传统劳动价值论的保护策略审视--劳动的异质性与价值尺度确定

A Review on the Protection Strategy of Traditional Labor Theory of Value:Heterogeneity and Value Scale Determination of Labor

传统劳动价值论以孤立的同质化劳动为基础,进而将自然劳动时间作为价值度量尺度;相应地,就得出了著名的“反比定律”,这使得以使用价值和价值对财富进行度量时,在量关系上出现了分裂。由此,引发出了明显的问题意识。第一,现实社会中人类劳动是异质的,而且异质化程度随着社会化协作生产的拓展而日益增强。从这个意义上说,自然劳动时间并不是度量价值的合理尺度,传统劳动价值论只适用于劳动同质化明显的早期社会。第二,使用价值和价值是财富的两种表现形式,价值只不过是使用价值的抽象。从这个意义上说,尽管劳动是价值的源泉,但产品的有用性(即使用价值)才是价值量大小的决定因素。其实,考虑到具体劳动和抽象劳动之间的对应关系,就可以更深刻认识到使用价值和价值在量关系上的一致性,进而考虑到技术进步所伴随的劳动复杂程度或劳动强度的提高,就可以得出“单位时间内所创造的商品价值量与劳动生产力之间成正比”这一反“反比定律”的结论。考虑到劳动从支出到凝结的转化,那么度量价值的有效尺度就是有效劳动时间而非自然劳动时间,这是有效劳动价值说的基本思想。

Homogeneous labor is an important auxiliary hypothesis that plays a protective role for the traditional labor theory of value.It is based on homogeneous labor that the traditional labor theory of value introduces natural(labor)time as the measure of value.Accordingly,there is a separation in the quantitative relationship between use value and value,and then comes to the famous proposition that a unit commodity value is inversely proportional to the productivity of labor.This shows that with the social progress and the improvement of labor productivity,the value created by mankind is declining.Obviously,this is a serious contradiction with people's experience and feelings.In response to this contradiction,Marxian economics shifted the connotation of the word"value"from material dimension to social relationship,so as to mainly reflect the relationship of social exploitation rather than measure wealth.Then how to determine the total wealth and economic growth?After all,the heterogeneous use value cannot accomplish this task,not to mention that the use of the word"value"in economics will be meaningless if value creation has nothing to do with economic growth.As a result,this leads to an obvious problem consciousness.First,human labor is heterogeneous in real society,and the degree of heterogeneity is increasing with the expansion of socialized cooperative production.In this sense,natural labor time is not a reasonable measure of value.The traditional labor theory of value is only a special theory applicable to the early society with significant homogeneous labor.Second,use value and value are two forms of wealth,and the latter is nothing but the abstraction of the former.Therefore,although labor is the source of value,the usefulness(namely,use value)of products turns to be the decisive factor of value.In fact,with the corresponding relationship between concrete labor and abstract labor considered,we can have a deeper understanding of the consistency of use value with value in quantitative relationship.Furthermore,considering the increase in labor complexity or labor intensity accompanied by technological progress,we can draw the conclusion that a unit commodity value is proportional to the productivity of labor,which is contrary to the inverse law.Finally,with the transformation of labor from expenditure to condensation considered,the effective measure of value is effective labor time rather than natural labor time,which is the basic idea of effective labor value theory.At this point,why did Marx construct his labor theory of value based on homogeneous labor?Fundamentally speaking,this was limited by specific historical background and personal cognition.In terms of historical background,the degree of labor heterogeneity in Marx's era was not high.In terms of personal cognition,Marx was subject to the times and did not see the fact that the degree of labor heterogeneity was constantly strengthening.Accordingly,Marx's observation benchmark was also limited to two aspects:focus on direct material production labor and focus on isolated production labor.However,with the development of human society,modern socialized mass production takes circuitous ways and group cooperation more,which leads to increasingly heterogeneous social labor.It is in this sense that the traditional labor theory of value is only a special theory applicable to a specific period,and cannot provide an effective explanation for the broad human history and future because of its significant narrowness.