Slaughter of dead labour
In further falls yesterday, the UK stock exchange has lost all its gains since the Labour government came into power in 1997. The expectation now is that it will go lower. A major pensions company, Equitable Life, is on the verge of bankruptcy. It has closed its books to new policies. Yesterday it announced that although it has only 15% of its assets in shares, it is going to sell them all. Other companies are considering massive selling of shares. None of this is going to help the price of shares stabilise. The fall is accelerating. It is worth stepping back and reflecting on what we are observing. If capitalism is the domination of dead labour over living labour, then this is a slaughter of dead labour (accumulated surplus value in the form of capital requiring ever more surplus value). Pensioners, who are also dead labour in that they are no longer variable capital in the labour market, may also have to destroy themselves as dead labour and reenter the labour market to earn a little money through marginal work. Otherwise they may not be able to afford their increasingly expensive medical treatment. As a group they will probably die somewhat earlier, thereby reducing the average value of labour power in capitalist society, in that workers will have to reduce any expectations of a long and sunny retirement. Of course this is just a corrective in the grand cycles of capitalist accumulation, but at this dramatic time, marxists ought to be able to direct peoples concerns to the wider wider picture. Capitalism is already a highly complex social system but privately owned. A social system should be run with social foresight. And to keep our bearings in a crisis always look at living rather than dead labour: What are the use values being created by the living labour that is actually working? How can the society restabilise? How can the stranglehold of dead labour be weakened and broken? Chris Burford London
Re: ocial labor and social production
Title: Re: [PEN-L:27548]social labor and social production We have difficulty with gaining Staln's article. I have Japanese translation of Stalins's selected works but have not English one. Adding, Deficit of official argument of Stalin exists. These situation interrupt our study. But I chooses the way I can get. In this time, let argue social labor and social production.* Marx said As a general rule, articles of utility become commodities, only because they are products of the labour of private individuals or groups of individuals who carry on their work independently of each other. The sum total of the labour of all these private individuals forms the aggregate labour of society. Since the producers do not come into social contact with each other until they exchange their products, the specific social character of each producer's labour does not show itself except in the act of exchange. In sum in Capitalist society labor is private and production is social. IN other word, Private labor mediate market to gain social character If capitalist labor is social, The labor need not Sachen character In other words, the labour of the individual asserts itself as a part of the labour of society, only by means of the relations which the act of exchange establishes directly between the products, and indirectly, through them, between the producers. To the latter, therefore, the relations connecting the labour of one individual with that of the rest appear, not as direct social relations between individuals at work, but as what they really are, material relations between persons and social relations between things Human social relation is here A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men's labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour. This is the reason why the products of labour become commodities, social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses ON the contrary Individual firms relation forms firms social character. In Marx writing private and social receive strict determination we need carefully use these term MIYACHI TATSUO Psychiatric Department Komaki municipal hosipital 1-20.JOHBUHSHI KOMAKI CITY AICHI PREF. 486-0044 TEL:0568-76-4131 FAX 0568-76-4145 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Test, test, and a big smooch to LP
Yo Eco-freaks. Am I here yet? smooches Paula
RE: Test, test, and a big smooch to LP
Yo Eco-freaks. Am I here yet? smooches Paula Yes. Welcome to the land of thousand word essays on value theory. My advice would be to start off uncontroversially by expressing a strong view on what Marx really meant by production and saying something nasty about market socialism. Bonus points if you can work in a few words on how the URPE had it coming. dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication [may contain confidential or privileged information and] is for the attention of the named recipient only. [It] should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. [(c) 2002 Cazenove Service Company or affiliates.] Cazenove Co. Ltd and Cazenove Fund Management Limited provide independent advice and are regulated by the Financial Services Authority and members of the London Stock Exchange. Cazenove Fund Management Jersey is a branch of Cazenove Fund Management Limited and is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission. Cazenove Investment Fund Management Limited, regulated by the Financial Services Authority and a member of IMA, promotes only its own products and services. ___
