Student protests: sorry kids, wait for the old gits
Posted on Thursday 30 December, 2010
Filed Under Education, Politics
TWENTYSOMETHING blogger Laurie Penny is a self-proclaimed former burlesque dancer. And an erstwhile anorexic. So if you read somewhere that she shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die, remember that the girl has had an eventful life so far.
Now Britain’s Oxbridge-educated answer to Dita von Teese has emerged as the Danny the Red of the recent wave of student protests, with a widely-publicised swipe at the ‘traditional hierarchies of the left’ in a post on – where else? – Comment is Free.
She starts off by taking a pop at Ed Miliband’s ‘join Labour for just 1p’ offer to under-25s, goes on blithely to dismiss parliamentary democracy as having nothing to offer the young, notes the uncanny parallels between cockroaches and ‘sour-faced vendors of Socialist Worker’ in their ability to survive nuclear holocaust, and suggests that getting flash mobs to descend on Topshop represents a ‘direct challenge’ to big business.
‘The young people of Britain do not need leaders, and the new wave of activists has no interest in the ideological bureaucracy of the old left,’ she writes. ‘The young people of Britain are no longer prepared to take orders.’
Ah, bless, you can almost hear the petulance. Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don’t criticise what you can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command … and all that.
The eternal snotty-nosed teenager in me genuinely sympathises, up to a point. After all, Labourites of my generation presided over dismantling of the Labour Party as a mass presence with meaningful roots in working class communities, while Leninists of my generation messed up multiple attempts to build a more radical alternative, in a period in which the political space clearly was there. Epic fail FTW, as I believe youngsters say.
But anyone issuing proclamations in the name of ‘the young people of Britain’ should stop to ponder just what proportion of the young people of Britain participated in the student demos. However generously you do the maths, it works out to a single-figure percentage.
Only a smallish minority of students played any role whatsoever, while the average NEET in the former coalfields remained too smacked up to notice what was happening.
Moreover, a movement cannot make a strategy out of not having a strategy. The coalition has gone ahead and voted through the trebling of tuition fees and the abolition of Educational Maintenance Allowance. In other words, all that wonderful, spontaneous, situationist-inspired, principled, theoretically well-versed, Rolls-Royce thrashing campaigning did not achieve its desired end.
That was always going to be the way, because students as a social layer lack the weight to force a government to change its tack. That cannot happen unless the grown-ups get on board, in the shape of the organised working class.
If we can only get our Zimmer frames out the front door and remember where we put our Freedom Passes, I hope to see this happen in 2011.
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125 Responses to “Student protests: sorry kids, wait for the old gits”
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Khalid,
I have no intention of wasting my time in a lengthy online discussion explaining the LTV to someone who clearly does not understand it, admits they haven’t read Marx, and who simply repeats all the hoary old arguments against it, which are themselves based on a complete lack of understanding of it. If you or anyone else wants to gain a real grasp of it, and to understand why your arguments against it have no foundation, I’d suggest reading my blog posts on Marxist Economics, and critique of orthodox economics.
But, to take up[ some of your points. The Labour Theory of Value is objective whereas the orthodox economic theory is subjective, because it posits the idea that Value is based on something that is objectively measurable i.e. the average, required Labour-time for production, whereas orthodox, marginalist theory is based on the idea that Value is solely subjectively determined by the individual as a result of their assessment of Marginal Utility. It has nothing to do with whether Marx, or Adam Smith or Adam Ferguson, or David Ricardo, or Duns Scotus, or Benjamin Franklin, or Thomas Aquinas, or Ibn Khaldrun (all of whom advocated a Labour Theory of Value) say so or not.
I’d rather be guilty of sloppy typing than your sloppy thinking. For example, you contradict yourself. Here you claim not to understand that the Capital that goes into the production of a commodity, itself contains a certain quantum of Labour-time. So you say,
“So you are saying that the value of a product has nothing to do with the capital that goes into its production? No problem, since capital is free in your theology, give me a bundle.”
Yet, just a few lines further you admit that you must understand that Capital is itself the product of labour-time, and that its Value like any other commodity is determined by the average, socially necessary labour-time required for its production when you say,
“You make the premise that since capital can be reduced to Labour, then everything reduces to Labour, and value is simply labour.”!!!
If you understand that this is the premise of my argument, why did you then try to pretend that I believe that Capital has no Value???
