Labor aristocracy

[Charles Brown <BrownBingb@xxxxxxx>]

From: dan@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dan Peyser)
and

From: Mike Ballard <swillsqueal@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


Dan: There are two ways of extracting more surplus value from workers:
increasing their productivity,
which is why there is always a constant drive to revolutionize the means of
production, or paying
them less.

______

CB: As I read Marx's discussion of this , the typical capitalist introduces
new instruments of production that increase productivity ,not to increase the
rate of exploitation, but to be able to produce more commodities at the same
wage and thereby get an advantage on competitors who don't have the new ,
more efficient instruments of production or constant capital. See discussion
of lower pay issue below.

This also responds to Mike Ballard.  I'm tempted to respond to Mike Ballard
by saying "no ,you are wrong", but that wouldn't develop the argument very
logically, would it ? You've got to make an argument , like "wrong
because..." ,not a conclusory assertion, Mike.

________


>CB: surplus value per unit commodity. So, workers working with higher
> technological instruments of production, i.e. less labor intensive
production
> is less rich in surplus value. Workers in imperialist countries and

Dan: Just because the means of production become more technologically
advanced does not means themselves
are necessarily less labor intensive, does it?

CB: Here's the way I reason it, Dan.  When Marx is discussing this he defines
the new technology or instruments of production or constant capital that is
introduced as decreasing the number of hours of variable capital , i.e. human
labor, per unit commodity. That seems to me to be per se less labor
intensive.  "More productive " is by definition that the workers produce more
commodities in the same amount of time. If you produce 8 widgets in the same
number of hours that it used to take you 4, then each individual widget has
less labor time in it, ergo its production is less labor intensive.

More from Mike Ballard:

Human
> labor,or variable
> capital, is the only source of value and surplus
> value (exchange value) in
> Marx's conception.

Mike: Not the only source of wealth though.  Nature is also
very much part of the wealth equation.

CB: I know this , Mike. That is precisely why I put "exchange value" after
"value".  Nature is not a source of exchange value. It is only a source of
use value, in Marx's discussion. In making a determination of who is
exploited more, we are only concerned with exchange value, not use value, so
that nature is a source of use value is irrelevant to the question at hand.



CB: Constant capital is not a source
> of surplus value.
> However, productivity increases as the proportion of
> constant to variable
> capital increases. In general, the greater
> proporation of constant capital to
> variable capital is introduced because it increases
> productivity. That is it
> allows the same number of units of commodities to be
> produced with fewer
> human labor hours, i.e. with less variable capital (
> in Marx's Vol. 1
> discussion ; I have some recall that Michael Perlman
> may advise that this
> gets more complicated as the analysis is more
> concrete in Vol. III; or is
> that a different issue ?). Since variable capital is
> the only source of
> surplus value, the reduction in the proportion of
> surplus value means less
> surplus value per unit commodity. So, workers
> working with higher
> technological instruments of production, i.e. less
> labor intensive production
> is less rich in surplus value.

Mike: It's the total pile of commodities that counts--the
social product of labour.

CB: Counts for what ?  Elaborate.

What counts or must be counted is the total number of hours of labor

______



CB:Workers in
> imperialist countries and
> industries are in general using more efficient
> technology and more productive
> thereby, but does that make them a richer or poorer
> source of surplus value ?
> Not necessarily (?)

Mike: There is something Marx calls 'socially necessary
labour time' which has a role to play in the
marketplace for commodities.  While there is more
exchange-value embodied in one hand made violin than
in one assembly line version, it is the assembly line
version which dominates the marketplace for
commodities because the socially necessary labour time
emobodied in it sets the standard.

In other words, a single person with a shovel may
produce a very expensive hole, while a single person
in a steam shovel may produce the same hole more
cheaply, even though depreciation of the steam shovel
(dead labour) will go into said hole.

CB: This is true. In the problem we are discussing, if there is such a great
discrepancy between the efficiencies of the instruments of production of the
two groups of workers ( one in imperialist countries, the other in colonies)
such that the less productive workers' have a lot of their hours discounted
in the comparison ( because of the socially necessary labor time assumption)
, then it becomes difficult to make a meaningful comparisons of the
exploitations of the two groups.

Lets see. If a worker in the U.S. with machine model 2003 produces 100
widgets in ten hours and is paid $100 , and a worker in Panama with machine
model 1993 produces 100 widgets in 15 hours and is paid $30, who is exploited
more ? Marx gives us a formula for the rate of exploitation, though as you
point out it assumes a set socially necessary labor time. In other words, it
may not be possible to very easily extropolate from Marx's model in Vol. I of
Capital, because he gives a forumla for rate of exploitation that assumes all
the workers' are using instruments of production that have only small
discrepancies in the socially necessary labor times that correspond to their
uses.  Nonetheless, when the capitalists sell their widgets they make more
profit on the Panamanian than the American, don't they ?

I'm saying productivity is close to a  direct function of the instruments
used. Perhaps others are assuming discrepancies between productivity of
workers in imperialist countries and those in colonies are the result of
differences in skill or willingness to work hard , hustle, or speed up.  Let
me pose the question: what is the basis for the difference in productivity
between the groups of workers' whose rates or levels of exploitation we are
trying to determine ?

At any rate (ha, ha), it still seems to me that in Marx's logic, the
differences in productivity which are due to different levels of efficiency
of instruments or means of production ( constant capital) have the opposite
effect on rate of exploitation than some are arguing here, because as the
organic composition of capital ( ratio of constant to variable , c/v) goes up
the portion of the total capital from which surplus value can be extracted,
labor,  goes down.

Otherwise, as Dan mentions, the ability to pay third world workers so much
less is critical in making their level or rate of exploitation higher, in
Marx's sense of rate of exploitation.

None of my discussion here gets beyond the objective factors ( mainly
theoretical ) to the subjective factors in assessing why there may have been
in history so far more inclination to revolution, militancy etc. in the West
or among the Rest.

Workers of the West, it's our turn.

CB









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