Inflation
This raises a question I have always wondered about. In calculating the CPI, the BLS uses fixed weights which are updated only every decade or so, right? Right-wingers claim that this overstates increases in the cost of living because, in reality, people switch from high-priced goods to low-priced substitutes. But isn't it equally likely that it understates inflation, because as prices of necessities rise (like housing and health care) they eat up a growing fraction of consumer income and play a bigger role in the cost of living? I mean this seems obvious to me, but during all that hullaballoo over the CPI a few years back, no one ever said this, so maybe there's an error in my logic? Ellen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: at some point, economists decided on a conventional definition of inflation as referring only to increasing prices of newly-produced goods and services. Given that convention, inflation in housing prices only counts when it affects apartment rents (or imputed rent on owner-occupied housing) and other expenses of using housing, rather than the hike in the price of housing as an asset. (The economists impute by trying to figure out how much it _would_ cost a home-owner to rent his or her home.) Equities are simply paper promises, rather than goods and services, so that equity inflation isn't counted. Health care is definitely counted, while only the part of education that isn't paid for via taxes is counted as part of the cost of living. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: RE: Test, test, and a big smooch to LP
Thank you dd., but if you remember me from the Doug's La-Bo-sters, you should know that I don't know nothin' 'bout no Marxism. (just make up my own stuff) I did just spend a lovely hour touring Cuba with Lippman. - Original Message - From: Davies, Daniel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 04, 2002 4:32 AM Subject: [PEN-L:27574] RE: Test, test, and a big smooch to LP Yo Eco-freaks. Am I here yet? smooches Paula Yes. Welcome to the land of thousand word essays on value theory. My advice would be to start off uncontroversially by expressing a strong view on what Marx really meant by production and saying something nasty about market socialism. Bonus points if you can work in a few words on how the URPE had it coming. dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication [may contain confidential or privileged information and] is for the attention of the named recipient only. [It] should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. [(c) 2002 Cazenove Service Company or affiliates.] Cazenove Co. Ltd and Cazenove Fund Management Limited provide independent advice and are regulated by the Financial Services Authority and members of the London Stock Exchange. Cazenove Fund Management Jersey is a branch of Cazenove Fund Management Limited and is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission. Cazenove Investment Fund Management Limited, regulated by the Financial Services Authority and a member of IMA, promotes only its own products and services. ___
Petrovietnam, BP discuss $800 m gas hub
The Times of India THURSDAY, JULY 04, 2002 Petrovietnam, BP discuss $800 m gas hub REUTERS HANOI: State oil firm Petrovietnam and Britain's BP Plc are considering creating a gas processing hub for Vietnam's Nam Con Son basin, which could involve investment of about $800 million, a BP official said on Monday. The official said talks between Petrovietnam, BP and other foreign firms interested in developing the gas-rich area off southern Vietnam had been under way for several months but were still at an early conceptual stage. The investment -- a rough provisional estimate -- would be in addition to a $1.3 billion integrated project that BP is already involved in the Nam Con Son basin, said the official, who did not want to be identified. Petrovietnam is leading a group of people who have an interest in the basin, he said. They are talking about how they could develop it in the most effective way. That could mean developing some kind of processing hub for the basin. Also they are considering the expansion of the current Nam Con Son pipeline. The official said BP was an active member of the group, but investment in any such project would come from all parties involved. He did not name the other foreign firms. The group is talking about some rough cost estimate of about $800 million for the developing of the whole basin. That would include the processing hub and expansion of the pipeline. The gas would come to the one main hub for processing before it is exported or transported somewhere else. He said it had not been decided where a processing hub would be located, although it would be in the vicinity of the basin, or what the timeframe for construction should be. Alan Johnson, a minister of state at Britain's Department of Trade and Industry, who was visiting Vietnam on Monday, had been briefed by BP on the plan, the official said. Earlier on Monday, Johnson initialled an agreement on investment protection with the Vietnamese government, which he said should boost business confidence in the Southeast Asian country. Britain is the largest non-Asian investor in Vietnam, largely due to BP's existing project in the Nam Con Son basin. That project involves the development of the Lan Tay and Lan Do gas fields in Vietnam's block 06.1, a 400-km (250-mile) pipeline to shore and a gas-fired powerplant. BP's foreign partners in the venture are India's ONGC Videsh, a subsidiary of the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp, and Conoco Inc. Copyright © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved
funny typo
I am not the only one to have wayward fingers unless Daniel was exercizing some delightful humor. On Thu, Jul 04, 2002 at 09:32:47AM +0100, Davies, Daniel wrote: Bonus points if you can work in a few words on how the URPE had it coming. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Slaughter of dead labour
Warning: this is too good for me to resist stealing in the future. On Thu, Jul 04, 2002 at 08:01:04AM +0100, Chris Burford wrote: If capitalism is the domination of dead labour over living labour, then this is a slaughter of dead labour (accumulated surplus value in the form of capital requiring ever more surplus value). -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: social labor and social production
Almost2 In Marx writing "private" and "social" receive strict determination we need carefully use these term MIYACHI TATSUO Psychiatric Department Komaki municipal hospital 1-20.JOHBUHSHI KOMAKI CITY AICHI PREF. 486-0044 TEL:0568-76-4131 FAX 0568-76-4145 [EMAIL PROTECTED] I have understood - perhaps incorrectly but I don't think so, the words "social labor" to in fact means the "social character of labor" as it evolves in the context of the socialization of production. Can one currently speak of the private labor of individuals in the context of the triumph of world imperialist relations? I think not and below will show why. On what basis does the social character of labor arise? This is a somewhat different question than "through what mode of existence is the social character of labor revealed" - as it arose historically? As I understand your meaning it is the following: To view the productive forces as the fundamental connecting tissues transforming and creating the category called the social character of labor, prevents the unfolding of the mysterious character of the commodity form. Further, articles produced by the private labor of individuals become commodities - not through, but as the act of exchange. The act of exchange is by definition a social act and become the mode through which material relations between human beings appear as social relations between things. Below is the material from Frederick Engels Anti Duhring "We have seen that the capitalistic mode of production thrust its way into a society of commodity-producers, of individual producers, whose social bond was the exchange of their products. But every society based upon the production of commodities has this peculiarity: that the producers have lost control over their own social interrelations. Each man produces for himself with such means of production as he may happen to have, and for such exchange as he may require to satisfy his remaining wants. No one knows how much of his particular article is coming on the market, nor how much of it will be wanted. No one knows whether his individual product will meet an actual demand, whether he will be able to make good his costs of production or even to sell his commodity at all. Anarchy reigns in socialized production. But the production of commodities, like every other form of production, has it peculiar, inherent laws inseparable from it; and these laws work, despite anarchy, in and through anarchy. They reveal themselves in the only persistent form of social interrelations - i.e., in exchange - and here they affect the individual producers as compulsory laws of competition. They are, at first, unknown to these producers themselves, and have to be discovered by them gradually and as the result of experience. They work themselves out, therefore, independently of the producers, and in antagonism to them, as inexorable natural laws of their particular form of production. The product governs the producers. In mediaeval society, especially in the earlier centuries, production was essentially directed toward satisfying the wants of the individual. It satisfied, in the main, only the wants of the producer and his family. Where relations of personal dependence existed, as in the country, it also helped to satisfy the wants of the feudal lord. In all this there was, therefore, no exchange; the products, consequently, did not assume the character of commodities. The family of the peasant produced almost everything they wanted: clothes and furniture, as well as the means of subsistence. Only when it began to produce more than was sufficient to supply its own wants and the payments in kind to the feudal lords, only then did it also produce commodities. This surplus, thrown into socialized exchange and offered for sale, became commodities. The artisan in the towns, it is true, had from the first to produce for exchange. But they, also, themselves supplied the greatest part of their individual wants. They had gardens and