6. Invisible value

Thus Fortunati starts with a mistake, the assumption that labor power is ‘a commodity like any other’, that it must consequently carry some value created by the housewife. Starting from an initial mistake, it is no wonder that a theory is bound to be contradicted by facts: Fortunati’s theory clashes with the fact that the exchange value of labor power does not reflect any housework-created value at all. But for Fortunati, this is not because there must be something wrong in her assumptions, but because of a hidden peculiarity of labor power, that it can contain invisible value.

In fact, for Fortunati, labor power is such that its value and exchange value are related to totally different mechanisms, this giving value the possibility of having invisible contributions that are not reflected in exchange value. While the exchange value of labor power accounts only for the value of the means of subsistence consumed by the worker and his family, the value of labor power can have a contribution on top of this, which represents the abstract labor of housework.[109] This extra ‘value’ on the top has no manifestation as exchange value and no representation in terms of money: it is value in an invisible state during the exchange between the worker and the capitalist, i.e. invisible on the labor market.[110]

This is an important theoretical challenge, which needs to be supported by solid arguments. But the only argument Fortunati brings about is that Marx said that exchange value and value are different concepts. However, she seems to be oblivious that in the same quote Marx says that these values are related, exchange value being the manifestation of value (pp. 82–3).[111]

Indeed, the quote by Marx says: ‘With the transformation of the magnitude of value into the price this necessary relation appears as the exchange-ratio between a single commodity and the money commodity which exists outside it... However... the possibility... of a quantitative incongruity between price and magnitude of value... is inherent in the price form itself. This is not a defect but, on the contrary, it makes this form the adequate one for a mode of production whose laws assert themselves as blindly operating averages between constant irregularities’ (p. 83). For Fortunati this means that Marx would agree with her theory — that price could diverge from value for given, mathematically expressible, lumps of invisible value. But Marx did not say this! Marx simply means that price, a real expression of value (i.e. its ‘appearance’), is realized through the blind working of the market, in which prices necessarily fluctuate around value.

There is a tragic misunderstanding here. Fortunati does not realize that for Marx the word ‘appearance’ means ‘being a real expression of an essence’. Grossly misunderstanding this, Fortunati redefines this word in her own way (and uses this interpretation throughout her pamphlet): ‘appearance’ as ‘being an illusion totally unrelated to a hidden reality’. Only with this misunderstanding can she claim that Marx would support her theory and agree that the price of labor power can be an illusion which hides the reality of an invisible value.

While for Marx essence and appearance have a relation, appearance being part of the same reality as essence, in Fortunati’s conspiratorial understanding of capitalism the concept of appearance is banalized into the concept of a simple lie, a curtain that covers a totally different reality, a mystification and a deception by nasty capital. This means that the reality behind an appearance (the value of labor power behind its exchange value in this case) cannot be grasped through the study of this appearance. So how can we know the reality of the value of labor power, the reality behind its price? This can be found only by feminine intuition, which can neglect all the lies and ‘appearances’ of this man-made capitalist world.

The reality of ‘invisible value’

Let us see then how Fortunati proceeds with showing how the ‘reality’ of the invisible value of labor power manifests itself. If this invisible value does not manifest itself in the exchange value of labor power, how and where does it manifest itself then? In the future creation of value.

In fact, according to Fortunati, the invisible value created by the housewife is a ‘value [which] raises the use-value of labor power, use-value being the element which creates value’ (p. 52). What does this mean? In the case of any other commodity than labor power, one would not mix the concept of use value and value of a product (e.g. a cake as a lump of flour, butter, sugar, etc. and its value, expressed by its price). But in the case of the use value of labor power one can be tempted to mix value and use value up because of the particular nature of labor power: that of being the capacity to create value for capital. The use value of labor power is the potential creation of value, thus, the Fortunatean syllogism concludes, if something has the capacity to create value, this something must be value itself.[112]

