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Re: [ox] Fwd: Werthaltigkeit von Informationsguetern



* Graham Seaman <graham seul.org> [2003-09-13 16:57]:
On Sat, 13 Sep 2003, Holger Weiss wrote:
But I fail to see the difference. As long as the result of the design
process is proprietary (no matter whether we are talking about Windows
XP or the technical design of a toaster), that is, you're either not
able or not allowed to copy the result, the reproduction of this design
demands labour. Thus, and that's my point, the (re)production of the
design creates value in the same manner as the actual fabrication
process does. Well, the difference is of course, that the design of a
given product model offered by a specific vendor only happens once,
whilst every single product must be fabricated. However, regarding value
production, the only effect is that the value created whithin the design
process is distributed over all fabricated products of a given model.

That is the key point: it only happens once. It is therefore either a
fixed cost or a sunk cost; the amount of work required to create this
design is a barrier to entry for other companies wishing to enter the same
market (independently of intellectual 'property' law). All this is an
accounting phenomenon which has nothing to do with creation of value and
is simply abstracted away by Marx when looking at the value creation
process. It is one of the 'faux frais' of production, which the software
companies would love to shift (and do shift where possible) to the
universities - see the recent campaign by Microsoft to ban American
univesities from using the GPL.

So they want the work done by universities for free, but they want to
get the product exclusively (not GPL'd)? Well, any company would love to
shift off any work to universities as long as the company is able to
sell the product. How does this provide any evidence on the assertion
that the design process is nothing but sunk cost for the companies?

(fixed capital circulates more slowly than variable capital, but it also
circulates - designs do not).

Yes, you got me ;-) That's the main problem with my claim that we're
talking about fixed capital when software is used in production. I would
disagree with your assertion that the value of design does not
circulate. But you're right: The key difference is that there is no
physical depreciation. Thus, if there were no moral depreciation, the
value could theoretically be transferred "forever", the transferred
value would therefore tend towards zero for a single product.

Design no more creates value than cleaning the factory floor, selling the
product, advertising, etc, etc, all the many other essential,
labour-using, but non value-creating tasks associated with the product.

However, I believe this is the main problem with _your_ point. You are
claiming that the simple fact that a design does not physically
depreciate has the effect that the labour necessary for creating
software is not a value-creating task. The same thing would in fact have
to apply to the labour necessary for creating a piece of hardware which
for some cool reason does not depreciate physically. That's not very
convincing.

Actually, I think the distinction done by Marx between value-creating
labour and work that is also necessary for creating the product, but not
value-creating, is at least not done very cleanly. The only distinction
that makes sense to me is the differentiation between labour that is
associated with the production of a commodity on the one hand and work
associated with the circulation of the commodity on the other.
Exchanging a product cannot create value. But I have no idea why
cleaning the factory floor or _producing_ software should not create
value.

Holger

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