Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 18:16:32 -0600 (CST)
From: "Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu>
Subject: RE: AUT: RE: Marxism and Education


David,
Our conversation has gotten long, fragmented and somewhat convoluted. Let
me respond to what I take to be the main point of your last intervention
and work through the relationships at issue in a methodical, if somewhat
tedious, manner. See below.

On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Harvie, David wrote:

> Harry wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Harvie, David wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> > > But isn't the teacher's work an element of average SNLT for "producing"
> > > the skills, attitudes, etc incorporating in the graduate? So this work
> > > does indeed count.
> >
> > Of course it "counts" -  as part of the cost of producting labor power,
> > but not in the production of surplus value because no surplus value is
> > realized in the sale of labor power. As pointed out below.
>
> I accept no surplus value is realised in the sale of the labour-power,
> but I'm arguing it is realised in the sale the commodity produced by
> that labour-power. Hence, by employing the graduate capital exploits
> both the graduate and the teacher.

I don't see how you think this can occur. Let's take the standard case
with waged labor that produces surplus value. The worker works
with tools and raw materials and produces a product (a good or a service).
The value input into that product is C+V+S, C from the tools and raw
materials and V+S from the worker. The S derives entirely from the
activity of the worker.

Now let's back up the the chain, first with the means of production, then
with labor power, the two inputs. Case A and Case B in what follows:

Case A: the industrial circuit
In the case of the tools and raw materials they too were produced
by workers whose labor in producing them constituted a value V+S added to
the C of tool depreciation and raw materials used up. Old value and new
value added.

Case B: the circuit of the reproduction of labor power
In the case of labor power, its value, like the value of the means
of production is the SNLT that goes into its cost of reproduction. But
what is the cost of its reproduction? First, it's the value that capital
has to allocate to its reproduction: the value of the workers' food,
housing, clothing, etc., in other words the value of consumer goods and
services necessary for the workers' reproduction that the worker pays
for out of income. This is akin to C, it is, at any given moment, tho
subject to struggle and change, a given cost - the relevant standard of
living as measured by the consumption of goods and services. It is
old value. Second, lets assume for the moment that the new labor, the
labor of reproduction - of cooking food, of cleaning clothing, of teaching
children - is akin to the new labor in the factory of using tools to work
up raw materials into new products. In the factory that new labor adds to
the old labor to become part of the labor that constitutes the value of
the final product. But is this true with the labor of reproduction? Does
cooking food add to the value of labor power? No, we have already agreed
that it doesn't, indeed the greater the quantity of such work, the lower
the value of labor power needs to be, i.e., the lower the value of the
products capital needs to have workers produce to provide for themselves.
In the case cited, of food, that unwaged domestic labor power means
workers will consumer less valuable food worked up at home instead of more
valuable food worked up in factories and bought ready made.

So much for the first round. Now lets add a second cycle of circulation to
the first and examine how what goes on in the first round appears in the
second.

Case A: The industrial circuit
The final value of the product of the first cycle is C+V+S and
that appears physically in the second cycle as either new means of
production (MP) or new means of subsistence (MS), or some of each, bought
by capitalists or workers as inputs into either a new industrial cycle,
or a new cycle of reproduction. In either case the value is given, in the
first case by C (for the purchasing capitalist) and in the second case by
V for the purchasing workers who are spending their wages.

Case B: The final value of the product - labor power - appears physically
in the second cycle embodied in a human being who must be reproduced,
again, and this embodied labor power (or ability and willingness to work)
must be bought by some capitalist. Again, the value is given and is the
amount V that the capitalist must provide to the workers so that they can
purchase MS.

Now you suggest that a surplus value is realized in the second
industrial cycle from the work of reproduction accomplished in the first.
So let's look at the relationship between those two, first as things
stand, second with some change in the amount of work of reproduction in
the first cycle.

As things stand the work of reproduction in the first cycle produces labor
power of a certain productivity, just like the industrial labor of
the first cycle produces machines of a certain productivity. However, in
value terms those machines and that labor power enter the second cycle at
a given value - the value the capitalist pays for their employment. Unlike
the machines, however, labor power may shirk or may be made to work longer
or more intensely so the value it adds is variable. Therefore, it is
clearly in the interest of the capitalist that the work of reproduction
(in both the previous period and in the current period) be such as to
result in more rather than less work. If it results in more work, then,
ceteris paribus, it will result in more surplus labor (and thus, filtered
through SNLT, more surplus value). But, the surplus value is the surplus
labor performed in the this second cycle. Any increase in the surplus
labor is the immediate result of more labor being performed by the workers
in the industrial circuit, not by a change in the amount of reproductive
labor.

Let's look at what happens if there is a change in the amount of
reproductive labor in the circuit of the reproduction of labor power.
Let's suppose that a housewife, or a teacher, works harder at those things
which will result in the waged worker working more, or more productively.
(Let's leave aside for the moment the question of whether it is possible
either to identify "those things" or to measure them.)

Now, my reading of your statement that "I'm arguing [surplus value] is
realised in the sale the commodity produced by that labour-power" can be
interpreted to mean either or both of two things. Either the
increased work of the worker in reproduction will be "realized", as it
were, in the increased work of the worker in industry or that the
increased work of the worker in reproduction will be realized in an
increased productivity on the part of that worker. Increased work time or
intensity would result in more absolute surplus value; increased
productivity would result in more relative surplus value.

In the first case, where the work of the worker in reproduction results in
the reproduced worker working harder (longer or more intensely) the
extra surplus value comes from the greater labor of the harder working
industrial worker. That greater labor may be the result of the efforts of
reproductive workers but it is not THEIR labor, it is that of the
industrial worker.

The second of these cases: if the work of the worker in reproduction
results in higher productivity of the worker in industry, then the
situation is parallel to what happens in Case A of two industrial
circuits where the production of a more productive machine in the first
cycle, bought up and put to work in the second, results in higher
productivity and greater relative surplus value. Yes, there is greater
surplus value but the surplus derives not from the work of producing the
more productive machine but from the work of those who use it in such a
way as to lower their own value (by producing lower per unit value
consumer goods). So while the work of the worker in reproduction that
resulted in a more productive worker may raise relative surplus value,
that increase of surplus value still derives from the labor of the more
productive worker.

All of which shows, as far as I can see, the relationship between the work
of producing labor power and the consequences for the "production" of
surplus value. In no case is there any mechanism by which a "surplus
labor" of a worker in reproduction shows up as part of the "surplus labor"
embodied in a commodity produced by the "produced" worker.

H.



     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---