It is, or course true that workers cannot live without energy, but that doesn’t help your argument, because you are still left trying to provide a basis for determining the Value of this Energy!!! Air, could be included in this definition of energy without which workers cannot live, indeed a very vital form of energy. So why is it then that this air, which can be obtained without any labour-time expended on acquiring it has no Exchange Value? By contrast, a diamond, which is not at all vital to human existence, but which requires huge amounts of labour-time to find, cut, polish etc. has an extremely high Exchange Value?
On workers living standards you say it is unrelated to the discussion. On the contrary, I thought that if anything it was supporting your contention about wage levels in the West being too high, as against Dean, who put forward a subjective argument that high and low were relative, and that it could be that it is wages in the East which are too low. In reality, an objective assessment requires an evaluation of the particular type of Labour we are talking about. The labour-time required to produce basic unskilled Labour used in mass production in China, may be very low, but to produce a very highly qualified brain surgeon could be very high, and might even be lower in the West than it is in China.
As for your latter comments you remind me of a troll who suffers from some kind of psychological disorder, in which they believe that everything is about them. I wasn’t replying to you, or any of your arguments, because to be honest they aren’t very educated arguments. I was only replying to a specific point made by Dean.
Hi Boffy,
Just regarding your point about my argument stating wages in the East could be low, rather than wages in the West being too high. I wasn’t really making this argument, I was simply using Khalid’s logic and pointing out that it could simply be inverted. Not a sensible way to argue I must admit but there you go!
I agree with your point that an evaluation of the particular type of Labour is necessary, though I would go much further. I would say wage levels are also determined by historic (including legal), cultural factors. Now your point about globalisation becoming a more decisive factor and diminishing historic national differences has yet to play out. ‘Unskilled’ wage levels in the developed world have yet to see a reduction to third world levels, but ‘unskilled’ wage levels in the developing world have increased.
We also have the recent example of European enlargement, which has highlighted all the factors associated with ‘free’ movement of labour that Khalid left out of his formulation.
An interesting study of this can be viewed here which brings to light enough issues to ridicule Khalids simple formulation,
http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/WP200903EN.pdf
Dean,
I agree basically with what you are saying. The only point I would make is that I tend to follow Marx’s approach in these matters, which is to try to move from the general to the specific, and back to the general. So, what I am interested in is to understand the underlying dynamic, and then to concretise it.
So, my argument basically would be that we now live in a global economy. At a general level the evaluation of what is average socially necessary labour-time is decided at a global level. The consequence is that wage levels should equalise. Now you are right to point out that unskilled wage levels in the West have not fallen. However, I think its wrong to move from that undoubted fact, to the conclusion that this equalisation ona global scale has not occurred. I would say it has, but appearance has not yet caught up with reality. Reality is being distorted by the fact that wage levels have remained high in the West, because Capital has been prepared to find ways of maintaining them at articifically high levels, primarily it has done that by borrowing. But, the manifestation that this equalisation has occurred is to be seen in the fact that for most mass produced products, the West can no longer compete in international markets, and the consequence of that, is the continued relocation of production to the East.
Capital is able to sustain these high wage levels in the West, because not only is it able to borrow to finance the illusion, but is able to earn income from otehgr types of high value production, where it has a comparative advantage – hence the point about the cost of production of this high skilled labour power – and because, it was able to relocate some labour-power into the domain of merchant Capital, where this merchant Capital – TESCO’s, Wal-Mart etc – was able to do what all Merchant Capital does, which is to extract a portion of the Surplus Value created in production – in this case production taking palce in China, India etc.
But appearance and reality can stay out of whack for only so long. My basic argument has been that the series of disproprtions we see both within western economies, and between those economies and the East, is a manifestation of that separation between appearance and reality, and that the strategy of western Big Capital has been to try to resolve these contradictions over the longer term, by shifting production gradually into those high value areas where that comparative advantage exists. The need to increase Higher education take up, and to improve Healthcare are a significant aspect of that shift, but involve further contradictions i.e. how to pay for this investment. That is why I believe that the polcies of the Liberal-Tory Government are actually contrary to the strategy and interests of Big Capital, because by making a crisis more likely, by reducing the potential for growth, they undermine the basis on which that strategy rests.
Mr Boffy (you are a man, aren’t you), given that millions of people are looking destitution in the face in the West, I wondered if you have any thoughts on how the capitalists will be able to continue to make profits from us? I don’t think that there is any intention on the part of the capitalists to raise living standards in the East to anything approaching Western standards, so, who will be spending the money that is needed to make some people filthy rich. I saw a quote the other day from some Indian economist saying that although India is developing economically, no more than a quarter of the people will ever enjoy the kind of living standards we have in the West. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Boffy. Your last comment will help the working classes move forward to victory. You should be proud. When the working classes, those that have a job get home from work read your comment will all say lets have a nice cup of tea.
