Life Theory of Value

* Article: Life put to work: Towards a life theory of value. By Cristina Morini and Andrea Fumagalli. Ephemera, a 10(3/4): 234-252, 2010. Special issue: Digital labour: Workers, authors, citizens

URL = http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/life-put-work-towards-life-theory-value

Abstract

"Starting from the recognition that only a ‘labour theory of value’ is able to provide a measure of the value of the surplus, in this essay we’d like to pose the question of how the labour theory of value must dynamically adjust to the capitalist system and the succession of different modes of accumulation. Specifically, we focus on structural changes that have invested and partially modified the process of enhancing the transition from industrial-Fordist to ‘bio-capitalism’, at least in that area of the world where this transformation has established itself and is present. It is in this passage that the labour theory of value - intended primarily as a theory of value-time work - requires a redefinition that is able to grasp the qualitative changes that have overtaken and undermined the traditional theory of value labour. In particular, it will be considered a specific form of value creation: one linked to the concept of affective labour. Finally, in the last and final section, we discuss the hypothesis of the theory of life-value, nodding briefly to the related theoretical problems in view of a future research agenda."

Excerpts

On Biocapitalism

By Cristina Morini and Andrea Fumagalli:

""In biocapitalism value lies, first and foremost, in the intellectual and relational resources of subjects, and in their ability to activate social links that can be translated into exchange value, governed by the grammar of money. Thus, what is exchanged in the labour market is no longer abstract labour (measurable in homogeneous working time), but rather subjectivity itself, in its experiential, relational, creative dimensions. To sum up, what is exchanged is the ‘potentiality’ of the subject. Whereas in the Fordist model it was easy to calculate the value of labour according to the average output and professional skills based on workers’ education and experience, in bio-capitalism the value of labour loses almost any concrete definitional criterion.

Intellectual labour is more autonomous than material labour. However, this is not a natural, originary and immutable given."

(http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/life-put-work-towards-life-theory-value)