K. Marx's theory of value

“Philosophers have only explained the world in various ways, but the point is to change it.”

IN modern conditions When Russian economic theory is, by all accounts, in search of its self-identification, it seems quite appropriate to touch upon its Marxist direction from the point of view of its scientific nature and adequacy of economic reality. If to this direction approached with the criteria of real, and not propaganda, scientific and practical significance, one can hardly agree that it “even in the 21st century remains one of the main trends of modern economic thought.”

In this regard, my goal is to show the inconsistency of the main, fundamental theory of political economy of K. Marx - the theory of labor value, which underlies his entire economic teaching, set out in the infernal “Capital”.

The reason for the inconsistency of this theory, in my opinion, is that K. Marx approached the formation of his political economy with a revolutionary worldview [See: 8. T. 4. – P. 419 – 459; T. 21. – P. 183 – 184]. It is precisely this, due to its class-proletarian one-sidedness, that cannot serve as the basis for the objectivity and scientific character of any theoretical constructions directed against all other “exploiting” classes.

“There is a special kind of optimism that expresses the one-sidedness of the 19th century scientific view of the people; it consists in the fact that in the so-called fourth, i.e., lower class, only good qualities or at least the makings of it. Depravity relates exclusively to upper classes..." But “whoever delves deeper will find” that “the different steps of the social ladder are made of the same material, only their forms are different... A slave does not have the opportunity to enslave, otherwise he, given his average properties, would do it.” “Recognition of the right of ownership” of all classes and its affirmation on the basis of “constitutional relations, and not the revolutionary destruction of the “exploiting” classes by the proletarians, who after their victory “will begin to act the same, or even worse, than those born into the ruling classes” is the “foundation wealth, independence and power of nations"

K. Marx did not think about such a proletarian-class metamorphosis. Therefore, he developed the theory of labor value - the basis of his economic teachings and revolution. Because to prove the obvious, and even in short form, is a thankless task, we will do this based on the provisions of “Capital” by Marx himself, which will help us avoid subjectivism and personal bias.

Marx’s theory of labor value is based on a one-sided, therefore biased and false, “clarification of the relationship between capital and labor”: only the “labor” of wage workers (and no one else!) “is the source of all wealth and all value,” including surplus value ; “How is it possible to combine this with the fact that the wage worker does not receive the entire amount of value produced by his labor, but must give part of it to the capitalist? Bourgeois economists and socialists tried in vain to give a scientifically based answer to this question, until Marx finally came up with his solution.” We now move on to consider an intricate answer to a simple question.

The convincing answer, as Marx believed, is his theory of labor value, which is not entirely simple, but its “scientifically based” meaning must be understandable to the working class. Marx brought, as best he could, the need for “expropriation of expropriators” a theoretical basis by the “discovery” of the dual nature (essence, character) of labor contained in the entire “accumulation of goods” - the wealth of society. Not without a sense of pride, he wrote: “the dual nature of the labor contained in a commodity was critically proven for the first time” by him; “The human mind has tried in vain to comprehend its course for more than 2000 years.” It is “this point that is the starting point on which the understanding of political economy depends” - his proletarian-revolutionary political economy, in which the working class is supposedly very interested.

The meaning of the theory of labor value lies in the interpretation of the mechanism of functioning of the dual essence of the labor of wage workers, together with the “study of surplus value”, which, according to Marx, is “the best” in his “Capital”.

How convincingly this has been done, we will look a little lower, but here we note that Marx by no means belongs to the primacy in the discovery of the dual nature of labor as one of the factors of production and creation of value. On the dual nature of labor (hereinafter - d.p.t.) of slaves and employees thinkers also paid attention Ancient world and the Middle Ages. In particular, Aristotle, who summed up what was said by his predecessors Xenophon and Plato (there is nothing new under the sun!) on issues of subsistence and barter economy, drew attention to the dual nature of the product (“a sandal can serve to put shoes on a foot, but it can serve and for exchange"), as well as on the quantitative and qualitative aspects of labor, on which, along with other reasons, conditions and factors, the price of the product depends. Aristotle even “captures the transition from the form T – T to the form T – D – T, and from the latter to D – T - D′.”

We can say the same about the ideas of W. Petty, A. Smith, D. Ricardo and other researchers who later explained the quantitative and qualitative aspects of labor, i.e. its dual essence. Studying social reproduction, they analyzed both useful forms or types of labor (according to Marx’s terminology – “concrete labor”), and labor from the side of the expenditure of physical and mental effort of a person, devoid of qualitative differences (according to Marx – “abstract labor”). D. Ricardo said directly: “One should not think that I do not pay attention to the different qualities of labor and to the difficulty of comparing an hour or a day of labor in a certain branch of industry with labor of the same duration in another branch.” At the same time, he meant the comparison of the costs of all resources, and not just hired labor, in the exchange, sale and purchase of goods from different sectors of the economy.

