RE: [AUT] Productivity

["Paul Bowman" <helvetius@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Tahir,

sorry about the delay in response, my access to email etc. is a bit
intermittent. I'm going to reply to your points inline which I accept
can get pretty messy and hard to read, but I can't see any other way
of doing it so I'll just have to crave folks' indulgence.


> From: "Tahir Wood" <twood@xxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: "Autonomia, Operaismo,and Class Composition" 
> <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: RE: [AUT] Productivity
> Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:49:47 +0200
>
> Paul thanks, I read this very carefully and then went and read the
> article of yours that you cited. It was quite informative, but I'm not
> clear enough to say whether I agree with you on any of the specific
> points. So I'd like to initiate a little dialogue if that's possible by
> taking up some of the points below. (It may be that I am
> misunderstanding you).
> Tahir
>
> >>> "Paul Bowman" <helvetius@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 04/20/07 6:02 PM >>>
> Hi Tahir,
>
> On the subject of productivity, I'm afraid I haven't directly responded
> to
> your point by point question, but I'll throw in the following in case
> it is
> of any interest/help:
>
> Productivity is at the heart of the molecular conflict that is at the
> base of all other contradictions of capitalist. That is that the
> economic relations are such that the individual interest is
> fundamentally opposed to the interest of society as a whole (as
> William Thompson* noted back in the 1820s). It is in the interest of
> society as a whole that productivity levels in a given line of
> production increases, but it is against the interest of the individual
> producer to pass on, disclose or circulate advances they have
> discovered as this would either result in a loss of the opportunity
> for individual accumulation (or reduction of necessary work) at the
> expense of others, and/or, in the situation of capitalist employment,
> the likelihood of increased productivity allowing capitalists to
> reduce the workforce. My personal introduction to the central role of
> productivity in both the class struggle and the central contradictions
> of capitalist society was my father's observation to me back in the
> mid-80s that the steel industry of Western Europe had, within the 20
> years he had then been working in it, gone from employing over 1
> million men to just around 100,000 and yet the amount of steel being
> produced was still roughly the same. Good news for society as a whole,
> pretty crap news for 900,000 european steel workers (though a mate of
> mine, himself an ex-Sheffield steel worker, did once make the point
> that steel mills weren't exactly the pleasantest or healthiest places
> to work, to be fair).
>
> Tahir: I would say that this is not good news for society as a whole;
> in this context it is good news rather for the corporation and its
> shareholders. It would only be good news for society as a whole in a
> more communal form of society. The main problem with productivity under
> capitalism is that it is itself driven by the need to compete, rather
> than anything else. As such it very seldom benefits society as a whole.
> And in the longer run its harms to society may turn out to be prodigious
> (mass unemployment, environmental degradation, you name it.) I think I
> know what you're getting at in the above but I would be much more
> careful in the way that I put it than you have been. I would say that
> productivity is potentially better for society, but mostly only on
> condition that that 'society' is not capitalist!

Agreed in some ways "society as a whole" is a little too abstract and
ahistorical. Also, as you pointed out, it's important to note in the
whole discussion over productivity, that in a non-capitalist context,
labour-time is only one cost among many - it may be that a more
optimum process is one that requires slightly more labour-time at the
gain of greatly reduced environmental cost for e.g.

> My take on this is to call it the "productivity
> paradox" as in...
>
> "The system of exchange valued by labour time introduces the
> 'productivity paradox' - the longer you take to produce a given output
> the more of another's output you can exchange it for. Conversely the
> more efficient you are in producing your output, the less you get in
> exchange for it. The productivity paradox is that labour value
> incentivizes inefficiency and disincentivizes efficiency. This is why
> capitalism necessitates that the promotion of efficiency is
> specialised off as a management function over and against the
> interests of the productive workforce. The roots of class conflict in
> production are to be found in the productivity paradox arising
> directly out of exchange by labour time value itself." (from "What is
> Communism" http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=1555)
>
> Tahir: You only get more for working 'unproductively' if everyone is
> doing it that way. It only takes one captitalist to up the organic
> composition of capital and then everyone else has to do it or go
> bankrupt. It is also not the case always and everywhere that the worker
> is worse off under a more productive regime. The 'relative surplus value
> strategy' is usually accompanied by a shorter working week than it was
> before and, some of us might say, a raising of the general intellect.
> But it is not clear in the above paragraph whether the 'you' that is
> mentioned is the capitalist or the worker, so maybe I'm misunderstanding
> you?

