commissioner.org
| Source | Julio Huato |
| Date | 13/04/29/00:30 |
| Jim wrote:
> GDP is basically a measure of what Marx > called "exchange value" or value in exchange, while the GPI is an > effort to measure use value. Strictly speaking, it's impossible to > measure use value, but it's okay to try as long as you know the > limitations. The neoclassicals interpret GDP as a measure of use-value > because (at least as a first approximation in this view) the prices of > products in it equal marginal utilities. This treats "use value" and "exchange value" as if they were two extraneous, disconnected categories. However, _exchange value_ is a *form* of _value_, which in turn is the *form* of _use value_ in certain contexts, namely societies where use values are produced by independent private producers, who must therefore trade these goods as commodities for their social arrangement to reproduce itself. Consider an analogy, minding the "mutatis mutandis" clause. A circumference (i.e. 2 \pi radius) is the form taken by *length* of the perimeter of a circle. Similarly, side^2 is the form that *length* takes for the perimeter of a square; side a \times side b for the perimeter of a rectangle, etc., etc. In sum, that quality of things we call *length* takes myriad forms depending on the nature of the geometric object under consideration. Now, for a particular circle, let radius = 1/(2 cm \pi). Hence, circumference = 1 cm. It would be absurd for me to say that "1 cm is a measure of the circumference, but it has nothing to do with length; 1 cm is not and cannot be a measure of length!" Similarly absurd, although the algebraic sign of the absurdity would change, would be for me to say: "You can only measure length, but strictly speaking it is impossible to measure the perimeter of any particular circle." No. You can measure circumferences, the perimeters of rectangles, triangles, etc., distances of lines and curves, etc. And thereby you're measuring lengths under various guises. Analogously, you can measure use value. Now, if for some strange reason we cannot measure use value (say, we lose our minds, which makes it impossible for us to measure anything), then we cannot measure exchange value either. How will we ever be able to measure exchange value if we cannot measure use value, given that exchange value is the form of use value in certain social settings? How can we ever measure exchange value (and value) without measuring use value? But, how do we measure use value then? Well, use value is not a physical measure of things in themselves. It's a measure of *wealth*, i.e. of things for our selves. So how do we measure what something is, represents, or "means" to us or for us? We are the measure of things! Our lives, our powers, which is to say our ability to spend our lives consciously (productive power of labor or, for short, labor power, what other power is there?), are the measure of things. So, in brief: Our wealth is our measure, the measure of our conscious lives. And we, our conscious lives, are the measure of our wealth. When we determine the value of any piece of wealth, we are measuring our productive power, the productive force of our labor. As Marx showed, the value of wealth (in a commodity-producing society) is the reciprocal of the productive force of labor. The greater the force of labor productive of a given amount of wealth (that amount is, of course, bounded by the size of our needs, as wealth that exceeds needs turns increasingly into illth), the lower its value, and vice versa. Saying that value is a measure of the productive force of labor (stock) is not different from saying that value is a measure of social labor time (flow). The productive force of labor (or labor power, for short) is the *stock* of the *flow* we call labor, the activity. It is at each point in time, on the "edge of the present," that we experience our lives, that we make our choices, that we direct our lives consciously. But it is by looking back, reflectively or retroactively into the historical past *and* looking forward or projectively into our future that our present actions become conscious, acquire a human meaning. Thus looking at things at a point in time or over a period of time is just a different way of looking at the same thing; in this case, our own conscious lives. We can only act now, but we only make sense of our actions by reference to past and future. To be, perhaps, a bit clearer: How do we know something is a power now if it is not to be exercised over time? And given that the exercise of our powers lies in the future, how can we be certain of what these powers truly amount to before we exercise them? The past, history, may provide us with a hint, but we can never be sure. It should be clear that we value and revalue our wealth all the time, at each point in time in fact; all types of wealth, even if we do it only in deed, without necessarily articulating this valuation in thought or speech. Basically, any action we take entails an effective valuation of wealth. This means that we are periodically, in fact continuously, re-evaluating our wealth. All of it. This process is individual and social, since it is through the clash of individual valuations that value as a socially objective property (social form) of wealth emerges. In this light, social life is a process of social validation or social formation, of formation of social structures (e.g. value). It goes with the territory that the very definition of wealth (and, hence, what is poverty or misery or illth) -- i.e. what is productive force (and, hence, destructive force), what is freedom (and, hence, what is necessity) -- is up for grabs. In a class society, the definition of wealth is an outcome of the class struggle (inclusive of competition and other forms of social conflict). Working people must put forth our own definition of what enriches us, what makes our lives worth living (and, therefore, what impoverishes us), not only in thoughts or words, but in deeds, i.e. move to appropriate whatever helpful may be found out there and turn it into a means for the expansion of our wealth, our freedom, our own (and owned) productive power, the content of our lives. As to Nathan's reply to me about not taking into consideration the "output of nature." I am not sure if I understand his point. Insofar as I can see, there is *no* need to alter Marx's fundamental views on this matter. All we need to do is adapt his analysis