Why does value exist?

The relation between value and the transhistorical necessity of a metabolism of humans with nature in Marx's theory of value

It is well know that for Marx, labor is the “substance of value”. This means that the value of a labor product is determined by the labor-time socially necessary for its reproduction. It is important to note that it is more precisely of the commodity we are talking about here, since value, in Marx’s theory, concerns use-values insofar as they are given the commodity-form. In other words, value is specific to commodity production.

But we also know, on the other hand, that labor is not specific to commodity production. Marx defines labor very simply as a useful productive activity oriented towards a determinate end. In that sense, labor is transhistorical, as it is a necessary mediation between nature and individuals who have to appropriate and transform the former through the actualization of their potentialities that Marx calls their labor-power.

But why does value exist in the first place? One possible answer to this question is: because labor produces commodities. But this answer, as we shall see, does not grasp the full picture. The point here is not only to understand why labor constitutes value in a certain social context, but first and foremost why value has its source in individuals’ productive activity, and why it necessarily arises in such social context.

To understand why, for Marx, the value of commodities is determined by labor-time, it is necessary to understand how he conceptualizes the relation between content and form, and how he acknowledges the importance of production in social life.

Value as the social form of the product of labor

The 1868 letter to Kugelmann is often cited because it is rightly considered as Marx’s one of the most clear explanations of the relation between content and form in regard to value theory.

At the time of the publication of Capital, Marx received some criticisms that reproached him to not prove his conception of value; that he simply assumed from the start that it was determined by labor. In the letter mentioned above, Marx answers to this objection by saying that it does not need to be proven (in the way his critics wanted him to do).

Contrary to what the presentation in Capital can suggest, Marx does not ‘deduce’ the concept of value by analyzing the exchange relations between use-values. In fact, for Marx, value as the ‘presentation’ [Darstellung] of social labor-time is a necessity because of the specific organization of social production as the latter is mediated by the exchange of commodities.

Before explaining why, it is important to know what type of organization we are talking about here.

In every society, individuals work in relation to each other. The sum of all particular labors of society forms what Marx calls the global ‘social labor’. In commodity production, however, producers do not directly work with each other. On the contrary, particular labors are privately performed, implying that producers do not consciously coordinate and plan production together.

Because labors are not directly socially connected, this means that labors are not immediately social. The market becomes the place where the connection between producers is established, as their sociality is mediated by the exchange of their products. This implies that the insertion of private producers in the social division of labor is not insured, but rather something to be validated, which happens only if the commodity of the private producer proves to be socially useful (ie. useful for others). Hence, only through exchange are private labors validated as legitimate components of social labor.

In this specific type of organization, the products of labor acquire the social function of ‘presenting’ [Darstellen] definite quantities of social labor through their exchangeability. This social function is what Marx refers to as value, whose adequate form of manifestation is money. In Marx’s theory, ‘value’ is therefore the social form of the labor product as a commodity.

As particular products of labor characterized by their concrete heterogeneity, they are use-values. But as indistinct and mere products of labor reduced to the quantity of social labor they present, abstraction made from their particularities, they are values.

This two-fold character of the product of labor as commodity reflects the two-fold character of labor itself. As a specific useful productive activity producing a specific use-value, labor is concrete. But as a pure physiological expenditure of labor-power over a given time regardless of its concrete form, labor is abstract. Concrete labor produces use-values, while abstract labor constitutes value.¹

It is because labors are privately performed that arises the necessity of a social function that allows social production to be carried out despite the absence of social planning and coordination between producers. In such social context, labor products have to objectify determinate quantities of social labor; they have to socially function as ‘values’.

Outside commodity production, labor does not appear as an objective property of its products.² That is why value is inseparable from the commodity-form. Value is a property that emerges from a social configuration where the social connection between private labors is established through the mediation of the exchange of their products.³

The necessity of value in commodity production

As Marx states in the Kugelmann letter we mentioned earlier, this social function of the labor products, or in one word, this ‘value’ as social form, is a necessity as soon as there exists a developed enough commodity production. Why?

This necessity of value has to be found in the necessity of the metabolism between humans and nature. In order to satisfy their needs, humans have to appropriate nature to transform it. This act of appropriation and transformation is made through the realization of their capacities: this is what Marx calls labor, which is a physiological expenditure of human capacities or labor-power.