The fact that labor creates value but is not value itself is a fundamental concept to understand capitalism. With the separation of property from labor, labor is posited as ‘not-raw-material, not-instrument-of labor, not-raw-product... [it is] labor separated from all means and objects of labor, from its entire objectivity. This living labor [exists] as an abstraction from these moments of its actual reality (also, not-value); [as] complete denudation... stripped of all objectivity. [It is] labor as absolute poverty: poverty not as shortage, but as total exclusion of objective wealth. Or also as the existing non-value, and hence purely objective use value... labor not as an object, but as an activity; not as itself value, but as living source of value...’ [113]

But for Fortunati if something is able to create value, it is value itself. It is an extra value, whose existence is mystified as non-value by capitalism, and which is created by the housewife. This extra value is real and already existing, in an invisible state, but it needs the work of the husband worker in his workplace to ‘re-transform itself’ into visible value (pp. 95–6).

But if value is the expression of our social relations mediated by things, i.e., mediated by a social relation between our commodities on the market, how can the value of labor power exist and at the same time be invisible on the labor market? And how can the invisible ‘abstract’ labor time of housework be a reality? Fortunati answers: the value of labor power ‘is determined by the time necessary to produce and reproduce it’, because this is ‘like that of any other commodity’ (p.35) Is it? Not at all. The fact that abstract labor time is ‘measured’ by considering labor time is not true for ‘any commodity’ at all! Abstract labor time is not in fact the same thing as the actual labor time, that is the time actually spent doing the work. We can only speak about abstract labor only within a production process which is aimed at exchange, i.e. at the market.[114]

So, how can abstract housework be only defined by the quantity of work produced by the houseworker in the privacy of our homes, as she says on page 35? How can we ‘measure’ the abstract labor time of tidying up the house, vacuum cleaning, having sex, totally different concrete works, without a process of abstraction and comparison that can occur only through the market? No market, no production for a market, no abstract value. Fortunati’s idea that abstract housework time can be measured by timing housework is a misconception of what abstract labor time is.

But at the very root of all these theoretical problems there is something wrong in Fortunati’s basic understanding of the same concept of value. On p. 106, in order to demonstrate that reproduction work is value-producing work, she says that ‘despite being individual labor, [reproduction work] is work in its immediate social form, like the work that produces commodities.’ Wrong. Why is this wrong? Value is the manifestation of the way society rewards my work done for others, i.e. my contribution to the total labor of society. Importantly, this ‘reward’ is indirect. Production in capitalism, unlike that in the past, is a private and not immediately social activity, and the social relation among producers is mediated by exchange of the things they produce. Our products, then, engaged in a social relation on the market, acquire the property of possessing value, as something ‘stamped upon them’. Thus the same existence of value is fundamentally related to the fact that our work, which produces commodities, is NOT immediately social. If Fortunati has no clue of the mechanism that produces value, what credit can we give to her weirdest statements about invisible value?

The real issue hidden by the theory of invisible value

The Arcane of Reproduction reproduces the arcane of housework by analyzing it in a style that allows more than one interpretation. A first superficial reading is bound to appeal to the liberal feminist reader. It speaks explicitly about the inequality of men and women ‘in the eyes of the law’, or about questions of social power between the proletarian man and woman (p. 39). However, other parts insist that the issue is ‘exploitation’, that it is a Marxian issue.

But let us consider Fortunati’s ‘Marxian’ arguments about the housewife’s ‘exploitation’.[115] For Fortunati, this ‘exploitation’ consists in the fact that the necessary labor time of the housewife ‘is calculated only with respect to the male worker’s working day’ (p. 91). This is a bit ambiguous. What does it mean? In Fortunati’s words: ‘the necessary labor time supplied by the male worker already contains the [value of]... the means of subsistence of the female housewife too... [thus she] must, with her work, re-earn [it]’ (p. 93). That is, if the husband’s wage includes the means of the wife’s reproduction, this implies that with her housework the wife works again on top of what has already been earned by her husband during his day of work.

