Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 10:59:37 -0500 From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu> Subject: Re: M-I: Work in Progress, Part 3 Nancy Brumback: >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. > Jim Devine hasn't gotten back to me. I just may go ahead and scan his damned article from the journal tonight and post it. Meanwhile, here's my own two cents and I am by no means a value theorist. The problem we seem to be dealing with is that Marx focuses on wage labor in order to expose the concealed nature of exploitation in the "free" market. In feudalism, the exploitation was highly visible. The serf worked x days for himself and y days for the lord. Under capitalism, this is disguised through the wage. The boss gives the worker x wages and the worker produces x+y. The y is only realized when the commodity is exchanged. The question of nature is secondary to Marx only because in itself, it is not a commodity. He is concerned with commodity production. Now James O'Connor has attempted to update Marxism with his "second contradiction" theory, which tries to account for contradictions that exist beyond the point of production. They were only implicit in Marx. Meanwhile, David Harvey has attacked this theory, but only implicitly, which is too bad. In his latest book, he trashes ecosocialism and defends what I view as a very sophisticated form of "workerism." There is a barely concealed contempt for "green" issues that don't directly affect the health of workers. Harvey simply doesn't get aroused by species extinction, for example. I plan to read and review Harvey's book as soon as I am finished with my articles on the American Indian and Marxism. Meanwhile, here is what I wrote about O'Connor a while back: ********* Dogmatic Marxism tends to sneer at green politics as reformist. After all, if Vice President Al Gore can write a book called "Fate of the Earth" that incorporate a number of environmental themes, how anticapitalist can the green movement be? In discussing the particular problem of cattle-ranching, it is not to hard for most list members to see that it is extremely destructive to precious resources such as soil, water and vegetation. Capitalist exploitation of these resources in order to provide cheap beef to the population of the advanced capitalist nations threatens to upset ecosystems that preserve all life, including human life. While in the process of upsetting ecosystems that took thousands of years to develop, capitalism also destroys the lives of campesinos who are expelled from precious land. That land which can produce corn and beans for the downtrodden of the South is instead used to satisfy the craving for beef in the North. James O'Connor, the founder and editor of the journal "Capitalism, Nature and Socialism", has traveled farther in developing a Marxist critique to these problems than any other contemporary thinker. His has articulated a theory of the "second contradiction of capitalism" that explains why environmental degradation is an integral element of capitalism today and not subject to reformist solutions. In an essay "Is Sustainable Capitalism Possible" that appears in a collection "Is Capitalism Sustainable" edited by Martin O'Connor (no relation), he defines both the first and second contradictions of capitalism. The first contradiction is generated by the tendency for capitalism to expand. The system can not exist in stasis such as precapitalist modes of productions such as feudalism. A capitalist system that is based on what Marx calls "simple reproduction" and what many greens call "maintenance" is an impossibility. Unless there is a steady and increasing flow of profits into the system, it will die. Profit is the source of new investment which in turn fuels technological innovation and, consequently, ever-increasing replacement of living labor by machinery. Profit is also generated through layoffs, speedup and other more draconian measures. However, according to O'Connor, as capital's power over labor increases, there will be contradictory tendency for profit in the capitalist system as a whole to decrease. This first contradiction of capital then can be defined as what obtains "when individual capitals attempt to defend or restore profits by increasing labor productivity, speeding up work, cutting wages, and using other time-honored ways of getting more production from fewer workers." The unintended result is that the worker's loss in wages reduces the final demand for consumer commodities. This first contradiction of capital is widespread throughout the United States and the other capitalist countries today. No amount of capitalist maneuvering can mitigate the effects of this downward spiral. Attempts at global management of the problem are doomed to fail since the nation-state remains the instrument of capitalist rule today, no matter how many articles appear in postmodernist venues about "globalization". The second contradiction of capital arises out of the problems the system confronts in trying to maintain what Marx called the "conditions of production". The "conditions of production" require three elements: *human labor power* which Marx called the "personal conditions of production", *environment* which he termed "natural or external conditions of productions" and *urban infrastructure*, the "general, communal conditions of production". All three of these "conditions of productions" are being undermined by the capitalist system itself. The form this takes is conceived in an amorphous and fragmented manner as the environmental crisis, the urban crisis, the education crisis, etc. When these problems become generalized, they threaten the viability of capitalism since they continue to raise the cost of clean air and water, raw materials, infrastructure, etc. During the early and middle stages of capitalism, the satisfaction of the "conditions of production" were hardly an issue since there was apparently an inexhaustible source of natural resources and the necessary space to build factories, etc. As capitalism reaches its latter phase in the twentieth century, the problems deepen until they reach crisis proportions. At this point, capitalist politicians and ideologues start raising a public debate about the urban and environmental crisis (which are actually interconnected). What they don't realize is that these problems are rooted in the capitalist system itself and are constituted as what O'Connor calls the "second contradiction". He says, "Put simply, the second contradiction states that when individual capitals attempt to defend or restore profits by cutting or externalizing costs, the unintended effect is to reduce the 'productivity' of the conditions of production and hence to raise average costs." O'Connor cites the following examples: Pesticides in agriculture at first lower, then ultimately increase costs as pests become more chemical-resistant and as the chemicals poison the soil. In Sweden permanent-yield monoforests were expected to keep costs down, but the loss of biodiversity has reduced the productivity of forest ecosystems and the size of the trees themselves. A final example is nuclear power which was supposed to reduce energy costs but had the opposite effect. If capitalism was a rational system, it would restructure the conditions of production in such a way as to increase their productivity. The means of doing this is the state itself. The state would, for example, ban cars in urban areas, develop non-toxic pest controls and launch public health programs based on preventative medicine. Efforts such as these would have to be heavily capitalized. However, competition between rival capitalisms, engendered through the pressures of the "first contradiction" (in other words, the need to expand profits while the buying power of a weakened working-class declines), destroy the possibility for such public investment. As such possibilities decline, the public infrastructure and the natural environment continue to degrade. Each successive stage of degradation in turn raises the cost of production. It is the combination of these two contradictions that will mark 21st century capitalism. Marxists have to be sensitive to both and devise ways to mobilize workers and peasants in a revolutionary struggle to abolish these contradictions once and for all. Louis Proyect --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005