It’s very rarely that I would find myself in agreement with Luke Akehurst. To me he represents all that has gone wrong with the Labour Party in recent years. He is part of that apparatchik political class that rose to a position of predominance in the party. It was the SDP gaining power by entryism, albeit with the Militant group giving them the opportunity. When he describes himself as moderate you know this means right-wing.
Now I am a moderate. I believe capitalism can be reformed and we will find a new socialist future along an evolutionary path. But people like Akehurst have no intention of reforming the system, just in protecting it from those to left of themselves.
So when Owen Jones pointed at a Luke Akehurst blog entry from last November, http://owenjones.org/2011/01/11/aaron-porter-recruiting-sergeant-for-the-ultra-left/ , I was surprised to find I too agreed with him on why Labour should be supporting the student protests. I’m sure he will soon pull his horns in, but I do wish the PLP would take notice on what he was saying. The original post is here, http://lukeakehurst.blogspot.com/2010/11/disagreeing-with-hopi-but-only-once.html
What a shame we traded the likes of Peter Kenyon for a careerist like Akehurst, but that’s democracy, just like when the Salford CLP supported Blears, you have to accept it and hope for a better future.
It’s very rarely that I would find myself in agreement with Luke Akehurst. To me he represents all that has gone wrong with the Labour Party in recent years. He is part of that apparatchik political class that rose to a position of predominance in the party. It was the SDP gaining power by entryism, albeit with the Militant group giving them the opportunity. When he describes himself as moderate you know this means right-wing.
Now I am a moderate. I believe capitalism can be reformed and we will find a new socialist future along an evolutionary path. But people like Akehurst have no intention of reforming the system, just in protecting it from those to left of themselves.
So when Owen Jones pointed at a Luke Akehurst blog entry from last November, http://owenjones.org/2011/01/11/aaron-porter-recruiting-sergeant-for-the-ultra-left/ , I was surprised to find I too agreed with him on why Labour should be supporting the student protests. I’m sure he will soon pull his horns in, but I do wish the PLP would take notice on what he was saying.
What a shame we traded the likes of Peter Kenyon for a careerist like Akehurst, but that’s democracy, just like when the Salford CLP supported Blears, you have to accept it and hope for a better future.
(I have edited the above comment to remove one of the links which I think put it into the moderation queue, even though I am a moderate;-)
Boffy – it seems that only you have a handle on this economics discussion and I will get back to you and point the gaping holes in your argument. This despite the fact that in your previous post you essentially said: The LTV is true because the LTV says so. And your dismissal of the ETV (Energy Theory of Value) is so lame because if you swap LTV for ETV, you just offered an argument against the LTV. Your argument is of this sort: ETV is wrong because LTV proves it is wrong – presuming that the LTV is correct in the first place. Well duh – what if LTV is wrong? Your arguments are circular and content-free. LOL
Too busy tonight cause unlike the unemployable or government employed Sewer crowd, I have a real productive job (surprise!) and I don’t give a rat’s behind to argue with this anti-empirical crowd.
Not sure why you say I have not read Marx. I said I will not refer to the Bible to show that there is no God. Same here. Marx is unable to contemplate a competitive market situation, due to his pre-conceived belief system. I have read a fair bit of Marx and unfortunately he is unable to come to grips with the inconvenient empirical fact that in a competitive market, surplus profit tends to zero.
The other folks from the sewer are too clueless (and brainless) to participate and have to repeatedly refer to the gospel, and taking that for the undisputed truth, because the silly apostles said so.
I have read a fair bit of Marx and unfortunately he is unable to come to grips with the inconvenient empirical fact that in a competitive market, surplus profit tends to zero.
I could have sworn that’s the exact argument he makes in volume III of Capital…
p.s. An ETV fails because energy requires labour to convert itself into goods, we have a super abundance of energy (from the sun) but are limited by our labour as to how much we can harness it.
Khalid,
I personally haven’t quoted Marx at all or referred to any so called Gospel. I have simply attempted to ridicule your so called economics. Incidentally if you read the report I attached you will see there is an entire field of economics devoted to migration that doesn’t make the simplistic assumptions you do. Incidentally talking of Gospels, where the hell do you get all your bullshit from or were you born a bullshitter?
