Louis Proyect wrote: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/david-graeber-on-capitalism-and-unfree-labor/
This concerns an old pen-l debate. One way to summarize this is to say that it depends on one's definition of capitalism. Under the pure capitalist mode of production (CMP) that Marx described and analyzed in his CAPITAL, labor is "free in a double sense." Even if workers are formally free, i.e., not subject to slavery, serfdom, debt peonage, etc., they are "wage slaves" (free of the ability to survive without working for capitalists). That is, because they can't get sufficient means of subsistence (consumption goods) to survive directly (by hunting, gardening on their own plots), they must buy them from the capitalists who, as a class, monopolize the means of production used to produce consumption goods. Thus, "free" workers pay for their survival by providing the capitalists with surplus-labor. They are individually free -- in theory able to turn down jobs if they don't like them -- but collectively slaves (and exploited). (Marx saw this as a critique of 19th century liberalism -- and it applies to neoliberalism, too.) Turn to another definition of "capitalism": the Althusserian structuralists described "the capitalist social formation" (CSF) as a less abstract -- and more empirical -- social system that is dominated by the pure capitalism just described, but includes other modes of production and institutions. Marx talks about his a little in CAPITAL (as with the first paragraph of section 2 of chapter 10 of volume I). This CSF can include large numbers of workers who are subject to the bondage of slavery, serfdom, debt peonage, etc. f it's "impure" in this way, it intensifies exploitation compared to pure capitalism, i.e. causes super-exploitation. Also, this super-exploitation can help pure capitalism prosper (i.e., accumulate and grow). Marx argued that, after capitalism was created via the so-called Primitive Accumulation, the real world of the CSF was headed in the direction of pure capitalism, if not stopped. But even if debt peonage, etc. is abolished apply, capitalism will be exploitative. The role of debt peonage isn't necessary to a theory of exploitation, even if it supplements it. In a liberal theory, in contrast, if debt peonage, etc. were abolished, there would be no significant exploitation of labor. Is that the theory that Graeber is advocating? I doubt it. -- Jim Devine / "An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support." -- John Buchan _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
