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 --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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