File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9802, message 256


From: brumback-AT-ncgate.newcollege.edu
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 19:48:02 -0800
Subject: M-I: Work in Progress, Part 3


Finally, the last part of my essay on Labor, Nature and Value. Here I think
I have shown that women, poor people, people of color, gay people, disabled
people, young people, old people, and people who are interested in stopping
the destruction of nature are the class of people who may lead the world to
socialist revolution -- not the working class.

Thank you for your time and interest.

In hopes for a better future for all people,

Nancy


*       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
	


        Part 3. 
	A Theory of Unpaid Value as Surplus Value

Indeed, as Bunker has illustrated, to criticize value theory without
offering an alternative is to leave the problem of the labor theory of value
unresolved. In this section, I will attempt to show how it is all labor,
along with nature, which creates value, and how it is the wealth contributed
by women, 3rd World workers, people of color, poor people, and nature, etc.,
which constitutes surplus value, and thus accounts for the wealth reflected
in the bank accounts of international capital.

To achieve the goal described above, I will have to draw on various elements
of the argument I have elaborated thus far. Begging your indulgence for any
distracting redundancies, I will revist the concepts of (1) paid labor and
unpaid labor, which I have already defined as labor which is economically
coerced (i.e., "free"), and labor which is coerced through an externally
imposed force, respectively; (2) the value of labor-power, which Marx has
defined as the value of the "necessaries" required to produce the laboring
power, and (3) the Marxian idea that labor-power is unique among
commodities, because it produces more value than it possesses.

In the light of the ecological knowledge gained since Marx lived and wrote,
this last idea that labor produces more value that it possesses should make
us suspicious. Ecological systems, of which human society is one, produce no
surpluses. Instead, such systems cycle and recycle all their components
through many forms, over and over again. If anything, according to the 2nd
law of thermodynamics, which was discovered in the late 19th century, energy
is lost when all of these transformations occur. As Carolyn Merchant as
noted, nature has taught us that in ecological systems, "there is no free
lunch."

But assuming that labor power does not produce more value than it possesses,
we are then in a quandry as to being able to define surplus value, because
surplus value according to Marx was the value which the capitalist realized
from the labor of the worker, but for which he did not pay. Surplus value
was the value over and above the cost of the labor-power, the part of the
value of labor-power which was greater than its cost. According to Marx,
part of the value of the labor of the worker was paid, and part of it was
unpaid. As we have seen, this unpaid value of abstract labor was surplus value.

I will agree with Marx on this point: that the unpaid value of labor indeed
constitutes surplus value (though I will contend that is not the sole
constituent, as we will soon see). But since I have already disputed Marx on
the issue of whether labor is a commodity which produces more value than it
is worth, I must also dispute his analysis that only the unpaid value of
abstract labor constitutes surplus value.

To pin down the issue of whether and how much of the value of abstract labor
constitutes surplus value, I will define the value of abstract labor simply
as that amount of cash which, under prevailing market conditions such as
supply, demand, and local inflation, the capitalist must pay for the labor
of heterosexual, able-bodied males of a certain age and the dominant race of
the country in question. Thus, all of the value of the abstract labor
performed by these workers is paid, and no part of it constitutes surplus
value. 

When, on the other hand, the workers in question are too old, too young, too
queer, not able-bodied enough, or of or the wrong race or sex, only part of
the value of their abstract labor will be paid. The difference between the
market cost of their abstract labor and the abstract labor of the
able-bodied male of the correct age and race, etc., will represent an amount
of cash which is not paid to the worker, but kept by the capitalist. Unpaid
value derived by the capitalist class in this way, i.e., through racism,
sexism, and other discriminatory hiring practices, is a constituent of
surplus value.

And as sexism supports discriminatory hiring practices against women, so it
supports the capitalist practise of paying absolutely nothing for the
domestic labor which produces each generation of workers. Thus, all of the
value of the labor of women in the family is unpaid, and all of it
contributes to surplus value. 

In fact, as we have seen, besides domestic laborers, other reproductive
laborers contribute to the care and maintainence of the entire global work
force. These teachers, medical care workers, social workers, etc., are paid
for their labor, but they are paid by the family or the taxpayers -- not by
the capitalist class. The value of their labor, therefore, is unpaid
relative to the capitalist class, and is thus a constituent of surplus value.

And in the same way that the unpaid value of the labor of women in the
family constitutes a portion of surplus value, so does the unpaid value of
the labor of slaves. In the case serfs, sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and
all other semi-proletarians, i.e., those workers who do not fully support
themselves on their wages, part of the value of their labor is paid, and
part is unpaid. The amount of cash that they receive in wages represents the
paid portion of their labor, and the remainder of the value of their labor
is unpaid: another constituent of surplus value.

And finally, in this listing of the constituents of surplus value, I will
add the value of the natural materials consumed in the production of
commodities, which the capitalist realizes when commodities are sold, but
for which nothing is returned in exchange. Part of this value of natural
materials might be paid value, as in when one buys a piece of land. Again,
the unpaid value would be the difference between the amount of cash that was
given as a purchase price, and the amount that was realized when commodities
produced from the land were sold, e.g., all the lumber and minerals that
were on the land to begin with, in addition to anything that might be grown
on the land. 

So now, we have looked separately at each constituent of surplus value. It
remains only to look at surplus value as a whole, of which all the
constituents are part. You might be asking, to what are you attaching value
if not to time expended in abstract labor? The answer is in Marxian thought
itself, i.e., in the idea that labor is socially integrated only through the
market dynamic: though the ranking of commodities by their value, and
therefore the prices for which they are sold. 

But whereas when Marx talked about the "social integration of labor," he
meant only abstract labor, I of course will mean every kind of
value-producing labor that was expended to create the commodity, and will
add the value contributed by all the natural materials consumed in the
process. Surplus value, then, is the total amount of value received for the
commodity after subtracting the paid portion of the abstract labor and
natural materials which are used to create it. Every other part of surplus
value is unpaid value, whether the unpaid value of labor, or the unpaid
value of nature.

To determine what percent of the total of surplus value is contributed by
nature, what percent by women, what percent by people of color, etc., it
will be necessary to look at the social and ecological characteristics of
each locality in which commodities are produced. Commodities produced in the
3rd World, for example, will have a higher percentage of value derived from
nature and unpaid/underpaid workers than commodities produced in the 1st
World. Commodities produced in the 1st World will have a higher percentage
of value derived from domestic labor, and from the unpaid value of the
abstract labor of workers of subordinated races.

In general, since in the 1st World most of the natural resources of been
used up, most of the surplus value which is derived from nature originates
in the 3rd World. And since the workers of the 1st World are much more
highly paid than the workers of the 3rd World, most of the surplus value
which is derived from labor originates in the 3rd World. The 1st World
performs an important function in the global economy, however, for workers
there provide the market for 80% of the world's production of consumer
commodities, and thus keep world capital in circulation. 

More nuances of the relations of value, capital, labor, and nature
undoubtedly could be found in the above analysis. It is my purpose here,
however, to show only that in many ways, Marx's labor theory of value is
irrational, and that my theory, that all labor and all nature creates value,
is rational. 

But the implications for Marxist theory go far beyond merely the value form
and of what it consists. Because if my theory is correct, no materialist
base exists for the historic working class of Marx as a revolutionary class.
Instead, the revolutionary class is the class of unpaid and underpaid
workers, women, people of color, poor people, disabled people, gay people,
old people, young people, and people who are interested in stopping the
destruction of nature. A great deal more could be written on that idea, and
many changes in revolutionary strategy could be forthcoming.




copyright 1998 by Nancy Brumback, San Francisco, CA










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