The fact that the housewife must re-earn some money with her work, is not the exploitation based on equal and fair exchange of wage for work that Marx discovered. It is rather an ‘exploitation’ due to the fact that there is something left unpaid, against the sacred bourgeois rules of fair and equal exchange. Exploitation by making people re-earn something, i.e. not paying a full honest wage, not exchanging equivalents, is the bourgeois concept of exploitation that one hears when Nike’s sweatshops are under left liberal criticism.

However, if it is true that Fortunati’s theory reveals that the housewife has to do a second batch of work for nothing after that done by her husband, this would be an interesting discovery anyway. Nobody has ever noticed this before, and we should now wonder whether Fortunati’s theory of invisible value is really fit to expose this bad accountancy of capitalist reward of wages for work. Let us then force ourselves temporarily to adopt Fortunati’s theory and check her own claim, by evaluating the necessary labor time involved in the husband’s wage.

According to the theory, the housewife does some abstract labor, which materializes in her contribution of value lh (value from housework); and the husband worker does some abstract labor, which results in his contribution of value lw (value from work). According to Fortunati’s instructions, ‘the two valorization processes must add up’ (p.89). This means that, if invisible value lh is not bound to be invisible forever, it must eventually manifest as a contribution in the total value ltot (total value) of the product; or, better, in Fortunati’s words, ‘re-transforms itself’, in the final value created for the capitalist. Thus total value is the sum of the value created by housework and that created by work:

ltot = lh + lw.

The capitalist, who has never heard of Leopoldina Fortunati, does not know anything about the invisible value lh. What he thinks is that he has acquired a quantity of value ltot during the day. At the end of the working day, the capitalist gives the wage to his worker. This wage is the money necessary to maintain the worker as worker and his wife as housewife. The capitalist is aware of this necessity, and has to give up part of the value that he gained during the day — let us say for example, one quarter of it. So, the necessary labor time coincides with a quarter of the working day, that is a quarter of ltot. But, since we are temporarily Fortunati, we know that ‘in reality’ ltot is the sum of the two contributions of abstract labor (lh + lw). Thus, even if the capitalist does not see it, we see that the wage actually paid corresponds to necessary labor time, which is one quarter of the abstract labors of both work and housework:

Wage paid = (1/4) ´ ( lh + lw ) = necessary labor time.

Now, being Leopoldina Fortunati, I would conclude: ‘The necessary labor time that corresponds to the wage paid to the worker includes the necessary labor time expended by the housewife at home. This means that Leopoldina Fortunati (that is, me) is wrong in claiming that the housewife’s work constitutes a re-earning. Indeed, it is clear from the formulas that the necessary labor time supplied by the housewife does contribute part of the wage, thus her work at home is necessary for this earning and does not amount to a re-earning. It is worth stressing that we have just demonstrated that Fortunati’s own theory contradicts her own claims.

After having enjoyed the above exercise, which showed the inconsistency between Fortunati’s theory and her own claims, let us remember that it was only an exercise, and that we have already argued that housework does not produce value. Is the housewife rewarded or not by capital for her work, then, and if she is in what sense is she? Assuming that the man’s wage covers the reproduction of his whole family, the male worker is paid in consideration of the existence and reproduction of himself as worker, his wife as housewife, and his children as children. In the ‘generosity’ of the capitalist to pay a family wage to the married and father worker, the concrete existence and activity of the housewife is taken into consideration, as well as the concrete existence of the children and their activity. We do not need the elaboration of Fortunati to see that housework is functional to capitalism, and that she, as well as her husband, is paid only for her means of subsistence while capital thrives on their lives.

Although the woman is ‘rewarded’ through her husband’s wage and she is not a waged worker, this ‘reward’ has something in common with the ‘reward’ received by her husband for his work: indeed, both husband and wife receive money for the value of their survival. The condition of the woman may then be discussed in relation to a sound criticism of the wage form. But also in this respect The Arcane of Reproduction is disappointing. When the question of the wage form is considered, Fortunati deploys all her skills of complexification and renders the argument (deliberately?) obscure. For example, we read that:

In production, the elements, which are commodities, appear as such, and the process of production is the process of production; workers are labor power, therefore commodities, but they are also the working class; work is waged work; the exchange is an exchange organized capitalistically; the relation of production is the waged work relation. Thus it is not at this level that capital hides its voracity in the appropriation of value or the violence of exploitation, but at the level of the capital worker relationship, which is in reality a relationship based on the expropriation of surplus value, taking place in an exchange which, while appearing to be one between equals, is in fact an exchange of non-equivalents between non equals (pp. 20–21).

