[OPE-L:2010] Re: A possible paradox in the theory of value

[Gerald Levy <glevy@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jurriaan wrote in [OPE-L:2009]:

> I am trying to follow this argument, but I will say I object to "farmers"
> being treated as "unskilled labour". This could make sense in some
> metaphorical way. but real farmers are very rarely unskilled labourers !!!

Then call them "agricultural labourers" working at the command of
capitalists. And there are millions of unskilled agricultural workers who
are employed by agribusiness.

btw, the subject of the "rural proletariat"  was an important concern in
German Social Democracy at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th
centuries. For more on this subject, see:

* Athar Hussain and Keith Tribe _Marxism and the Agrarian Question: Volume
    1: German Social Democracy and the Peasantry, 1890-1907_ (1981,
    Humanities Press)

* Athar Hussain and Keith Tribe eds. _Paths of Development in Capitalist
    Agriculture_ (1984, Macmillan Press) [translations of articles by
    Edward David, Oskar Geck, Edward David, Paul Ernst, Max Sering, and
    Kautsky]

* Karl Kautsky _The Agrarian Question_ (2 volumes, 1988, Zwan
    Publications, originally published in 1899)

Perhaps at some point we can re-visit that discussion and consider how
capitalist agriculture has changed since that debate.

In solidarity, Jerry