Taj Taher

ENGL 302
27 October 2014
Commodified Freedom/ The Half Has Never Response
Even while reading Marxs Capital Vol. I, it became apparent that labor was in a way
itself a commodity. Marx had described labor much like commodities, in that their quantity and
not qualities were more important in establishing their exchange value. Labor was a homogenous
entity, according to Marx, a fundamental aspect of capitalism. Disregarding the qualitative
aspects of a laborer and saying that he is the same as any other creates a sense of objectivity
when perceiving these human laborers, an objectivity that is in the same vein as viewing all
commodities to be composed of a homogenous value.
That labor can have its own exchange value is seen best in The Half Has Never from the
description of the slate on which all the slaves quotas were recorded. The act of committing
these names to writing, and attaching them to an empirically determined value, is the
commodification that Smallwood discusses in Commodified Freedom. The incontrovertible
truth that she describes the ledger of possessing is exemplified in those chalky names and
numbers spread on those slates. It makes it possible to stop seeing a person as a person and as
simply a factor in producing an output, a cog in the machine producing goods.
This perception, rational as it is, is ironic considering that capitalism was touted by those
believing in the Enlightenment ideals of the individual. But in fact, Smallwood asserts that it was
those very ideals that allowed for the full expression of slavery. This is something that
Smallwood does not go on to explain or provide any further evidence for, which I find irksome
considering that it lies at the crux of David Eltiss beliefs that she is attempting to describe. It is
at this point in the essay that Smallwoods analysis becomes a tad murky. For example, she
discusses how the conception of property is fundamental to the debate of whether slaves were
property or human. But then she goes on to say that shes more interested in how the presence of

slaves influenced the understanding of property. In doing so however, does she not contradict
Eltiss beliefs with which she had previously agreed? If she asserts that the existence of slavery
had an effect on the peoples conceptions, then that would be the same as saying that Western
freedom was dependent on slavery (rather than Eltiss reversed hypothesis).
Perhaps it is just my misunderstanding of the text, but Smallwoods analysis seems
riddled with contradictions like these. She says that Lockean principles allowed for the
commodification of labor, but then how can there exist an unresolvable tension between the
lofty ideal of political liberty and material reality of economic liberty, (298)? I can see how
Lockean thought would inform commodification. If Anglo-Americans assume their right to
property as all men are afforded, but do not see African Americans as men but rather as property,
then commodification of a person rationally follows. But that racist perception was not facilitated
by Lockean principles; rather, the Lockean principle was retrofitted in order to accommodate
racism. In and of themselves, Lockes beliefs regarding the equality of men are wholly
contradictory to the commodification of people. How could one consider men equal when also
referring to them as only hands, as described in The Half Has Never? Its frustrating that in
analyses like Smallwoods, the amount of time spent on topics related but not necessarily
important to the main argument is extensive and logically pristine (her description of
commensurability in general commodities for example), but then significant claims relevant to
the main point of the piece are neither well explained nor well evidenced.