In this ‘complex’ paragraph we learn that it is not at the level of production that capital hides its voracity for value and not in the fact that ‘work is waged work’!? But in an ‘exchange of non-equivalents’, in ‘unfair exchange’. The woman is exploited because her husband’s labor power is exchanged without regard for its invisible value so that ‘the capitalist buys [labor power] below cost’ (p. 84).

Despite Fortunati’s Marxian make-up, at the end of the day her arguments pivot around the criticism of a male-centered society where the capitalist and the worker, i.e. the masculine cross-class side of society, share the tacit assumption that the wage is just the merit of the male worker’s day work. The problem is that it is the husband who cashes the check, and the woman is not ‘equal to him in front of the law’ and cannot ‘hold money herself’. Talks of ‘struggle’ are eclipsed behind complains about economic and legal inequality.

Fortunati’s liberal ‘reality’ behind her Marxian ‘appearance’ seems to be connected with the main problem of the book, highlighted in Section 4 above. Fortunati cannot go beyond theorizing an ‘unfair exchange’ because of her initial assumption, that labor power is ‘a commodity like all others’; because she cannot grasp the nature of labor power as a special commodity whose (fair) exchange implies the (unfair) submission of the worker to despotism and alienation. Because she cannot grasp the important dialectic of bourgeois freedom and equality of exchange with bourgeois despotism and exploitation in production. And she cannot see that ‘exchange value or, more precisely, the money system is in fact the system of equality and freedom’ and exploitation is ‘inherent in it... merely the realization of equality and freedom, which prove to be inequality and unfreedom’.[116]

Leopoldina’s Mathematical skills (note scanned pictures of formulas from the book are currently missing from this online version)

To finish, let us consider page 98 of The Arcane of Reproduction, which must have undoubtedly inspired the deepest awe in its readers. This page contains the ‘calculation’ of... something. But what? This is a good question indeed. Fortunati introduces these formulas by defining a quantity p’ as ‘the amount of the surplus value supplied in the processes of production and reproduction’ and a quantity P as ‘the average surplus value supplied by the single labor power’ (p. 98) but then she presents a ‘formula’ for a mysterious quantity P’ that has never been introduced at all. The ‘complexity’ of this formula is already brewing in this mysterious introduction. But let us look at how she proceeds (see p. 98)

Besides the clumsy introduction (is P’ equal to p’?) and the confusing use of unnecessary labeling (why n’ instead of n? etc.), in these ‘formulas’ there is something more substantial than just a question of sloppiness. What is written on the right of P’ does not mean anything in mathematical language. What is the relation between the ‘formulas’ on the right of P’, which are just piled up one on the top of the other? What is the relation between the two ‘formulas’ on the bottom right of P’, which seem to be adjacent to each other, with no clear connection? Mathematics is something ‘scientifically true’, black and white, only because, by its own definition and nature, it talks a language that does not leave the reader anything to guess.

But let us also look at the relation between the two ‘formulas’ at the bottom right of P’. They are separated by a mysterious empty space. Again, we are obliged to make a guess, while the founding fathers of mathematics turn in their grave.[117] Are perhaps these two formulas multiplied by each other — i.e., is there a missing ‘x’ sign between them? But this would mean that the mysterious quantity P’ would be proportional to the squares of a rate of surplus and the number of workers — which is rather unlikely whatever P’ is, and above all if we have guessed right that P’ is surplus value. On the other hand, the two ‘formulas’ cannot be added, subtracted or equated (+, -, = ) to each other either! Indeed, the first of the two ‘formulas’ contains f’ which, as Fortunati says, is value; and (a”/a’) and n’ which are pure numbers: so the first ‘formula’ is value. The second ‘formula’ contains only (a”/a’) and n’, so it is a pure number. Value cannot be added, subtracted or equated to a number.[118] So what is this relation between those two ‘formulas’? The only solution of this riddle is: it is an unbelievably bad typo. Probably a whole chunk of formula (= f’ x) has been unwittingly missed between the two ‘formulas’. But this is not just a typo; it is the disappearance of a whole chunk of logical connections. It turns the whole lot into an evident nonsense, and it should have been spotted by the author.

