{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title":"Digital Capitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2021022153","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","id":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","uuid":"50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title":"Digital Capitalism","normalized_title":"digitalcapitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"2021022153","isbns":["2021022153","9781032119182","9781032119205","9781003222149","2405518376"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":343,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Digital%20Capitalism","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/50b7f922-b940-4a05-8eb0-c4dc0d8ec9ed/search"},"page":{"printed_page":283,"pdf_page":297,"physical_index":297,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"cf72f2d9bfe6e5cc03a4f6cc6fddef5969d78cc569e344d4060cb7ff6ceb686f"},"chapter":"DIGITAL CAPITALISM","content":"The TSSI implies that value is produced in the production process and not when the commodity is sold (Kliman 2007, 37). The latter interpretation has been given recently by Michael Heinrich (1999, 2012) in what can be characterised not as a labour theory of value, but a money theory of value that implies that the worker is not exploited if the commodity s/he produces cannot be sold on the market (for a critique, see Kliman et al. 2013).\n\nI will outline how the labour theory of value can be mathematically applied to information industries with the help of an example. I have chosen data for specific industries in Germany for the years 2001–2011 that were obtained from the OECD’s Database for Structural Analysis (STAN). I have chosen Germany because the required data are relatively complete for this country and the time period 2001–2011 because data are available for it based on the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC), Revision 4, that in contrast to ISIC Revision 3 provides more detailed data for the information industries. The appendix of this chapter discusses differences between the ISIC Revisions 3 and 4 in relation to the information economy and the classification codes used for defining the information sector in this chapter.\n\nThe empirical model used in this chapter follows the assumption widely spread in Marxist theory that finance, insurance, and real estate constitute unproductive realms of the capitalist economy. Marx argues that productive labour creates use-values that satisfy human needs and in capitalism take on the form of exchange-value and commodities. Real estate is an unproductive sector because rent can be generated without any labour. Once housing or a piece of land exists, it can be rented out. Financial capital’s production process takes on the form M–M’, money results in more money through financial instruments such as loans, mortgages, financial derivatives, shares, etc. There is no commodity separate from money. This becomes evident when you think of a loan: you receive a sum of money that a bank lends to you. Over a specific period of time, you pay back the whole sum plus an interest that you pay over time from your salary. Given that there is no commodity separate from money involved and productive labour is in Marxian theory tied to the production of a new commodity, the realm of finance is often considered as being unproductive. It is therefore often excluded from calculations of productive labour (see Shaikh and Tonak 1994). The theoretical assumption that financial capital is not the result of productive labour can also be observed practical in financial crises: they emerge from financial bubbles that build up through processes that constitute a difference between the monetary profits attained from the sale of commodities produced by labour and market values the same companies selling these commodities achieve on financial markets. Large divergences between financial capital values and profits constitute a source of financial crisis. Marx (1894) speaks of financial capital as fictitious capital because it takes on artificial values that are decoupled from labour-values. From “time to time […] flows of fictitious capital got out of hand to form speculative financial and commercial bubbles” (Harvey 2014, 239). The 2008 US housing market crisis that triggered a larger international economic crisis was the result of “fictitious capital run wild” (Harvey 2014, 33) because mortgages had been bundled together into derivatives that were traded as high-risk financial instruments.\n\nChapter Twelve | The Information Economy\n\n283\n\nThe Information Industry and Marx’s Labour Theory of Value","previous_page":282,"next_page":284}