Julio, on (1) you state my view correctly. While I would concede the possibility of the technical succession you envision in reply, I wouldn't go so far as to stake my expectations on it. In part, this is because of the 500 years worth of coal, natural gas, shale oil and other crap waiting in the wings to take the place of conventional oil. My understanding is that a lot of this stuff, although more expensive than conventional oil, is still cheaper than wind/solar -- as long as the environmental costs are excluded.
On (2) and (3) I haven't yet been able to fully articulate for myself all that my understanding of unequal exchange entails much beyond the glib label that it is a "mode of destruction" that is necessary for capital because the collective labor process is too productive of use values, which if left unchecked would undermine the production of exchange value. What I have in mind follows from observations made by Dilke in "The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties" about the function of unproductive labor (including war) in consuming the accumulated material surplus, from Kalecki's observations about "the political aspects of full employment" along with Kenneth Burke's satirical Veblen-inspired essay on waste as the future of prosperity. Not to mention the fragment on machines from the Grundrisse. When you frame my view as "modern capitalists are appropriating wealth (and value) not produced under capitalist conditions," the part I would dispute and amend is that it is about "wealth." In my view it is about the dissipation of "illth" rather than the appropriation of wealth. That illth then becomes the basis for an expenditure of labor time for recuperation and repair, the cost of which is deducted from wages (or the social wage) rather than charged to the enterprises that generated the waste in the first place. I think the term "value" although technically correct is misleading here in that it tempts us to think of it euphemistically as an addition to wealth. Just think of it neutrally as expenditure of socially necessary labor time. If a house burns down, the labor time socially necessary to replace it doesn't create "new wealth" but it still counts as value. So here's the general picture: the aggregate mass of surplus value depends both on the present expenditure of labor time and on institutional barriers to prevent most of that surplus being consumed in the future reduction of working time. Unequal exchange arises in the distribution of that surplus value as profit, which is regulated by private property ownership and competition, not by where the surplus value was actually produced. The generation of waste and environmental damage is functional is this set up in that it expands the social necessity for the expenditure of labor time to repair the damage without thereby increasing the quantity of use-values available for consumption. It would be fair to say that the above sounds "irrational" -- but that is from the perspective of society. From the perspective of the accumulation of capital, such irrationality is perfectly rational. On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 6:00 AM, Julio Huato <[email protected]> wrote: > Getting ready for the spring semester. But before I get submerged in > all that, I'll squeeze in my comments on Tom's reply to my post. I'll > try to rephrase his points (perhaps making them more general than > intended) and comment critically on them. > > Tom: Let me know if I'm distorting your views a bit too much. > > (1) Wind and solar electricity generation is becoming profitable > *mainly* because the means of production of wind and solar electric > generators are currently produced with cheap non-renewables, and the > latter are cheap *mainly* because a substantial part of their costs is > externally imposed on us. > > My comment: IMO, the main interrelated reasons why this may be the > case are: (1) the production of means of production of wind and solar > equipment (all the way up the stream) is carried out in fossil-powered > plants with large sunk costs yet to be fully amortized. However, as > times goes by and these power plants get older, their current > advantage will decrease. As these barriers to entry to greener > methods of production of green equipment fall, green production > methods will become more widespread and reach their escape velocity. > Insofar as governments, under the pressure of working people > responding to the environmental crisis, tax non-renewables and/or > subsidize renewables, the external costs of the former and the > external benefits of the latter will get internalized via prices. > This will further reinforce the trend. And reason (2): There are real > technical difficulties to scale up the production of green equipment, > e.g. crucial pieces of this equipment require materials that, for > whatever technical reasons, cannot be easily (cheaply) produced in > mass, technology has not yet find plausible substitutes, etc. > However, I believe that these difficulties are also likely to be > overcome with time because the main forces driving the trend towards > green production (mainly the collective concern for the environment) > can only get cumulative strength. > > I am very ignorant of the technical and economic aspects of wind and > solar compared to fossil fuel based generation. But my rough > impression is that the scale economies of the latter were offset to > some degree by the cost of transmission. Once the transmission > network exists, you have scale economies as the marginal cost of > another subscriber drops and drops. Though I imagine that the loss > from transmission is significant as the network gets bigger. Wind > and, more so, solar have the potential (in most places humans live) to > generate power next to the points of consumptions and thus lower those > losses. > > (2) Modern capitalist production (mechanized and automated production) > is profitable and, hence, able to sustain itself *mainly* because > modern capitalists are appropriating wealth (and value) not produced > under capitalist conditions, but instead under modes of exploitation > of extra-economically coerced labor (pre-, semi-, or non-capitalist). > > My