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Leaving aside the question of aesthetics, [although some may be partial to collective farm # 147's cover of Prince with their version of "Little Red Harvester"], a tractor is not a THING at all when produced under capitalism. A tractor is produced, exists, functions in capitalism as a commodity, as a useful article and a value. And as a commodity it exists only to facilitate, enhance the aggrandizement of surplus value, to achieve expanded reproduction of capital. It is the tractor's social existence that makes mechanization's impact on Southern agriculture, on the existing relations of land tenure, so explosive. We agree that introduction of any individual machine is not the transformative factor. Any tractor might have, could have, and was in isolation deployed in Southern agriculture-- on a small scale, without disrupting the relations of land tenure. But the introduction of tractors on a mass scale, in order to reproduce, capture, expand the value contained in the production of the tractor cannot be sustained, supported, afforded, within those relations. It is precisely the conflict between the means of production and the relations of production that disrupts the reconstituted plantation relations, tenant farming, share-cropping, debt-peonage, of the South as the necessity of reproducing the value of the tractor cannot be satisfied within those relations. The tractor as a "good thing" independent of its commodity form simply does not exist under capitalism. As Marx remarks, the utiltiy of any object under capitalism is determined by the labor time necessary for its reproduction and with the abolition of capitalism, that relationship will be reversed, transcended, placed on its feet, where the determination of the social utility, of need, will drive the labor time expended on reproduction. The usefulness of the tractor does not exist independently of the production of the fuel necessary for its operation; of the production of the replacement parts necessary for its maintenance, and of the organization of labor required to operate the tractor, all of which are produced, and produced only, to expand upon the value already realized in their existence as commodities. When the mechanization of agriculture is introduced into the South, that organization is capital; that organization of labor is wage-labor. Consequently, the previous relations of land tenure are disrupted, damaged, more or less destroyed. Now the peculiarity of capitalism is, as Marx analyzed, wrote, time and time again, that capital does the same thing to itself-- it undermines its own social relation of production in the reproduction of itself as more capital. It does not undermine itself by the production of "good things," "beautiful things," "wonderful things." Capitalism undermines itself through the accumulation of capital, through expanded reproduction, through amplifying the productivity of labor in order to aggrandize relatively greater portions of surplus labor. Like I said at the getgo-- it's all about the commodity-- all about the conflict between usefulness and exchange. If you get that-- that first part of Capital-- if you get it from the first chapter and through the intended but unpublished 6th chapter-- you get it all, or at least, you can get it all. You can construct and reconstruct Marx's entire work from there. If you don't get it-- then you don't get it. ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: "David Schanoes" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 2:31 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] FROP again, > ====================================================================== > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > ====================================================================== > > >> > The tractor was a beautiful thing, setting into motion a complex series of > other events. The tractor - as mechanization, inaugurated the destruction > of a specific boundary of development of the organization of agricultural > production. Its importance is historical and well beyond reproduction of > value. Likewise the semi-conductor and clusters of new technology are > going to > change the world in a way never before possible: society will be freed > from > laboring as we have known it throughout all of human history. > > The tractor expressed a new material power injected into agricultural > production. The organization of agricultural production, as it has existed > was > disrupted and further expansion of the system of sharecropping came to an > end. Agricultural production would expand and developed based on the > quantitative additions of a new material power. The same applies to > chemical > fertilizers, however the tractor is more fundamental. The tractor had > actually > been around since 1910 but did not achieve its "dominant design" until > 1938. > In 1910, roughly 24 million horses provided "horse power" on American > farmland. The tractor obliterated the need to set aside land for horse > grazing > and raising. The automobile and the tractor pretty much changed American > society. Not as isolated machines but as new configurations of machines > and > all the related industries developed to support their production. > ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