plots of land. They turned their cattle out into the communal forest, which, also, yielded them timber and firing. The women spun flax, wool, and so forth. Production for the purpose of exchange, production of commodities, was only in its infancy. Hence, exchange was restricted, the market narrow, the methods of production stable; there was local exclusiveness without, local unity within; the mark in the country; in the town, the guild. But with the extension of the production of commodities, and especially with the introduction of the capitalist mode of production, the laws of commodity-production, hitherto latent, came into action more openly and with greater force. The old bonds were loosened, the old exclusive limits broken through; the producers were more and more turned into independent, isolated producers of commodities. It became apparent that the production of society at large was ruled by absence of plan, by accident, by anarchy; and this anarchy
Re: Re: I'm not dead yet
From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] Devine, James wrote: [*] If Bush said, a billion here, a billion there, it's an homage by his script-writers to the late Senator Everett Dirksen (R-ILL), who said (paraphrasing) a billion here a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money concerning government budgets. He was also more interesting than the vast majority of pols these days. Yes. He was a reactionary SOB in many ways, but one couldn't help but like him in many ways. I particularly liked Dirksen's continuing campaign to, as he put it, designate the American Marigold (Tagetes erecta) as the national floral emblem of the United States. In proposing this to the Senate in 1965, Dirksen of the marigold: Its robustness reflects the hardihood and character of the generations who pioneered and built this land into a great nation. It is not temperamental about fertility. It resists its natural enemies- the insects. It is self reliant and requires little attention. Its spectacular colors- lemon and orange, rich brown and deep mahogany- befit the imaginative qualities of this nation. It is as sprightly as the daffodil, as colorful as the rose, as resolute as the zinnia, as delicate as the carnation, as haughty as the chrysanthemum, as aggressive as the petunia, as ubiquitous as the violet as stately as the snapdragon. It beguiles the senses and ennobles the spirit of man. It is the delight of the amateur gardener and a constant challenge to the professional. Since it is native to America and nowhere else in the world and common to every state in the Union, I present the American marigold for designation as the national floral emblem of our country. And Dirksen had a great, stately voice for delivering remarks like that. Carl _ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Re: Inflation
Ellen wrote, In calculating the CPI, the BLS uses fixed weights which are updated only every decade or so, right? I'll answer this as best I can--a few years ago I knew all this stuff well but my brain just doesn't remember information like it used to. The answer to the above is: Yes and no. As far as I can recollect the BLS now uses fixed weights for broad categories of goods/services but within these broad categories they take account of the possibility of switches between substitutes. For instance the introduction of the so-called geometric mean to calculate prices changes introduces this substitution. They are increasingly building into the price index the switch between substitutions that are more distant from each other than before. That is, as far as I can remember they take account of the switch between different types of apples today but they don't consider the possibility that people switch from apples to oranges as the relative price of apples grows. RE But isn't it equally likely that it understates inflation, because as prices of necessities rise (like housing and health care) they eat up a growing fraction of consumer income and play a bigger role in the cost of living? I'm not sure about this. The basket of good/services making up the CPI basket is measured kinda-sorta in real terms and so as the price of anything increases it raises the total cost to buy the basket. However, an increase in items NOT in the CPI basket (such as certain types of insurance, taxes, the investment portion of house payments), which reduces the money left over for the purchase of goods/services in the CPI basket does reduce consumption although the CPI does not take account of this. Eric
RE: inflation
Jim D wrote, at some point, economists decided on a conventional definition of inflation as referring only to increasing prices of newly-produced goods and services. Given that convention, inflation in housing prices only counts when it affects apartment rents (or imputed rent on owner-occupied housing) and other expenses of using housing, rather than the hike in the price of housing as an asset. Correction: The part about newly-produced goods and services does apply to GDP but does _not_ apply to CPI. I know Jim knows this but he was just typing faster than he should have. The difference between consumption and investment is what is critical. According to the BLS, the purchase of a home (new or used) is the purchase both shelter and of a capital asset that might lead to a capital gain in the future. As BY DEFINITION the CPI is concerned ONLY with the cost of buying current consumption, the capital asset component of housing is eliminated from the calculation of the CPI. But while this makes sense for a definitional point of view, it does not necessarily make sense from the point of view of someone who needs to pay a big portion of this monthly income to fund their buying of a capital asset. This squeezes their ability to fund current consumption of items in the CPI market basket. Eric
