Re: [Marxism] work-needs

[John A Imani <johnaimani@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Message: 2 Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:34:14 -0400 (GMT-04:00) 
From: "s.artesian" <sartesian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Subject: Re: [Marxism] work-needs 

<<...this does not change the equivalence of the working day for the producers, 
and the essential basis for the equality of wages. Wages are not, under 
capitalism, automatically determined by the values of the commodities produced. 
Wages under socialism cannot be "graded" on the basis of quantities of 
use-values produced per worker. We are not, with socialism, accumulating 
values. We are supposed to be consciously directing production for the 
satisfaction of need. I think the problem I describe with railroad workers 
points out the impossibility of making that sort of differentiation based of 
"quantities" produced."

Deeply empathetic with the equivalence of labors implicit in S. Artesianâs 
postings it is, nonetheless, necessary to point out that:
 
The value of labor-power (v), as much as any commodity, depends upon itâs 
cost of (re-) production.  And in what does the value-in-use of this particular 
peculiar commodity consist?  In its abilities to (a.) conserve (though in a 
different form) the values of the means of production (c) upon which it acts; 
and, singular amongst all commodities, in its ability to b.) add new value in 
the form of an output of products whose aggregate value exceeds the costs of 
its inputs.

Assuming a general rate of surplus-value (Sâ) whereby all laborers are 
exploited at a uniform rate, then the value produced, on average, by the 
individual laborer (l) stands in direct proportion to both the cost of 
production of his labor-power ( r ) and to the value added by his labor (which, 
under capitalism is the surplus-value (s)).  Or,        
                        
                                        l| r|s

One could also add that the wage (v) stands in similar proportion.

A deduction that could be drawn from the above is that the more costly the 
labor-power, the greater the value produced and reproduced (s + v = l).

Now, as much as much as we might like and strive to set up the conditions that 
will ameliorate the consequent inequalities that this implicates, the fact is 
that the economics of Marx is clear that the value-adding abilities of 
different labor-powers (and, not so clearly but nonetheless implicit, amongst 
different laborers of the same labor-powers) so long as these are the results 
of  differing costs of production will be different. 
 
The question of equality of compensation must be one that is debated in the 
social sphere of distribution as argument for such a proposition is not to be 
found in the sphere of production.  That is okay.  It in no way undermines the 
argument for such an equalization, it merely transfers the debate to a 
different arena.

JAI

Marx from the CotGP:

âWhat we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has 
developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from 
capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and 
intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose 
womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from 
society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. 
What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the 
social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the 
individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social 
working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from 
society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting 
his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the 
social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. 
The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives 
back in another. 

Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the 
exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values.â

        http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm

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