from critique of the gotha programme, responding to the claim "Labor is the source of wealth and all culture, and since useful labor is possible only in society and through society, the proceeds of labor belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society.":
Labor 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 labor, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature,
human labor power. The above phrase is to be found in all children's primers and is correct insofar as it is
implied that labor is performed with the appurtenant subjects and instruments. But a socialist program
cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the conditions that lone give them meaning.
And insofar as man from the beginning behaves toward nature, the primary source of all instruments and
subjects of labor, as an owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labor becomes the source of use values,
therefore also of wealth. The bourgeois have very good grounds for falsely ascribing supernatural
creative power to labor; since precisely from the fact that labor depends on nature it follows that the man
who possesses no other property than his labor power must, in all conditions of society and culture, be
the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labor. He can
only work with their permission, hence live only with their permission
edit: lol posted the same quote at the exact same time
With nature Marx means the discourse at that time, which was based on Ricardo and a specific conception of Nature. In that nature means less gold in the ground, but the world we live in, the materiality of it and with it the ecological interconnectedness of it. "Nature" gives us apple trees and makes apples from them without human labour, but an apple eternally on a tree doesn't feed you, only labour does make it useful. Marx (and Says, Ricardo, Smith, Korpotkin etc.) do agree that there is wealth to be found in nature, that can be exploited alas only with human labour.
Of course there are edge cases like a breathable atmosphere. That however is currently not something with exchange value (only indireclty via tourism)
Marx is saying that both nature and labor are required to generate value and they can't exist independently of one another. You're not disagreeing with him, you're saying much of what he said in Capital.
Marx also cites rarity as another source of value distinct from labor, but rarity in terms of natural resources. And yeah you're right, rare natural resources typically correlate with specialized or intense labor, but not always.
There's some part of capital where he talks about pearls and diamonds specifically being an example of this natural material rarity stuff. You can randomly find pearls and they're highly valued, but most pearls are found through specialized labor. Nature created the pearls, humans procured them through labor, both inputs were necessary to create the subsequent value.
from volume 1 of capital, which might give a better idea of what marx means. i dont think youre actually disagreeing.
The use values, coat, linen, &c., i.e., the bodies of commodities, are combinations of two elements – matter and labour. If we take away the useful labour expended upon them, a material substratum is always left, which is furnished by Nature without the help of man. The latter can work only as Nature does, that is by changing the form of matter. Nay more, in this work of changing the form he is constantly helped by natural forces. We see, then, that labour is not the only source of material wealth, of use values produced by labour. As William Petty puts it, labour is its father and the earth its mother.
true enough, but in this case thats pretty much exactly what was happening - the people who drafted the gotha programme (who i get the impression were actually not worlds away from the dsa) were absolutely weasel-wording their way towards some very socdem conclusions
First part of the paragraph: "Labor is the source of all wealth and all culture."
Labor 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 labor, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labor power. The above phrase is to be found in all children's primers and is correct insofar as it is implied that labor is performed with the appurtenant subjects and instruments. But a socialist program cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the conditions that lone give them meaning. And insofar as man from the beginning behaves toward nature, the primary source of all instruments and subjects of labor, as an owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labor becomes the source of use values, therefore also of wealth. The bourgeois have very good grounds for falsely ascribing supernatural creative power to labor; since precisely from the fact that labor depends on nature it follows that the man who possesses no other property than his labor power must, in all conditions of society and culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labor. He can only work with their permission, hence live only with their permission.
deleted by creator
from critique of the gotha programme, responding to the claim "Labor is the source of wealth and all culture, and since useful labor is possible only in society and through society, the proceeds of labor belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society.":
edit: lol posted the same quote at the exact same time
deleted by creator
With nature Marx means the discourse at that time, which was based on Ricardo and a specific conception of Nature. In that nature means less gold in the ground, but the world we live in, the materiality of it and with it the ecological interconnectedness of it. "Nature" gives us apple trees and makes apples from them without human labour, but an apple eternally on a tree doesn't feed you, only labour does make it useful. Marx (and Says, Ricardo, Smith, Korpotkin etc.) do agree that there is wealth to be found in nature, that can be exploited alas only with human labour.
Of course there are edge cases like a breathable atmosphere. That however is currently not something with exchange value (only indireclty via tourism)
Marx is saying that both nature and labor are required to generate value and they can't exist independently of one another. You're not disagreeing with him, you're saying much of what he said in Capital.
Marx also cites rarity as another source of value distinct from labor, but rarity in terms of natural resources. And yeah you're right, rare natural resources typically correlate with specialized or intense labor, but not always.
There's some part of capital where he talks about pearls and diamonds specifically being an example of this natural material rarity stuff. You can randomly find pearls and they're highly valued, but most pearls are found through specialized labor. Nature created the pearls, humans procured them through labor, both inputs were necessary to create the subsequent value.
deleted by creator
from volume 1 of capital, which might give a better idea of what marx means. i dont think youre actually disagreeing.
deleted by creator
true enough, but in this case thats pretty much exactly what was happening - the people who drafted the gotha programme (who i get the impression were actually not worlds away from the dsa) were absolutely weasel-wording their way towards some very socdem conclusions
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm