In the simplest terms, social validation is about conforming to the conventions of the current environment that you are in, in order to be a part of an inclusive group. We often adapt ourselves to the situations to fit in, even if we do not always realize it.
Why you’re not great until someone says you are.
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2022–04–01Twitter
So you’ve decided you want to abolish the value-form. Now what? (2022)
12 minutes | English | Philosophy State Capitalism The Crew
There’s an ongoing debate within Marx studies over what’s called “Marx’s labor theory of value.” According to some, it’s an empirical and predictive law about prices that can be verified using quantitative methods — let’s call this tendency empirical Marxism. According to others, Marx did not share such a Ricardian theory of value, but instead overcame it, or even exploded it.
On their view, abstract labor, the substance of value, is “a real abstraction”; what’s most interesting about Marx’s theory is not that it predicts prices (it doesn’t) or that it can be empirically verified (it can’t) but that it addresses “the question [of] why this content [labor] has assumed that particular form [value].” [1] This tendency is known as value-form theory (or value-criticism, or the new reading of Marx, to give three somewhat non-identical designations).
In contrast to the empirical Marxists, who tend to be more Keynesian and pragmatic, value-form theory (VFT) tends to be more utopian and philosophical. It reproaches the empirical Marxists for worrying only about surplus value, i.e. exploitation, and not about the fact of generalized commodity production, which VFTers view as inherently at odds with human flourishing. On their account, the contradiction between use value and value is the fundamental contradiction at work in Capital, and communism requires we overcome it.
Let’s allow that there is something problematic about commodity production beyond just surplus value extraction, i.e. communism is not simply worker co-ops operating in a market economy.
This point at least must be conceded to the VFTers. Even if we accept it, though, it’s not obvious what we’re supposed to do with it. Abolish commodity production? Okay, if you say so — what does that look like? To the key figures of VFT, one thing is clear: it does not look like really existing socialism, which remains lamentably Ricardian in its outlook. But how do they know? What makes them so sure?
Michael Heinrich, one of the school’s leading lights, writes that “Abstract labor is a relation of social validation (Geltungsverhältnis) that is constituted in exchange.” [2] This emphasis on exchange as the exact moment of validation or realization is the key point that distinguishes Heinrich’s view from that of the empirical Marxists, for whom value is created in production, full stop.
According to Heinrich, generalized commodity exchange is a particular regime of social validation. Yet there is obviously something deficient or perverse about the way this regime works. It’s not like we criticize capitalism because it’s doing such a great job getting everybody the recognition they need or deserve. I therefore propose to call its constrained and imperfect form of validation “(mis)recognition.” The parentheses are meaningful: “misrecognition” typically refers to something that is simply bad, whereas I want to emphasize two-sidedness.
The term is meant to capture the way that value really does work as a kind of mirror of our own productive activity (we give and receive social validation, of a kind; we come to understand ourselves through it) but one that at the same time is distorting, insufficient, and misleading.
“Value = (mis)recognition” works as an extremely concise summary of Marx’s argument in Capital. Needless to say, Marx believes this (mis)recognition has catastrophic consequences. One of his primary goals is to show that capitalism is only a particular regime of social validation rather than the necessary form any successful regime of social validation must take (as the political economists would have it).
Under previous modes of production, non-capitalist regimes of social validation, I produced use values. I was able to recognize my intention objectified in the products of my labor. If I didn’t consume them myself, they might be used by my family or my tribe, or go as tribute to some ruler, all of which yield social validation. Even a child’s ingratitude drives home the meaning and singularity of my work (as precisely that which the child fails to recognize).
The transition to capitalist production can be understood as a process of alienation (I cease to recognize myself in my product), or as the onset of specifically capitalist exploitation (My labor is put to a purpose that is alien to it: the accumulation of surplus value). In either case, my access to social validation now comes to be mediated by commodity exchange, a capricious ferryman.
Under capitalism, my social validation arrives as a paycheck. If I’m lucky, I can look at it and say to myself “Yes, that does correspond to the number of hours I spent on the clock, but…” There’s been a huge loss of information.
The market’s mediation throttles the bandwidth of social validation. I see my labor reflected in a clouded mirror, darkly. Value, like its substance, abstract labor, is one-dimensional. This makes it ideal for optimizing. My boss ignores everything that makes me unique and counts me only as a productive asset netting him x dollars’ worth per month. This is what makes my existence so precarious — unless I represent a good investment, something that only the market can decide, I’m out on my ass. For his part, my boss can exert himself in any number of ways to make a better product or do right by his employees, but his individuality earns social validation only insofar as he empties himself out and becomes a vessel, an avatar, of capital. Generalized commodity production — that is, the coordination of independent producers via prices — implies constant (mis)recognition for both workers and capitalists.