Consequently, Marx’s “great discovery” was reduced only to an addition to the categories of “quantity” and “quality” of labor, well known more than 2000 years ago, and, strictly speaking, even 30 - 40 thousand years earlier, to participants of the preliterate era and the time of the first major social division of labor, the terms “abstract” and “concrete” labor. But why did Marx need to disrupt the well-known and understandable aspects of labor from ancient times? Then, to show the fundamental difference between the exploited labor of workers under capitalism and the free, “directly social”, and not capitalist, labor in Marxian communism, in the name of which the proletarians of all countries need to carry out a socialist revolution.

That is, Marx not only supplemented the concepts of “quantity” and “quality” of labor with his own, but also endowed them with unique functions. Which ones? Let's resort to the primary source, according to which the workers, without knowing it, work for the capitalists according to... mutually exclusive Marxian versions of the production process.

First option: “All labor is, on the one hand, an expenditure of human work force in a physiological sense - and in this quality of the same, or abstractly human, labor forms the value of goods. All labor is, on the other hand, the expenditure of human labor power in a special purposeful form, and in this quality of concrete useful labor it creates use values.”

In vain we will look in Capital for answers to the questions that arise here: 1) is it possible for the abstract labor of hired workers alone, discarding as unnecessary, participation in the production of any kind? natural conditions, capital, determinants of consumer demand and the role of the state, create value, which, from a centuries-old and proven experience point of view, is the result of the joint action of various components of production and commodity circulation? 2) Is it really possible that some name, type or, simply put, form of labor (“concrete labor”), abstracted from the physiological expenditure of labor power (according to Marx’s definition of concrete labor), can create use value, by which Marx in some places means the commodity itself, and in others - when how is it beneficial to think for the sake of the proletariat - only its usefulness?

The author of Capital skillfully avoids these questions, since the answers to them undermine the scientific nature of his entire construction of d.p.t. But nevertheless, having tried to understand the content of the first version of the concept of d.p.t. and believe in it, we unexpectedly unexpectedly we encounter its other content in the second version.

It turns out that abstract labor does not create value, which is expressed by Marx by the formula: c + v + m (where c is constant capital, v is variable capital, m is surplus value), but new value: v + m; concrete labor at the same time is engaged in transferring old value to the created product - the value of the consumed means of production from: “in its abstract general property, as the expenditure of human labor power, the labor of a spinner adds a new value to the value of cotton and spindles, and in its specific, special, useful property, like the process of spinning, it transfers to the product the value of these means of production and thus retains their value in the product. Hence the duality of the result of labor performed at the same time.”

So we have come to the end of the concept of d.p.t., that is, the meaning torn into two, absurd in their totality, parts of the theory of labor value, and therefore meaningless (see diagram).

The Marxist meaning of the concept of the dual nature of living labor

As you can see, as a result of Marx’s manipulations, labor, bifurcated by nature, becomes even more unhappy - quartered: each of its sides is forced to pull the strap with two functions only for the sake of creating surplus value for capitalists - the “cornerstone” of Marxism and its socialist revolution.

Further in “Capital” there is an endless detailing of the actions of d.p.t., so that proletarian readers would believe in the absolute infallibility of his provisions and their minds would boil indignantly at what was happening in Marx’s head, and as if in real reality. “The assumption (that only the labor of hired workers is created, transferred, formed, etc. - V.P.) is first presented as truth, and then turns into “ scientific discovery“, which constitutes an era in the history of the development of mankind... But whoever accepts fiction as truth and believes in its immutability, renouncing the right of criticism for the sake of the authority of Marx, will not find it difficult to accept further reasoning arising from the first premise.” To convince of poorly hidden lies, Marx uses mystical secrets, mysterious allegories, fables and legends, even an idealistic story about a bee and an architect, which is not inherent in his materialism, etc. This is “in highest degree a scientific work that claims to be the most rigorously scientific."

Marx's intricacies about the “transfers” and “creations” of gross, newly created and surplus value different types(forms) of wage labor are simply refuted by everyday facts and common sense of all times and peoples, especially in the 21st century. They show: in real life the so-called “creation” of value and “transfer” of the value of spent material capital are carried out not by the names of labor, but by the entrepreneur (accountant), who, in accordance with the opinion of the consumer, offers him such a price for the goods of his enterprise, which would first of all reimburse him for the costs of production and brought profit, otherwise he would not be interested in organizing production.