Boffy,
Couldn’t agree more with your last paragraph. If there is the appearance of disagreement I think it is because that arse Khalid is getting in the way!
Khalid you seem to believe that ‘surplus profit’ means something the capitalist takes home with him. The only conclusion one can draw from this is that you have not read Marx.
It appears to me that Khalid is just a troll trying to waste people’s time.
“Too busy tonight cause unlike the unemployable or government employed Sewer crowd, I have a real productive job”
Wow, what a grade A tosser. I presume that your “real productive job” is in IT given your interpersonal skills. Get back to Atlas Shrugged you emotionally stunted dick brain.
It always amuses me that the Khalid’s of this world see fit to question the social usefulness of teachers, nurses, highways engineers, waste collection operatives, social workers and other such ‘burdens’ on the ‘productive’ class.
He must has some self esteem issues seen as he has the need to constantly assert his superiority over them. I feel sorry for him, seek treatment my friend and don’t worry they offer that sort of help in the productive private sector.
Sewer Rat,
1. I think its rather an overstatement to say that people in the West are facing destitution. The reality is that even during the Depression of the 1930′s living standards continued to rise overall.
2. Western Capital makes profits from its investments, built up over 300 years, all over the Globe.
3. Capital in the West makes large profits out of workers employed in those areas where it has a comparative advantage, e.g. Financial Services, Private Healthcare and Education, various Media production from Films and TV to Computer Games, Software Production and various other IT production, from various other high-tech, high value areas such as biotechnology and so on.
4. Merchant Capital in the West makes profits by selling goods produced in other parts of the globe, by buying these goods below their price of production, and selling them at it.
I don’t think its true to say that workers living standards in the East will not rise to those in the West. I’m old enough to remember when that comment was made in relation to workers in Japan in the 1960′s. In fact, in countries that only began to industrialise rapidly in the 1980′s, living standards have already risen in many cases to close to those in the West, in some cases, and in some ways beyond them. That doesn’t mean that in places like China or India with huge populations, many of which continue to be employed on the land, that this will not be accompanied by massive inequality and grinding poverty for millions of their population. But, that could also be said of the US.
In fact, as marx demonstrates in the Grundrisse, the Accumulation of Capital is impossible without at the same time raising the living standards of an increasing number of workers. That does not prevent the simultaneous development of a growing reserve army of labour comprising various social strata who are either permanently unemployed, or employed casually, partially etc. or the effective relative impoverishment of workers as their incomes for a declining share of total output, and increasing separation from the possibiliuty of owning effective productive Capital.
As he demonstrates, it is impossible to remedy or challenge this process by attempts to raise wages, or to redistribute income via taxes. The only effective means of challenging, and undermining this process, he says, is for workers themselves to become the owners of Capital, by establishing Co-operatives. That is because Distribution i.e. who gets what income, is itself a function of Production.
Boffy,
You are a Marxist in the true sense of the word. You seem to get the idea that socialism is a step up from capitalism, a more efficient form. That capitalism itself contains the progressive elements required for the next stage of human development
It seems to me that most people on the left say capitalism is a bad system and must be smashed, ripped up and we must build society from scratch. This is why the idea of co-operatives is beyond their comprehension.
Anyway, stick around comrade, we need your wisdom on open sites like this. You should consider commenting on sites like Socialist unity also.
Boffy: “I have no intention of wasting my time in a lengthy online discussion explaining the LTV to someone who clearly does not understand it, admits they haven’t read Marx, and who simply repeats all the hoary old arguments against it, which are themselves based on a complete lack of understanding of it.
Just as expected. You can’t defend the LTV so you employ ad hominem to evade substantiating your theory. Oldest trick in the book. Say it Boffy: “Everything reduces to labour.” Say it coward.
Boffy: “because it posits the idea that Value is based on something that is objectively measurable i.e. the average, required Labour-time for production … whereas orthodox, marginalist theory is based on the idea that Value is solely subjectively determined by the individual as a result of their assessment of Marginal Utility.
Bullshit – The LTV is not objective because it mindlessly fails to measure other input factors into production, and it is broken. Furthermore, you are confusing rationality with objectivity. What you are trying to say is LTV is rational (not necessarily objective), as opposed to Market theory which is empirical – but you confuse the categories. You need to hit the philosophy books instead of killing time with the Gospel.
