In this paper I have focused on the position of labour in
relation to commodities, matter and use-value. And it is in this relationship
that we will find what Marx perceives the value of labour to be. I will also
highlight the difference between what Marx believes an aimless expenditure of
labour would be, and in doing so discuss the disjuncture present in South
Africa in a commodity driven economy.
So let us dissect the terms. Firstly: Commodities.
Commodities for Marx are constituted as commodities if they have either a)
value or b) use value. Use value being the objects propensity to be useful. The
qualities that Marx attributes to the use value of commodities are as follows.
11)
They
are independent from the labour which produced them
22)
The
use value of a commodity is only realised in its consumption
33)
It
constitutes the substance of all wealth. Wealth being a societal construct.
(What I believe this to mean is that the more useful a commodity is within a
given society the more it is worth. For example a can opener in a society with
no cans has no value, where as a can opener on an island full of canned food
and no rocks would be an object of extreme use-value)
44)
The
use value of a commodity is the material depository of exchange value
Now, how does labour relate to commodities? According to Marx
if the same amount of work or labour time goes into the making of a product,
then those products are of equal value. But value must also be measured in
relation to quantity. The value of a commodity decreases as the quantity
increases. But increases as the quality
and the amount of labour time that go into the commodity increase. So we can see that more labour per commodity
equals more valuable commodities, and conversely less labour per commodity equals
less valuable commodities, in relation to quality and quantity.
In order for labour to create a commodity it must be
introduced into productive labour in which it works with earthly matter in
order to transform that matter into a commodity. But in a capitalist society the labourer does
not own the means of production necessary to produce commodities and so he must
sell his labour power to a capitalist who owns the necessary equipment. In
doing this the labourer exchanges his labour for money. The labourer must do
this because wealth in a capitalist society is constituted by use-value, which
is embodied in commodities. He cannot
purely do the amount of labour necessary to survive because the capitalist must
create surplus value off of the commodities which he the labourer creates, but
does not own. In order to create this surplus value the capitalist takes the
production of commodities and reduces them to the effort of a group of
labourers as opposed to a single individual. So if you look at a production
line on a film set, take Labyrinth for example in which a mid-evil village is
created out of poly euro thane. The set starts with the poly euro thane being
set in moulds of brick walls. The moulded slabs which emerged must then be
scrubbed, after scrubbing they are coated with coprox, and taken outside to
dry. Once dry the base layers of paint are applied, and once again taken out to
dry. Once dry they slabs are all taken to the set where they are constructed by
the fabricators. After fabrication is complete another round of painting is
done in order to accomplish the finished product. Each of these processes
requires individuals to do specific tasks in order to create the greater
commodity. So instead of producing one actual commodity each the necessary
labours are divided. Because of this division and removal of the individual
labourer from the commodity, the film set, the capitalist can make surplus
value off his commodity because the value of it is related to labour power
expended. But this, the labour power, is calculated amongst a group and not an
individual. Surplus value is then further increased through extended working
hours, and worker productivity.
So we can now see the relation of the value of labour to
commodity under a capitalist system. It is clearly an exploitative one, in
which the value of the labourer is degraded in the process of making surplus
capital. It is a situation in which the labourer has very little control of his
work hours and pay rate. But is forced into labour for he has no common land on
which to survive with just simple modes of production like sustainable farming.
With this brief introduction to Marx’s theory of labour I
would like to draw your attention to the difference between labour and the
expenditure of labour power. Labour according to Marx is productive activity
with an aim, whereas expenditure of labour power is productive activity without
an aim. This baffles me slightly. What sort of expenditure of labour power does
not have an aim? My guess is that because we are talking about a capitalist
system the aim of the process of labour would be the production of commodity. This,
I believe, is a terrible aim, probably worse than the Socratic drive for truth
via logic. For this aim shifts the whole structure of society into a commodity
driven economy. While it is true that commodities are a necessary part of an
economy, the aim of a society should not be to produce commodities, but to
ensure that people have the necessary commodities in order to live. As we can
see in our South African society we have a surplus of wasted commodities, and a
large rate of poverty and unemployment. The question I will pose you is how can
this disjuncture be eradicated?