Both when Marx was alive and after his death, F. Engels actively tried to defend the “wandering functions of the essences” of the abstract and concrete work of political economy of his idol: “In general, one would have to look to Marx for ready-made and once forever suitable definitions.” But is it possible to talk about science where the essence of the categories does not oblige anyone to anything? Of course not, and in this case it is necessary to speak only to verbal balancing act. Therefore, Engels’ statement a) is more suitable as an epitaph to Marx’s theory of labor value with its d.p.t., rather than as their defense, and b) eloquently points to the “Achilles heel” of Capital.

Marx, in his “scientific research” imbued with the spirit of revolutionism, stubbornly stood his ground or did not move forward in science, but moved backwards, therefore, I call his political economy, based on the described theory of labor value with its d.p.t., the only incorrect one, because before him, there had never been such theorists and economic teachings anywhere. In essence of his views, Marx thought in prehistoric concepts of primitive hunters, fishermen and root gatherers united in communist tribes, who obtained their livelihood with their bare hands, to put it in Marxist terms, with the only living labor, the value of which is in random barter exchanges of goods on the borders of communities. and was determined.

Did Marx have critics? Certainly. But he rejected any ideological and theoretical compromises and constructive dialogue with opponents who pointed out errors or “failures” in the logic of his lifetime main and first book “Capital”. For example, he answered regarding the three main factors of production that these are apparent, “imaginary sources of wealth,” and from the standpoint of value formation, the elements of the “trinity” relate to each other in much the same way as notary fees, beets and music.”

Taking into account the words of A. Dante: “Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti!” - “follow your path, and let people say whatever they want!”, one can propose to introduce Marx into history and the world leader in labeling dissident political economists. He has F. Bastiat as a “dwarf economist”, G. Carey as a “false scientist”, J.St. Mill is a “limited” thinker, V. Roscher is an “ignorant” person, J.-B. Say is a “vulgar” economist, A. K. Storch is a “naive” figure, J. McCulloch is a “shameless scoundrel,” etc., etc. The bunch of insults is crowned by the “donkey” S. Bailey.

Today, the truth has triumphed and an indispensable attribute of all economic theory textbooks is the theory of factors and their productivity. This gives grounds to say that Russian economic science, after its dominance in the 20th century. Marxist-Leninist phantasmagoria, returns from utopia to science...

And in conclusion, let’s say that M. Tugan-Baranovsky was right, who, even sharing some of Marx’s ideas, said about his flawed one-sided theory of labor value that it “together with all its conclusions, is generally untenable and has done more harm than good.” development of scientific thought." Therefore, to assert that “Marxist economic theory is the only direction of economic science”, which “acts as a methodological basis for the tendency towards the integration of various schools of economic thought into a single economic science” is very, very strange. Respected “synthesizers” of Marxist fundamental positions with those alien to him in spirit and letter should know that Marx was always opposed to mixing his theory with any others, and categorically rejected “helpless, thoughtless and unscrupulous eclecticism.” So as not to turn “Capital” into an “Economic Comedy”.

Literature

1. Afanasyev V. S. The great discovery of Karl Marx: The methodological role of the doctrine of the dual nature of labor. - M.: Mysl, 1980. – 267 p.

2. Afanasyev V. S. First systems of political economy (method of economic duality): tutorial. – M.: INFRA-M, 2009.

3. Butovsky A.I. Experience on national wealth or the principles of political economy. In three volumes. Volume two. – St. Petersburg, 1847.

4. Dühring E. Course of national and social economics with the inclusion of instructions for the study and criticism of theory National economy and socialism. – St. Petersburg, 1893.

5. Keynes J.M. Selected works. – M.: Economics, 1993.

6. Lenin V.I. Complete works. Fifth edition. – M.: Politizdat, 1967 – 1975.

7. Marx K., Engels F. From early works. M.: State. political publishing house literature, 1956.

8. Marx K., Engels F. Works. Second edition. – M.: Political publishing house. liters, 1955 – 1981.

9. Mering F. Karl Marx. The story of his life. Chapters "Parisian Exile", "Brussels Exile", "London Exile". – M.: State. ed. watered literature, 1957.

10. Ricardo D. Works. - St. Petersburg, 1882.

11. Rosenberg D.I. History of political economy. – M.: State. social-economic publishing house, 1940.

12. Slonimsky L. Z. Economic teaching of Karl Marx. – St. Petersburg, 1898.

13. Tugan-Baranovsky M.I. Essays on the history of political economy. Essay VIII. Marx // God's World. 1902. October.

14. Infernity (lat. infernalis) – a hopeless situation. Derived from the word inferno, meaning hell. The name of the terminology itself is "Inferno", borrowed from the immortal European literary monument– “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri. This work was written in dark times under difficult conditions, but it was and remains a comedy or even a farce. “Having completed half my earthly life,” I found myself in a “dark forest, having lost the right path in the darkness of the valley.” - http://otvet.mail.ru/question/8941391.

15. http://ru.wiktionary.org/Achilles_heel.