Good report on Chinese worker unrest
Cox News Service July 2, 2002 Tuesday Copyright 2002 Cox Enterprises, Inc. Cox News Service July 2, 2002 Tuesday SECTION: International News LENGTH: 1343 words HEADLINE: STRIKES BRING LITTLE SATISFACTION FOR CHINA'S DISAFFECTED WORKERS BODY: For Sunday, July 7 With photos With CHINA-SWEATSHOPS, CHINA-JOURNAL By JULIE CHAO Cox News Service DAQING, China _ Much of industrial China has been gripped by labor unrest, from protesting oil workers in the eastern province of Shandong to retired steel workers in Guizhou in the southwest. Disgruntled workers are blocking traffic and railways, staging protests, shutting down production and risking arrest. The widespread strife has been viewed by some as a serious threat to China's political stability. But experts say there is little chance of a Solidarity-style labor movement starting up anytime soon. It's not just repression that's stopping workers from organizing; they lack the vision to unify their disparate causes. Two recent protests against state-run enterprises in this gritty city exemplify the plight. Workers of the Number Two Construction Company haven't been paid in four years. They weren't fired or laid-off or otherwise made eligible for any state benefits. They were simply told not to come to work because there was no money to pay them. They obstructed a railway in protest, but virtually nothing came of it. They are angry, frustrated and disheartened. Across town, thousands of workers at the Daqing Petroleum Administration have been holding a sit-in for months to protest a buy-out package they say is unfair and leaves them with little for their future. Their rage is compounded by what they see as blatant corruption _ managers are thriving while the underlings suffer. They vow to demonstrate until their demands are met. These two groups of workers, living in the same city, victims of the same painful economic restructuring and driven by the same outrage at official malfeasance, barely know of each other's existence. Workers must be organized in order to develop their class consciousness, said Chen Feng, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University who studies labor issues. Relying on workers to sympathize spontaneously would be difficult. Workers won't see the class interest by themselves; they only see personal interest. To workers in Daqing, the bad guys are the local officials or bosses, not the central policies that allow those officials to get away with withholding paychecks or possibly even lining their own pockets. Their only demand is to have enough to eat, Chen said. The lack of political freedoms, the absence of a free press and arrests of anyone who dares speak out on behalf of workers make it nearly impossible to spark a broader labor movement. Paltry payouts usually are enough to get most protesters to go home. It's not easy for workers to organize, said Yawei Liu, a China specialist at the Carter Center in Atlanta and history professor at Georgia Perimeter College. The government clips their wings at the embryonic stage. As long as they're isolated, it's not a problem (for the government). Movements that are truly organized _ such as the Falun Gong spiritual sect, which has a hierarchy of leaders and set up sophisticated underground communications channels _ are viewed by the government as a genuine threat and ruthlessly suppressed. Still, the government's strategy for defusing labor protests _ arrest a few, payoff the rest _ cannot be maintained indefinitely, experts agree. There's no chance of workers linking up, said Xian Yulin, a 59-year-old Daqing oil bureau retiree who sympathizes with the protesters. Things are too tightly controlled. But sooner or later, it will explode. Something will happen. But now the time is not right. So far, most labor protests have been spontaneous, set off by two factors: economic desperation and anger at corruption. Participants have largely been limited to people who were already out of work and had little left to lose. Employed workers have rarely gone on strike, neither to protest corruption nor in sympathy with other protesting workers. Yet, as competitive pressures brought by China's entry into the World Trade Organization force bloated state enterprises to further slash expenses and boost efficiency, more and more workers will be without jobs. More than 25 million people since 1998 have lost their jobs and 17 million have found other work, according to official statistics. Another 20 million people _ equivalent to the population of Texas _ will be out of work in the next four years. Hardest hit are the generation of low-skilled, middle-aged workers who were told at the beginning of their careers that they were masters of the state and would eat from the iron rice bowl for life. Reform and opening up is good, but we have nothing to eat, said Zhang, 57, a carpenter for the Number Two Construction Company. He would give a reporter only one name. The dire situation has given
Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. --Benito Mussolini, Italian Duce
A while ago Michael asked me the source of this quote. I found a source on the following web page for John Ralston Saul's on Corporatism: lack of democracy and legitimization of corruption http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2001_500/desantis514/JRSaul.html -- Dr. W.R. Needham Associate Chair, Undergraduate Affairs Department of Economics 200 University Avenue West, University of Waterloo, N2L 3G1 Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Tel:519-888-4567 ext: 3949 Fax:519-725-0530 web: http://economics.uwaterloo.ca/fac-needham.html [We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects. - Herman Melville]
Re: Inflation
Eric is our resident expert on the subject, since Dave R. has been been relatively silent. Are you still here, Dave. I have some questions: For example, how much have waiting times for medical care increased? Do rising housing costs require people to locate further from work, increasing commutes? Does the CPI take into account the deterioration of public transportation? Yet, they emphasize everthing that represents an increase in quality as reflecting a decreasing (hedonic) cost. Ellen Frank wrote: But isn't it equally likely that it understates inflation, because as prices of necessities rise (like housing and health care) they eat up a growing fraction of consumer income and play a bigger role in the cost of living? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: I'm not dead yet
Carl Remick wrote: And Dirksen had a great, stately voice for delivering remarks like that. I think he had been a Presbyterian minister -- but I can't remember my source for this. He did indeed have quite a voice. One of the most popular newscasters of WW2 was also a former minister -- Gabriel Heater. I wonder if there are recordings of any of his broadcasts. Sixty years later I can remember the tone and cadence of his voice as on the eve of El Alamein he intoned, It's bad news tonight, folks. (He always started with either It's bad news tonight or It's good news tonight.) Dirksen was also of the Class of 1946 that put through the Taft-Hartley act. Carrol
Re: Re: Inflation
Michael Perelman wrote: I have some questions: For example, how much have waiting times for medical care increased? The medical care component of the CPI has increased more than twice as much as the overall CPI since 1979. Its weight is only 6% of the total index, however. Do rising housing costs require people to locate further from work, increasing commutes? The Census Journey to Work numbers show no such increase http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/journey.html. (That page shows only 1980 and 1990 figs, but the prelim 2000 numbers are pretty much unchanged from 1990.) Does the CPI take into account the deterioration of public transportation? Sorry to be a Pangloss, but public transportation in NYC today is better than it was in 1990, and a lot better than 1980. Yet, they emphasize everthing that represents an increase in quality as reflecting a decreasing (hedonic) cost. Robert Gordon says somewhere that a hedonic index of apparel prices would show much higher inflation than the official measure does, because price increases are hidden behind style changes. You've got a point here, Michael but I think you've picking on the wrong components. Doug
Re: Re: Re: 3 social labor and social production
Almost 3 In this time, let argue social labor and social production. * Marx said (Translation) "Lets us discuss the question of social labor as a histrionically evolved form of social production and social production as a historically evolved form of the laboring process." Reply I call the above formulation the dialectic of labor. I do not call this the dialectic of abstract labor whose mode of external expression is the question of the value form. Labor has no value but is the substance that creates value and consequently its external modes of expression. I do not call this the dialectic of social labor because the mode of expression of private labor and individual labor - as they interpenetrate one another and "become something else" cannot be understood. "As a general rule, articles of utility become commodities, only because they are products of the labor of private individuals or groups of individuals who carry on their work independently of each other. The sum total of the labor of all these private individuals forms the aggregate labor of society. Since the producers do not come into social contact with each other until they exchange their products, the specific social character of each producer's labor does not show itself except in the act of exchange." "In sum in Capitalist society labor is private and production is social." In other word, Private labor mediate market to gain social character if capitalist labor is social. The labor needs not "Sachen character. " (End of quote). No! Individual labor appears in its external mode as private labor, which "mediate