Re: The MIM Debate Reply

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I feel the contribution below is valuable for
clarifying what we are actually arguing about.
I accept that not suprisingly perhaps Marx used the word
productive in more than one way, in relation to labour.

It would be helpful to note the year of the article, and
if convenient even the paragraph number as we often have
different editions.

The other big issue is whether we primarily view these
questions from a global point of view or the point of view
of the economy of one first world country. I have little
doubt that we must do both, but there is a strong marxist
claim to regard the global perspective as of higher
importance.

And now, perhaps after the reference, if convenient, I must
ask subscribers to stop copying me in to debates, as I will never
catch my plane to Berlin. (I have a rather obsessional personality -
sorry, Louis, the first chapter of my book is reserved for me).

I look forward to examining the debate in two or three weeks
time.

Chris B., London.
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 > From mim3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fri Oct 13 02:35:45 1995
 > Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 21:38:46 -0400 (EDT)
 > From: Maoist Internationalist Movement <mim3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 > To: Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>
 > Cc: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 > Subject: Re: The MIM Debate Reply
 > Mime-Version: 1.0
 >
 >
 > On Sun, 8 Oct 1995, Chris Burford wrote:
 >
 > >
 > > I do think Pat confuses the Marxist use of the word "productive" meaning
 > > productive of surplus value for the capitalist, with the issue of the
 > > increased range of commodities in the advanced countries that
 > > cater for culturally shaped needs of the mind rather than the stomach.
 > >
 >
 > Pat for MIM replies: Marx himself tangled with an issue that Chris Burford
 > says I tangled up.
 >
 > I have different reasons than Marx for tangling the issue
 > of an international wage standard (the reproduction of labor-
 > power) and productive labor. Burford says I confuse the
 > commodities for the stomach with productive labor. I need to
 > do that because I need to discuss the different economic
 > components that make up the labor aristocracy.
 >
 > Yet according to Marx, even in his day, there is a limit to how far luxury
 > consumption can go, anyway.
 >
 > "A great part of the annual product which is consumed as income and no
 > longer returns to production as means of production consists of the most
 > nefarious products (use-values), satisfying the most unhealthy
 > envies and caprices. However that may be, their content is
 > completely indifferent as regards determining productive labour."
 >
 > [Thus far this is what Chris is saying.]
 >
 > "(It is obvious, however, that if a disproportionate part was consumed
 > in this way, at the expense of the means of production and
 > subsistence which enter into the reproduction whether of goods
 > or of the labour force, the development of wealth would suffer
 > a stoppage)."
 >
 > [Here I say that we need only remember the starving superexploited
 > workers of the Third World.]
 >
 > "Here are some comments in advance about this subject: current
 > economics is incapable of saying anything sensible whatever--
 > even from the capitalist point of view--on the limits of
 > the production of luxury products. . . .
 >
 > "For the workers, this productive labour is, like any other,
 > the sole means of which he disposes to reproduce his
 > necessary means of subsistence. For his capitalist,
 > who is indifferent to the nature of use-value and to the character
 > of utilized concrete labour, it is only a means of coining money and of
 > producing surplus value."
 >
 > (Karl Marx, "Results of the Immediate Process of Production,"
 > Karl Marx Selected Writings, David McLellan ed. Oxford U. Press, 1977),
 > p. 514.
 >
 > Hence, there are different class views of productive labor.
 > A socialist vision entails the necessary means of subsistence
 > first.
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