A specific form of economic good is product. It has two properties:

the ability to satisfy any human need;

the ability to exchange for other things.

Thus, product is an economic good that satisfies a specific human need and is manufactured for exchange.

The property of a product to be useful to a person, to satisfy his need is called use value of goods. Any product has it. Some things can satisfy needs directly, for example bread, clothing, etc., others - indirectly, indirectly (industrial building, raw materials, machines, etc.). Many goods satisfy a number of social needs (for example, oil, gasoline, fuel, synthetic materials, etc.). Services act as goods. Their specificity lies in the fact that they do not have a material form (the work of teachers, coaches, etc.).

The ability of a commodity to be exchanged in certain quantitative proportions is exchange value. In terms of their use value, various goods are incommensurable: it is impossible to determine, for example, that the utility of glasses is so many times greater or less than the utility of a portfolio.

On the contrary, as exchange values, goods are commensurable, which is expressed in certain exchange proportions, for example, 1 briefcase = 3 pairs of glasses. Thus, it is impossible to determine the exchange value of goods by their use value. What is common to all exchanged goods is the social labor spent on their production.

Social labor embodied in goods makes them quantitatively comparable and qualitatively homogeneous.

In a product, both of its properties form a unity. Value cannot exist without use value: if, for example, a person produces a thing that does not satisfy anyone’s needs, then his labor does not create value.

In turn, the use value of a product cannot exist without value, since a product can be used for consumption only after its value is realized in the exchange process.

However, use value and value are opposite properties of a product:

as use values, goods are qualitatively heterogeneous and quantitatively incommensurable; against,

as values ​​they are qualitatively homogeneous and quantitatively comparable.

But, the same product cannot be used by the same person:

and as a use value

and as a cost.

One use excludes the other. For the producer himself, his product has no use value; it serves for him only as a means of exchange for another commodity, that is, it is used as value and exchange value.

By keeping the value in his hands, the producer, as it were, pushes away the use value of this product. On the contrary, in the hands of the buyer the commodity is used precisely as a use value. Thus, although the use value of a commodity and its value mutually presuppose each other, they at the same time, in a certain sense, negate each other. Use value and value represent a unity of opposites.

Since a commodity is the result of human labor, therefore, labor has a dual character. On the one hand, the labor of any manufacturer represents special kind activity, the result of which is a certain material benefit or service provided. For example, the goal of a mason’s work is to build a building, the goal of a miner’s work is to mine coal, etc. It is carried out under certain production conditions (garment factory, mine, machine-building plant), presupposes the presence of a certain qualification and specialty of workers (weaver, tailor, mechanic, carpenter), is carried out with the help of special tools and objects of labor (loom, open-hearth furnace) and its the result is a certain use value of the product (clothing, pipes, residential buildings, etc.). Thus, social labor, which is expended in a particularly expedient form using certain means and objects of labor, is characterized by a unique purpose and creates a specific use value - this specific work.

Consequently, concrete labor is labor that creates use value. But human labor is not the only source of use value: the wealth of human society, as a set of use values, is obtained as a result of the combination of human labor with natural substances.

Being one of the main sources of use values, concrete labor cannot at the same time be a source of the value of goods. After all, value is the general thing that equalizes different goods among themselves, while specific works are qualitatively heterogeneous.

With all the variety of specific jobs, they have something in common - this is the expenditure of human labor in the physiological sense. The presence of this general content of labor allows people to move from one specific form of labor to another. The expenditure of human power in general, contained in all goods and making them homogeneous and commensurable, is abstract labor. When commodity producers equate various goods with each other, they are actually distracted from the diversity of concrete work, and goods are equated as clumps of homogeneous, abstract human labor.

Abstract labor is characterized by two points: firstly, abstract labor is a material phenomenon. This is not some kind of idea, but a very real expenditure of human labor in the physiological sense of the word, taking into account the expenditure of mental and physical strength person; secondly, abstract labor is a social and historical phenomenon inherent only in commodity production.

In a subsistence economy, the products of various specific works passed directly from production to consumption, and the results of specific labor were directly measured in hours and days. Therefore, there was no need for people to be distracted from the specific forms of their work. In the conditions of a commercial economy, people are forced to be distracted from specific features various works, equate some work to others, through the planning of things-goods.

Thus, the expenditure of human power in the physiological sense becomes abstract labor only under certain historical conditions - during commodity production.

In contrast to concrete labor that creates use value, abstract labor is labor that creates value. Where there is no commodity production, there is no value, and where there is no value, there is no abstract labor.

Concrete labor exists in any form of economy, but the division of labor into concrete and abstract is a specific phenomenon of commodity production.

Abstractwork- this is a type of labor, the socially necessary nature of which is manifested only in the process of exchange. This is a historically transitory category.

