3 Analysis by structuralism
3.1 Structure of a price
In this section, we examine prices as a ‘structure’ using structuralism.
Previous researches have not analyzed prices or money as a structure and
money theory has barely progressed since Marx’s value-form analysis.
Iwai (1986) examined Marx’s value-form analysis and indicated that money
is realized using circular reasoning, which he called the mystery of
money. Karatani (1993) considered Marx’s ‘salto mortale,’ and indicated
that because money is a system of differences, price is therefore
groundless. They argued form theories of money, reflecting their
interest in the mystery of money. Here, we clarify that the core mystery
of money in fact lies in the numeration of value.
By nature, magnitude of value cannot be measured. We can measure linen
by a unit of length, such as a meter. We can measure iron by its weight,
such as by the ton. However, value is measured across all types of
properties, including linen and iron, using differing criteria such as
usefulness, degree of desire, aesthetics, scarcity, and prestige. By
nature, we have no unit that encompasses all these factors. Therefore, a
certain quantity of linen can never be determined to be inherently equal
to a certain quantity of gold. Although we believe that a market
exchange is equivalent, equivalence is in fact impossible. Nonetheless,
people easily perform market exchanges. How is this possible?
Past arguments from the structuralist perspective are not useful in this
case. According to Saussure’s (1959) argument regarding language, bothsignifié and signifiant are structured by being
articulated. Articulation is performed in an unconscious domain, and we
use language without being conscious of such articulation. According to
Lévi-Strauss, marriage is an exchange of a woman, and humanity’s incest
taboo divides nature from culture. A prohibition rule serves to
determine the range of kinship with whom a person can or cannot marry,
and this prohibition necessitates relations with other groups to ensure
marriages. We interpret that an articulation therefore exists that
divides women we can marry from women we cannot. In both language and
marriage, articulation therefore plays an important role in the
foundation of structure. In contrast to these two examples, however, we
cannot find such articulation in prices. We therefore conclude that
articulation cannot resolve the issue of finding the structure of
prices.
Equal value is theoretically impossible. What resolves this
impossibility is not pursuing equivalent, but the fact that a price has
emerged. Value is numerated through a market exchange. Although we are
free to fix a price before bringing a product to market, such a price
will remain a mere expectation if an exchange has not been made.
Consider, for example, the case of an auction. Only when an actual
transaction is finished does a price appear. A seller offers a price at
which he can afford to sell. A buyer buys if he agrees with the price.
The act of trading indicates an agreement, thereby determining a price.
It follows, therefore, that the common perception that prices are
decided beforehand and commodities are bought by equivalent exchange is
wrong. Numeration of value does not determine value objectively. Rather,
numeric value emerges when a market exchange is made; it is practice.
Numeration is realized by exchange, and we can exchange because value is
numerated. Exchange and numeration have an interdependent relationship.
Here, practice is an unconscious activity to make structure.
Then profit plays an important role at the determination of prices.
Rather than pursue numerical strictness, a seller and a buyer should
instead attempt to agree. A seller agrees because a buyer offers profit.
If the price cannot provide profit to a seller, he can refuse the
exchange. If both of them agree, an exchange is made. Although no
numerical stringency exists, a seller gains profit, a buyer gains
utility, the exchange is accomplished harmoniously, and a price appears.
Anthropologists may call the profit invisible gift to sever the
relations. No strictly equal value is determined at any point. Since a
price appears only when an exchange is made, price can therefore be
called performative. This mechanism is common in both the manufacturing
industry and the distribution industry.
Market exchange is thus communication mediated by profit. As the need to
communicate led to the emergence of language, the need to exchange
yields the structure of a price. Although the structures differ in form,
the structure of a price is also a form of communication between human
beings.
3.2 Singular point of a
structure
Prestructural value turns into structure when it acquires a numeric
value at exchange. We refer to this point of conversion as a singular
point of structure, as it marks the point where structure is generated.
Increase in value at a singular point cannot be observed. As mentioned
in the preceding section, value and profit added at exchange are
indivisible and absolutely numerically unknowable. Only exchange as
practice can be observed. Previous structuralist arguments have not
contained any mention about a singular point that we are aware of, we
thus attempt to explore the features of such a quality here.
- In a singular point, many processes occur simultaneously. Prenumerated
value is a bundle of ideas. When determining value by money, goods are
evaluated not only for their usefulness but also for their scarcity,
utility, expectation of future demand, and so on. Furthermore, as this
marks the point where profit is added, a price appears as an answer in
which all requirements are realized, and goods can therefore be
exchanged for money.
- A price appears only once, when a market exchange is performed.
Although this step can be unclear because fixed-price markets are
prevalent today, a price is nonetheless theoretically determined by
each agreement between buyer and seller, and reevaluated for each
exchange. Since the owner changes as a result of a market exchange,
the same exchange cannot be performed twice. Consequently, numeration
is an ongoing practice.
- The structure of prices is non-systematized. The shift to a structure,
i.e., from value into a price, is not permanent. Price appears only at
the moment of exchange, and then disappears immediately. Therefore,
prices are performative, not systematized. Prices contain no element
equivalent in Saussure’s langue . Similarly, market exchange
does not construct social relations. This leads to freedom of the
market.