Again, wrong – Market theory of value is NOT based on individual utility – that is a slander, but based on a statistical approach to empirical collective utility. Hence it is not a mindless rational reductionist approach but an empirical holistic approach.
Boffy: For example, you contradict yourself. Here you claim not to understand that the Capital that goes into the production of a commodity, itself contains a certain quantum of Labour-time.
Hey genious – can’t you read the sarcasm in there? Of course capital has a value in market theory. But your mindless reductionist approach in effect makes capital worthless. If a race of alien robots land on earth and produce an automobile – the dumbass in you says there is no value to that automobile and the automobile is useless. And if there is a value – then it has to do with any conscious organic organism that may be on that planet where the robots come from. And you call this F**king objective? You want to bet that the automobile has value? LTV is just BS rationalization.
Buffoon: “Yet, just a few lines further you admit that you must understand that Capital is itself the product of labour-time, and that its Value like any other commodity is determined by the average, socially necessary labour-time required for its production …”
Of course capital has labor-time input among other inputs such as materials, equipment, energy, etc. the same way that labour has capital and other inputs. No worker can become a producer without shelter, food, education, clothing, etc. which all require capital.
Boffy the buffoon: If you understand that this is the premise of my argument, why did you then try to pretend that I believe that Capital has no Value???
Because this is a false circular argument – you dumbass, which you repeat quite unconsciously. What I mean is that you are saying capital has no intrinsic value by itself. That all can be reduced to labour. And the alien example disproves you. Do you know what circularity means? here is a mathematical example:
Assume a system of linear (or nonlinear) equations with variables x, y and z. z depends on x and y. And y obviously depends on x. Then you claim that well everything depends on x, so x (or labour) is the true value.
But wait, x also depends on y (capital) and z (energy) – so there is no way for you to solve for x, without solving for y and z.
There is absolute equivalence among the three variables. You want to privilege x, but the system of equation is deterministically balanced, just like any closed feedback system.
Society is a closed system of equations where each factor depends on multiple other factors. Privileging one factor over others is not a systemic or structural imperative. It is simply a political (in other words, arbitrary) construct (if a society).
And oh…. Nice thing for you and the rest of the Sewer Cult to tweet my posts. The original Osler article is now pushed down six levels. But as soon as I post, a dozen cult rats in the form of a mob from the sewer show up. Now that is a tweat.
More later – gotta go to work (real productive non-gov non-NGO work with terrific income). Your last two paragraphs (air, diamond, China) again mindlessly privilege labour and pre-supposes LTV – so it fails to support LTV.
“Just as expected. You can’t defend the LTV so you employ ad hominem to evade substantiating your theory. Oldest trick in the book”
Erm, Boffy invited you to go to his blog and read up on his Marxist economics you total idiot! He has his own blog so how the hell can you say he evades substantiating his theory you cretin.
And he provides detailed analysis, whereas you just spout half understood confusing gibberish backed up by nothing except vague references to empiricism. It is you who fails to substantiate anything you dickhead.
Oh and Khalid, your contributions here prove to the rest of us that you are nothing but a total moron. I mean seriously, the fact that you fail to understand how embarrassing your arguments are shows how totally devoid of intellect you are.
Now who the hell would pay you a good income? Please tell us.
Geeky-Nerd-Twat-Rand-Boy-Khalid has managed to disprove Marxism using the very concrete example of automobile producing alien robots. What a hero.
Now that your work here is done, why don’t you fuck off back to your real productive non-gov non-NGO work with terrific income you massive, massive socal retard?
I am rather impressed that Khalid has mastered the stupendous trick of demolishing a theory without knowing anything about it. Its enourmously impressive and of a piece with his daytime job no doubt.
Well he obviously puts a lot of Energy into it. Or takes Energy out, I’m not sure.
Not that I believe in laying pearls before swine, but I really must take up Khalid’s example of the robots. Such robots, by definition, have been BUILT by some lifeforce somewhere. Something sort of natural energy (if you like) has laboured/worked to construct them, therefore they represent ‘embodied labour’ (I believe is the Marxist term). In fact, many cars today are built by robots in car factories, does that mean that cars are given away free on street corners? I don’t think so. The other point that this dimwit is wilfully ignoring is that the robot would need materials to construct its car. Such raw materials which have been mined, smelted, synthesied etc by human agency. They therefore, have a value in terms of labour power. Khalid, you are also deliberately confusing ‘use-value’ and ‘exchange-value’, quite an important distinction. I have a vague memory of reading about some Indian economist who has come up with this theory, one of the very many next best things in India. Presumably you are a follower of his. (Can’t find the reference now). It does strike me that it is very much about a harmonious, balanced system where everything is wonderful at the end of the day. Quite Hinduistic actually. Finally, I would just like to point out to you that any objection you make to the Labour Theory of Value applies also to your own Energy Theory of Value. Labour Power merely being (it seems to me) an embodied form of energy.
