Brad, As you know the Classical system uses Land, Labor, and Capital, to produce Wealth. These four classes cover everything in the universe - including God!
Wealth is the 'material' result of human exertion (Labor) being applied to natural resources (Land) if it is for the satisfaction of human desire and possesses exchange value. I rarely use the clause "satisfaction of human desire" as we would not spend exertion if it was not to satisfy a desire. The final clause is simply to remove the inconsequential. A lady (Labor) walks across a meadow (Land) to produce crushed grass (Wealth). But, we don't want to bother with it, so the "exchange value" is added. Now, the parts that apply to Futureworks. The Wealth added by Labor is his Wages - the reason he expends exertion. The sole reason for production is Wages. >From Labor's production, there must be payment for Capital - an expenditure well worth while for Capital is the multiplier of production - and therefore the multiplier of Wages. Labor can dig up 10 potatoes and hour (say). With the use of a spade (Capital) his production can rise to (say) 50 potatoes an hour. For this 'multiplier', he will pay the market rate for Capital - Interest - the market rate of which over millennia appears to hover around 3%. Capital is a great boon to Labor, whether it be the spade, or General Motors. Or it should be - but there is a fly in the ointment. The 'fly' is the high cost of Land. Land Rent and Land Prices don't suffer the discipline of the market place as do Labor and Capital. Land is all taken up even though most of it is unused or underused. This means that the cost of Land to Labor rises higher and higher sucking away at Labor's production (Wages). Ricardo saw that as the best agricultural land was used and Labor had to produce on poorer and poorer land, the return to Labor (Wages) would fall until on the poorest usable land it would be close to subsistence. He missed the massive holding of land from use that accelerated the move to poorer fields and the onset of subsistence wages - even though there were great quantities of unused, or underused land on which higher wages could be earned. (Back then, this was called "all-devouring Rent". The concept is valid though it introduced an error that is still with us today.) Ricardo missed another important point - still not understood by today's economists. Subsistence agricultural Wages set the alternative for city Wage earners. In the evil slums of the great 19th century cities, Wages were at subsistence levels because there was no place else to go. In the first half of the 19th century, all of Britain was owned by something over 2,500 landlords. There is all the difference in the world between Labor being drawn to the cities, and Labor being driven to the cities. British landlords found a greater return from herds of sheep tended by a couple of shepherds, than from a village full of people taking up land for little profit. One recalls Goldsmith's "Deserted Village", where the Poet strolls through the village pointing to the cold anvil at the Smithy's, the empty pews in the church, the crumbling houses. Meantime, in the cities were the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution - requiring massive investment in new kinds of Capital. So, where was it to come? Obviously from the landlords. So, the people who owned the factories and the fields were the owners of British Labor. Yet, those who faced their workers were the "capitalists" - the managers - who were responsible for the pressure downward on Wages. The owners of the land, those really responsible for the horrible conditions of Labor were divorced from the victims - even looked up to as special people by the masses. Do you recall my James C. Carson story? Jim traveled the East during the depths of the Great Depression. He arrived at a Pennsylvania town where they were locked in a vicious labor strike. He went to a town meeting where they were raising money for starving and unwell strikers. The pickings were meager. A little old lady offered a contribution and the Chairman raised it high. It was $500 - a major amount in the '30's. Jim asked who she was. She owned all the surrounding coal fields - and she was the one responsible for the low wages. So, management and labor were locked in battle when they were really on the same side. So we get back to Marx. If people read Marx, it is Volume I. Or, more likely a condensation of Volume I. I must say that I grew weary of endless repetition (it seemed to me). Volume II was somewhat skipped except perhaps for odd things that caught my attention. However, generations of the left have found that "surplus value" stripped from the workers left them at subsistence levels. Volume III (Capitalist Production as a Whole) is a whole new ball game. Marx continued his analysis and found that surplus value disappeared into ground rent. After two volumes, he found his principal bete noire had gone - to be replaced by the take of the landlords. Further, he pointed out that the Industrial Revolution was financed and owned by the landlords. In other words, Karl Marx and Henry George were on parallel tracks. Perhaps their difference can be summed up by a communist high school student (his parents were communist so he had learned well). He said "Henry George was a fool. He thought the changes in society would come from the ballot box. They will only come from the barrel of a gun." Henry George perhaps described a real dialectic. In his book "Social Problems" he wrote: "Social reform is not to be secured by noise and shouting; by complaints an denunciation; by the formation of parties, or the making of revolutions but by the awakening of thought and the progress of ideas. "Until there be correct thought, there cannot be right action; and when there is correct thought, right action will follow. "Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness. The great work of the present for every man, and every organization of men, who would improve social conditions is the work of education - the propagation of ideas. "It is only as it aids this that anything else can avail. And in this work every one who can think may aid, first by forming clear ideas himself, and then by endeavoring to arouse the thought of those with whom he comes in contact "Many there are, too depressed, too imbruted with hard toil and the struggle for animal existence, to think for themselves. Therefore, the obligation devolves with all the more force on those who can." Or, you can try to read "Das Kapital". Harry ******************************* Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 818 352-4141 ******************************* > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:futurework- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brad McCormick, Ed.D. > Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 4:01 PM > To: Karen Watters Cole > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Futurework] Materialism and Militarism ~ What is > "materialism"? > > This is a different subject, but it should be > clear that it applies to the future of work. > > I once read [ref. lost, alas] someone explain > that "materialism" -- esp. Marxist materialism, > does not mean that everything is material > ("Alle ist Stoff" -- is that the right German?). > > True materialism, dialectical materialism -- > is the doctrine that everything is the product of human labor: > that the "material" world consists only privatively of > atoms, but primarily it consists of human labor > which has em-bodi-ed itself in things -- things which, > of course, react back on the persons who made them > or who are just "around". > > Of course it's also fine to refer to > all sorts of "stuff" as "materialism" -- but > we should not let a noble word be > debased by a base use. > > I will repeat that there is a fine book on this > subject: "The Function of the Sciences and the Meaning of > Man, by Enzo Paci (Northwestern Univ. Press). > > \brad mccormick > > -- > Let your light so shine before men, > that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16) > > Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) > > Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ------------------------------------------------------------ ----- > Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