In other words, the satisfaction of humans’ needs, aside from the ‘free gifts’ of nature, requires the mediation of labor. That is why Marx says that “any child knows that any nation would die if it stopped working, not for a year, but for a few weeks.” This metabolism between humans and nature, which is altogether natural, material and social, is transhistorical, that is, common to every society.

If the production of use-values for the satisfaction of humans’ needs require labor, it is also evident that different use-values require more or less time to be produced. The satisfaction of multiple needs requires different productive activities which necessitate diverse times. But the disposable time of a society is limited and, as soon as individuals depend on one another for the satisfaction of their needs and that exists a social division of labor, there is de facto a form of distribution of time among society’s productive activities.

Every article produced necessitates a determinate amount of social labor or, to put it differently, every article costs to society a determinate amount of its disposable labor-time.

In the subsection on the fetish character of the commodity, Marx takes the example of Robinson on his island who has to manage his time between the various needs he has to satisfy. Indeed, every need requires a specific labor, but regardless of the concrete particularities of these productive activities, they all remain physiological expenditures over a given time:

In spite of the variety of his productive functions, he knows that they are only the diverse forms by which the same Robinson asserts himself, that is to say simply diverse modes of human labor.⁴

Hence the importance of considering the time required by each of them.

At the level of society, there are social needs, and these social needs require definite quantities of social labor. Hence, there must be a distribution of labor quantities according to social needs. Because this distribution of labor quantities according to social needs is transhistorical, Marx calls it a ‘natural law’. This ‘natural law’ cannot be overcome. What can be changed is the form in which it is applied.

Under commodity production, labors are private and their sociality is manifested through the mediation of market exchange. But this historically specific mode of production does not alter the necessity of distributing labor quantities according to social needs. This distribution still happens, but through the movements of market prices which are ultimately regulated by values, hence by labor-time. In such context, the transhistorical ‘law’ of the distribution of labor quantities according to social needs takes on the historically specific form of the law of value.

As Marx states multiple times, value is a purely social form historically specific to commodity production. But that does not mean that value has nothing to do with the materiality of production and the transhistorical necessity of a metabolism of humans with nature.

Why does value exist? The answer that consists in claiming that it is because labor products are produced and exchanged as commodities is not false, but definitely partial. In fact, the profound reason why value exists has to be found in the transhistorical and natural fact that humans have to work in order to satisfy their needs, and that the use-values they produce require determinate amounts of labor.

In this regard, and to put it roughly, ‘value’ is a historically specific manner to express the costs of production (i.e. necessary labor-time) of use-values in a monetary form.

In sum, value as a social form of the labor product necessarily emerges from commodity production because the private character of labor and therefore its mediated sociality, although historically specific, are nonetheless always grounded in the materiality of the transhistorically necessary social metabolism of humans with nature which implies a distribution of labor-time proportional to social needs.

The transhistorical significance of abstract labor

This material and social metabolism of humans with nature grounds, in my opinion, the transhistorical significance of abstract labor. Before going any further, it is important to clarify where I position myself on the debate about the historical and ontological status of abstract labor.

Abstract labor, as Marx says, is the aspect of labor which constitutes the value of the commodity. On the other hand, Marx defines abstract labor as a physiological expenditure of labor-power regardless of its concrete form. At first sight, it seems that there is a contradiction between a social and a material aspects of abstract labor; contradiction that is also a contradiction between a historically specific character and a transhistorical character of abstract labor.

I personally argue that there is no contradiction. Abstract labor refers to the reduction of labors to one aspect they have in common. This aspect is their physiological character. As such, abstract labor is identical to the notion of ‘labor in general’ or ‘labor as such’ and is necessarily transhistorical as it grasps the common determinations that run throughout the different societies.

In the subsection on the fetish character of the commodity, there is another decisive passage about the relation between content and form.⁵ As Marx puts it, the ‘mystical’ character of the commodity does not arise from the determinants of value, but from the form itself. These determinants are the following:

1. there is the qualitative determination of labor, which is always a physiological expenditure of labor-power no matter its concrete form. This means that all labors are qualitatively equal from the point of view of this common physiological quality.

2. there is the quantitative determination of labor, which is always a physiological expenditure over a given time. As we have seen, this temporal aspect is for Marx fundamental. “In all situations, the labour-time it costs to produce the means of existence [Lebensmittel] must necessarily con­cern mankind, although not to the same degree at different stages of development.”⁶

3. there is the social determination of labor, as soon as individuals work in relation to each other and that exists therefore a social division of labor⁷.

