[Marxism] Reply to Paul Cockshott

["Jurriaan Bendien" <bendien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't intend to reply in detail to your query, because you never responded
to my argument, and ignore what I say.

I explained it in super-simple terms anybody can understand, without any
mathematical pyrotechnics, referring to the circuit M-C-P-C'-M' to indicate
the appropriation of surplus-labour without equivalent in production, and to
the circuits M-M' and M-C-M' and C-M-C' to indicate the appropriation of
surplus labour without equivalent through exchange. I wrote numerous posts
on this topic on Marxmail and PEN-L, which are available on the net. You
ignore all that.

The only difference between the two forms of appropriation is that the first
increases the total magnitude of the tangible social product of human labour
that can be distributed, and the second only redistributes/transfers claims
to the tangible social product of human labour. Because the first form of
appropriation is more obvious and easier to understand, neanderthal Marxists
focus on that one. But that doesn't mean the second form doesn't exist, it
just mean that neanderthal Marxists don't understand it. You have to be a
socialist to understand it, i.e. have some appreciation of the morality and
technicalities of exchange.

The extent to which profits are made from exchange processes vis-a-vis
profits made from production processes depends in the last instance only on
relative profitability, relative bargaining position, relative productivity
of labour and the necessity to produce a certain minimum to ensure the
survival of capitalist society. For the rest, you can trade in already
existing assets. Judeo-Christian fundamentalism provides an excellent
ideology for haggling and huckstering, because it has a central concern with
the moral entitlement to property and the justification of that entitlement.
God loves the wealthy. So the Christian Science Monitor will write
sympathetically about some Brazilian guy who wants to start his own
motorcycle repair shop and is prevented from doing it by Lula's bureaucracy.

I could go and write a whole book (or several books) on the specific ways in
which this appropriation occurs, but I do not see the point, if even
intelligent "Marxists" deny this most simple, basic insight by Marx. It's a
bit like Sisyphus labour, you might as well bang you head into a brick wall.
Who cares about these marginalised sectarians ? I'm better off with people
who understand more about economics and society.

The slow but steady erosion of capitalist civilisation can be simply
explained by saying that net incomes made from exchange processes increase
faster, than the net incomes made from production processes, and the result
of that is increasing indebtedness, because the increase in the value of
aggregate financial and property CLAIMS to current output and future output
by far exceed the increase in the value of aggregate current output and
output PRODUCED in the foreseeable future, which means rising aggregate
debts and growing aggregate world unemployment. Marxists narrowly focused on
what happens in production mystify all this.

The 1990s argument was basically this: if, in a deregulated economy based on
a superior bargaining position, defended militarily, you can derive an
opulent income, cheap Third World consumer goods and property ownership just
by engaging in a few simple transactions, why would you bother working in or
managing wage-slavery in some production plant of office all year long ?
That was porno capitalism, symbolised by Monica sucking Bill's cock, and
Bill sticking Arafat's cigar into Monica's cunt. Once you have your assets
from porno-capitalism, the emphasis shift to defending those assets, and
that is what Judeo-Christian fundamentalism is all about. We have our
property now, we want to conserve it, hands off, pay our debts.

In addition, the huge centralisation and concentration of capital that has
occurred, following Marx's prediction, means that the capacity to borrow
among property owners has also increased enormously. You cabnnot borrow
large amounts if you don't have big collateral. Again this means rising debt
levels. That debt can ultimately only be paid off and sustained by the new
value created by the direct producers (net additions to new values and
assets), and the payment for the relaxed lifestyle, obtained through a few
simple transactions, is displaced to those direct producers, wherever they
may live on the planet.

The lack of credibility of Marxism is simply due to the fact Marxists
thought they just had to explain that workers were exploited in production,
and that market prices were determined by labour-values. They ignored
exchange and circulation as an independent source of the appropriation of
surplus-labour from other classes and nations. This violates Marx's very
definition of what the economy is: namely, the totality of production,
distribution, circulation and consumption. Marxists pretend that the economy
just consists of production, and that is nonsense.

But the neo-liberals also ignored it. They thought that by deregulating the
movement of capital, investors would have more stimulus to invest in
expanding production. Instead, investors tend to look for those activities
which make the most money in the shortest time with the least risk and
effort, which increases world unemployment. They don't create many new
enterprises, but rationalise existing enterprises, and make money from that.
The result is more aggregate world unemployment.

The solution of the bourgeois reformists is to foster a new middle class
which is creative, cultured and actually "makes things", thus showing the
working class and the poor what they ought to be doing. The problem is
essentially cultural. But the middle classes don't do it to the extent
required - they want an easy lifestyle too - everybody wants an easy
lifestyle, and who can blame them if you get exploited anyway ?

Dutch Internal Affairs Minister Remkes feels that Dutch workers should work
more hours per week for the same pay, he feels it would be a good stimulus
for the economy. Just look at the Koreans, they work more than us. He's only
trying to give good advice, you know, based on understanding about the world
economy.

I already mentioned unequal exchange in manufacturing in my previous post on
this topic (UNCTAD estimate). As regards agriculture, Samir Amin states that
there are now 3 billion peasants in the world, and the ratio of the labour
productivity of the most advanced capitalist segment of the world's
agriculture to the poorest, which was around 10:1 before 1940, is now
approaching 2000:1. Productivity has thus progressed much more unequally in
the area of agriculture and food production, than in any other area, which
the neo-liberals feel is proof of the superiority of capitalism. But at the
same time, this has meant the reduction of the relative PRICES of food
products (in relation to other industrial and service products) to one-fifth
of what they were fifty years ago.

There you have the foundations of unequal exchange in the world economy
today. If third world countries trade agrarian goods for manufactured goods
in the world market, they lose out in the exchange, i.e. output that takes
more labour to produce exchanges for output that takes less labour to
produce. If they trade manufactured goods in the world market for other
manufactured goods, they also lose out in the exchange, i.e. more labour
exchanges for less labour again. If they trade agricultural goods and
manufactured goods for services (technical know how and so on) they also
lose out on the exchange, i.e. more labour exchanges for less labour again.

If some Marxist says that it's all just a problem of exploitation in
production, he's just talking through a hole in his head. It is not just a
problem of exploitation of production, it is also a problem of the terms of
exchange. These terms of exchange are essentially imposed by the USA, the
EU, and Japan. Thou shalt work by the sweat of thy brow, so that we might
relieve thee of they product, and if thou doesn't, we in the name of God
shall bomb you to bits. That is Bush's homily for the world, really.

Jurriaan



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