From: "Kevin Carson" <kevin_carson-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: whoa, I'm behind the times/push button workers...
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 02:52:41 +0000


>From: Joacim Persson <joacim-AT-ymex.net>
>
>Yes Sisyphos is not achieving anything at all. I said so. That's why it is
>interesting as an example. Anyone who has any point of view on what
>constitutes a fair pay, must be able to tell, according to his or her own
>view on what fair payment is, what Sisyphos should be payed.  Anyone using
>the word "underpaid" or "overpaid" must, to be credible, have a concept of
>what lies in between the two.
>
>
>SO... should Sisyphos or anyone else be payed:
>
>1. according to what he put in: (extremely hard labour, i.e. quite a lot 
>then;)

GIVEN (a big assumption) that someone values what Sisyphus accomplishes 
enough to pay him to do it, Sisyphus will not perform his task in a free 
market unless the pay is sufficient to compensate his "toil and trouble" (as 
the classical economists put it), or his "disutility" (as the neoclassicals 
would say).  If this minimal cost of reproduction is not met, he will not 
continue to perform the task.  This is what the labor theory of value meant 
to the classical free market economists:  not that value was determined in 
some metaphysical sense by "embodied" labor-time, but simplly that (to 
paraphrase Ricardo) when supply is elastic, equilibrium price will be cost 
of reproduction.  And to take it a step further, as Warren, Tucker et al 
did, all costs of production can be resolved either to subjective "toil and 
trouble" of labor, or to some kind of quasi-rent or monopoly premium.

>2. according to what he accomplish, in which case Sisyphos gets nothing at 
>all;

No--what he accomplishes is in the eye of the one who pays him:  performance 
art, maybe.  But the consumer must value the spectacle enough to compensate 
Sisyphus for his effort, or S. will withdraw from the market.

>
>4. what anyone is willing to pay him, regardless of what he puts in or
>achieves and regardless of what Sisyphos demands;

>5. what Sisyphos demands, regardless of what anyone else says or other
>factors;

In either case, a market actor can charge "what the market will bear" only 
when he is in the position of a monopolist.  This may either be because of 
the state's enforcement of privilege in creating market entry barriers; or 
it may be an "act of God" like economic rent, commodities whose supply is 
inelastic (rare works of art); or it may be a short-term quasi-rent to 
someone within the margin of production, which will disappear as production 
expands.  But in any case, utility only determines exchange-value in the 
long run only when there is some limit on the elasticity of supply.

>6. what Sisyphos and whoever pays are both willing to agree on, regardeless
>of other factors;

What they are willing to agree on is always a decision made in the context 
of other factors.  In a free market (as the individualists/mutualists 
understood it), at least when supply is elastic and equilibrium has been 
reached, what they agree on will be the laborer's full product.

>*. according to some other algorithm I have not yet encountered?
>
>1 and 2 takes an objective measurement of what is being put in vs what is
>being accomplished. (Currency does not qualify as an objective
>measurement. Work can be measured in joules. I don't know of any way to
>measure accomplishments in an objective manner, but would be most eager to
>hear about it.)
>
>Marx would go for a combination of 3 and 1 (hard work generates high demand
>for food), and any variant of communist would say 3 perhaps combined with
>something else. An old time capitalist or slave-owner would go for 4
>perhaps combined with 3.  Labour unions usually go for 5. Number 6 is
>market value. 4--6 are all subjective. 3 is objective I suppose, but in a
>different way than 1 and 2.
>


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