These determinants are the ‘essential determinations’ of value, common to every society. Under commodity production, they take on a particular social form. The physiological equality of labors takes on the form of the objective equality of the labor products as values. The measure of labor by its duration takes on the form of the magnitude of value. And the social relationship between individuals takes on the form of a social relationship between labor products.

It is clear that the equality of labors in regard to their common character of physiological expenditures is not specific to commodity production. In every society, every labor consumes a part of society’s disposable time. In this sense, labors are physiologically equal. This is the first sense of the concept of abstract labor, which grasps the universal determination of labor.

Does that mean, however, that there is nothing historically specific about abstract labor? No. In fact, abstract labor assumes a specific social function under commodity production. As we have seen, the private form of social labor renders necessary the emergence of value as the social objectification of the abstract universal aspect of labor. In such conditions, private labors are socially connected only through the exchange of products which count as mere presentations of ‘labor as such’ regardless of any particularity.

In other words, private labors are socially connected through their common character of physiological expenditures over a given time. This contrasts with other societies where labors are immediately social, and therefore already social in their concrete particularity, which Marx also calls their ‘natural form’. About societies where there is no commodity production, Marx indeed says that “the natural form of labour, its particular­ity - and not, as in a society based on commodity production, its universality - is here its immediate social form." ⁸

In this view, what is historically specific is abstract labor as the social form of labor, insofar as this social function of the abstract aspect of labor presupposes its private character. But abstract labor as referring to the physiological expenditure of labor-power as such, hence as a nominal abstraction, is transhistorical.

That said, I want to say that it is important to make a distinction that is often not made in debates about the historical and ontological status of abstract labor. There is indeed a difference between saying that labors have one quality in common and therefore that they are equal in regard to this common quality, and to say that they are actually equal. The former implies the mere existence of a common attribute of concretely different realities (here, labors); the latter, on the other hand, implies a reduction of concrete realities to what they have in common.

In reality, labors are not equal. They are non equal insofar as they are heterogeneous singular existences. But what the process of exchange in commodity production does is to reduce these particular labors to their physiological character. From this, one must say that there are usually two meanings of ‘abstract labor’ that are often used in debates.

In the first sense, abstract labor refers to the common physiological quality itself, while in a second sense, abstract labor refers to labors insofar as they are socially reduced to this common quality, and therefore practically treated as equal (equated) indirectly through the mediation of exchange. In the first sense, abstract labor is transhistorical, while in the second sense, it is historically specific.

It is important to conceptually distinguish between these two because that is where a lot of disagreements and heated debates comes from. In the end, I would say that it is not so much a big deal to reserve the term ‘abstract labor’ for describing the social reduction of labors to their common character that happens through commodity exchange, as long as it is acknowledged that value-constituting labor, although socially determined, is also material (not ‘purely social’ in the sense of non material, as in with value) and that it is grounded by the transhistorical necessity of a metabolism of humans with nature.

This is where the concept of abstract labor has a significance that goes beyond commodity production: as every labor is a physiological expenditure of labor-power over a given time regardless of their concrete form, there is the necessity of taking into account how all labors, no matter their concrete differences, equally consume in different proportions a definite part of society’s disposable time.

This notably has stakes about post-capitalism. If only the form in which the distribution of labor-time according to needs can be changed, it means that, in a society that does away with the capitalist division of labor and therefore with value, it would still be important, if not necessary, to take into account this common and universal aspect of labors.

In such context, the social function of the abstract aspect of labor as the social form of labor would disappear because labor would be immediately social. But the abstract universal aspect of labor itself, as it refers to the necessary physiological expenditure of labor-power over a given time in the course of the social metabolism with nature, would remain.

Value-constituting labor ≠ socially equalized labor

The mistake comes when one identifies abstract labor with value-constituting labor in the sense that equalized labor necessarily implies value. In fact, labors do not constitute value insofar as they are physiologically equal, nor insofar as they are socially equalized (i.e. socially treated as equal in regard to their common character). As Marx says, there is nothing mysterious in considering labors from the sole point of view of their universality:

Human labour-power is expended in the form of tailoring as well as in the form of weaving. Both therefore possess the general property of being human labour, and they therefore have to be considered in certain cases, such as the production of value, solely from this point of view. There is nothing mysterious in this.⁹

The production of value is one of the cases where labors can be socially treated as equal. The problem is not that labors are treated as equal, or in other words that they are equalized (for instance in the light of a common unit of measurement), the problem is that labors are equalized through the mediation of commodity exchange. That is why Marx says that, even though there is nothing mysterious in considering labors solely from the point of view of their common character,

in the value expression of the commodity the question is stood on its head. In order to express the fact that, for instance, weaving creates the value of linen through its general property of being human labour rather than in its concrete form as weaving, we contrast it with the concrete labour which produces the equiva­lent of the linen, namely tailoring. Tailoring is now seen as the tangible form of realization of abstract human labour.¹⁰

Instead of directly considering labors in their common character, labors are instead reduced to this common character through an unplanned and uncontrolled process where private labors enter in social contact through the exchange of commodities. The point is to consciously control the production process and to rationally operate the social metabolism with nature. In that manner, one could argue that a form of social equalization of labors would be a necessity in a society where the planning of production would take into account the time the different labors require to produce the use-values.

That is why Marx insists that “on the basis of communal production, the determination of time remains, of course, essential”.¹¹ Even if value is abolished, the 'essential determinations' we talked about earlier remain. For abolishing the form is not abolishing the content. If value, under commodity production, is necessary first and foremost because humans have to labor in their metabolism with nature and that there must be a distribution of labor-time according to needs in any system of social division of labor, then the overcoming of value will not suppress these necessities.

Value exists for reasons that are not reducible to the historical specificity of commodity production. Those who see value as the expression of a ‘radical’ - almost absolute - break of capitalism with previous societies prevent themselves from thinking the common determinations that run throughout history; for understanding why value exists enables to understand the necessities that transcend the capitalist society.

Still in regard to the issue of time, Marx’s conceptuality allows to clearly distinguish between labor-time and value in such a way that it is not possible to reduce the former to the latter. If one simply identifies the determination of time and by extension labor-time accounting to value, treating any consideration for necessary labor-time as a 'value-simulation', then one collapses content with form.¹² In a sense, value is a historically specific 'answer' to a transhistorical 'problem': the distribution of labor-time according to social needs as it is grounded by the human natural condition.

I personally argue that it is this understanding of what value is as well as why it exists that enables us to understand why overcoming capitalism cannot prevent us from considering the problematic of the distribution of labor-time, and therefore the labor-time required to produce our means of existence. It is because Marx understood this that he was able to claim, for instance, in volume 3 of Capital, that

even after the capitalist mode of production is abolished, though social production remains, the determination of value still prevails in the sense that the regulation of labour-time and the distribution of social labour among various production groups becomes more essential than ever, as well as the keeping of accounts on this.¹³

In the end, the stake is less to abolish the abstract aspect of labor and its quantitative determination than to abolish its private character.

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1. It should be clarified here that concrete labor and abstract labor are not two kinds of labor, but instead two aspects of the same labor.

2. “The product of labour is an object of utility in all states of society; but it is only a historically specific epoch of development which presents the labour expended in the production of a useful article as an ‘objective’ property of that article, i.e. as its value.” Marx, Capital, Penguin ed., 1982, p. 154.

3. In this view, it is already clear that value does not exist because of the abstract character of labor as such, bur rather because of its private character.

4. Ibidem, p. 169.

5. cf. ibidem, pp. 164-165.

6. Ibidem, p. 164; corrected translation.

7. It should be noted that the social division of labor is obviously not specific to capitalism nor even to commodity production. If the latter necessarily presupposes a social division of labor, the reverse is not true.

8. In the 1872 French edition, Marx adds right after “universality” (“généralité” in the French text): “its abstract character”.

9. Ibidem, p. 150.

10. Ibidem.

11. Marx, Grundrisse, Penguin ed., 1973, p. 103.

12. This does not mean that, in the hypothesis of a post-capitalist society, our relation to the determination of time would be the same. I agree that capitalist relations induce time constraints and that it objectively reduces social considerations to productivity, which is humanly and ecologically destructive. But it would be a mistake to consider that time constraints as such or even the quantification of labor are specific to capitalism. Also, I am certainly not arguing that in post-capitalism we should unilaterally orient our attention towards necessary labor-time. But it would definitely be a factor that would have to be taken into account for the sake of a viable production and rational metabolism with nature. The issue is not to abolish time or the quantification of labor, but to consider labor-time in coherence with the ends that we assign to ourselves in social relations that are not destructive anymore.

13. Marx, Capital, vol. III, Penguin ed., 1991, p. 991. Of course, the “determination of value” here has to be understood as referring to the ‘essential determinations’ I mentioned in this text and more specifically to labor-time, not to value itself, as some people who collapse content and form argue.