From: kjkhoo-AT-pop.jaring.my
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 10:49:01 +0800
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: 'The Doug Henwood Follow-on'


The following is in response to Rakesh Bhandari's two posts of 17/1.

Rakesh Bhandari wrote:

 * these women should not be understood however as a stable working class as
 * they will soon be returned to the reserve army of labor (probably by the
 * age of 25). And many will have to now endure this  precarious status with
 * health problems.

 * Of course they expect not to be working in the factories for long since
 * they know they will soon be fired, leaving only a group of permanent male
 * supervisors who derive long-term benefits from the maquilas. That is,
 what
 * is significant here is that these women have not "asendened" into a
 * permanent industrial workforce which will experience expanded absolute
 * employment and real wage gains. If I understand Mark's posts, what is
 * distinctive about capitalism today is that 90% of the global proletariat
 is
 * really a reserve army of labor.

 *  At any rate, the maquila women will be returned to the reserve army of
 * labor and many of their expectations will be violently dashed as they
 rely
 * on their husband's reduced wage or take several of the pseduo-jobs
 * available to them. What seems most worth underlining here is that
 * capitalism has now come to rely more and more on a return to absolute
 * surplus value--what else do the maquilas represent?

We'll have to watch and see. Many believed the same of the free trade zones
in Southeast Asia in the 1970s. Indeed, at that time, turnover was
extremely high, sometimes reaching 10-15% a month! Part of this was
"voluntary". Many were first generation wage-workers, coming from peasant
families. Unable to "adapt" to capitalist work discipline, they quickly
left, to be replaced by others. However, over time, this stabilized, and
many continued in employment even past marriage, although initially they
did not see themselves as long-term workers.

There is still significant turnover as the average age has not increased to
the same degree as the length of time the factories have been in operation.
But this has as much to do with self- and social- perceptions of women as
on the factories themselves. Indeed, with increasing automation, the
factories wd like to retain trained workers. Plants like Hewlett-Packard
will even try to carry their workforce through a downturn, using
retrenchment as a last resort.

Further, as it has become harder to obtain women workers, men are also
taken on. But because of the relatively long period in which employment in,
say, electronics became identified as female work (a reason given early on
was the appropriateness of the work to women), men are seemingly reluctant
to go into such jobs. Hence, there's still a female majority in such
plants, but nothing like what it used to be - virtually 100% of
line-workers were female, as virtually 100% of supervisors were male.

Thus, over time, a permanent work force has been created, with the usual
replacement of personnel.

Incidentally, there was probably more of a culture of resistance in the
early days. Then it took the form of mass hysteria on the factory floor.
But with adjustment to the discipline of the workplace, such outbreaks have
now virtually disappeared. And as wages have gone up, workers (as everyone
else) are as caught up with the culture of consumption. Like it or not,
Baudrillard (call him whatever names you want) has put his finger on
something there, as has Zygmunt Bauman (again call him whatever names you
want).

 * Well, there are the famous auto plants, in which productivity levels have
 * approximated US standards, though wages remain a small fraction of the US
 * wage.

As for the business of absolute and relative surplus value, I'm not sure
what Rakesh intends, but I think that the use of these categories may
generate more heat than light. Wage comparisons between, say, Mexico and
the US, or SE Asia and the US, while useful, cannot be used to say whether
it is absolute or relative surplus value that is being generated. Indeed,
I'm not sure whether given any particular circumstance, one cd actually say
whether it was absolute or relative surplus value that was produced (don't
call me names :)).

Without meaning to be insulting for raising such an elementary point, the
relevant question is the relationship of the wages paid in a specific
country to average wages and incomes in that country.

The point is that transnationals take advantage of the fact that there are
inter-country wage differentials and limited inter-country mobility of
labour, while there is a global market in products. Free trade is about the
free movement of capital and commodities. Using these wage differentials
and the technology they have, they can realise a higher profit rate, all
else - specifically productivity - being equal. But that also means that
the transnational can actually pay a higher wage to their workers than the
host-country average. That is the relevant comparison and it gives the
transnationals an edge. By doing so, however, they _may_ actually push the
host-country average wage up! At which point, perhaps, labour from
lower-wage countries are used to control the rate of increase.

Alternatively, in the software industry, Microsoft, e.g., may distribute
the work to programmers resident in different countries, e.g. India, and
pay them way above the average rate for programmers in India, but still
considerably below that of programmers in the US. Absolute or relative
surplus value?

(All of the above does not, of course, apply to executives and
professional-level staff - for them, there's mobility with enhanced
incomes. An executive wd continue to make home-country salaries plus a
station allowance, in a context of a lower host-country cost of living,
when converted to home-country currency).

Actually, there is a political problem here. US workers object to plants
relocating elsewhere paying low (in comparison to US wages) wages.
Host-countries (including workers) welcome (with misgivings) these plants,
and to the extent that these plants stay and re-invest, they push up local
wages. At the same time, US workers also object to immigrant workers going
to the US because they (correctly) perceive that it would function as a cap
on wage increases, if not worse. If US workers were to insist that plants
pay the same wages everywhere, there wd be little incentive (aside from
market positioning) for US-owned plants to go elsewhere, and the situation
in potential host-countries could be worse. The social clause in the WTO is
at least partly about that. Where then commonality of interest?
(Incidentally, although I use the US as an example, similar problems arise
amongst "third world" countries as well. Take SE Asia: Malaysia is a
higher-waged country as compared to Indonesia or the Indian sub-continent.
$4 a day is considered a low wage in Malaysia, but a high wage in
Indonesia. Thus, it attracts migrant labour (legal and illegal) from those
places with concomitant effects.)

Further, with reference to the WTO and the social clause, it also indicates
some difference of interest between the home states of transnationals
(still largely from the North) and the transnationals themselves. I don't
think the transnationals are interested in the social clause - doesn't do
them any good, not even from an enlightened point of view. It's the states,
concerned about the hollowing out of some of their towns and cities and
responding to their electoral constituencies, who are pushing it. Curious
situation this.

 * 1. Marx's Herald Tribune essays on India from the early 1850s may not
 have
 * been on India at all, but a disguised criticism of Carey's protectionism
 in
 * the US. Heinz Lubasz discusses this fascinating possibility in his
 * contribution to Marxian Theory and the Third World, ed. Diptendra
 Banerjee.

If so, then it was worse. "A feint in the east to attack in the west" was
once the perspective on what was called social imperialism. Sigh - I guess
no one's immune.

 * 2. Marx openly referred to British colonialism as a bleeding process
 with a
 * vengeance late in life and welcomed the possibility of a violent reaction
 * against British colonialism. Bharat Chorya!

Combined with what you write re the correspondence with Zasulich:

 * From what I have read Marx actually understood the situation in terms
 almost
 * opposite to the Russian "Marxists"! For example, Marx thought at a
 certain
 * point it may be possible for the mir itself to make a direct transition
 to

Actually, he thought he saw a small window of opportunity. He was quite
vehement in denying that he ever thought that every people had to undergo
the treadmill of capitalism, that there was an opportunity with the mir to
bypass it, but it had to be soon, else the opportunity wd pass, for once
capitalist development set in, then it wd have to suffer the travail.

Anyway with your (2), you provide more evidence of some change of mind (or
heart) late in life. One cd compare this with the disparaging remarks on
the Mutiny.

One cd note that the bit on the mir is yet another case of M not being a
marxist. Worse, Zasulich was, I believe part of the SR, many of whom later
became menshies - which only goes to show the uselessness of some of those
labels.


K Jin




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