Social labor embodied in commodities and revealed through their exchange represents the value of commodities. Goods of equal value are exchanged for each other; they are equivalent, of equal value.

Price is closely related to exchange value, but these are not identical categories. Value is an internal property of a product, while exchange value is the external manifestation of value through the exchange of one product for another.

Marx repeatedly emphasized that value is not a property of things as such, but expresses the social-production relations of people in a commodity economy.

During the XVII - XIX centuries. The basic concepts of economists on the issue of the value of goods have been formed:

A. Smith reduced value to the labor expended on the production of goods, to the purchased labor (wages), the sum of wages, profit and rent;

D. Ricardo and D. R. McCulloch determined it by production costs;

J. B. Say - the usefulness of a thing. Utility is the satisfaction, pleasure that a person receives from consuming a product or service;

D. Lauderdel – supply and demand.

K. Marx and F. Engels, considering this debate, concluded that value is the material form of the costs of social abstract labor and expresses the ratio of production costs to utility.

Proponents of the labor theory of value considered a necessary condition for exchange to be the difference in the use values ​​of the goods being exchanged, which are qualitatively heterogeneous and therefore quantitatively incommensurable. In their opinion, the goods exchanged have a common basis - labor costs, which determines them exchange value.

In modern Western economic theory, a different approach has been adopted, which originates from the works of representatives of the theory marginal utility: K. Menger, E. Boehm-Bawerk, F. Vizer. According to this approach, the basis of exchange is not value, but utility. Utility is determined by the individual subjective assessment given by the buyer of the role of a certain good in satisfying his personal needs.

Marginal theory of value– “the theory of diminishing utility”, “the theory of marginal utility” states that as a good increases, its utility decreases (Gossen’s first law), and the optimal structure of consumption is achieved when the marginal utilities of all consumed goods are equal. The value of a product is determined by its marginal utility, or more precisely, the amount of additional utility obtained from an increase in the amount of consumption equal to the last (extreme, marginal) value of a unit of some good, its smallest benefit for which the consumer can still use this thing. The rarer a good is, the higher it is value.

Value in the interpretation of neoclassics, it is an assessment of the degree of usefulness of a good by an individual, therefore this category is subjective. It is simultaneously a function of labor input and utility.

Analysis of all these views allows us to highlight the connection between the categories “cost” and “value”. In conditions of commodity production, economic values ​​take the form of value. The essence of value - its substance - is a certain economic activity, which includes a goal (result) and a means (costs). Economic value is, in turn, the unity of result (utility) and costs.

The social expression of the category value and value is reflected by price. According to the figurative expression of K. Marx, price is a monetary expression of the cost and value of a product.

The works of P. Samuelson and B. Clark examine price formation taking into account the influence of marginal costs associated with the production of an additional unit of goods (or additional quantities of goods). In fact, they consider price changes in terms of reproduction. Price is a synthesis of the beneficial effect, the social utility of an economic good and the costs of its production. It is considered as a market category that arises in the process of competition between seller and buyer.

In a later period (after K. Marx) there were attempts to combine the theory of labor value (understood as costs) with the theory of marginal utility (E. Bernstein, P. Struve, M. Tugan-Baranovsky, A. Marshall, J. Clark, P. Samuelson, O. Schick).

The founder of the modern trend in the theory of value and prices, the famous English economist A. Marshall, made an attempt to move away from the search for a single source of value and connected:

Marginal utility theory;

The theory of supply and demand;

The theory of production costs (costs).

Value, according to this theory, is identified with price, which is determined by marginal utility (buyer's assessment) and marginal costs (seller's assessment), which are linked by supply and demand. As a result of equality of supply and demand, an equilibrium price is established, which determines the value of the product.

The social assessment of marginal utility is established when supply and demand for a given product are equal and is measured by the equilibrium price (cost) (Fig. 5.1). If demand exceeds supply, then prices exceed costs; If supply exceeds demand and competition between producers for consumers increases, prices fall below the cost of the economic good.

D S

R E E

0 Q E Quantity (Q)

Rice. 5.1 Determination of the equilibrium price

where, P is the price of an economic good;

Q – quantity of economic good;

S – supply curve;

D – demand curve;

E is the equilibrium point in the market for a given economic good.

Value is determined at the equilibrium point between the marginal utility of a certain quantity of a good (demand curve) and the marginal social cost of that good (supply curve). Value is measured by the equilibrium price (Figure 5.1).