I went to buy a computer game the other day, it cost £25.99. The game was so good I felt like sending them another £25! Thing is I didn’t know it would be that good until I played it. I didn’t end up sending the £25, I feel guilty!
Bought a car the other day for £6000, didn’t like it. Really fancied a a nice pair of trainers so I did a swap. I told my friends and they said I was stupid, I still say the collective were wrong and I was right. What they didn’t know is that my decision was based on empirical statistical collective utility. I sent my story to those boffins at the centre for empirical statistical collective utility and they said I was stupid also!
“Khalid”, is just a troll with a serious psychological problem. he doesn’t even understand the basics of the subjectivist theory he is now trying to argue. The best thing is to ignore him, and give him more time to play with himself. Just to deal with the robot issue as other comrades have raised it. In fact, Marx deals with this kind of issue in a number of places.
For example, he looks at the case of production of goods where the producer enjoys the benefit of a free productive force, for example the wind. The same thing can be said about natural fertility of the land. The very fact, of the free nature of these things is illustrated by the fact that they provide the producer who has their use with a cost advantage. Logically, if all production were to be undertaken by robots then this production could only ever have the value of the labour-time that went into the production of those robots, and of the materials used. If those materials were themselves mind by robots etc., then the Value would fall even more.
If you want an “empirical” example of how that works just look at something like the calculator. In the 1970′s when I bought my first calculator, it cost a significant portion of my wages. Pretty quickly calculators became very popular – in the parlance of orthodox, subjective economics the demand for them rose, which is the same thing as saying that there was a shift of Marginal Utility amongst consumers in favour of calculators and away from alternatives. Or put another way, in the mind of consumers the Marginal Utility of calculatiors rose. Now according to that theory, a rise in Marginal Utility should result in a corresponding rise in price. But, what in fact happened. As the demand for calculators rose significantly, producers increased Supply, and they introduced large amounts of Capital to revolutionise production in order to bring about this increase in Supply. Despite the large rise in the amount of Capital employed, rather than the Value of calculators rising, they fell. In fact, they have fallen so significantly that today, despite having the power of a 1980′s PC, they have become virtually disposable items.
Empirical evidence is clear, in almost every commodity you can think, where Capital equipment is introduced and replaces living Labour Power, then the Exchange Value (Price of Production) of commodities falls. To give a contrary example, look at Buggy Whips. In the 19th Century, Buggy Whip production was a thriving business. With the introduction of the car, it suffered a severe contraction. According to orthodox theory, this severe reduction in demand should be accompanied by a corresponding fall in price. Is that the case? No. I looked up some years ago the relative price of Buggy Whips today compared to the 19th Century as part of a simialr discussion with a supporter of the Austrian School. In fact, today, Buggy Whips are pretty much the same price in relative terms to what they were 100 years ago. The reason for that is that they have become pretty much a speciality item. The low level of demand means that it is not worth producers investing in large scale production or expensive capital equipment, and so production relies on specialist workers.
Finally, as I have set out in some of my blogs, the determination of Exchange Value is not solely a matter of what happens in the productive sphere, because this evaluation of what is socially necessary labour-time can only take place in the market, and that in turn depends on the social position of the person doing the evaluating. A peasant who produces a ton of potatoes by working for 100 hours will have a different evaluation from the slave owner, who only has to lay out the equivalent of 50 hours labour-time for the reproduction of the slave who carries out that 100 hours labour, or the Capitalist who lays out the equivalent of 50 hours labour-time in wages for the worker. That is why marx says, that Exchange Value only assumes its mature form under Capitalism, as the market assumes a larger and larger propertion of economic activ ity, and as workers form a larger and larger proportion of consumers.
But, this then begs the question in relation to the robots. If everything could be produced by robots then who would buy their output? If I’m a Capitalist there would be no point me buying anything from any other Capitalist because I could just employ my robots to produce whatever I wanted for free! And, if I was a worker with no income because everything was produced by robots, I would have no money with which to buy any of these robot produced commodities. So from that angle too these commodities which are produced without the input of any labour-time would be valueless.