Re: FROP

[Philip Ferguson <plf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

dlaw writes:

>Now the owners replace the lone operating engineer with a new computer
>program (not even a new computer, mind you, just a program).  The "surplus
>value" from "living labor" just went to zero.  Does the profit go instantly
>to zero?  Does it become infinite?  We have inarguably reduced this
>fundamentalist Marxian variable to zero and yet nothing looks all that
>different to me from the capitalist's perspective.


Funny then, that the capitalists haven't actually done this.

But then, you clearly would not make a very good capitalist.

Even the most bone-headed capitalist is confronted with material reality
and ends up having to exploit human labour-power in order to maintain
profits.

The idea of totally mechanised production was the capitalist fantasy of the
1960s.  We are stil waiting for it to become a reality.

Now what could possibly have intruded?

Oh, surprise, surprise, all the major capitalist countries in the world -
ie the ones that had been replacing human labour-power with increasingly
sophisticated and extremely expensive technology, machines etc - were hit
with falling profit rates and went into recession in the 1970s.

And how did they attempt to get out of this recession?  Surprise, surprise
again - it wasn't by replacing all their workers with machines (which would
be the answer if dlaw was right).  No, instead they drove down the level of
wages and stepped up the rate of exploitation.  They had to do this before
they could afford to renew their machines and technology.  It seems that
our actual capitalists, as opposed to our internet capitalist ideologues,
have some kind of grasp, although it's not a conscious one, of the
relationship between human labour-power, value, price and profit.

Philip Ferguson







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