K. Marx supplemented the labor theory of value of A. Smith and D. Ricardo with his doctrine of the dual nature of labor.

In K. Marx’s theory of value, the starting point of analysis is a commodity, which he defines as a product of labor intended for exchange (thus, the concept of a commodity in K. Marx is narrower than the concept of [economic] good among marginalists, in particular, among K. . Menger and W. S. Jevons). A necessary condition for a system of commodity production, i.e. system based on the exchange of labor products is a combination of social division of labor and private ownership of the means of production. These two factors ultimately determine the dual nature of labor and the dual nature of goods, as can be seen from the diagram. At the same time, perhaps the main premise of K. Marx’s theory of value is the incommensurability of the use values ​​of various goods (i.e., the properties of goods that satisfy certain needs of people). Use value is only a necessary condition for a given product of labor to be exchanged for another product of labor, but it does not reflect its value. The latter is determined by the costs of abstract labor, i.e. the expenditure of “... human labor power in the physiological sense...”, regardless of the specific type of labor (i.e. the labor of a painter, sculptor or musician). Thus, abstract labor must be distinguished from concrete labor. K. Marx believed that value is “abstract labor embodied in a commodity,” “a clot of human labor devoid of differences.” However social nature abstract labor manifests itself only indirectly - through the exchange of goods. In the absence of commodity production, there is no abstract labor (and therefore the dual nature of labor), and the products of labor have no value because they are not produced for the purpose of exchange. Thus, K. Marx believed that the value (of a product) is a category inherent exclusively in commodity production. It is determined, as has already been said, by the socially determined costs of abstract labor, and is measured in the value of another commodity for which a given commodity is exchanged, or (in “capitalist commodity production”) - in the monetary price of the same commodity. It should be noted that the monetary price of a product does not necessarily have to be equal to its value. Price is only a “transformed form” (“form of manifestation”) of value; value is just the “center of gravity” of price, i.e. the value to which the price of a product “tends.”

Moreover, the fact that labor can be different in intensity and quality, from the point of view of K. Marx, does not refute his concept: after all, all types of “complex” labor - according to the principle of labor reduction - can be reduced with a certain coefficient to “simple average labor” “, and supposedly this happens all the time in the market when establishing the exchange value of goods.

Two properties of a commodity (use value and value) are determined by the dual nature of labor embodied in the commodity. The labor that creates a product has two sides, it is both concrete and abstract.

Specific work - it is useful labor expended in a certain form and qualitatively different from all other types of labor. As a result of the specific labor of commodity producers, qualitatively incomparable use values ​​are created (a tailor creates a suit with his labor, a carpenter creates a table, etc.). The types of concrete labor that create various use values ​​are very diverse. They differ from each other in their purpose, the nature of labor operations, objects and tools, end results production.

At the same time different kinds specific labor not only differ qualitatively from each other, but also have something in common that allows them to be quantitatively compared with each other. This common to all types of human labor is that they all represent the expenditure of labor power, physical and mental abilities person. The labor of commodity producers, acting as the cost of labor in general, regardless of its specific form, is abstract work.

Abstract labor, unlike concrete labor, creates the value of a product. Value-creating labor is not abstract in the sense that it is only something mentally represented. Its abstractness lies in the fact that it is abstracted from those features that specific different types of human labor have. For example, if we are told that Ivanov is making a table, we can mentally imagine what he is doing, what means and objects of labor are used, and what he will get as a result. If we are told that Ivanov is working, we will have no idea about the specific nature of his work, but we will understand that he is expending labor power. Abstract labor is the expenditure of labor in general, regardless of its specific form.

Therefore, we can conclude that concrete labor is what distinguishes one type of labor from another, and abstract labor is what is common between different types of labor, allowing them to be compared with each other.

Abstract work is a historical category. Not every expenditure of human labor power means abstract labor, but only when the need arises to equate different types of labor through exchange on the market. At the same time, abstract labor expresses certain relations of production commodity producers. On the market, each of them finds out who and how much abstract labor spent on the production of goods and, depending on this, the proportions of exchange are established.

In the conditions of commodity production, the dual nature of labor embodied in a commodity expresses the contradiction between private and public labor commodity producers.

Private ownership of the means of production divides people and leads to the fact that the specific labor of each commodity producer becomes his private business.

But, on the other hand, the social division of labor determines the existence of a comprehensive connection between commodity producers, since, producing products not for their own use, but for others, they actually work for each other. Consequently, the labor of each commodity producer is not only private, but at the same time social. And the more developed the social division of labor, the greater the interdependence of commodity producers. However, the social nature of the labor of commodity producers in the process of producing goods remains hidden. This nature of labor manifests itself only on the market in the process of exchange. Only here is it revealed whether the labor of a commodity producer is useful for others, necessary for society, whether it receives public recognition or not. If a product produced for sale does not find a buyer on the market, then the private labor expended on its production does not receive public recognition and, therefore, is not realized as value. The labor spent on its production is considered useless from the point of view of society. Society recognizes as necessary only those costs that satisfy known social needs for certain products.

