subject: The revival of the labor theory of value [print this page] In his theory of labor value, Adam Smith pointed to the existence of two kinds of value - use value and exchange value. First, he said, "indicates the usefulness of an object. Usefulness, as understood by Adam Smith, can not be assessed, but because commodity exchange on his theory must be based on the other, exchange value. But this exchange value, he believed, is determined by labor costs. "Just the work, whose value never changes, and is the only valid criterion by which at all times and in all places one can interpret and compare the value of all goods", - wrote Adam Smith. It is based on exchange value, pointed out A. Smith, in the process of market exchange, forming a natural and market price.
If the articulation of the value theory of Adam Smith in its present form, we can say that he is the author of the following three objective value of laws:
the law of value of goods - the cost of goods determined by the cost of labor expended in its production;
conservation value - the value is saved "at all times and in all places";
Law of the value of balance - the total value of goods is always equal to the total value of public expenditures for their production.
Trying to justify the transition from the value of the commodity to its price, Adam Smith long sought, but could not find a fourth law - the law of labor cost, or more precisely the objective units of labor, which are a measure of labor itself - a measure of what we now call the physical work. This is understandable: at the time of Adam Smith's physics was at the stage of the scientific establishment, but because there were no such concepts as energy, physical work, etc. These concepts have appeared in physics in only 30 years of XIX century, and the law of conservation Energy has been formulated by Mayer even later. In this connection, the transition from value to price is not received scientific quantitative study, and the theory has not been a practical way.
The fourth law of labor value almost opened the great American scientist in the field of scientific organization of labor Harrington Emerson. In 1912, in his remarkable work "Twelve principles of productivity", he outlined not only the essence of value and surplus value, but also showed how and what should be measured by the cost of labor.
Here is what he wrote: "We can assume that a ton of coal contains as much energy as it can give five people, working year-round ... on average for each adult, we now works for 22 mechanical servant, the contents of which costs about 400 times cheaper than the average salary man. "
"Mechanical servant", ie external source of energy used in the labor process, which is "at all times and all places" is measured in the same units of energy consumption - that is the source of surplus value, that's what the units can and should measure the cost of labor!
Thus, the fourth law of value theory asserts that the cost of labor is measured by power consumption of labor for the production of certain goods (products of labor).
G. Emerson on the basis of their research work and made another dramatic conclusion to the economy, which opens and another great mystery of the modern economy.
That's the conclusion: "Muscle strength is now much importance does not continue to have great significance not. The physical energy that living world, produces machines.
This means that in the economically developed countries all created by exchange-value, ie, the entire gross domestic product (GDP), is not the result of physical labor, and almost entirely a surplus value. Currently, this is especially noticeable because the power per worker growth in developed countries has resulted in these countries next to each person, "further work" has hundreds of "mechanical servants" (the U.S., for example, in the late 80-ies there were 1500).
The economy of developed countries rests on a huge increase in energy consumption!
Discoveries G. Emerson in the early twentieth century allowed complete theory of value of Adam Smith in terms of its essential components - the exchange-value, and hence the natural price, which is formed on the basis of exchange value. However, this was not done.
That's why you can somehow justify the stagnation in economic science in XVIII - XIX centuries, but makes it quite unreasonable in the twentieth century.
The fact is that economic theorists have ceased to engage in theory work, forgetting that the main advances in the theory of economics Adam Smith reached is based on the study of social labor. His theory of the division of labor has had an enormous impact not only on the emergence of political economy, but also in other scientific areas: under the influence of this theory, Charles Darwin, for example, began creating his famous work "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection."
Not dealing with the theory of labor, economic theorists fundamentally unable to create an objective theory of the economy. And only the development of industry, urgently requires scientific management of production, ie scientific organization of labor, has led to the fact that Labour Organization became engaged many prominent scholars such as F. Taylor, A Faiola, G. Emerson, talented engineers and entrepreneurs such as Henry Ford. But even after one of them made a remarkable discovery for the economy, they had remained unnoticed by economists throughout the whole of the XX century
In the USSR, the opening of Emerson, which almost overthrew Marxist political economy, and consequently of Marxism as a whole, and provide numerous opportunities for the development of the theory of value of Adam Smith, could not be used for ideological reasons.
To be fair to say that some scientists - economists in the Soviet Union saw the need to link economic performance with power consumption and has repeatedly suggested ways to implement the energy criterion in the economy. For example, in one of these proposals, published in Pravda, 19 June 1987, when loosened ideological shackles, said: "The argument in favor of the energy criterion in the economy is the fact that in the most general terms the purpose of any production - making it useful result in the form of product or service, but a means for this are always costs energy. "
But Marxism in the Soviet Union was transformed into a religion, and the "economic elite" gradually turned into a zealous servant of the cult and rejected any attempts to "heretics - the revisionists."
But as religion has collapsed, it was in Russia in the short term has been completed theory of labor value of Adam Smith and created a new economic theory.
