me: > """""the idea of "unequal exchange" (of Emmanuel, Amin, _et al_) is not > about skill differences among workers. It's about different wages for > (assumed) equivalent workers; it's about an abstract story involving > abstract labor.""""
Jon Baranov wrote: > Perhaps Amin and Emmanuel are not concerned with this. But James Becker, the > author of "Marxian Political Economy", writes of an "unequal exchange" > between skilled and unskilled labor in the core countries. Apparently he is > following Marx in saying that the prices of labor, like the prices of all > outputs with varying c/v ratios, tend to disproportionality (with regards > to values). What pages of Becker is the discussion on? BTW, Marx rejected the idea of the price of labor (as being like a "yellow logarithm" or something like that) , instead seeing only labor-power as having a price. > It is clear how capitalists must sell output above or below it value in > order for profit rates to become equalized. Workers sell labor power, but > for them there are no profit rates to equalize. Yet Becker states that a > competitive economy will tear the prices of labor power away from "values". > How does this work? How is it that prices of labor or different grades veer > away from costs? There can be unequal exchange even in a system of simple commodity production. If artisan Adam is able to sell his product for a higher price than (is proportional to) its value, he can gain from artisan Eve, who can't. This might happen due to Adam having a monopoly. I guess there can be unequal exchange among workers. Assume that skilled workers produce more value per hour than unskilled workers (VS > VU > 0). Assume also that they are paid more per hour (WS > WU > 0). Then if VS/WS > VU/WU, the skilled workers would benefit from unequal exchange. But they may not, since this isn't always true. Is this what Becker is talking about? I think it was Hilferding who saw the value-creating capability of an individual worker as being a result of investment in training (I almost said "human capital"). Then an individual might be seen as having an internal OCC. But I don't see how there could be an equalization of the rate of profit between workers. > (Also, does anyone know where exactly Marx discusses wages vis a vis OCC and > the equalization of profit rates) I don't know where he talks about the connection between wages and the OCC. The basic "transformation" model assumes that the rate of exploitation is determined separately from the OCC (so they aren't correlated the way Mike said they might be). Right at the start of chapter 8 of volume III, he cites Smith's theory of compensating wage differentials to suggest that "the numerous differences in the exploitation of labor balance one another" (p. 142, Int'l Publ. ed.) More serious, to my mind, is Marx's assertion that differences in the rate of surplus-value are "of no moment in a study of the general relations." To me that says that at the level of abstraction he's working at in that chapter and that volume, differences within the working class are abstracted from. He wouldn't get to those until he posthumously wrote his book on wage labor, i.e., his BEYOND CAPITAL (M. Lebowitz, ed.) -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