From what has been said it is clear that the concrete labor of a commodity producer has a private character and acts directly in the form of private labor, while the bearer of the social character of labor is abstract labor.

Thus, value as an economic category is a relationship between commodity producers in which they determine the costs of the abstract, social labor in the production of goods and establish the proportions of exchange.

Initially, the commodity appeared before us as something dual: as use value and exchange value. Subsequently, it was discovered that labor, insofar as it is expressed in value, no longer has those characteristics that belong to it as the creator of use values. This dual nature of the labor contained in a commodity was first critically proven by me 12). Since this point is the starting point on which the understanding of the political depends, it should be covered here in more detail.

Let's take two goods, for example, one frock coat and 10 yards of linen. Let the cost of the first be twice the cost of the latter, so that if 10 arshins of linen = w, then a frock coat = 2 w.

A frock coat is a use value that satisfies a certain need. In order to create it, it was necessary certain kind productive activity. The latter is determined by its purpose, the nature of the operations, the subject, the means and the result. Labor, the usefulness of which is thus expressed in the use value of its product, or in the fact that its product is a use value, we will simply call useful labor. From this point of view, work is always considered in connection with its beneficial effect.

Just as a frock coat and linen are qualitatively different use values, the work that determines their existence: tailoring and weaving, are just as qualitatively different from each other. If these things were not qualitatively different use values ​​and, therefore, products of qualitatively different types of useful labor, then they could not oppose each other as commodities at all. A frock coat is not exchanged for a frock coat, a given use value for the same use value.

In the aggregate of heterogeneous use values, or commodity bodies, a totality appears useful works, just as diverse, divided into as many different genera, species, families, subspecies and varieties, in a word - the social division of labor is manifested. It constitutes a condition for the existence of commodity production, although commodity production, on the contrary, is not a condition for the existence of the social division of labor. In the ancient Indian community, labor is socially divided, but its products do not become commodities. Or to take a closer example: in every factory labor is systematically divided, but this division is not carried out in such a way that the workers exchange the products of their individual labor. Only the products of independent, independent private work confront each other as commodities.

So, the use value of each commodity contains a certain purposeful productive activity, or useful labor. Use values ​​cannot confront each other as commodities unless they contain qualitatively different types of useful labor. In a society whose products are general rule, take the form of goods, that is, in a society of commodity producers, this qualitative difference in the types of useful labor, which are performed here independently of each other, as a private matter of independent producers, develops into a multi-member system, into a social division of labor.

For a frock coat, however, it makes no difference who wears it, whether the tailor himself or the tailor’s customer. In both cases it functions as a use value. The relationship between the frock coat and the labor that produces it changes just as little by the fact that tailoring becomes a special profession, an independent link in the social division of labor. Where it was forced by the need for clothing, man tailored for thousands of years before man became a tailor. But a frock coat, linen, and in general every element of material wealth that we do not find in nature ready-made, must always be created through special, purposeful productive activity that adapts various substances of nature to specific human needs. Consequently, labor as a creator of use values, as useful labor, is a condition of human existence independent of any social forms, an eternal natural necessity: without it, the exchange of substances between man and nature would not be possible, that is, human life itself would not be possible. life.

Use values: a coat, linen, etc., in a word, commodity bodies, represent a combination of two elements - the substance of nature and labor. Less the sum of all the different useful species labor, consisting of a frock coat, canvas, etc., there always remains a certain material substrate that exists by nature, without any human assistance. In the process of production, man can only act as nature itself acts, that is, he can only change the forms of substances. Moreover. In this very work of formation, he constantly relies on the assistance of the forces of nature. Consequently, labor is not the only source of the use values ​​it produces, of material wealth. Labor is the father of wealth, as William Petty says, land is its mother.

Let us now move from the commodity as an item of consumption to commodity value.

