File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9707, message 61


Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 10:27:40 +0200
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-TH: Re: Productive and unproductive labour


One or two points have been raised that need answering. This'll have to be
quick, unfortunately, I'm going away for some days and have to pack.

First, on the use of the distinction between productive and unproductive
labour. In the rush to write my last post it slipped my mind that the
central thing is of course the definition of the *core* of the working
class. The proletariat as such, owning nothing but its labour power, is one
thing, while the core of the proletariat, so to say, those engaged in
selling their labour power to capital and thus being exploited every day by
the normal running of the system, are strategically important in the
struggle against capitalist exploitation. Not just from the strike point of
view, as many non-productive sectors can damage capitalism if they down
tools, but from the awareness point of view.

Second, Rakesh brings in the uncompetitive aspect of state production:

>Well, to the extent that state or state-induced production cannot generally
>compete with private production (which would only contradict the stated
>objective of increasing the level of production and employment, see p. 150
>of Mattick's Marx and Keynes: the limits of the mixed economy), the former
>tends not to be commodity production; rather the state generally engages in
>public works, defense spending and expenditures of varied sorts.
>
>In this sense, labor in the state sector itself  is not generally employed
>to produce commodities at a (tendential) average rate of profit. Now the
>question becomes how will the state then finance these operations-- that
>is, whether through borrowing  and taxation the state can command the
>requisite surplus value to be turned into revenue exchanged for labor power
>while not draining the private sector of the surplus value required for
>robust accumulation.

This argument requires a more general view of value than is involved in
what the capitalists see as directly contributing to profit. Marx's
definition covers this. Leo C made the point about the necessity of
infrastructure, and I insisted on the role of the commodity labour power. I
think what happens here is that the political apparatus (looking after the
interests of the bourgeoisie as a whole) has to negotiate a compromise
between the productive needs of society (the productive forces which are
outgrowing capitalism so phenomenally, socializing behind the backs of
observers and actors) and the relations of production (the political
aspect, keeping revolution ie the actual transition to a socialist mode of
production at bay). So the production of value is organized to both
minimize social opposition if possible when necessary (welfare state
intervention in the production of the commodity labour power) and to
provide necessary large scale infrastructural commodities in the event of
market failure (ie the shortsightedness of capitalist investment
decisions). Obviously such intervention involves (yet) a(nother) distortion
in the classical operation of the system. What happens is that monopoly
constraints are introduced by political pressure.

The theoretical point both Rakesh and James H seem to be getting at is that
the investment cost for this is taken out of revenue rather than directly
from capital. But this needs to be looked at combining a national and an
international perspective. Nationally (perhaps because the rate of return
is insufficient or too uncertain, ie market failure) these sectors may be
organized by directly socialized operations rather than indirectly
socialized ones "masquerading" as capitalists. This creates a demand on the
part of "capitalists" (the quotes because these "individual" owners of
capital are far from the autonomous individual private capitalists of the
early nineteenth century -- Marx himself considered, as we've seen quoted a
number of  times now, the joint-stock company to be a kind of abolition of
capitalism within the framework of capitalism itself) -- as I said, it
creates a demand on the part of "capitalists" for privatization of the
sector involved and exploitation of the viable bits at the normal rate of
profit, while it also creates a demand on the part of "socialists" for more
socialized production allowing better allocation of labour to meet social
needs. But internationally the limits of this as a survival tactic for the
capitalist mode of production become clear, since interventions of this
kind (welfare state, public research etc) are part of the exploitative
relation between imperialist heartlands and semi-colonies. What these
interventions do is to further increase the efficiency of the capitals in
the heartland, enabling them to outcompete foreign capitals and command
higher prices (the value pump between nations, sucking value from low
capital high labour sectors/nations over to high capital low labour
sectors/nations). It should be obvious from the experience of the postwar
period with its boom in the heartlands till the mid-70s and the increasing
poverty and misery of the semicolonies that the welfare state and
large-scale public education & research etc are not viable alternatives for
poor countries in the capitalist set-up. They "cost" too much. They are an
inefficient, indirect rich man's solution.

The reason is that they are solutions raised on capitalist foundations. As
such they are distortions and indirect, and they're seen as charges not
investment. Even though they contribute to social surplus (produce more
value than they cost) they are anathema because they produce less than the
sky-high average rate of profit. Also their contribution to the surplus is
very difficult to calculate because of the nature of the commodity in one
case (labour power), and because of the exploded organization of the
production of commodities on the other (the actual components of the labour
process involved in designing and producing commodities are not always easy
to trace). This makes the argument from principle so necessary. I mean it's
bad enough to try and get to the bottom of the categories of wages, profit
and rent (as Marx managed to do in Capital) -- what we're facing today is a
society that's fetishizing back on itself, the fundamental categories are
so distorted by the historical situation of our epoch, where the capitalist
relations of productions are so totally inadequate to the needs of the
forces of production that this must be the social equivalent of the
gravitational pressures in a black hole.

This all ties in with arguments regarding the place of women and human
reproduction in our society, and with the issue of reform vs revolution.

Human reproduction is needed to provide labour power as a commodity within
capitalism, and the "private" organization of this social task is a way for
capitalism to gouge an advantage and depress wages. The pressures for this
will continue regardless as long as capitalism survives.

Which means that reforms within capitalism will solve nothing fundamental.
People will be no freer or more capable of developing their full potential,
even in the heartlands, while the exploitation of the majority of the
working class in the world will just get worse. The apparent possibility of
sitting on the fence between the capitalist and socialist blocs that seemed
to exist in such borderline models as Sweden and Yugoslavia has been blown
to pieces. The apparent possibility of sitting on the fence in the class
war (the Stalinist line of peaceful coexistence, Socialism in One Country
etc) has also been blown to pieces. The more capitalism gets its own way
(eg Thatcherism, Reaganomics) the worse things get for humanity and its
environment.