If Fortunati had avoided ‘formulas’, not only would she have avoided embarrassment for their mismanagement, but she would also have missed nothing in her arguments. In fact, this use of mathematics is only a rhetorical exercise. Let us consider the logic of this formulaic mess: she claims she wants to ‘calculate’ the total surplus value supplied to the capitalists by both workers and housewives. In order to do this, she just takes the known expression for the rate of surplus value and feeds her invisible labor quantities into it. This is like claiming to be able to control a magic force M, and then, in order to convince people to believe in its existence, show them the law of Newton (F = ma; the force applied to a body of mass m is equal to its acceleration multiplied by its mass) as:

(F + M) = ma

The use of a formula here does not add anything to my claim of the existence of the magical force M, and does not tell the readers how to measure it. It also does not affect the acceleration a, if we define F to be such to give the correct acceleration if added to M. In practice, this ‘formula’ has the only aim of giving my statements some respectful ‘mathematical’ decoration. Of making my readers say: ‘If it is in a formula, it must be true!’

However, formula 1 looks still too readable and it is not intimidating enough. In order to sort this out, I can do a bit of cut-and-paste and here you go:

(F+M) (F+M’) x

ma = (2)

+F F’ x(F+M)

This is much more complex, thus more authoritative, and scary enough to deter any criticism of my magic force.[119]

When it comes to ‘mathematical’ demonstrations, going fuzzy seems to be a general feature of the Autonomist tradition. Cleaver in Reading Capital Politically, page 123, offers us a brilliant example of the use of mathematics in order to complicate and even contradict, what he says in plain words. Discussing the contribution of the housewife to capital’s profits, Cleaver correctly argues that housework serves to lower the value of labor power, thus increasing the value pocketed by the capitalist as surplus. This is clear, and an interesting point. But then he tries to express this point with the following unfortunate ‘formula’:

How do we read this ‘formula’? The cycle of production of capital, which is the second line, says that at the beginning of a cycle the capitalist invests money (M) to buy some labor power (LP) and some means of production (MP); then the worker produces (P), and the outcome of production is a new commodity C’, which is worth more value and is exchanged for a higher sum of money (M’) than the one initially invested. This cycle repeats. The extra money, cycle by cycle, is pocketed by the capitalist as surplus value.

In correspondence to the cycle of production, there is a cycle of reproduction (first line). Let us read it step by step. At the beginning of the cycle (day 1 of work), the worker sells to the capitalist the labor power LP for a quantity of money M. With this money, the family buys their means of subsistence C(MS). Then the worker’s wife does some housework (P). After the housework is done, the worker finds himself to be in possession of the labor power LP*. Cleaver states: LP* is different from LP and it is worth less. This means that the labor power that the worker has after his wife’s work is worth less than the labor power he sold to the capitalist the day before. Fortunately this is not very bad for him because in the next cycle (day 2 of work), he is able to rip off the capitalist, and apparently sell LP* for the same amount of money M he had received the day before when he sold LP, although LP* is worth less... Of course, all this is just ludicrous and if Cleaver had left this ‘formula’ out his arguments about housework would have been clearer.

Cleaver’s ‘formula’ also confirms the general and unavoidable curse of housework: that of having always to contribute to capital valorization in an invisible way — no matter how much one twists mathematics, this value seems to be just unable to appear in numbers, black and white! The second line in the formula, i.e. the cycle of production, confirms that for the capitalist nothing has changed from day 1: on day 2, he buys the same labor power LP as the day before, whatever the amount of work done by the housewife, and he is apparently unaware of LP*, which does not play any role in the cycle of production.