>Ian writes: > > This of course raises, again, the issue of Marx' vs. Roemer's > > views on exploitation.....
Justin writes:>Roemer is on record as saying that many agricultural laborers found factory labor liberating. I criticized him for being unhistorical; he ignores the savage breaking of the new working class to time and labor disciplibe by poor laws and the like. That said, it may be true in some cases today.< I get the impression he glories in being ahistorical, though I doubt that he'd quote Henry Ford saying that "history is bunk." Justin writes:>There's a bitter joke that in a labor market the only thing that is worse than being exploited is not being exploited . . . .< that's paraphrasing Joan Robinson. (The quote comes up on pen-l once every 3 months or so.) I wrote:>>But if there is, the structural coercion implicit in that reserve army would imply that the choices aren't so voluntary, so that Marx's story applies.<< Justin: >Well, coercion is not incompatible with voluntariness. You can be forced to do what you'd do anyway. Coercion is objective and external. Voluntariness refers to a state of mind.< that's why I used the word "so" in my sentence. (However, I don't think "coercion" is always used to mean objective and external forces. There are no totally-established or objective meanings for the vast majority of words.) J D
