Value, Price and Crisis

Marx noted that in the boom phase of the industrial cycle — the introduction of technical advances — state-of-the-art machinery will reduce the price of production while the general price remains stable or even rises. So prices tend to rise.

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3 thoughts on “Value, Price and Crisis

  1. Can I ask if you’ve ever considered certain apparent self-contradictions in Marx’s Capital?

    1. like the one between the labor-time law of value, and Marx’s intermittent affinity for the notion that increased productivity of labor can raise the rate of surplus value?
    2. like Marx’s use of a so-called average or normal “intensity of labor” variations from which impact the rate and mass of  value production, when Marx never defines a normal intensity, how it’s measured, and ignores the fact that if intensity changes the rate and mass of value, the labor time theory of value is refuted.
    3.  In Vol 3. the discussion of the average or general rate of profit and prices of production leads Marx to conclude that only in the early stages  of capitalist–pre-manufacture pre-industrial, are commodities exchanged at their values; meaning before capitalism dominates social production, before labor-power is organized on the wage for time basis, does the law of value actually govern.

    I have, and I’ve never resolved them, to my own satisfaction. Can you help?

    1. Speak with clarity. Are the “law of value”, the “labor-time law of value”, and the “labor time theory of value” three distinct phenomena? If not, why are you using different terminology for the same thing? If they are distinct, where does Marx distinguish between them? I suspect you are simply talking about the law of value despite the different phrasing, so that’s what I will assume herein.

      1. Asking this without citing anything provides us with no basis for a discussion. Are you referring to chapter 12 of volume 1 where Marx outlines how an increase in productivity (productiveness) can cause a drop in the value of the articles of subsistence, thus decreasing the relative amount paid out in variable capital while the amount of capital produced remains constant? If so, then this is obviously true and there is no contradiction, so I again would ask you to cite where you are inquiring about.

      2. You are fundamentally confused about the nature of value. An increased intensity of labor in a single workshop or factory does not alter the socially necessary labor time required to produce the commodity in question. This fact does not “refute” anything.

      3. This is of no consequence. Marx is using abstraction to illuminate the mechanisms of the capitalist mode of production. Let us consider an analogy regarding the biological function of the cell. If you abstract away the impacts of lipids, membranes, transcription factors, levels of DNA structure, auxiliary RNA machinery, etc., you can arrive at a simplified, uncomplicated model for how DNA is converted into proteins which then perform some function. The fact that all the things we mentioned actually DO affect the production of proteins and their subsequent function does not at all imply that DNA does not play a fundamental role in governing the function of the cell. Similarly, the fact that the law of value does not completely determine the function of capitalist markets does not in any way imply that the law of value is not fundamental to the capitalist mode of production.

      1. Lumbar:

        2) You’re mistaken, on a couple levels–a)SNLT is an average, so greater intensity of labor in a single enterprise in Marx’s critique does make a difference allowing the product of more intensive labor to sell at that average which is above the individual product’s value b) Marx repeatedly refers to this variation without ever defining how intensity is measured.

        3.The answer you provide ” Similarly, the fact that the law of value does not completely determine the function of capitalist markets does not in any way imply that the law of value is not fundamental to the capitalist mode of production.” is not the issue posed in the question. Marx states that in essence commodities exchange in proportion to their values only at a stage prior to the emergence of industrial capitalism, meaning essentially handicraft production, prior to the extensive division of labor, and prior to the growth of wage-labor, i.e. prior to the expression of labor as a commodity, as labor power. as a source of surplus-value. How is that possible?

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