market to gain social character if capitalist labor is social." Here is my understanding of the above as applied to the here and now and historical. In present day Capitalist society, the labor of the individual has a private character, in as much as we are speaking of an individual biological unit that enters the market under conditions where the totality of production is interactive on a planetary scale. You state the following as best as I can translate: (Note: Comrade Miyachi Tatsuo, I hate when I modify and not translate your words. I never mean to "modify" but my translation skills are primitive.) You state: "In other words, the labor of the individual asserts itself as a part of the labor of society, only by means of the relations, which the act of exchange establishes directly between the products, and indirectly, through them, between the producers. To the latter, therefore, the relations connecting the labor of one individual with that of the rest appear, not as direct social relations between individuals at work, but as what they really are, material relations between persons and social relations between things." This is correct as a theoretical presentation but historically obsolete. Nay, this is correct as a theoretical presentation, but does not take into account an evolution that takes place between that which is called private labor and individual labor - in my opinion. Here is the reason. Marx speaks of the "labor of private individuals or groups of individuals who carry on their work independently of each other." "Independently of each other" is a historical category whose "distance" is measurable. On the surface "distance" is merely a quantitative configuration meaning "how much." This matter of "how much" is a measure of the relationship of individual human beings during a definable period of history and a definable configuration of the mode of production. I am stating the obvious because all material categories are historical, meaning they evolved as an expression of human praxis. What happens when the "private labor" of the individual is torn from that which gives the word "private" meaning and distinguishes it from the word "individual?" Private is connected or rather fused with ownership of means of production - implements. This is a historical category. In the context of my culture - (which does not make it correct) the word "private" means ownership of personal means of production. No one in American society as a social force owns personal means of production. From this material fact of life the concept of "private labor and individual labor" is understood as a historical mode of evolution of the value form. American was founded as a country - not nation, of capitalist production relations. There were no concrete feudal economic and social forms of intercourse. None. Zero! The specific period of history formation of American society was the transition from manufacture to industry and not the emergence of the commodity form as it took place under feudal relations of production, or rather the emergence of mercantile capitalism. The specific period of history formation of American society was the transition from manufacture to industry and not the emergence of the commodity form of the social product, as it took place under the private labor of the individual whose
RE: Thus sprach Marx: interpretation or characterization?
Gil Skillman writes: In your post, you (a) impute to me an argument I've never made, suggesting that you hadn't actually read what I wrote, Not so. You may have *interpreted/characterized* (What's the diff? Characterization is the act of putting an interpretation into words, no?) it that way, but what I wrote was If the conclusion is that surplus-value can arise only if commodities exchange at their values, it is indeed invalid. Surely there is another possible, and indeed a better, interpretation/characterization, namely that, given my use of If, I was commenting on one possible interpretation of your remarks, as well as seeking clarification as to your intended meaning. But all right, I'll accept this criticism and claim only that I argued... rather than pointed out... Good; we may be getting somewhere. I am offering more than simply an interpretation of what Marx argues, I'm offering a *characterization* of what he has argued, See my parenthetical queries above. both in the body of chapter 5 and in the final footnote where he recapitulates the main part of the argument in summary form, Marx argues that surplus value must be explained on the basis that commodities exchange at their respective values, on the grounds that price-value disparities are not of themselves *sufficient* to account for the existence of surplus value. This is a characterization of what he *did* say in Chapter 5. I take it you do not deny that he makes this claim (perhaps among others). I do deny it. I briefly re-read the relevant part of the chapter and did not come across what I could construe as a claim that the disparities are insufficient. (Clearly his argument entails the conclusion that they are insufficient, but that's a different matter.) Much more importantly, as I've noted, I deny that he *grounds* his conclusion (regarding what must be assumed, and that it must be assumed) in that insufficiency. I