File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9707, message 145


Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 10:23:03 +0100
From: Lew <Lew-AT-dialogues.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-I: State capitalism


In article <199707061108.MAA20974-AT-indigo.ie>, Karl Carlile
<joseph-AT-indigo.ie> writes
>KARL: Hi Lew
>
>LEW: Generalised wage labour.
>
>KARL: You misunderstand Lew. Essentially the Soviet Union was a wage
>labour free zone. Labour power did not exist within the Soviet Union
>as a commodity. This meant that labour power was not sold as an
>exchange value or commodity on what is known as the labour market.
>The Soviet state essentaily owned the labour power of the Soviet
>working class. 
>
>The Soviet Union, as an economy, was an all embracing gargantuan
>value free reproduction process. In a sense it was analogous to a
>gigantic multinational manufacting firm in whic vlaue relations
>within the firm do not obtain.

Hello Karl

If the Soviet Union was a wage free zone then what was the income of
workers? You seem to imply that labour power did exist, but not as a
commodity because they did not exchange at their value due to the lack
of a market for labour power. Even if this were true, it does not rule
out the existence of wage labour or value relations.

To a large extent I can go along with your analogy to a multinational,
but it does not follow that value relations did not obtain, there or in
the Soviet Union. The fact that the Ford Motor Company shifts cars,
components, labour and capital around the world does not preclude the
operation of value in that company.
-- 
Lew


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