Such conditions select for some loathsome creatures: firms (Gollum!).
Each firm in a capitalist society jealously hoards information (Gollum!). It seeks its own benefit to the exclusion of all others’ — grasping, paranoid, and obsessed (Gollum!). As a worker, I have no choice but to enlist in some firm’s vile war effort if I want social validation. This means taking up its profit-obsession as my own, viewing myself through its green lamp-like eyes (Gollum!), along the single axis of abstract labor. My efforts disappear into those of the collective, the only unifying principle of which is (Gollum!) the compulsion to accumulate. And of course my boss (Gollum!) mistakes those efforts as his own (“It was a birthday present”).
But what does the death (or the withering away) of commodity exchange, and thus value, look like? Hans-Georg Backhaus, another VFTer, emphasizes Marx’s explanation, in the Grundrisse, of commodity exchange by “the fact that [the producers] stand as independent private persons simultaneously in social connection.” [3] Our labors are only socialized after the fact, in the marketplace, because they aren’t socialized any earlier. This is what gives rise to the whole problem of (mis)recognition.
Assuming communism doesn’t herald the end of social connection, the end of commodity exchange must mean the end of producers standing as independent private persons. Independence and privacy are the sine qua non of Gollumhood. You develop an antisocial fixation like profit-obsession in the cold dark of the Misty Mountains, hidden away from the light of day. Sméagol had to kill Déagol before he could become Gollum.
What replaces independence and privacy? It’s tempting to answer, glibly: interdependence and transparency. Here the problem of transition rears its head. Regardless of how well I can describe the end goal (a completely decommodified economy, a perfectly tame Sméagol) what can be said about the process of becoming-interdependent, or becoming-transparent? How does (mis)recognition pass over into recognition?
To find myself socially validated by others means that I am embedded in some kind of network. If this network is decommodified, then it is direct, interpersonal. The status quo of petty fiefdoms and thingly relations between producers cannot be overcome unless these new direct ties cut across the divisions between firms. Ideally these should introduce an adulterant into the firm’s decision-making: some notion of the common good. But how can this be assured? What kind of information flows along these direct connections, and what is their nature?
It is customary in modern times to assume that the common good cannot be deduced by some philosopher-king, but must be arrived at democratically, through a deliberation in which all stakeholders are at least nominally represented. This allows us to distinguish between two types of connections: those that are subordinated to democracy, and those that aren’t. If we’re trying to promote the spread of the former, we must rely on the individual links themselves to carry out this mission. They must, in other words, be channels of democratic authority. If we call that part of society where democracy is most concentrated “the Party,” then it wouldn’t be a stretch to call these “party cells” or “branches.” As representatives of the public interest it is their job to see to it that the firm’s will bends towards the common good.
But perhaps this puts too much responsibility on our double agents. Undoing the law of value means inducing firms to do things that are unprofitable but serve the general interest. How much easier it would be to de-privatize firms’ decision-making if we had some control over prices! As long as the market continues to play a role in social validation (and it won’t disappear overnight), any new validation scheme trying to impose itself will have to find some accommodation with the ferryman. Ideally it will bully him, but wherever it can’t, it may resort to bribery. The surest way to undermine the independence of firms is to obtain such a commanding position in the economy that every firm depends on you. This renders them dependent, and transparency follows directly: just demand ever-stricter audits of anyone who wants to do business with you. The independence and privacy of the firm is eroded from within (by our double agents) and from without (as firms are leashed by elven rope). Abolishing commodity exchange means replacing commodity-mediated (mis)recognition with a regime of direct social validation that dissolves the integrity of firms, just as a fungal growth spreads from one tree to another.
This is a lovely picture, but isn’t it all rather gradualist? It would be, but for one fact: none of the above can be achieved as long as the state is capitalist.
Force is decisive in maintaining the privileged position of the market as supreme mediator of social validation. The most important aspect of this force is its prophylactic effect, its threatening aura, but it is also used sporadically and spectacularly to restore the conditions of capitalist reproduction. Abolishing value, then, is contingent on building an overwhelming social force that is capable of setting the terms of social reproduction. There’s no other way for the independence and privacy of firms, the material basis of value — that is, generalized (mis)recognition — to be called into question and ultimately replaced. The contest for political power must be decided in socialism’s favor. Finding ourselves equal to this task is therefore the first step on the road to genuine social recognition, i.e. communism.
tl;dr: Even VFT premises, if taken seriously, imply Dengist conclusions.
