[OPE-L:5263] Re: Re: Re: state and workers'ownership and (un)productive labor

[Gil Skillman <gskillman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Oh, I forgot Jerry's final question:

>btw, are you in agreement with what Paul B
>wrote in [5428] re whether worker-owned
>firms produce surplus value?

Hard to say.  If Paul's suggestion is that the profits accruing to the
worker-owners of such firms constitutes surplus value, I disagree, since
Marx stipulates in Chapter 5 of Volume I that surplus value must be accrued
by someone--i.e., the capitalist--other than the workers who produce the
new value. Thus Marx:

The commodity owner can create value by his labor, but he cannot create
values which can valorize themselves.  He can increase the value of his
commodity by adding fresh labor, and therefore more value, to the value in
hand, by making leather into boots, for instance.  The same material now
has more value, because it contains a greater quantity of labor.  The boots
have therefore more value than the leather [OK, Karl!  We got it, already!]
but the value of the leather remains what it was.  It has not valorized
itself, it has not annexed surplus-value during the making of the boots.
[p. 268, Penguin edition]

Gil