- When determining prices, people refer to prices of similar
commodities. In markets in traditional society, the equilibrium
function to determine prices does not fully work, and prices are
determined by custom in many cases. We consider this to repeat the
exchange rate of a precedent transaction; this is also therefore a
reference to prices. This reference to prior transactions stabilizes
prices. If all players pursue profits, such as those assumed by
economics, prices should fluctuate according to the individual
diplomacy of sellers and buyers. A structure of references neutralizes
such fluctuations.
- Value and price are incommensurable in the singular point. While value
and price are discontinuous, there is ambiguous causality. We are not
conscious of the discontinuity, and in our recognition the world is
smoothly continuous.
- No absolute criterion exists for determining prices that can be
determined with reference to a precedent. A precedent example,
however, can itself be determined by referring to an even earlier
precedent transaction. Prices are relative; no matter how far back in
the past we may look, no original criterion can be pinpointed. This
highlights the circular reasoning peculiar to structuralism. The
reason that a dog is called a ‘dog,’ Saussure revealed, is arbitrary,
and he avoided any argument beyond this. Saussure referred to this as
the ‘arbitrariness of the sign,’ and it implies that the naming of
words is groundless. In the same sense, a price is arbitrary too.
- The addition of profit by agreement means that prices are not a unit
but a sign. Prices crucially differ from other units that humans use,
such as length and weight.
- The singular point also poses a recognition problem: the retroactive
causal recognition of added value. Calculating profit from ex-post
prices, we recognize the existence of profit and consider what is
really the effect as instead the cause. In such special recognition,
the causality is reversed. This phenomenon can be considered as
‘liminality’: a concept of anthropology. Liminality is an in-between
period of ritual, and one of the characteristics of it is that
hierarchies are reversed (Turner 1969:166). Since from production to a
market exchange, it is also an in-between period between a
pre-structure and a structure, it could be regarded as liminality. In
this suspended situation, it is supposed that we recognize the
causality reversed. Given this concept, the singular point should be
not a point but a period from production to sales, in which value is
suspended.
3.3 Inability to grasp the economy
correctly
During liminality, sometimes neophytes develop comradeship and
egalitarianism (Turner 1969: 96). Such a condition as communitas is
observed not at a factory or market places where economic activity is
performed, but rather in ant-capitalistic social movements supported by
the Marxism. It is interesting that ex-post speculation of the singular
point compresses time and produces the liminal states. In addition, an
experience in adolescence to read Marx can be a rite of passage. It is
an imagined pilgrimage going back to the genesis of structure.
Regardless of the way being correct or not, you can go on the
pilgrimage, because the way is symbolism. However, the liminality will
not be aggregated like the so-called millenarian religious
movements(Turner 1969: 111).
In the real world, prices as structure emerge, and economy circulates.
Then, value increases in a market exchange. Products are not priced
prior to coming to the market. When a pre-priced product is priced for
the first time, changes in price are unknown. We cannot know the
increment of value increase at the singular point solely from prices
after that singular point. However, it is necessary for buyers in an
exchange to provide profit; through this means, ex-post profit
increases, that is added value increases. This forms the basis on which
all of capitalistic economy circulates.
From its inception, economics has dealt with the world as measured by
prices. The world of prices is conformable as long as we can treat it
numerically; therefore, it is suitable for analysis. Prices involve
profit at exchange. In contrast, value is no more than an idea.
Classical economists (including Marx) argued value as economy; however,
it is numerically impossible for theory of economics to cross the
singular point. Close to when Marx constructed his theory, neoclassical
economics did not explicitly understand this limitation, and by
establishing utility theory, moved the emphasis from the supply side to
the demand side. This would prove to be a wise choice.
This theoretical conversion led neoclassical economists to concentrate
on the study of prices. Consequently, neoclassical economists stopped
crossing the singular point. The concept of the marginal revolution,
significance of utility is emphasized, but requires conversion from
value to prices. Thus, the Copernican revolution of economics was
conducted unconsciously. This revolution brought evolution to
neoclassical economics; by avoiding the singular point, neoclassical
economics became capable of using mathematics.11Sraffa’s
mathematical solution (Sraffa 1960) crosses the singular point. It is
an important problem.
The numerically represented economy, however, does not correctly reflect
the reality of the prestructural world, in the same way that the world
grasped linguistically as a structure does not correctly reflect
reality. It is impossible to perfectly understand the economy.
One of the reasons for the long-term difficulties in refuting Marxian
theory stems from the fact that this theory crosses the singular point.
Theory cannot mathematically cross it, because of the discontinuity of
value. Marx crossed it. It is difficult for a theory avoiding the
singular point to refute a theory that crosses the singular point. As a
result, Marxian theory persisted long into the 19thand 20th centuries.
The fact that value increases in numeration reminds us of Heisenberg’s
‘uncertainty principle’ in the quantum theory. Furthermore, it may
remind some people of Gödel’s ‘incompleteness theorem.’ However, we
should not confuse either of these with the arbitrariness involved in
prices. A price is not a natural phenomenon but an outcome of human
culture. Not understanding this point has long confused economists’
argument concerning value.