[1] Karl Marx, 1867. Capital, Vol. 1. Part 1, Ch. 1, Section 4: The Fetishism of the Commodities and the Secret Thereof. [web]
[2] Michael Heinrich, 2004. An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital. p. 50. [web]
[3] Hans-Georg Backhaus, 1980–01. On the Dialectics of the Value-Form. p. 113. DOI: 10.1177/072551368000100108.
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http://digamoo.free.fr/carchedi2009.pdf
Historical Materialism 17 (2009) 145–169
Interventions The Fallacies of ‘New Dialectics’ and Value-Form Theory
Guglielmo Carchedi
Abstract
Chris Arthur’s approach aims at a systematic re-ordering of Marx’s categories. This article argues that his approach is actually a different ordering of different categories that are positioned within a specific theoretical whole, a Hegelian re-interpretation of Marx and especially of abstract labour, which distances itself from Marx. While the debate has focused mainly on the philosophical aspects of Arthur’s work, its economic features have not been the object of a systematic analysis. Yet, a full assessment of the ‘New Dialectics’ should include explicitly a systematic internal critique of its economic dimensions. The aim of this article is to assess the internal consistency of the economic ramifications of the ‘New Dialectics’. The focus is on the notions of abstract labour, concrete labour, and exploitation. Arthur’s faithfulness to Marx, or correspondence to Marx’s quotations, is not the criterion used to assess the ‘New Dialectics’. Rather, the criterion is whether it (a) discovers logical inconsistencies in Capital and (b) is itself free from inconsistencies. Th e answer is negative in both cases.
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The new interest in Hegel is largely unconcerned with recovering the grand narrative of Hegel’s philosophy of history and relating it to historical materialism: rather it is focused on Hegel’s Logic and how this fits the method of Marx’s Capital. The point is usually put by saying the effort is to construct a systematic dialectic in order to articulate the relations of a given social order, namely capitalism, as opposed to an historical dialectics studying the rise and fall of social systems.2
For the author, his ‘research programme demonstrates its fruitfulness only in its success in exhibiting the systematic ordering of categories’.6 This sounds as if it were just a matter of a different ordering of the same (of Marx’s) concepts. But Arthur’s work is a different ordering of different economic concepts which are positioned within a specifi c theoretical whole, his value-form theory. The link between new dialectics and value-form theory is the Hegelian reinterpretation of Marx’s concept of abstract labour. Arthur quotes Hegel to the effect that the Spirit ‘is not an essence that is already finished and complete before its manifestation, keeping itself aloof behind its host of appearances, but an essence which is truly actual only through the specific forms of its necessary self-manifestation’.7 And, Arthur adds, ‘I would say the same of value’.8 Just as Spirit actualises itself only through its forms of manifestation, value comes to be only through exchange and money rather than existing as abstract labour, as in Marx, already in production, before exchange. Value, then, becomes an empty form. For Marx, too, value is a (social) form but it is not empty, it is the form of its substance, abstract labour. As Kincaid remarks ‘Th e category of “pure empty form” has no eff ective presence in Capital ’.9 The author, then, distances explicitly himself from Marx. In his reply to critics, Arthur states ‘Now I understand . . . that it only causes confusion to cite passages from Marx. In the future, I will present my own views in my own way’.10 Thus, Arthur’s fidelity to Marx or correspondence to Marx’s quotations will not be the criterion used to assess the validity of new dialectics or its internal consistency. Rather, the criterion will be whether the new dialectic (a) discovers logical inconsistencies in Capital and (b) is itself free from these inconsistencies. The focus will be on the notions of abstract labour, concrete labour, and exploitation.
My assessment and critique of Arthur (and, briefly, in sub-section 2.3 below, of other value-form authors) entails a short reference to the notion of dialectics which will guide the rest of this article. Marx makes extensive use of three principles that are the co-ordinates of his method of social research.
All phenomena are always (1) both realised and potential, (2) both determinant and determined, and (3) subject to constant movement and change.
It follows that social reality, seen from the perspective of dialectics, is a temporal flow of determining and determined contradictory phenomena continuously emerging from a potential state to become realised and going back to a potential state.
The dialectical relation between phenomena is then their reciprocal interaction seen from this perspective. The dialectical method of social research inquires into a social phenomenon’s origin, present state and further development, i.e. into (a) the past dialectical relation with other phenomena through which it has emerged from a previous potential state to become a realised phenomenon with its own potential contradictory content, thus possibly superseding its previous realised form; (b) its present dialectical relation with other contradictory social phenomena, some of which are determined by it and some other are its determinants, some potential and some realised; and c) its further development (change) due to the future realisation of its potentials as realised conditions of its reproduction or supersession.
