[Xmca-l] Re: Contrasting 'use-value' & 'value'

[Andy Blunden]

Julian/Michael,

I remember getting very excited back in the early '80s when 
I spotted the symmetry between the first chapters of Capital 
and Marx's critique of algebra in his Mathematical 
Manuscripts. That lasted about a week. The symmetry between 
Vygotsky's analysis of speech and Marx's analysis of 
production is a strong one because both take an 
artefact-mediated relation between individuals as the unit. 
There is a symmetry at the level of the molar unit as well, 
which, so far as I know has been neglected. But this 
structural symmetry cannot usefully be taken too far. The 
"point" is that the unit is a unit of a whole, and the 
productive activity of a community is not the same as its 
language, which as Marx said "the philosophers are bound to 
make into an independent realm." Concretely, speaking is not 
producing. But like all human activities, both are subject 
to analysis by units of artefact-mediated actions.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making 

On 18/04/2017 7:01 AM, Julian Williams wrote:
> Michael
>
> In principle I am Ok with the idea of the unit that contains the essential
> contradictions… but of what?
>
> For Marx the whole point of commodity exchange/value is that it is the
> beginning of an explanation of the 'economy', capitalism, and the labour
> theory of value is the key to its collapse …
>
> What is the equivalent 'point' of sign exchange in dialogue? And where is
> the equivalent of the theory of value? I think the sensuous/supersensuous
> is a distraction from the 'point'.
>
> That’s my puzzle.
>
> Julian
>
>
>
> On 17/04/2017 21:49, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of
> Wolff-Michael Roth" <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of
> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Julian,
>> the sign is to the verbal exchange what the commodity is to the commodity
>> exchange--both the sensuous and supersensuous parts are there that Marx
>> and
>> Vygotsky are writing about. :-)
>> Michael
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------
>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
>> Applied Cognitive Science
>> MacLaurin Building A567
>> University of Victoria
>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>
>>
>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
>> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-directions-in-mat
>> hematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>*
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 12:11 PM, Julian Williams <
>> julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Michael and all
>>>
>>> I am coming late to this discussion and maybe have been missing some
>>> important thingsŠ but I want to see a few issues addressed by the
>>> Functor:
>>> Commodity => Sign: my skepticism follows to some extent the critique I
>>> wrote of the mapping 'labor = learning' that you are familiar with: but
>>> in
>>> some ways I am even more skeptical of this metaphor. So:
>>>
>>> Commodity to sign, is a unit of a totality as in 'economy' to .. 'Š? Š '
>>> What ? Maybe 'dialogue/discourse'?
>>>
>>> What is the 'value' that is exchanged in discourse, and how does it
>>> ultimately realise its 'use value' in some sort of dialogic
>>> 'consumption'
>>> of useful understanding?
>>>
>>> How does the producer of value 'labour' to produce it, and how is the
>>> 'labour time' related to the 'exchange value' of the sign that results?
>>> [Bearing in mind that the labour theory of value is Marx's essential
>>> contribution.]
>>>
>>> Then how does this work relate to devious studies: we already have the
>>> work of Bourdieu who assigns cultural capital/value to symbolic power in
>>> the cultural fieldŠ is there a connection here?
>>>
>>> Best regards as ever
>>>
>>> Julian
>>>
>>> Ps I need to come back to you about Hegel (I am far from happy with
>>> reading the 'Ideal' as a straightforward negation of the 'Real' implicit
>>> in what you sayŠ) when I have thought about this a bit more - maybe in
>>> 2018Š we should pick up!   :-)
>>>
>>> On 17/04/2017 18:22, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of
>>> Wolff-Michael Roth" <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of
>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Larry,
>>>> things become easier to think through if you do not take an
>>> individualist
>>>> starting point but a relational one---not "she has to produce . .  ."
>>> but
>>>> look at what is happening in the exchange, where each giving also is
>>>> taking, such that in a commodity exchange, you have double
>>> giving-taking;
>>>> in a verbal exchange, each speaking also involves listening and
>>> receiving,
>>>> and the receiving is for the purpose of giving (speaking, replying). As
