Labor Aristocracy (fwd from Anthony)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Re: Labor aristocracy and Jose Perez' contribution
(To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: Labor
aristocracy From: "Jose G. Perez"
<jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 12:17:39 -0500 References:

I fully agree with Jose's opening lines,

"I think there is a lot of confusion in this
discussion on the distinction between surplus value,
on the one hand, and profit, on the other; and on the
relation between these categories and both wages and
the value of labor power."

Jose's post goes a long way towards clearing the
confusion, everyone interested in the subject of the
'labor' aristocracy should read it carefully.

The exchange value of labor power is determined in the
market, and by the class struggle. The exchange value
of any commodity - of any product of human labor that
is bought and sold - is determined by amount of
socially necessary labor required to produce that
commodity.

And human labor power, like all other commodities,
requires human labor to reproduce it - the labor that
went into builing the house, growing the food,
packaging the food, getting the food to the
supermarket, making the car, etc.

But how much labor power is socially necessary?

Enough to build a ten bedroom house, catch a years
supply of caviar, build a Mercedes for each worker?
Less? More?

The real amount is determined seperately, and
differently in each market - or in each society. How?
Well for example in the recent Teamster Master freight
Agreement it comes out to a little less than $20.00
(US) hour. Concretely society determined that
particular exchange value in the recent negotiations
between the IBT and the main association of the big
long haul freight companies.

$20.00/hour also happens to be just about exactly what
the average unionized worker in the USA is paid
(according to the UAW website.)

Union members in the USA are paid, on average, about
$5.00/hour more than their non-union brothers and
sisters. The UAW calls this the union advantage.

Why? You can probably attribute this difference to
three causes:

First, unions can restrict the supply of labor, limit
competition among workers, and increase 'demand' for
their members labor power above it's 'natural' market
level. But this is NOT creating wages above the
'socially encessary labor' required to reproduce union
members labor power - it is the mechanism through
which that socially necessary amount of labor is
determined.

Second, many workers represented by unions are skilled
workers. They sell 'complex' -as opposed to 'simple'-
labor power. Simple labor power is the kind of labor
your average 8th grade drop out can perform.
Macdonalds hires a lot of simple labor power. Complex
labor power is any labor power that requires some
degree of training, experience, and knowledge. Skilled
tradesmen, technicians, liars (I mean lawyers), pool
sharks, mechanics, engineers, and assasins all sell
complex labor. The exchange value of complex labor is
determined by the socially neceessary labor required
to produce that particular kind of complex labor -
including whatever went into the education. So skilled
workers get paid more.

Third, is the fact that many, many union members are
government employees. Government employees, especially
in a country like the USA where two thirds of the
Federal budget, and much of state and local budgets,
goes to pay for military and police expenditures, are
a crucial part of the labor aristocracy when we get to
discussin how imperialism bribes a section of the
working class. They almost appear to be outside of the
workings of the law of value, but in fact are not.

How society determines the exchange value of a
government employee is subject to various non-market
forces, like buying votes directly or indirectly -ask
Willie Brown or any big city mayor about how this
works, but in the end this is just another method of
society determining the amount of labor it will
require to get the data entry clerk, cop,
statistician, or speech writer back to work the next
day.

In any case, government workers up to a certain level
almost always get paid more than their counterparts in
'private' industry.

So who makes up the labor aristocracy? All of those
workers, and their families, who form a seperate
priveleged social layer, distinct from the more
oppressed workers.

This is a sociological, not an economic definition.

Part of the problem with the previous discussion has
been the attempt to reduce everything to the law of
value, when in fact it is more complicated.

Black union members who live in the ghetto, often have
one foot in and one foot out, of the labor
aristocracy. Any union member, black white or brown,
who lives in a suburb nextdoor to an apartment
building owner on one side, and a real estate agent on
the other side, is part of the labor aristocracy.

So far, I have not considered the issues of surplus
value (and how it is distributed), or imperialism,
racism and sexism. Hopefully I will get to them next
time.

All the best, Anthony



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