[D66] Disposable time / socially available free time

[A.OUT]

Waarom is waarde contradictoir in het kapitalisme?

Hägglund:

"To understand why the measure of value under capitalism is 
contradictory, however, requires a level of analysis that Marx does not 
explicitly provide. That is why I proceed from analyzing the conditions 
of intelligibility for any economy of spiritual life, which must 
distinguish between the measure of value in the realm of necessity and 
in the realm of freedom. The deepest reason capitalism is a 
contradictory social form is that it treats the negative measure of 
value as though it were the positive measure of value and thereby treats 
the means of economic life as though they were the end of economic life."

"The very calculation of value under capitalism, then, is inimical to 
the actualization of freedom. Indeed, the deepest contradiction of 
capitalism resides in its own measure of value. Capitalism employs the 
measure of value that is operative in the realm of necessity and treats 
it as though it were a measure of freedom. Capitalism is therefore bound 
to increase the realm of necessity and decrease the realm of freedom. 
Even when capitalism potentially expands the realm of freedom by 
reducing the socially necessary labor time, we cannot actually recognize 
the expansion of the realm of freedom under capitalism, since disposable 
time is not allowed to serve as the measure of social wealth. The form 
of activity that is only intelligible as a means (necessary labor time) 
is treated as though it were an end in itself, and the actual end (free 
time) is not recognized as having any value at all."


"As a consequence, even the wealthy cannot convert their capital into 
free time. If they spend their capital on something that has no value 
under capitalism—disposable time—they will cease to be wealthy and 
become part of the proletariat."

"The key text for the revaluation of value in Marx is the seventh 
notebook of his Grundrisse, written in London in the winter and spring 
of 1858. During this period Marx’s own personal poverty deprived him of 
free time to work during the day and he had to stay up through the 
nights to pursue his research, while battling both illness and the 
stress of trying to support his family. Yet the years when he was 
writing his Grundrisse (1857–58) were some of the most productive and 
philosophically fertile in Marx’s life. Grundrisse means “fundamental 
features” in German and the seventh notebook in particular distills the 
fundamental features of Marx’s thinking. On a few luminous pages, Marx 
here captures the central contradiction of capital.38 The contradiction 
explains why capitalism potentially liberates free time for all, but 
also enables us to see why only the overcoming of capitalism actually 
can convert the value of free time into real social wealth.
The contradiction is the one we have observed between labor time and 
technological development. Capitalism measures value in terms of 
socially necessary labor time, but it also “calls to life all the powers 
of science” in order to reduce the socially necessary labor time. This 
process has rapidly accelerated since the epoch in which Marx lived and 
the need for living labor has been reduced due to technological efficiency.

[...]

"As long as we measure our social wealth in terms of labor time, 
technological development is bound to intensify exploitative methods for 
extracting relative surplus value from workers. Due to increased 
technological efficiency in the process of production, workers either 
become unemployed and part of an army of surplus labor whose presence 
can be used to keep down wages (as tends to happen in the Western world 
today), or they become subjected to extremely cruel working conditions 
that are designed to extract as much surplus value as possible from 
their labor (as tends to happen in the parts of the world where we now 
locate most of our manufacturing)."


On 14-02-2020 07:56, A.OUT wrote:
> Hagglund:
> 
> "The real measure of value is not how much work we have done or have to 
> do (quantity of labor time) but how much disposable time we have to 
> pursue and explore what matters to us (quality of free time). The 
> measure of social wealth in terms of free time is not an ideal that I 
> impose as an external alternative to the measure of social wealth in 
> terms of labor time. On the contrary, the value of having time in the 
> realm of freedom—the value of disposable time—is the real measure of 
> wealth because it is internal to the value and measure of labor time in 
> the realm of necessity. The value of labor time in the realm of 
> necessity (i.e., the cost of labor time) can be understood as such only 
> because we are already committed to the value of free time."
> 
> 
> "Strikingly, Marx uses the English term disposable time in italics in 
> the original (rather than the German verfügbare Zeit). The social 
> transformation that Marx advocates requires the revaluation of value. 
> “It is no longer,” Marx emphasizes, “labor time that is the measure of 
> wealth, but rather disposable time.”47 What Marx here describes as 
> disposable time is what I call socially available free time. The 
> revaluation of value discloses that socially available free time—rather 
> than socially necessary labor time—is the real measure of our wealth. 
> Given the revaluation of value, we can strive to “reduce the necessary 
> labor of society to a minimum,” instead of “reducing the necessary labor 
> time in order to posit surplus labor”48 (as we do under capitalism). We 
> can seek to increase the surplus of socially available free time, rather 
> than extract relative surplus value from wage labor. Socially available 
> free time is thus both the means and the end of emancipation, since it 
> allows for “the free development of individualities,” which Marx 
> specifies as “the artistic, scientific etc. development of individuals 
> in the time set free, and with the means created, for all” (emphasis 
> added).
> _______________________________________________
> D66 mailing list
> D66 at tuxtown.net
> http://www.tuxtown.net/mailman/listinfo/d66