According to our assumption, a frock coat has twice the value of canvas. But this is only a quantitative difference, which does not interest us for now. We remind you, therefore, that if the cost of one frock coat is equal to the double value of 10 arshins of linen, then 20 arshins of linen have the same value as one frock coat. As values, a frock coat and linen are things that have the same substance, they are objective expressions of homogeneous labor. But tailoring and weaving are qualitatively different types of labor. There are, however, social conditions under which one and the same person alternately sews and weaves and where, consequently, both of these different types of labor are only modifications of the labor of one and the same individual, and not firmly isolated functions of different individuals - completely just as the coat the tailor makes today and the trousers he makes tomorrow are only variations of the same individual labor. Further, daily experience shows that in capitalist society, depending on the changing direction of the demand for labor, a certain share of social labor is offered alternately, sometimes in the form of tailoring, sometimes in the form of weaving. This change in the form of labor does not take place, of course, without a certain friction, but it must take place. If we abstract from the specific nature of productive activity and, therefore, from the useful nature of labor, then only one thing remains in it - that it is an expenditure of human labor power. Both tailoring and weaving, despite the qualitative difference between these types of productive activities, represent a productive expenditure of the human brain, muscles, nerves of the hands, etc., and in this sense - one and the same human labor. These are just two various shapes expenditure of human labor. Of course, human labor power itself must be more or less developed in order to be expended in one form or another. But the value of a product represents simply human labor, the cost of human labor in general. Just as in bourgeois society a general or a banker plays a big role, but a simple person plays a very pitiful role, the same is true here with human labor. It is the expenditure of simple labor power, which on average everyone's bodily organism possesses. an ordinary person, not distinguished by special development. Simple average labor, although it wears different character V various countries and in different cultural eras, nevertheless, for each specific society there is something given. Comparatively complex labor means only simple labor raised to a power, or rather multiplied, so that a smaller amount of complex labor equals more simple. Experience shows that such a reduction of complex work to simple work occurs constantly. A commodity may be the product of the most complex labor, but its value makes it equal to the product of simple labor, and, therefore, itself represents only a certain amount of simple labor. The various proportions in which the various kinds of labor are reduced to simple labor as their unit of measurement are established by social process behind the backs of the producers, and therefore seem to be the last established custom. For the sake of simplicity, in the further presentation we will consider every type of labor power directly as simple labor power - this will save us from the need to reduce complex labor to simple labor in each particular case.

Therefore, just as in the values ​​of a frock coat and linen the differences in their use values ​​disappear, so in the labor represented in these values ​​the differences in its useful forms - tailoring and weaving - disappear. If the use values ​​of a frock coat and linen are only combinations of expedient productive activity with cloth and yarn, then as values, a frock coat and linen are nothing more than homogeneous clumps of labor; in the same way, what matters in the labor costs contained in these values ​​is their unproductive relation to cloth and yarn, but only the expenditure of human labor power. The elements that create use values ​​are the frock coat and linen, tailoring and weaving precisely because of their qualitative various features; They turn out to be the substance of the value of a frock coat and linen only insofar as there is an abstraction from their special qualities, since they have the same quality, the quality of human labor.

But a frock coat and linen are not only of value in general, but also of a certain value: according to our assumption, a frock coat has twice the value of 10 arshins of linen. Where does this difference in their value come from? The reason is that linen contains only half the labor of a coat, so that the production of the latter requires labor for twice as long as the production of the former.

Therefore, if in relation to the use value of a commodity only the quality of the labor contained in it matters, then in relation to the magnitude of value only the quantity of labor, already reduced to human labor without any further quality, matters. In the first case, it is a question of how labor is performed and what it produces; in the second case, it is about how much labor is expended and how long it lasts. Since the value of a commodity expresses only the amount of labor contained in it, goods taken in a certain proportion must always have equal values.

If the productive power of all useful types of labor necessary for the production of one coat remains unchanged, then the value of the coats grows in proportion to their number. If one coat represents x days of work, then 2 coats represent 2 x days of work, etc. But suppose the labor required to produce one coat doubles or falls by half. In the first case, one frock coat costs as much as two frock coats previously cost; in the second case, two frock coats cost as much as one previously cost, although in both cases the services provided by the frock coat remain unchanged, just as the quality of the useful labor contained in it remains unchanged. . But the amount of labor spent on its production has changed.

A greater amount of use value constitutes in itself greater material wealth: two coats are more than one. Two frock coats can dress two people, one coat can dress only one, etc. However, the increasing mass of material wealth may correspond to a simultaneous decrease in the value of its value. This opposite movement arises from the dual nature of labor. Productive force, of course, is always the productive force of useful, concrete labor and in fact determines only the degree of efficiency of purposeful productive activity during a given period of time. Consequently, useful labor turns out to be either a richer or a poorer source of products in direct proportion to its rise or fall. productive force. On the contrary, a change in productive power in itself does not in any way affect the labor represented in the value of the commodity. Since productive power belongs to a specific useful form of labor, it, of course, cannot affect labor, since there is a distraction from its specific useful form. Consequently, the same labor in equal periods of time creates values ​​of equal magnitude, no matter how its productive power changes. But under these conditions it delivers, at equal intervals of time, different quantities of use values: more when productive power rises, less when it falls. The very change in productive power that increases the fruitfulness of labor, and therefore the mass of use values ​​delivered by it, consequently reduces the value of this increased mass, since it reduces the amount of labor time required for its production. And vice versa. All labor is, on the one hand, the expenditure of human labor power in a physiological sense - and in this quality of the same, or abstractly human, labor forms the value of goods. All labor is, on the other hand, the expenditure of human labor power in a special purposeful form, and in this quality of concrete useful labor it creates use values.