Introduction
Just as utility is the measure of preference, (labor) value is the measure of abstract labor. The concept of abstract labor is linked with the law of value. We defined in Chapter 6 the concept of a reproducible social choice.
An unquestionable presupposition of economic theory is that social human groups struggle to preserve their existence. This makes of the tendency to make reproducible social choices an iron law of economics. As explained thereby, it is clear that the economic process of a society cannot be sustained, reproduced or transformed, unless goods are distributed among the households, individuals and productive units in a certain way. It is also evident that labor must be distributed in such a way that all branches of the economy receive the necessary amount of labor in order to operate the production processes required to deliver the goods needed to reproduce the economy and sustain the members of the society (at least the labor-power). Marx (1868) formulated this law in the following, rather forceful way:It is self-evident that this necessity of the distribution of social labor in specific proportions is certainly not abolished by the specific form of social production; it can only change its form of manifestation. Natural laws cannot be abolished at all. The only thing that can change, under historically differing conditions, is the form in which those laws assert themselves. And the form in which this proportional distribution of labor asserts itself in a state of society in which the interconnection of social labor expresses itself as the private exchange of the individual products of labor, is precisely the exchange value of these products.
What this means is that the society, be it through a central organ, or through independent production units, must allocate labor-power in such a way that the economic process may take place and reproduce the economy.
This law imposes itself in every production mode. For instance, the form of manifestation of this law in primitive societies, in which a consistent division of labor has been established, is the operation of a central organ (person, council) in charge of allocating labor on the basis of a more or less conscious accounting of labor-time. According to Ernest Mandel (1968: 60):So long as primitive society, co-operatively organised, does not know any division of labour other than that between the sexes, the rhythm of labour is fixed by custom and religious rites. When a more consistent division of labour has been established, the contribution to the community made by each producer has to be measurable by a common yardstick. Otherwise, labour co-operation would tend to break up through the emergence of privileged and unprivileged groups. This common measure of organisation cannot be other than economy of labour-time.
According to this same author,
The village can be regarded as a big family. Its total annual production has to correspond more or less to its needs in means of subsistence, clothing, housing and tools. To avoid any imbalance between these different forms of production, to ensure that the peasants do not devote an excessive share of their time to producing pots or leather articles, while leaving part of their land uncultivated, it is necessary that the community compile a record of the amount of labour-time available and allot this labour-time first and foremost among the essential sectors of production, indispensable for the well-being of the community, while leaving everyone free to employ the rest of his time as he pleases.
(Ibid.)
In differentiated societies labor may still be clearly social, insofar as there is a conscious accounting of labor. For instance, in the Japanese peasant economy,
the principle of exchange is people and days. Thus, if household A has two people at work on household B’s field for two days, household B is expected to provide its equivalent on A’s fields - this may be three people one day and one person another day or any other combination to equal two people working two days...
When four or five families work together in one kattari group [team for transplanting rice], the figuring is on the same basis. This requires a book to check days and workers.(Embree 1939: 100-1; quoted by Mandel 1968: 61)
Many other concrete historical examples of societies with a conscious accounting of labor are provided by Mandel (1968: 59ff). In all these societies there exist central organs through which the law of value imposes itself.
In contradistinction to simpler societies, modern societies are characterized by an increasing social division of labor, resulting in more complex systems of needs and the decentralization of choices. From barter to the introduction of money a long time elapsed but the net result is that, what in primitive undifferentiated societies was a direct social relationship, in modern differentiated societies became a monetary relationship or one among commodities (this is what Marx called “the fetishism of the commodity”).
9.2