At 02:08 PM 1/26/98 -0500, Louis Proyect wrote:
>Capitalism does not improve the material living conditions of the people.
>It reduces it, except in imperialist nations. The improvements there are a
>function of worsening conditions in places like Cuba, the former Soviet
>Union and elsewhere. The notion that capitalism is beneficial is false and
>owes much to a vulgar reading of Marxism that the Second International and
>the analytical Marxists have helped to propagate.
I do not think that rising living standards (as compared, say , to
feudalism) under capitalism is incompatible with the theory of value. The
point is not whether they are rising, but whether they are rising
proportionally to productivity. Workers today are clearly better off than
their counterparts some 150 years ago. However, today's workers would have
been much better off, had they received (individually or collectively) all
the surplus their labor produced.
As far as low wages/standards of living in the Third world are concerned,
again, that is not the effect of capitalism. In most such countries the
value of labour is low due to the low social cost of reproduction of the
labour supply (consistently with the theory of value). The only difference
capitalism makes is undercutting the marginal subsistence of those people,
pushing them to pursue non-existent employment -- thus making the problem
visible.
wojtek sokolowski
institute for policy studies
johns hopkins university
baltimore, md 21218
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
voice: (410) 516-4056
fax: (410) 516-8233