Umm, pedantic point perhaps, but I don't think 'unproductive' is a
helpful term here for two reasons: a) we're talking about productive
activity, so 'unproductive' productive activity is unnecessarily
confusing (plus it's a bit normative as well); b) we don't want to get
confused with the discussion about productive vs. unproductive labour
from the Results of the Immediate Process of Production, which is a
seperate debate, albeit important. </pendantry>

The you is the wage-worker (us) here not the capitalist (them)
otherwise I agree the above wouldn't make much sense - the whole point
is you're paid by the hour (week, month, whatever). Also I think
you may be focussing a little too much on the idea that the power to
increase productivity is the initiative of the capitalist rather than
the autonomous power of the workers over productivity (both to speed
up and to slow down). I mind the example of when they closed down a
car plant near Sunderland in the 80s and the union negotiated a final
deal with the management - the workers would get the final months pay
up front in return for a month's worth of cars - they went in and made
the cars in 3 days. Also, in an increasing number of fields of
"immaterial" or "cognitive" labour, both the ability and
responsibility of changing the technical process of production is
being moved down from capitalist or management levels to actual end
workers. For e.g. as an IT techie, the person with the ability to
revoltionise my working methods is not my management (who wouldn't
know how), but me, and that's part of my job. But I digress...


> further an appreciation of how productivity is at the heart of the
> economic contradictions of capitalism helps understand the historic
> failure of "really existing socialism" or state capitalism. To whit...
>
> The central error of the Gothakritik is the uncritical acceptance
> of the notion, inherited from capitalist ideology, that the wage
> is an incentive to promote increased production and
> the "development of the forces of production".
>
> Tahir: I would be little careful here. Without wanting to defend the
> Critique in any detail, I do recall that Marx did not defend a money
> wage there as such, but rather some other measure of value. There is a
> difference.

The relevant quote here is:

   "He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished
   such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for
   the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the
   social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of
   labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society
   in one form, he receives back in another.

   Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which
   regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange
   of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the
   altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor,
   and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership
   of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far
   as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers
   is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of
   commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is
   exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form."

(from http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm)

A great deal of stuff has been written on why these labour
certificates are distinct from either money or the labour notes such
as Robert Owen's (and John Gray & Josiah Warren's) National Equitable
Labour Exchange scheme, or Proudhon's later schemes - which Marx,
following Thompson, quite rightly rejects in Poverty of Philosophy and
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. See for example the
Japanese marxist Tadayuki Tsushima's "Understanding 'Labor
Certificates' on the Basis of the Theory of Value" at the MIA
(http://www.marxists.org/subject/japan/tsushima/labor-certificates.htm)
But beyond all the hair-splitting and hegelian contortions, the basic
principle remains that the share of the social product to which the
individual has access is proportional to the labour contributed - for
me that's a wage system. It's still the same competitive principle that
sets the interest of the individual against the interest of
society. The attempt to limit the exchangeability etc. of these labour
certificates will be immediately familiar to anyone who's done time in
prison, because it's exactly the same system as is currently used to
try and ban money and exchange between prisoners - it doesn't work, a
suitable consumption commodity such as tobacco or phone cards simply
fills the role of means of exchange.

>  If, however, we
> take the productivity paradox to it's ultimate implications, we
> see that, counter-intuitively, in actual operation the wage has
> the opposite outcome to its intended effect, rather than being an
> incentive to increasing production, it disincentivises efficient
> working and the sharing and spreading of innovations in
> productivity.
>
> Tahir: I'm sorry I really don't understand what you're getting at here,
> but yet I sense that  the above formulation is at the heart of your
> argument. I don't see what you mean by the wage's "intended effect"
> here. In my marxist view, the only intended effect of the wage that I
> know about is to reproduce labour power. You seem to be confusing the
> wage with invested capital here, what marxists call variable capital and
> constant capital, or else you are positing some relationship between
> these two that I really don't understand. Could you clarify?

All other things being equal (which they're currently not), the
reproduction of labour power could equally well be effected by a
universal equal basic income, unrelated to productive activity. By
intended effect of the wage I am talking of the ideology of the wage
within the current dominant ideology - the wage as incentive, without
which people would not work. The ideology which conditions not only
bosses but workmen in the pub to greet the concept of people "working
for nothing" as an evident absurdity - despite the reality of the
unwaged labour that already surrounds us and without which current
society couldn't function. I'm specifically arguing against the need
or desireability of retaining the wage (call it labour certificates,
it make no difference) in a post-capitalist society for any
"transitional" or "lower" phase.

I'm sorry I don't follow the question about invested capital here?

>  Within the private property relations of capitalism
> the drive to accumulate serves to counter-balance this braking
> effect of the wage. However, in the context of the state
> socialism of Marx's lower phase, the possibilities of accumulation
> being denied to productive workers able to out-perform the current
> level of productivity in their field, the only way to benefit from the
> advance is to reduce the actual amount of work done during the
> official work day. The end result over time is the historic irony of
> worker's states where, most of the time, no one actually works,
> despite official full employment.
>
> Tahir: Don't understand again, but this reasoning looks hugely suspect
> on the surface.

As a materialist analysis of the failures of state socialism,
particularly as regards productivity, it's not complete. We would also
need to talk about the effects of mergeing the master/slave and
owner/chattel relationships back together when the distinction between
state and employer is removed and the resulting inefficiencies, but
that whole topic should probably be hived off for a proper treatment
on its own.

> Finally, the importance of the productivity paradox as opposed to the
> attribution problem, as used by Kropotkin in "The Wages System" to
> deconstruct the Collectivism of de Paepe and Marx, is that the latter
> concentrates only on the ethico-political question of justice. Whereas
> productivity brings in the question of productive efficiency as well,
> which helps to explain phenonema like the free software movement where
> the participants have adopted a communist mode of production not out
> of political conviction (indeed the likes of Eric Raymond would
> probably have a heart attack if they thought they were advocating
> communism, which just makes it funnier...) but simply because it was
> the most effective and efficient way of getting the job done.
>
> Tahir: I recognise nothing of Marx in this phrase "concentrates only on
> the ethico-political question of justice". I really mean this quite
> literally, without wanting to be argumentative. I think you are too keen
> to find some 'fatal flaw' in Marx that explains the failure of the state
> capitalist regimes, but it is not clear at all that you are familiar
> with Marx's critique of political economy. The most relevant pieces of
> Marx for me on the question of productivity, would be the 'fragment on
> machines' in the Grundrisse, the bits and pieces from Capital on formal
> and real subsumption of labour, and of course his whole treatment of the
> organic composition of capital.

Soory, my garbled sentences again. "concentrates only on the
ethico-political question of justice" relates not to the Collectivism
of Marx (and de Paepe - who's possibly more important in the formation
of the libertarian communist position via the debates over his "public
service theory" within the St. Imier International 1873 - 1876), but
to Kropotkin's use of the attribution problem in The Wage System
(http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/kropotkin/wages.html) to
deconstruct Collectivism. This was a point about the limitations of
Kropotkin's argument, not Marx's. Indeed one of the consistent traits
of Marx's work AFAICS was a deliberate attempt to separate socialist
critique from the ethical or moralising - an important corrective to
much of what passed for socialism of the time.

As for my attitude to Marx - in general I'm with Guattari
(http://sidewinder.blogsome.com/2006/10/06/guattari-on-marxism/),
i.e. that I don't consider the work as some kind of monolithic system
that can be said to be "right" or "wrong" in some meaningful way. I
distinguish between his contribution to the critique of political
economy (Capital, Grundrisse, etc.) - which I find highly useful, if
incomplete - and the political strategies he advocated at different
stages in his life - which are barely worth discussing (e.g. the
continuing obsession with war with Russia). The same equally applies
to many other theorists I find useful e.g. Thompson - experimental
communities (puhleeze!), Cafiero, Malatesta & co. - propaganda by the
deed (i.e. let's bemuse some peasants in a remote hill village and
call it an insurrection, sheesh!). But to answer your question, I am
relatively familiar with Marx's critique of political economy, I just
don't think it's the end of the story. The fragment on machines raises
a whole other debate given the way it's been used by Negri and others
as justification for claiming an end to the operation of the law of
value. Personally I'm not sold on that position, I find Massimo de
Angelis' (see his recent "Beginning of History") interpretation that
the imposition of measure is a fundamental part of capital's operation
so that talk of the end of the law of value is premature, to say the
least, a lot more enlightening.

> Sorry this is so fragmentary but it's cobbled together from various
> pieces I'm struggling with at the moment.
>
> Tahir: Paul, please understand I'm not in any sense hostile to
> anarchism. I personally believe that marxism and anarchism are the two
> broken parts of the communist movement that need to be put together
> again ultimately. It is true that Marx didn't go on to write much about
> post-capitalist society, but his critique of political economy is way
> more sophisticated than many anarchists suppose or than you are giving
> him credit for here. Once again my apologies if I have misunderstood
> you.

No apologies needed. My contributions were overly compressed and need
working out properly in readable english (or any language for that
matter :). By pointing out the bits that are unclear or don't make
sense to you, you're helping me sort out what I need to work on more,
for which thanks. As for the relationship between marxism and
anarchism in relation to communism, I broadly agree. Though from
another perspective I would see both in the context of a trio of
tendencies, the third being pragmatism/reformism. These three
tendencies, the analytical, the confrontational and the pragmatic each
have their dangers when taken to their own extreme - dogmatic analysis
divorced from any practical activity, "headless chicken" activism
without theory or direction or reformism to the extent of changing
nothing at all. I think these three tendencies are present not just in
the history of the socialist (in the broadest sense) movement, but as
ever-present tendencies within all movements. The trick is to find a
progressive way between these three poles of attraction. Anyway,
enough blether...

cheers,

Paul

<snip>

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