RE: AUT: RE: Marxism and Education

["Harvie, David" <david.harvie@xxxxxxxxx>]

Harry,

Thanks for doing this; it's useful. I was going to attempt some sort of summary of where we substantially agree and where we disagree, and I think the question of whether teachers produce surplus value is our main point of disagreement.

Anyway, I've only just read your response --- been away and returned to way too much teaching labour, whatever its (un)productive status --- and I need to think about it a bit before I respond. So a few days...

David

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Harry M. Cleaver [mailto:hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: 25 February 2004 00:17
>To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: RE: AUT: RE: Marxism and Education
>
>
>David,
>Our conversation has gotten long, fragmented and somewhat
>convoluted. Let me respond to what I take to be the main point
>of your last intervention and work through the relationships
>at issue in a methodical, if somewhat tedious, manner. See below.
>
>On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Harvie, David wrote:
>
>> Harry wrote:
>>
>> > On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Harvie, David wrote:
>> >
>> > <snip>
>> > > But isn't the teacher's work an element of average SNLT for
>> > > "producing" the skills, attitudes, etc incorporating in the
>> > > graduate? So this work does indeed count.
>> >
>> > Of course it "counts" -  as part of the cost of producting labor
>> > power, but not in the production of surplus value because
>no surplus
>> > value is realized in the sale of labor power. As pointed out below.
>>
>> I accept no surplus value is realised in the sale of the
>labour-power,
>> but I'm arguing it is realised in the sale the commodity produced by
>> that labour-power. Hence, by employing the graduate capital exploits
>> both the graduate and the teacher.
>
>I don't see how you think this can occur. Let's take the
>standard case with waged labor that produces surplus value.
>The worker works with tools and raw materials and produces a
>product (a good or a service). The value input into that
>product is C+V+S, C from the tools and raw materials and V+S
>from the worker. The S derives entirely from the activity of
>the worker.
>
>Now let's back up the the chain, first with the means of
>production, then with labor power, the two inputs. Case A and
>Case B in what follows:
>
>Case A: the industrial circuit
>In the case of the tools and raw materials they too were
>produced by workers whose labor in producing them constituted
>a value V+S added to the C of tool depreciation and raw
>materials used up. Old value and new value added.
>
>Case B: the circuit of the reproduction of labor power
>In the case of labor power, its value, like the value of the
>means of production is the SNLT that goes into its cost of
>reproduction. But what is the cost of its reproduction? First,
>it's the value that capital has to allocate to its
>reproduction: the value of the workers' food, housing,
>clothing, etc., in other words the value of consumer goods and
>services necessary for the workers' reproduction that the
>worker pays for out of income. This is akin to C, it is, at
>any given moment, tho subject to struggle and change, a given
>cost - the relevant standard of living as measured by the
>consumption of goods and services. It is old value. Second,
>lets assume for the moment that the new labor, the labor of
>reproduction - of cooking food, of cleaning clothing, of
>teaching children - is akin to the new labor in the factory of
>using tools to work up raw materials into new products. In the
>factory that new labor adds to the old labor to become part of
>the labor that constitutes the value of the final product. But
>is this true with the labor of reproduction? Does cooking food
>add to the value of labor power? No, we have already agreed
>that it doesn't, indeed the greater the quantity of such work,
>the lower the value of labor power needs to be, i.e., the
>lower the value of the products capital needs to have workers
>produce to provide for themselves. In the case cited, of food,
>that unwaged domestic labor power means workers will consumer
>less valuable food worked up at home instead of more valuable
>food worked up in factories and bought ready made.
>
>So much for the first round. Now lets add a second cycle of
>circulation to the first and examine how what goes on in the
>first round appears in the second.
>
>Case A: The industrial circuit
>The final value of the product of the first cycle is C+V+S and
>that appears physically in the second cycle as either new
>means of production (MP) or new means of subsistence (MS), or
>some of each, bought by capitalists or workers as inputs into
>either a new industrial cycle, or a new cycle of reproduction.
>In either case the value is given, in the first case by C (for
>the purchasing capitalist) and in the second case by V for the
>purchasing workers who are spending their wages.
>
>Case B: The final value of the product - labor power - appears
>physically in the second cycle embodied in a human being who
>must be reproduced, again, and this embodied labor power (or
>ability and willingness to work) must be bought by some
>capitalist. Again, the value is given and is the amount V that
>the capitalist must provide to the workers so that they can
>purchase MS.
>
>Now you suggest that a surplus value is realized in the second
>industrial cycle from the work of reproduction accomplished in
>the first. So let's look at the relationship between those
>two, first as things stand, second with some change in the
>amount of work of reproduction in the first cycle.
>
>As things stand the work of reproduction in the first cycle
>produces labor power of a certain productivity, just like the
>industrial labor of the first cycle produces machines of a
>certain productivity. However, in value terms those machines
>and that labor power enter the second cycle at a given value -
>the value the capitalist pays for their employment. Unlike the
>machines, however, labor power may shirk or may be made to
>work longer or more intensely so the value it adds is
>variable. Therefore, it is clearly in the interest of the
>capitalist that the work of reproduction (in both the previous
>period and in the current period) be such as to result in more
>rather than less work. If it results in more work, then,
>ceteris paribus, it will result in more surplus labor (and
>thus, filtered through SNLT, more surplus value). But, the
>surplus value is the surplus labor performed in the this
>second cycle. Any increase in the surplus labor is the
>immediate result of more labor being performed by the workers
>in the industrial circuit, not by a change in the amount of
>reproductive labor.
>
>Let's look at what happens if there is a change in the amount
>of reproductive labor in the circuit of the reproduction of
>labor power. Let's suppose that a housewife, or a teacher,
>works harder at those things which will result in the waged
>worker working more, or more productively. (Let's leave aside
>for the moment the question of whether it is possible either
>to identify "those things" or to measure them.)
>
>Now, my reading of your statement that "I'm arguing [surplus
>value] is realised in the sale the commodity produced by that
>labour-power" can be interpreted to mean either or both of two
>things. Either the increased work of the worker in
>reproduction will be "realized", as it were, in the increased
>work of the worker in industry or that the increased work of
>the worker in reproduction will be realized in an increased
>productivity on the part of that worker. Increased work time
>or intensity would result in more absolute surplus value;
>increased productivity would result in more relative surplus value.
>
>In the first case, where the work of the worker in
>reproduction results in the reproduced worker working harder
>(longer or more intensely) the extra surplus value comes from
>the greater labor of the harder working industrial worker.
>That greater labor may be the result of the efforts of
>reproductive workers but it is not THEIR labor, it is that of
>the industrial worker.
>
>The second of these cases: if the work of the worker in
>reproduction results in higher productivity of the worker in
>industry, then the situation is parallel to what happens in
>Case A of two industrial circuits where the production of a
>more productive machine in the first cycle, bought up and put
>to work in the second, results in higher productivity and
>greater relative surplus value. Yes, there is greater surplus
>value but the surplus derives not from the work of producing
>the more productive machine but from the work of those who use
>it in such a way as to lower their own value (by producing
>lower per unit value consumer goods). So while the work of the
>worker in reproduction that resulted in a more productive
>worker may raise relative surplus value, that increase of
>surplus value still derives from the labor of the more
>productive worker.
>
>All of which shows, as far as I can see, the relationship
>between the work of producing labor power and the consequences
>for the "production" of surplus value. In no case is there any
>mechanism by which a "surplus labor" of a worker in
>reproduction shows up as part of the "surplus labor" embodied
>in a commodity produced by the "produced" worker.
>
>H.
>
>
>
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