Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 17:57:42 +0200
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: Re: Exploitation, unproductive labor
Cc: jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us


Justin continues to nag at important questions when he writes on m2:

>I disagree with Hugh and Jorn when they say we should distinguish, as
>Marxists, between an unmoralized notion of exploitation as surplus
>transfer (what Hugh calls donating unpaid labor to the bosses) and the
>moral notion of exploitation as brutally driving people to work.


>The plain surplus transgfer notion, that exploitation is just the transfer
>of surplus (value, in capitalism) from surplus makerrs to surplus takers
>has the unfortunate result that, as the Republicans insist, it is
>exploitation to tax thew orkers to pay for the upkeep of the poor and
>those unbale to work. Also that our children exploit us when we transfer
>our wages to their upkeep. [snip]
>
>The point of these examples is that what's interesting about the surpluds
>transfer involved in the employment relation is that there's something
>morally wrong with it. It's not exploitation to be taxed for the upkeep
>the poor, or to have to support your children, or to give money to your
>nonworking spouse, because these are all morally OK in various ways.

The transfer from surplus makers to surplus takers, although a pretty
phrase, gets it wrong. Where my family and comrades are concerned I am able
to donate both my labour and my past labour (money) *voluntarily*. The
relationship of a worker to a capitalist is not voluntary, as Justin is
well aware. And it is the built-in, compulsory transfer of unpaid labour
time from the worker to the capitalist (by the mechanism of paying a real
equivalent for labour-power but appropriating the higher value that the
labour of this labour-power produces) that is the characteristic feature of
capitalist exploitation, even when the system is running smoothly and the
overseers don't crack whips or send people to their death. This goes for
both workers producing surplus value and those employed to minimize the
time and cost of circulation (transforming the capital from its commodity
form to its money form).

>
>There are two theories about what capitalist exploitation of workers is
>wroing. One is that it is unjust. Typically people put this in terms of
>theft: the workers are entitled to the value they produce, or anyway to
>the surplus, an the capitalists wrongfully take advnatage of asymmetric
>power relations to which they are not in fairness entitled to steal from
>the workers. Of course this does bot require that the capitalists dtive
>the workers: work could be very nice and still robbery. Most Marxists (but
>not Marx) probably think something along these lines even if threy
>ostentiably reject moralistic talk, as Hugh does.

Marx is very much aware of principles of equal exchange. He is quite clear
about the exchange of variable capital for labour-power being an equivalent
exchange that involves the handing over of non-equivalent -- unpaid for --
value to the capitalist in the form of the labour the labour-power
produces. This is in fact the foundation of his analysis of capitalism as
systematic expropriation, exploitation and, in fact, theft.


>The other theory is that exploiuttaion is wroing because it deprivesw
>orkers of their freedom, by driving them at work, by forcing them to work
>or starve. This was Marx's view.

There is no contradiction here. Justin is making a false distinction.
Depriving me of the right to dispose of the produce of my labour in free
association with all other producers is depriving me of my freedom,
regardless of the conditions in which the expropriation is carried out.

>It can be proven that logically
>capitalism need not involve domination, driving workers at work,

Go ahead and try! This is the Austro-Marxist line (Bauer and co) and the
line of any number of reformists. 'If only the capitalists and their
politicians used our proposals for fair distribution of wealth, everything
would be dandy and we'd all be a lot better off.' It assumes that
capitalism under enlightened management can be a well-behaved, smoothly
purring production machine. This is historical lunacy. In some imperialist
countries during the postwar boom there may have been material grounds for
such an illusion -- if an observer deliberately restricted his perspectives
and turned off his critical faculties -- otherwise it's a deliberate
falsification of the essential character of the capitalist mode of
production.


>although
>as a matter of fact domination is so useful for maximizing surplus
>extraction that capitalists always use it, and so exploitation explains
>domination. Of course, since the existence of a propetrtyless class of
>workers is logically necessary for capitalism, what I call coercion, the
>structural asymmetry that forces workers to work or starve, is necessaru
>for capitalist exploitation. (Though not for all types).

Well, who would have thought it!


>Now this relates to the unproductivbe labor question as follows. So called
>unproductive laborers, at least on the freedom theory, have to work just
>as productive laborers do, and are dominated at work in the sajme way.

The thing here is that unproductive workers selling their labour to
capitalists are exploited by donating unpaid labour time. They are not and
cannot be exploited by donating unpaid value (surplus value) as they do not
produce any. They are at one remove from the exploitative heart of
capitalist production, so to say. As members of the proletariat, with
nothing but their labour-power to sell, they could become productive of
surplus value tomorrow, productive of nothing (as unemployed) or just keep
on reducing the time and cost of circulation.


The rest of Justin's posting is covered by these principles.

Cheers,

Hugh


PS Our Jesuit friend Peter B does a first-class job (on m2) of analysing
the questions of coercion and will involved in Justin's argument.




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