comment: Although, ultimately, this is a question to be settled > empirically, there are logical reasons to be skeptical of this story. > If the argument is that modern capitalist production is a vampire that > sucks the blood of working people, that it owes its Dorian Gray's > renewal and expansive drive to working-people's blood and crushed > bones, etc. then I agree 100%. And note also that destroying the > environment *is* just a form of sucking the blood out of working > people's veins, because -- to reinforce the point I made with > reference to raghu's post -- there are *no* "environmental costs" as > separate from "labor costs"; there are only labor costs: All costs are > human labor costs. > > In my mind, this goes back to Marx's "profit upon alienation" note on > James Steuart in volume 4. Or to the note in the Grundrisse about the > myth that certain peoples can live for long periods of time off > plunder alone. For plunder to be possible, Marx noted, there must be > something to plunder. Profit upon alienation, unequal exchange, etc. > entail that value (hence, wealth) is recurrently or continuously > produced in the first place. Capitalists cannot appropriate > *systematically* what does not exist in abundance and, therefore, > reproduced continuously or recurrently. Etc. Now, if a mode of labor > exploitation robbed by capitalism were so vigorously self-perpetuating > as to keep feeding the capitalist vampire via unequal exchange, > throughout what appeared to be the capitalist own golden age -- a > golden age that in this light appears as a fluke, merely parasitic -- > then how come it allowed itself to be abused by capitalism in the > first place? It seems to me that unequal exchange (and the > pre-capitalist modes of exploitation on the other end of the unequal > exchange) was (were) central to the early stages of global capitalist > development -- say, up to the industrial revolution, or even up to the > early 20th century -- but from that point on it became increasingly > peripheral to capital accumulation. Not unimportant (still huge in > absolute terms, cf. the persistence of colonial and neocolonial > imperialism, a phenomenon with crucial political consequences), but > peripheral, and increasingly so. > > My impression, based on an admittedly summary examination of factual > evidence (I always feel I could do more refined number-crunching, if I > only were to clone myself), is that the value appropriated globally > nowadays through extra-economic methods (from natural resource rents > to taxes to other super profits) is largely pumped out of the > *capitalist* circuit proper; they are mainly forms of *surplus value*, > value produced under plain capitalist conditions. (I mean, of course, > perfectly legally free labor is an abstraction. There are always a > myriad of legal and other extra-economic coercive bonds restricting > their movements, but I'm talking about the central tendency.) > > (3) True economies of scale are small and result from "spreading set > up costs." What are usually called "economies of scale" are false > scale economies; they are *mainly* external benefits generated outside > of capitalist structures and appropriated gratis by the capitalists. > They are super profits that don't come from surplus value, but from > surplus labor extracted by extra-economic coercion. > > My comment: This goes back to the issue above. I can agree with > viewing scale economies as resulting from "spreading set up costs," if > "set up" is broadly interpreted to mean the set up of > ("non-rivalrous") means of production (space/time, language, > technology, physical structures, equipment, machines, inventories, > etc.) that workers can share productively -- and that is what I call > the scale of *labor cooperation*. And the "nonrivalry" of means of > production (of all goods, in fact, as all goods are means for us to > (re)produce ourselves) results ultimately from their size or quantity: > their "supply." However, this spreading of set up costs is so > pervasive and widespread through modern capitalist history that their > gains are definitely not modest by any account I can figure. So, yes, > there is an external benefit here that the capitalists pocket gratis, > but that external benefit is the result of labor cooperation, > marshaled mainly under capitalist conditions. Capitalism does that > (expands the scale of labor cooperation) mainly because it is driven > to refine and re-refine the mode of exploiting labor, and not (mainly) > because it sucks off the value produced in co-existing modes of labor > exploitation. Again, the latter happens, but it is secondary. > > FWIW. > > > Now Marx argued that increased labour productivity,as a result of the use > > of machines decreased the value (that is the embodied labour time) per > item > > produced while increasing the proportion of "dead labour" (in the form of > > machinery) relative to living labour. Or, to use Allyn Young's > terminology > > more roundabout production. But Hornborg's analysis suggests something > > radically different going on in Lancashire *and Dixie*, more akin to the > > production of "surplus profit" than of relative surplus value. Rather > than > > reducing the total labour time (including that implied in differential > land > > rent) incorporated into each unit of output, the cotton-spinning machines > > (and their metropolitan localization) enforced a regime of unequal > exchange > > that enabled the cotton manufacturers to not have to pay for the labour > > incorporated in the raw materials. That is to say, the regime of unequal > > exchange was an "external economy" as Marshall defined it and as Chapman, > > Pigou and John Maurice Clark elaborated. > > > It seems to me that we have to disabuse ourselves of the myth of > "economies > > of scale." Beyond the modest savings from spreading set up costs, there > is > > no such thing. Most so-called economies of scale are simply ways to > > externalize part of the cost of production -- that is to take advantage > of > > external economies, one of the most pernicious of is unequal exchange. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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