How does material production become socially recognised in capitalism? This is a
fundamental question to be addressed in capitalist production, since material production takes
place privately and independently in a global and atomistic system. This thesis shows that the
question is tackled by Marx in the first three chapters of Capital. The process of social
recognition of material production is that of the realisation of work carried out privately and
independently as part of the social labour. For Marx this occurs through the private and
independent work becoming objective social labour as the substance of the value of
commodities, and through the latter finding its necessary developed mercantile expression in
the price form of commodities. Therefore, private and independent work becomes social
labour through the recognition of its product as equivalent to a certain amount of money.
The thesis argues that Marxs answer is powerfully insightful but flawed because it did not
succeed in fully characterising the historical specificity of commodity. Commodity is not
merely the differentiated unity of use value and value but of use value and mercantile use
value, and of labour value and mercantile value. The former dialectic is immediate and
distinguishes between the utility of commodity as a direct means of consumption or
production and that as a means of exchange, fully determining the behaviour of the private
and independent commodity producer. The latter dialectic is objective and distinguishes
between commodity as the embodiment of the social labour necessary to reproduce it and as the embodiment of command over social labour, enabling the adjustment of the productive
structure. Both dialectics are mediated by the mercantile form of value, which allows the
indirect expression of labour value as the gravitational force of the system. The theory of
commodity offered in this thesis, unlike that of Marx, consistently hinges on the atomistic
private and independent commodity producer.
The thesis shows that commodity production is the organisation of societys labour for its
material reproduction, just as in any previous mode of production. The discovery of the
generic aspect of commodity production breaks the false immediate link between production
and supply, and that between the labour theory of value and both the supply-side-determined
theory of price and the single-factor theory of production. The thesis also shows that the
mercantile form of value is what allows societys labour to become an objective and
autonomous materially abstract substance regulating the adjustment of the productive system
under the form of material signals. This is the specific aspect of a global mode of production
comprised of free and independent individuals. The mercantile form of value is thus Adam
Smiths invisible hand.
Finally, the thesis analyses some implications of the framework with regard to the analysis of
monetary phenomena, capital accumulation and sustainable development, and reviews the
most popular Marxian topic in Economics: the transformation of values into prices of
production.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/183502 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Ahumada, Pablo Emiliano |
| Publisher | Lincoln University. Commerce Division |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Masters thesis |
| Rights | http://theses.lincoln.ac.nz/rights.html, Copyright Pablo Emiliano Ahumada |
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