Despite my sincere intention to drop this thread, I can't allow Phil's
erroneous presentation of marx's theory to stand unchallenged.
Phil wrote:.
>
> Marx's position is this
>
> 'Labour is *not* the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the
> source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth
> consists!) as labour, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of
> nature, human labour power' (Marx, 1875/1972, p. 382)
>
> Marx, K. (1875/1972). Critique of the Gotha program. In R.C. Tucker (Ed.),
> The Marx-Engels Reader (382-405). New York: W.W. Norton.
>
Now had Phil bothered to continue with the passage he cites he would have
included the following:
(same page, same book, same edition, next sentence).
"The above phrase is to be found in all children's primers and is correct in
so far as it is *implied* that labour is performed with the appurtenant
subjects and instruments. But a socialist programme cannot allow such
bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the *conditions* that alone give
them meaning. And in so far as man from the beginning behaves toward
nature, the primary source of all instruments and subjects of labour, as an
owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labour becomes the source of use
values, therefore also of wealth."
yes, one cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the
*conditions* that alone give them meaning, since it is labor and labor alone
that confers value in Marx's economic theory. Or as he said more clearly
in the first pages of Capital:
"A use-value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because human
labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in it. How, then,
is the magnitude of this value to be measured? Plainly, by the quantity of
the value-creating substance, the labour, contained in the article."
As Marx pointed out, some things cannot simply be passed over in silence, in
particular when they are not debatable issues such as whether Marx had an
ecology; a topic I certainly look forward to exploring in Fosters book,
since from what I've read thanks to Bill's posts, Foster does appear to have
understood what Marx said unequivocally and about which I've never before
the past few days heard any disagreement. I suppose that minimal level of
understanding would be a precondition for any discussion of issues that
require a subtler comprehension of marxist theory in general, or even the
phrase "treats her as belonging to him" in which I'm sure some of
participants of xmca might well find disturbing from a variety of
perspectives but which certainly doesn't sound like the native american
notion that humans belong to the earth, not the other way around.
Paul H. Dillon
Paul H. Dilloon
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