to the specs of the case. If we are talking about the rest of nature (nature abstracted from ourselves), then nature today is the output of nature yesterday. Nature's production function is \dot{x}(t)=f(x(t)) or, if you prefer, x_t = g(x_{t-1}, where f(.) and g(.) represent what we call the "laws of nature." Now, isn't it true that, actually, \dot{x}(t)=f[x(t), L(t)], or x_t = g(x_{t-1}, L_{t-1}) where L is labor power? In words, we influence the "output of nature"? Indeed, but we can only influence the output of nature as a force of nature, i.e. our actions subject to the laws of nature. Now, if the output of nature is the object of our valuation, if it is what we call wealth, then its value to us is the reciprocal of the productive force of our labor. How productive are we of, say, hospitable planets? Well, as far as I know, we haven't yet been able to produce even one of them. We know how to make a planet near inhospitable. That's what human history is from a certain perspective: the production of a planet that may become inhospitable rather soon. Who knows in the future, but for all we know, it seems impossible for us to produce a hospitable planet alternative to this one. So, assuming we develop the need for a new planet, we can estimate that it'd require an infinite amount of social labor to produce it, our labor power productive of hospitable planets is zero as far as we can estimate it on the basis of historical data; therefore, the value of a hospitable planet to us (again, assuming we need one badly enough) appears to be infinitely high. Now, if (through the process of social formation or social validation indicated above) we decide we don't need a planet, then its value drops to zero even if we have the other power to replace this planet with another (or gets undefined, 0/0, if we don't have such power). In the past, we believed we didn't need to worry about reproducing a clean atmosphere, fresh water, etc. We thought natural processes would supply them by default, natural processes would digest all our garbage quickly or, at least, the processes would take place out of our sight and, hence, out of our mind. Of course, the capitalist market value of a clean environment would be zero. Now larger and larger groups of people are convinced that nature will not be able to digest all of our garbage without biting us in the back. And we're keenly aware that we need a clean environment. So we need to view a clean environment as wealth that we, not nature by itself, need to reproduce (in part at least, by limiting the production of other goods). Now, since we haven't yet gotten rid of markets, then there's the issue of the market value of this commodity, a clean environment. We, of course, note that capitalist markets are inherently disinclined to treat a clean environment as a sorely needed reproducible good, i.e. as wealth. So we push for other ways of providing for it, other ways (extra economic or non-market ways) of reallocating the productive force of our labor, i.e. with the help of political and legal mechanisms, which tax, override, or restrict private or exclusive ownership over existing wealth. We value a clean environment so highly, and the market seems so inherently incapable of moving people to reproduce it to the extent needed, that we are forced to override markets. Value, as in *market* value, stops being a form conducive for us to produce true wealth. We then find other ways to produce our wealth. Although, of course, a clean environment means a lot to us, we cannot call the outcome of this valuation "value" any longer, or at least not in the sense of Marx. Why not? Because the category of value refers to social labor time required in a society with markets. In other societies, social labor time required takes other forms. Instead, we may call it free labor time. Labor time spent reproducing a clean environment is labor time spent freely, i.e. directly in building ourselves, our freedom, our powers, rather than the powers that oppress us. Back to GDP. What does it measure? It measures use value (positive and negative, i.e. goods and bads, wealth and illth). And by so doing, it measures value. More generally, it measures the social labor time required to produce wealth anew, i.e. it measures the productive force of our labor. How well does it do it? Well, we can poke a lot of holes in it. It counts as goods some things that are indeed goods and to the extent they are goods. That is, of course, fine. But, on the other hand, it does omit some things that are goods. It adds as goods things that are not goods. It counts as goods things that are actually bads for most people and some that are bad for all people. To compute the index number (or average or expectation) that we call GDP, the goods included are weighted by their market values (or imputed market values, in some cases), thus presuming that society values these items in proportion to their market values. But what if the market values distort the social valuation, as it will happen if there are inequality and external effects of cooperation that we move to offset via legal and political ways? Then the GDP is going to paint a distorted picture of the productive force of our labor. Uncertainty, i.e. ignorance, is such that one will always wonder whether what appears to us as a piece of more or less solid knowledge is in fact something that deepens our ignorance. Given that we don't know it all, it may actually makes us more ignorant, more insidiously so because our ignorance will now appear as reliable knowledge when it is not. As a result of our effort to know the world, a deceitful world where things are not what they appear to be at first sweep, may push us back to a deeper form of ignorance, perhaps making us arrogant under the pretense of greater knowledge. This is the "A little knowledge is worse than no knowledge" school. Indeed, there's a chance that GDP measurements may have that very quality, in part because we know (don't we?) that there are vested interests that benefit from the distortions. However, a side of me argues that no, the latter type of ignorance is better than the former. We never move forward in a straight line, setbacks are a necessary part of the process. But these necessary steps back may wind up getting us closer to it. We are at least trying to understand and change the world, and that is always a risky business. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho