Abstract
Although Marx titles the first volume of Capital ‘The Process of Production of Capital’, he does not immediately investigate the substantital content of a capitalist mode of production. In the first two Parts of the volume, beginning from the analysis of the commodity as the elementary form, he elucidates the systematic relations between commodities, money and capital as the development of the forms of value. Both historically and spatially these forms appear as the basic components of commodity economy in general in much wider periods and the places than capitalist production. On the basis of the development of commodity economy, the free worker ‘in the double sense that as a free individual he can dispose of his labour-power as his own commodity, and that … he is free of all the objects needed for the realisation [Verwirklichung] of his labour-power’ (I, pp. 272–3) must be given for the birth and maintenance of capitalist production in a social scale.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
K. Uno, Principles of Political Economy (1964), translated by T. Sekine (Brighton: Harvester Press; Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press, 1980), part I: The Doctrine of Circulation. This is a condensed revised version of [Principles of Political Economy] (2 vols, Tokyo: IwanamiShoten, 1950, 52), which systematically presented Uno’s discovery on this point for the first time, initiating many debates in Japan.
In the context of the value controversy, an orthodox Mandan position maintained that the relation between values and prices of production should be understood as a historical-logical sequence following the development from a society of simple commodity producers up to capitalist society. This interpretation of Marx’s value theory was suggested originally by Engels in the supplement to the third volume of Capital. Engels criticised C. Schmidt’s view of the law of value as a ‘scientific hypothesis’, and emphasised its historical and material basis in a precapitalist period of simple commodity producers (III, p. 1037). Though this position has been followed and amplified by not a few Marxians, beginning from R. Hilferding’s anti-critique of Böhm-Bawerk in P. Sweezy,ed.,Karl Marx and the Close of His System by E. von Böhm-Bawerk and Böhm-Bawerk’s Criticism of Marx by R. Hilferding (New York: A. M. Kelley, 1966), it contradicts the initial intention by assuming an imaginary or hypothetical classless society.
As for a little more detail see also M. Itoh, Value and Crisis (London: Pluto; New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980) pp. 18–19, with its notes in pp. 168–9.
G. Pilling, Marx’s Capital (London, Boston and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980) is one of the recent Western works which emphasises the importance of Marx’s theory of the value-form. Its explanation, however, that the elementary value-form (20 yards of linen = 1 coat) is ‘the exchange of two commodities’ (p. 147) as well as its emphasis of Marx’s analyses of the labour-substance through the value-form, does not seem to sharpen either Marx’s originality or his essential points in the theory of value-form, although it may not be inappropriate as an interpretation of the third section in the opening chapter of Capital.
U. Krause, Money and Abstract Labour, translated by P.Burgess (London: NLB and Verso, 1982) is another conspicuous work underlining Marx’s theory of the value-form. In ch. 2 of this book, Krause discusses the value-form without reference to labour just like Japanese Uno School. However, he also treats the value-form as the exchange relation, unlike us, and concentrates rather on the quantitative problem to solve the possible inconsistency in the exchange ratios between commodities without money.
This situation is formulated by Marx at the beginning of ‘Form Iv’ in the first chapter of the first edition of Capital (K. Marx, Value: Studies by Karl Marx, translated and edited by A. Gragstedt, London: New Park Publication, 1976, pp. 33–4). The ‘Form iv’ is there placed after the general form of value in the ‘Form III’ and the form is further reversed to turn every commodity into the universal equivalent-form, which is actually and theoretially impossible in making every commodity directly exchangeable with others. Therefore, this form is omitted from the appendix on the form of value to the first edition of Capital and thereafter. Marx’s idea contained in the ‘Form iv’, however, can be utilised in the transformation from the second to the third value-form of commodities.
D. Ricardo, On the Principles of Poliltical Economy and Taxation, ed. P. Sraffa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951.) p. 12.
K. Marx, Grundrisse, translated by M. Nicolaus (Hamondsworth, Middx: Penguin Books, 1973) p. 71, pp. 215–18.
K. Uno, [On ‘The Transformation of Money into Capital’] (1964) in his [Problems in Marxian Economics] (Tokyo: Iwanami-Shoten, 1969). See also his Principles of Political Economy, op. cit. pp. 14–18.
A. Emmanuel, Unequal Exchange, translated by B. Pearce (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972) defines international ‘unequal exchange in the strict sense’ on the basis of lower wages in the peripheral countries (pp. 60–4). Though the commodity products from the peripheral countries may not always be the products of capital, or may not bring about the international equalisation of profit rates unlike in Emmanuel’s model, there seems to be still plenty of room for the international unequal exchange of labour or the transfer of surplus-labour from the peripheral to the central capitalist countries on the basis of the lower wages and living standards of the workers and peasants in the peripheral countries with lower costs of production. Especially the prices of the commodity products of more or less self-sufficient non-capitalist modes of production, such as a peasant economy, can be cut down often irrationally from a capitalist standard to a level regardless of reproduction costs. The form of merchants’ capital would not miss the chance to utilise these circumstances, although the basic theory of the forms of value cannot directly analyse or refer to them behind the sphere of circulation.
Among others H. Ouchi, [The Formation of the Theory of Value](Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1964)
H. Hidaka, [Principles of Political Economy], revised ed. (Tokyo: Jichosha, 1974)
F. Tokinaga, [The ‘Transformation’ Problem in ‘Capital’,](Tokyo: Ochanomizu-shobo, 1981)
T. Ouchi, [Principles of Political Economy], 2 vols (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1981–82) are some representative works in this group of the theorists of pure capitalism.
K. Suzuki ed., [Principles of Political Economy], 2 vols. (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1960, 1962)
H. Iwata, [World Capitalism](Tokyo: Mirai-sha, 1964)
M. Itoh, [The Theory of Value and Capital], (Tokyo: Iwanami-shoten, 1981) are in this line of works by the theorists of world capitalism.
M. Takumi, [World Capitalism] (Tokyo: Nihonhyoron-sha, 1980) reviews the extensive methodological implications in the controversy between these two groups in the Uno School in favour of the theory of world capitalism.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1988 Makoto Itoh
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Itoh, M. (1988). The Forms of Value — Commodity, Money and Capital. In: The Basic Theory of Capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19107-9_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19107-9_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-37285-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-19107-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Economics & Finance CollectionEconomics and Finance (R0)