Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 00:24:32 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Exploitation, unproductive labor



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. I have
written a number of longish (but clear!) articles on this, see e.g.,
"What'w Wrong With Exploitation>" Nous, June 1995, but I'll be brief here.

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. Or that I exploit my wife, who is supporting
me through law school, in taking the value that she produces and spending
it on my education. (Of courese some miught argue that I am....) 

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. 

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.

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

Some version of both theories might be true, and I think indeed are true,
although I would not cahracterize the unjustice issue in terms of theft.
But the unfrreedom issue ties moral and analytical questions together at
the heart of the explanation of how capitalism actually works. That should
be charcteristic of a real Marxist approach, dismissive of positivist
seperations between fact and vcalue and willing to let moral concerns do
explanatory work.   

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.
With respect to this issue, it is very odd to say that they are not
exploited. You could say this and say that they are just fominated and
coerced while productive laborers are also exploited. But then the
question is, whya re these workers treated just alive? Well, they are in
similar situations and capitalists make more money if they treat them that
way. In other words, the distinction does no work in this regard.

Things are worse on the theft version of the injustice theory. Productivbe
laborers are robbed, while unproductive laborers, producing no surplus
value, are not. As far as capitalism goes they would seem to have no
complaint. Of course both sorts of workers are forced to work and driven
at work, but that is apparently quite independent of the productive
laborers being robbed. They could be robbed even if thgey were not driven
and, in fact from a logical point of view, they could be robbed even if
they didn't haver to work for the bosses, but chose to anyway (say because
their wagesd were higher than what they could make on their own). This
version of the the injustice theory cutrs loose what's wroing with
exploitation from any real connection with the actual lives of workers or
the mechanisms of class struggle--resistance to dominatiuon, reduction of
coercion (e.g., by supporting unemployment insurance). 

So whatever good the productive-unproductyive distinction is for
mathematical purposes, which I doubt, it makes nonsense of the basic
analytoical and moral structure of Marxist theory. I say it's spinich and
i say to hell with it.

Now, Jerry briefly asseerts that I have failed to grasp a numbver of
crucial distinctions, which he does not explain, and asserts that without
the distinction you cannot do a number of things, which he likewise does
not explain. I wiull await his explanations before making up my mind. I
will say that I see no use for the distinction in modern mathematical
accounts of the structure of Marxist theory, e.g., Morishima, Desai, the
early Roemer (when he was more traditional) and so forth. And I would like
an account from Jerry, or someone, about how Marx can insist that value is
an aggregate notion and still trace the individual contributions of
particular workers, as the P-U distinction seems to require. 

My own skepticism about the value of the distinction may derive in part
>from my own dfoubts about the analytical utility of value theory. I think
that the notions of surplus and surplus transfer are key, and that it's OK
to talk about value in a general way, as referring to whatever it is in
virtue of which commodities exchange in stable ratios, without tying this
to labor content either by stipulation, as Marx does, or as some sort of
empiriacl claim, as Cockshott and Cantrill do. I think it's more usful to
think of the labor theory of value as sort of an elliptical way of saying
that workers are exploited in capitalism rather than a purported
explanation of that fact. Given my perspective, we will not be interested
in tracing flows of value through the economy in abstraction from the
issue tow hich value theory points us: the exploitation of labor. I
confess to being inflouenced here by Sraffa, or the neo-Sraffa critque oif
value as a fifth wheel which does no explnatoiry work on its own.

--Justin  




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