also assert that nowhere in the chapter does Marx make an argument one way or the other as to whether price-value disparities are under any conditions *necessary* for the existence of surplus value. Ok. I had written: First, I object to the term pointed out. What you did was (a) *assert* logical invalidity and (b) offer an *interpretation* under which his argument seems to be logically invalid. So what is at fault? The text? Or your interpretation? It seems to me, and to basically everyone who has thought about interpretive adequacy, that when a text seems not to make sense, the initial presumption (as Georgia Warnke puts it) must be that the critic has misunderstood it. Gil replies: You're assuming that which you cannot possibly know, i.e. that I didn't make just such an initial presumption when I first advanced this argument ten years or so ago. This strikes me as a presumption at least equal in audacity to that implicit in using the phrase pointed out rather than asserted. I assumed no such thing. You are jumping to conclusions. You are assuming that your *interpretation/characterization* of my statement is correct. Surely there is another possible, and indeed a better, interpretation/characterization, namely that I was saying that I AND OTHER READERS should not take the critic's (your) claim to have pointed out logical invalidity at face value, but should initially presume that the critic's (your) interpretation (/characterization) results from a misunderstanding of the text. At any rate, I have given at length, in this forum and many others, my grounds for now rebutting this presumption. I doubt that those who have thought about issues of interpretative adequacy would deny that this initial assumption is indeed rebuttable by criticisms made in good faith, which is what I understand myself to be offering. If this means that the text may not make sense, and that it is possible in principle to show this, I agree. (Note that the If indicates that I'm not imputing this meaning to you. I'm guessing, and commenting on a possible interpretation/characterization I've guessed.) I had written: The value theory debate would generate more light and less heat if Marx's critics would respect this point and practice a little humility. Instead of saying one has proved this error, pointed out that claim to be logically invalid, etc., one could simply say that one has not yet succeeding in reading the text in such a way that it makes sense. That would invite others to work together to try to read text in such a way that it does makes sense. Of course, one advances one's career by drawing attention to others' insufficiencies, not by drawing attention to one's own. But if one's goal is to further knowledge, not advance one's career, the less spectacular but more objective and modest way of putting things is preferable. Gil replies: If there's heat being generated here, it's certainly not by me. Pointing out that the argument is logically invalid isn't generating heat? Come on. A
Imperialism in decline?
(One of the curiosities of the academic left is the tendency of various figures to agree with each other on broad questions without sharing a common ideological framework. For example, neo-Althusserian Stephen Resnick has the same exact state capitalist analysis of the USSR as people like Alex Callinicos. Turning to Immanuel Wallerstein, a kingpin in the world-systems world, we discover agreement with Hardt-Negri on two fundamental questions: one, that socialism on a state level is to be avoided at all costs; two, that US imperialism has been in a process of decline--a point made in the article below that is dubious at best. US imperialism may be more dangerous than ever, but the fall of the USSR has given it unlimited power. Since Wallerstein (and Resnick and Hardt-Negri) lacks a dialectical approach to the USSR, no wonder this point would be lost on him.) Foreign Policy, Jul-Aug, 2002 The Eagle Has Crash Landed Pax Americana is over. Challenges from Vietnam and the Balkans to the Middle East and September 11 have revealed the limits of American supremacy. Will the United States learn to fade quietly, or will U.S. conservatives resist and thereby transform a gradual decline into a rapid and dangerous fall? By Immanuel Wallerstein The United States in decline? Few people today would believe this assertion. The only ones who do are the U.S. hawks, who argue vociferously for policies to reverse the decline. This belief that the end of U.S. hegemony has already begun does not follow from the vulnerability that became apparent to all on September 11, 2001. In fact, the United States has been fading as a global power since the 1970s, and the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks has merely accelerated this decline. To understand why the so-called Pax Americana is on the wane requires examining the geopolitics of the 20th century, particularly of the century's final three decades. This exercise uncovers a simple and inescapable conclusion: The economic, political, and military factors that contributed to U.S. hegemony are the same factors that will inexorably produce the coming U.S. decline. full: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_julyaug_2002/wallerstein.html Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