An example of (a) is the development in Capital, Volume I of the expanded value-form from the simple value-form and of the money value-form from the expanded value-form. The expanded and money value-forms were potentially present in the simple value-form and this is why they could be developed from the latter. The formers’ realisation was the latter’s supersession.11
2. Abstract labour
For Marx, abstract labour is the substance of value and is the expenditure of human energy irrespective of, abstracting from, the concrete, specific forms it takes (concrete labours). Value is thus contained in the commodity before it realises itself as exchange-value, i.e. before the commodity is sold.
Arthur rejects this approach and thus Marx’s labour theory of value. ‘My position is quite different from that of the orthodox tradition, which sees labour creating something positive, namely value, then expropriated’.12
[…]
6. Conclusions
To conclude, Arthur’s position can be summarised as follows.
The commodity as a use-value, in its empirical concreteness, is the result neither of the individual labourers’ labour nor of the collective labourer’s labour. Rather, it is the capitalists who, by co-ordinating and organising the labour process (seen as a function of capital), are the creators and the producers of the commodity as a use-value.
As for value and surplus-value, labour does not produce them either. Rather, it is capital which, even though not producing them, ‘posits’ the labourers’ concrete labour as abstract, as value, because it equally exploits it irrespective of the specificity of the concrete labours.
Finally, exploitation in production is similar to alienation and can be measured by measuring the socially-necessary exploitation-time.
Exploitation in distribution is the return of the wealth to the exploited. The above argument has highlighted the many internal inconsistencies of this approach.
It has also argued that Arthur shares with the other value-form theorists the assumption that neither the human metabolism nor time exist.
But this aside, for Marx, the labourers are the protagonists because their labour, under coercion, produces both the use-value of the commodities and the (surplus-) value contained in them.
In Arthur’s approach, on the other hand, the labourers have become the ‘servants of a production process originated and directed by capital’84 so that labour is ‘reduced to a resource for capital accumulation’.85 Capital is the subject of valorisation even if valorisation depends on labour being exploited.
In short, labour is the servant who can only be given what has been produced by capital, the master. I cannot but repeat my conclusions in my 2003 critique of Arthur.
In spite of its laudable intentions, the new dialectics renders a better service to capital than capital’s own ideologues. It gives away the most precious legacy Marx left us, the ability to see reality from the perspective of labour as the protagonist, as the producer of wealth and value, a perspective which, contrary to what is held by the new dialectics and the concomitant value-form theory, is grounded in a logically coherent, and as yet unsurpassed, economic theory of capitalism.
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Logic and Dialectics in Social Science — Part I: Dialectics,
Social Phenomena and Non-Equilibrium
Guglielmo Carchedi
[The focus here is on how certain phenomena can be conditions of reproduction or of supersession of other phenomena and thus of society as a whole, irrespective of what the outcome of societal change (supersession) will be.]
[Both in Marx and in Schumpeter (who on this point was greatly influenced by Marx) technological competition revolutionizes productive techniques. But for Marx, technological competition leads to periodic crises, whose negative consequences are borne mainly by Labor. For Schumpeter, it leads to price reductions and thus to a long-run improvement in the working and living conditions of Labor.]
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The starting point is the empirical observation that all elements of social reality are interconnected (people can live and reproduce themselves only through reciprocal interaction) into a whole (society), that this whole changes continuously (even though some changes might be minimal), that this change can be continuous or discontinuous, and that the whole’s interconnected parts can be contradictory (e.g. people can have contradictory interests).
The present approach starts from these factual data and incorporates them within a specific theoretical frame. Its specificity is two-fold.
First, it starts from the basic unit of social reality, social phenomena considered as the unity in contradiction of social relations and processes. This is a unity in contradiction because social phenomena and thus social life are seen from a class determined perspective. 5 The analogy with Marx’s method in Capital is clear. Marx starts the inquiry into economic life with a class determined analysis of commodities conceived as the unity in contradiction of use value and exchange value. The present work starts the inquiry into social life with a class determined analysis of social phenomena as the unity in contradiction of social relations and process….
Second, this work extracts from Marx’s work a dialectical method of social research both consistent with that work and suitable to further develop it. It is based upon the following three principles. No a priori justification of these principles can be provided. Only the explanatory power of the theory based upon them, a judgment that can be given only after the whole article has been read, can justify their choice.
First Principle: Social Phenomena are always both Realized and Potential
Second Principle: Social Phenomena are always both Determinant and Determined
Third Principle: Social Phenomena are Subject to Constant Movement and Change
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