Good Comrade Meeropol wrote: <<If Marx is right that capitalist dynamics depends on the interactions *between the bourgeoisie* (the owners of "wealth producing capital" in sufficient amount that they end up hiring members of the working class to work for them --- there are plenty of "self exploiting" individuals who own means of production but hire no workers --- ) *and the working class*.>>
<<self exploiting individuals>> to me is a rather odd way of putting it. I take the phrase to mean that these are workers "who own means of production" but labor past the time necessary to reproduce the value of their own subsistence. As this one owns his own means he is not and cannot be compelled by any other to continue to work past that time as a condition of using this other's means of production. Exploitation, to me at least, denotes compulsion but such a means owner as this voluntarily chooses to labor past subsistence time. There is no compulsion. Hence there is no exploitation. << but hire no workers>> and hence cannot be 'bourgeois' of any sort as the raison d'etre of this class is the production of surplus-value obtained by forcing the workforce to labor past the time necessary for them to reproduce the value of their own labor power equal in value to their subsistence, << *between the bourgeoisie (...) and the working class*.>> eliminating the parenthetical above in Comrade Meeropol's statement we are left with this definition of these workers--who are " between the bourgeoisie (...) and the working class"-- whom I prefer to call 'independent workers'. Marx does likewise in many places in "Capital" and further describes them in others:: “ The production of a use-value, and even that of a commodity (for this can be carried on also by independent productive labourers ), is here only a means of producing absolute and relative surplus-value for a capitalist.” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch19.htm “ This applies to conditions in which the labourer owns his means of production, and this is the condition of the land-owning farmer living off his own labour and the craftsman, in the ancient as well as in the modern world.” Vol 3. Chap X. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch10.htm “ If this labourer were in possession of his own means of production, and were satisfied to live as a labourer, he need not work beyond the time necessary for the reproduction of his means of subsistence….” Vol 1. Chap XI. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch11.htm Marx shares this conception with Adam Smith. Both quotes by Smith can be found at https://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html?chapter_num=11#aa2 "In that original state of things, which precedes both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer. He has neither landlord nor master to share with him. "It sometimes happens, indeed, that a single independent workman has stock sufficient both to purchase the materials of his work, and to maintain himself till it be compleated. He is both master and workman, (JAI: No. He is no 'master' as he has no 'mastered'.) and enjoys the whole produce of his own labour..." JAI -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#7879): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/7879 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/81962865/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
