Wojtek S writes that >>"Feudal exploitation", by contrast, obtains when the abundance of cheap labour makes it more rational to employe more labour than to invest in labour saving technology. I call it "feudal" because the volume of human labour was the main factor under the human control affecting the output under the feudal system. Under that system, direct repression is the main mode of labour control, because the owners are unable to accomodate labour demand through productivity increase<< In the Marxian tradition, "feudal exploitation" involves "direct repression" as "the main mode of labor control" but NOT "the abundance of cheap labor" which "makes it more rational [for the employer] to employ more human labor [rather] to invest in labor-saving technology." The first is part of Dobb's description of feudalism. He also held that the serfs often controlled their own tools and even plots of land. Absent the systematic insecurity created by the divorce of the direct producers from the means of production and subsistence (and the existence of a reserve army of labor), the feudal lords had to use direct repression in order to induce the production of a surplus-product that they could appropriate as tribute. Such repression is not ruled out by the rise of capitalism, but it is not the main way that capitalists engage in exploitation (it is rarely needed). It seems an aspect of what might be called "super-exploitation" (to bring up the central term in a pen-l debate of a few months ago) as opposed to "normal exploitation." It becomes central when workers break with their roles as mere sellers of the commodity labor-power and organize in a way that threatens the _status quo_; state repression is mobilized. (Individual capitalists will do it when it's possible and profitable, of course.) The idea of an abundance of cheap labor seems very much part of Marx's story of how capitalism works in vol. I of CAPITAL, when he discusses the creation and re-creation of the reserve army of labor. (Frankly, today's "globalization" seems a reassertion of the unvarnished laws of motion of capital that he and Engels described in the MANIFESTO, and he described in CAPITAL.) In fact, somewhere in CAPITAL (I couldn't find where), Marx talks about how an abundance of labor-power can delay mechanization. In sum, I wouldn't describe the current era as being in any way "feudal." Nasty, yes, but not feudal. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
