dominant system on which we operate and, as
Marx says, it operates behind our backs (We don’t see it and we don’t
understand its consequences – end up with divisions of caring about kind
face-to-face interactions, without caring about what goes on unseen in the
world of the market.)
-
Marx
discusses the way in which proportions of products are exchanged.
-
Producers
are controlled by the products, the system (i.e. Adam Smith’s “hidden hand of
the market”)
-
In fluctuations
of supply and demand, a regulatory system / principle emerges:
“socially-necessary labour time”
-
Notion of
“fetishism” is that there is a deeper way of looking at something than how it
appears on the surface
-
You have to
deal with the reality (i.e. going to the supermarket) at the same time you’re
dealing with the underlying structure.
-
Marx is
trying to create a “science of political economy”
-
Discusses
concept of religious beliefs moving in tandem with the transformations of
economic and political structure
-
Speaks of
impact of the market upon patterns of belief
-
Harvey says
that this is a “reductionist argument”*, but that this doesn’t mean it isn’t
worth considering – Marx is trying to reduce complexities to simplicities in
order to understand / acquire knowledge
-
Chapter two:
Marx simply sets up the conditions of exchange
-
Relationship
between commodities and their owners – “personifications of social relations”
(studying people in roles, as opposed to individuals)
-
All
commodities are symbolic of labour content – therefore, we are dealing with
symbolic economies all along
-
Marx accepts
vision of a perfectly-functioning market economic (a la Adam Smith)
o Why?
Capital is a critique of classic political economy
o After accepting this vision, Marx asks “Is this
really going to benefit everybody?” and his answer / argument / thesis is: No,
it will only benefit the bourgeoisie and not the workers.
o The closer society comes to this “utopian” vision
of economy, the greater the degrees of social & economic injustice /
disparity
o Therefore, he wants to prove that political
economists, by their own argument, are wrong about the outcome
*Reductionism (noun)
1. the theory that every complex phenomenon,
especially in biology or psychology, can be explained by analyzing the
simplest, most basic physical mechanisms that are in operation during the
phenomenon.
2. the practice of simplifying a complex idea,
issue, condition, or the like, especially to the point of minimizing,
obscuring, or distorting it.
No comments:
Post a Comment