Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 19:05:25 +0200 From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se> Subject: M-I: Re: Get back in the kitchen and rattle them pots & pans! Siddarth comments on Rakesh's figures regarding the amount of unpaid household work: >> The total monetary value of unpaid household work, including tax, national >> insurance and pensions, would be between 56 and 122 percent of the UK gross >> domestic product. The figure depends on how unpaid work is valued. > >Rakesh points out the truly staggering amounts of value generated by >unpaid household work, a portion of which surely flows to big capital >Steve P commented on the following exchange between Doug H and me: This is not the case. Exchange value is only generated in the market by actual realized exchange of commodities. The work done at home is not part of such an exchange, and therefore not productive of exchange value. What Rakesh's figures show is the immense impact all this production of use values would have if it was taken on board by capitalist organizers and had to be purchased in the market. I assume that "sex work" was not included in Rakesh's figures. If we add that in, the effect would be even greater. What flows to big capital is not value from this production, but cheaper labour power. Cheers, Hugh PS On the question of whether big capital changes its spots, Steve P thinks it does. He quotes my exchange with Doug: >> >Perhaps Doug could enlarge on the important qualitative differences between >> >big capital now in the States and big capital then in Germany? >> >> Yeah, Germany was in the midst of a serious economic crisis, had lost a >> humiliating war, and radically reformist and revolutionary parties had a >> strong hold on the working class. Not far from Germany was the USSR, which >> to outside observers was going from strength to strength. None of those >> things is true in the U.S. today. Even places in the midst of real economic And writes: >Doug, you forgot to refer Hugh to a standard high school textbook where he >could get more info on such *hard* questions as the above one posed to >you.. steve So now I'm just waiting for Louis P to get on his high horse about Steve's sloppy, bourgeois handling of references. Or perhaps he only does his pedantic showpiece when he's attacking someone whose political and organizational principles he hates? --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005