>>>> soon as you do this, you remain with back-and-forth movement, no longer
>>>> action but transaction.
>>>>
>>>> The other interesting thing is that the Russian word znachenie,
>>> translated
>>>> as "meaning" (really, signification) also translates as "value" and
>>>> "magnitude," and Il'enkov (2009) parenthetically adds "function" and
>>>> "rôle". I am quoting from p. 178:
>>>>
>>>> Marx joins Hegel as regards terminology, and not Kant or Fichte,
>>>> who tried to solve the problem of Œideality¹ (i.e., activity) while
>>>> remaining Œinside
>>>> consciousness¹, without venturing into the external
>>> sensuously-perceptible
>>>> corporeal
>>>> world, the world of the palpable-corporeal forms and relations of
>>> things.
>>>>      This Hegelian definition of the term Œideality¹ takes in the whole
>>>> range of phenomena
>>>> within which the Œideal¹, understood as the corporeally embodied form
>>> of
>>>> the activity of
>>>> social man, really exists ­ as activity in the form of the thing, or
>>>> conversely, as the thing
>>>> in the form of activity, as a Œmoment¹ of this activity, as its
>>> fleeting
>>>> metamorphoses.
>>>>      Without an understanding of this state of affairs it would be
>>> totally
>>>> impossible to fathom
>>>> the miracles performed by the commodity before people¹s eyes, the
>>>> commodity-form of
>>>> the product, particularly in its dazzling money-form, in the form of
>>> the
>>>> notorious Œreal
>>>> talers¹, Œreal roubles¹, or Œreal dollars¹, things which, as soon as we
>>>> have the slightest
>>>> theoretical understanding of them, immediately turn out to be not
>>> Œreal¹
>>>> at
>>>> all, but Œideal¹
>>>> through and through, things whose category quite unambiguously includes
>>>> words, the
>>>> units of language, and many other Œthings¹. Things that, while being
>>>> wholly
>>>> Œmaterial¹,
>>>> palpable-corporeal formations, acquire all their Œmeaning¹ (function
>>> and
>>>> rôle) from Œspirit¹,
>>> >from Œthought¹ and even owe to it their specific corporeal existence.
>>>> Outside spirit and
>>>> without it there cannot even be words; there is merely a vibration of
>>> the
>>>> air.
>>>>
>>>> Michael
>>>>
>>>> -----------------------------------------------------------
>>> ---------------
>>>> ------
>>>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
>>>> Applied Cognitive Science
>>>> MacLaurin Building A567
>>>> University of Victoria
>>>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
>>>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>
>>>>
>>>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
>>>> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-
>>> directions-in-mat
>>>> hematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>*
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 8:31 AM, <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I am attempting to follow Wolff-Michael¹s trajectory as presented in
>>> his
>>>>> article (A Dialectical Materialist Reading of the Sign). On page 149
>>> he
>>>>> attempts to clarify the difference between sign complex Œuse-value¹ &
>>>>> sign
>>>>> complex Œvalue¹.
>>>>> His methodology is to read Marx Œsubstituting¹ the word ŒSIGN¹
>>> (implying
>>>>> sign complex) FOR Œcommodity¹ and intuites this method will be
>>>>> generative.
>>>>>
>>>>> Here is his realization through the method of re-reading as (trading,
>>>>> translation, transposition) as I am carried along.
>>>>>
>>>>> a) USE-VALUE:  Œnatural signs¹ such as animal footprints are
>>>>> useful/functional to the hunter inherently; they do NOT have Œvalue¹
>>>>> (exchangeble value) though they do have use-value for the hunter or
>>>>> hunting
>>>>> party in finding game.  Similarly a sign complex can be useful and
>>> the
>>>>> product of human labour without being Œvalue¹ (exchangeable). Someone
>>>>> who
>>>>> satisfies HER needs through her product produces Œuse-value¹ but NOT
>>>>> Œvalue¹.
>>>>> b) VALUE: (exchangeable). To produce SIGNS (complexes), she has to
>>>>> produce
>>>>> not only Œuse-value¹ but use-value FOR others. She has to produce
>>>>> Œsocietal¹ use-values.... To be/come (exchangeable) SIGN, the product
>>>>> HAS
>>>>> TO BE TRANSFERRED to another, FOR whom the SIGN complex Œconstitutes¹
>>>>> use-value.
>>>>>
>>>>> The production of signs that produce no Œvalue¹ that is exchangeable
>>> FOR
>>>>> others leads to personal notes often having NO use-value to others.
>>> To
>>>>> trans/form use-value to BE come Œvalue¹ requires exchangeability
>>> under
>>>>> lighting various forms of SIGN (complexes).
>>>>>
>>>>> Apologies to Wolff-Michael if my echoing his re-reading methodology
>>>>> garrbled the trans/mission?
>>>>>
>>>>> I offer this because it helps clarify my reading of Œuse-value¹ &
>>>>> Œvalue¹
>>>>> (exchangeable)
>>>>> My morning musement
>>>>>
>>>>> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>