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http://lifeonleft.blogspot.com/2018/06/revisiting-theory-of-super-exploitation_2 8.html or https://tinyurl.com/y8cwcaoh As part of his critical assessment and updating of the Latin American dependency theory pioneered by Brazilian Ruy Mauro Marini,[1] Argentine economist Claudio Katz analyzes a major component of that theory, the concept that waged workers in the peripheral nations of global capitalism are super-exploited. He suggests some necessary modifications of the theory in light of developments since Marinis day. Marinis thesis has been given new currency by some recent analyses of imperialism in the twenty-first century such as John Smiths book of the same title.[2] Smith holds that Marinis theory of super-exploitation is of continuing relevance, and embraces the view that waged workers in the global South are systematically paid below the value of their labour power, owing to their greater oppression and exploitation. He argues that this constitutes a third mechanism by which capital increases its surplus value, in addition to the absolute and relative forms of surplus value analyzed by Marx. Claudio Katz does not address John Smiths recent book, although he cites in places a 2010 work by Smith, listed among the references below. Katz argues that the lower wages paid to workers in the periphery, like those of workers everywhere, reflect the labour time that is socially necessary for the reproduction of the labour force, but he emphasizes that this in turn is a product of both material and subjective factors that differ depending on the basket of goods required for workers subsistence in each nation (food, clothing, housing, etc.) as well as their socially determined needs, including rights won by the workers along with advances in productivity. Which goods are prioritized and which are discarded? Do these requirements include the car, vacations and health services? At the opposite pole, in Bangladesh the elementary reproduction of labour power reflects a basket of ultra-basic consumption. These things are not easy to quantify. What is decisive is each countrys internal level of development and the position it occupies in the stratifications of the global value chain, as determined by the transfers of surplus value from backward to advanced economies. But it remains true that although the rate of profit is higher in the periphery, the rate of exploitation, as it is defined in Marxs theory, remains higher in the advanced countries at the center of global imperialism. The greater productivity in the metropolitan economies co-exists with the higher profits derived from the prevailing brutality of labour in the periphery. Contrary to Smiths thesis, there is no new mechanism for the production of surplus value. Katz, like Smith, notes that the shift in manufacturing toward the global East works to increase global disparities. But he suggests that the contrast in the value of labour power between center and periphery is mediated by the development of what he terms intermediate economies like South Korea and Brazil, their relative location in the global value chain being consistent with the international transfers of surplus value as the main determinant of underdevelopment. He develops this analysis in articles he has written on another component of Marinis thinking, the theory of sub-imperialism. More on that later. Claudio Katzs article was first published on his web site as Aciertos y problemas de la superexplotación. My translation from the Spanish. Richard Fidler * * * What is valid and what is problematic in the theory of super-exploitation By Claudio Katz SUMMARY Marini postulated that the Latin American bourgeoisie recreates underdevelopment by compensating for its unfavourable position internationally through super-exploitation. He did not identify the payment of labour power below its value with absolute surplus value or with increasing poverty. But this sub-remuneration contradicts the logic of the labour market, which determines the low wages of the industrialized periphery. Companies profit from the existence of disparities in wages that are greater than differences in productivity. The unevenness of development is highly conditioned by transfers of surplus value to the advanced economies. Dependency theory does not require a concept of super-exploitation that was omitted by Marx. There are higher rates of surplus value in the center, but greater restriction of consumption and labour stress in the periphery. In a portrayal of generalized job insecurity, national differences in salaries between the formal, informal and impoverished exploited are reordered. The extension of the concept of super-exploitation to the metropolis and the disregard of neoliberal globalization both stand in the way of updating the theory of dependency. ___________________ Super-exploitation was a central thesis in the theory of dependency postulated by Ruy Mauro Marini. He emphasized that the dominant classes of the periphery compensate for their subordinate place in the world market by paying less than its value for labour power. By siphoning off that additional surplus value, the capitalists maintain their profits and impose lower wages for longer and more intense working days. With these mechanisms, they counteract the deterioration in the terms of trade generated by the provision of raw materials and the purchase of manufactured goods. Since the dominant groups prioritize the export business, they ignore the low level of popular income and the consequent contraction of the domestic market. 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