Value as an Expression of Justice
For Proudhon, the value of things is measurable because they are all the produce of the collective working force. “Any product is a representative sign of labour and can consequently be exchanged against another product...
Delete labour: only some more or less great utilities remain, which, possessing no human character, are incommensurable” (1846, I: 68). A product has an absolute value, namely, what it costs in labour and expenses.When Proudhon states that the labour time determines value, his aim is to define the conditions for an equitable exchange between free men who voluntarily agree. Exchange must be deprived of any inequality: there is “a moral obligation that no contractor gains at the expense of the other” (1840: 107). A contrario “the worker who gives the labour of his arms for a piece of bread... is not free. The master for whom he is working does not become his associate through their exchange of a wage for a service, he is his enemy” (ibid.: 108). When exchange takes place between free and equal men, it must be done for equal values. The exchange between the worker and the entrepreneur is not fair.