Reforms can make it easier to survive and to fight, but that's about it. If
you don't use them to fight for an end to the system, they just get clawed
back again sooner or later (Sweden, New Zealand etc). The same goes for
economism of course. In the US there was a period of high wages. It didn't
last.

Doug was wondering if the theory of value is the foundation of a
perspective of imminent catastrophe. But imperialism is catastrophe now,
apocalypse now, for the majority of humanity. "Imminent" is a relative term
historically speaking. What's involved is the fact that if things don't
change, the tensions I've described will just keep intensifying.
Something's got to give. This century so far we've seen two world wars,
fascism, the October revolution, other revolutions overturning capitalism,
lots of vicious wars against liberation, welfare state experiments etc etc.
Things give. The question is who does it and how.

Cheers,

Hugh








>In message <l03020901affdff5c7156-AT-[130.244.77.88]>, Hugh Rodwell <m-
>14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se> writes
>>There's been a lot of toing and froing about whether domestic labour and
>>cultural labour can be regarded as productive or not, and if so, whether it
>>really matters.
>>
>>1 Domestic labour
>
>...
>>
>>First, if the necessary costs of production aren't covered, the production
>>doesn't get done, the commodity isn't produced or is not up to standard.
>>With respect to labour-power this means people (the owners and bearers of
>>labour-power) die or can't perform the labour required of them. This is a
>>limit on the desire of capitalists to dispense with all workers of course,
>>the limit being the necessity to keep alive and keep reproducing a
>>sufficient supply of labour power to produce the profit necessary for
>>maintaining the capitalists at the standard to which they are accustomed.
>
>Marx mooted a family wage. ie that the raising of the next generation of
>workers and the daily reproduction of the wage labourer would be
>represented in the wage, meaning that the costs of maintaining a family
>would be an ordinary part of the value of labour power. Historically
>that family wage was something that arose out of a profound social
>conflict and legal intervention into the family (to exclude women and
>children from the workforce, make schooling compulsory and so on). In
>recent years in Britain and the US the family wage has been undermined
>(witness the growth of 'work-rich' families struggling to maintain
>living standards).
>
>>
>>Second, it doesn't matter how you twist or turn with the technicalities of
>>price, value, the labour process etc, these basics have got to be covered.
>>However indirect the passing of value to the producers of labour-power, it
>>has to get done. However tortuous the mechanisms of price, institution,
>>etc, those who add value to the commodity labour-power in the capitalist
>>mode of production *must* receive the minimal cost of maintaining their own
>>labour-power, or they will not be able to continue their work.
>
>This is a confusion of use-value and exchange value, surely. Domestic
>work contributes to the use-value of the commodity labour power - but
>since no exchange relationship exists between man and wife that work
>will never be reckoned in exchange value.
>
>This distinction might seem pedantic but it does have serious
>consequences. The most profound is that domestic work in capitalist
>societies remains privatised, isolating domestic workers from wider
>society. Arising out of that, there is no inherent tendency to raise
>productivity in the sphere of domestic work - despite some trivial
>labour saving devices, this remains a world of drudgery. Finally, the
>persistence of this unsocialised and unrewarded work is the material
>basis of women's oppression, excluding them from equal status in
>society.
>>
>>Which all means that under capitalism, health and education workers (say)
>>involved in the production of labour-power (variable capital), are
>>productive of value, even if the non-capitalist organization of some of
>>this (public sector schools and health services) leads to distortions in
>>the calculation of pricing and costing etc. These "services" are not the
>>same as the services of the private servants Marx discusses in Theories of
>>Surplus Value. For those who can't bring themselves to acknowledge these
>>producers of commodities as productive workers, there's always the
>>semi-cop-out of calling them "service workers".
>
>Yes, health workers (say) are not the same as servants. But there is a
>confusion here between what capitalism as a whole does through the state
>and the way that individual capitalists (the ordinary existence of
>capital) purchase labour-power. Employees in Britain's National Health
>Service do not produce a commodity labour power, they produce a use-
>value 'health'. Since they do not charge members of the public for their
>service, it never becomes a commodity and hence its 'value' is never
>represented in the value of the commodity labour power. The situation is
>of course quite different in the US, where rising health costs are a
>direct consideration for individual employers. In Britain, the state
>takes on the burden of providing health care (inadequately) because of
>the shortsighted behaviour of British capitalists, who would happily
>work their employees into an early grave. Britain's National Health
>Service might be a social necessity for capitalist reproduction, but it
>is not a source of surplus value, but rather a drain on profits (as they
>never tire of telling us).
>
>>
>>Remember all the time that our present imperialist stage of the capitalist
>>mode of production is so thoroughly socialized and planned behind the backs
>>of the actors in it and the relations of production, that this kind of
>>socialization of the production of the commodity labour-power under
>>capitalist appearances is the "natural" development. The Thatcherite model
>>of back to private production for everything is destructive of the social
>>need for skilled, healthy labour-power.
>>
>The only conditions under which the production of the commodity labour
>power could be socialised in a capitalist society would be wholly
>barbaric, since they would imply the end of the labourers' formal
>freedom to dispose of that commodity. Such conditions were close in the
>apartheid organisation of labour in barracks, or under slavery in the
>plantation system in the US.
>
>
>--
>James Heartfield
>
>
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