[OPE-L:7441] Re: definitely not about Ch. 5

[Gil Skillman <gskillman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Mike, it's good to hear from you--How are things on Lasqueti?  You wrote


> Hi Gil,
>    I'm off on that isolated island again and so have no access to that
> [Albritton-Zmolek] exchange (unless it's available on-line); I'd love to
> hear what you found interesting and what you found annoying. As for
> avoiding a return to the Chapter 5 'quagmire' (although, as you know,
> I've always felt the problem--if any-- is in Chapter 6), that remains to
> be seen.

[Prompted by your comments about Chapter 6, I've extended the Chap. 5
critique to include Marx's argument there, but continue to believe the
problem starts with 5--in fact I think I have an even clearer sense of the
problem now than in our last exchange on the topic, partly because that
last exchange--and subsequent ones here on OPE-L--have prompted me to read
both Capital and its "dress rehearsals"--Grundrisse and Ec Mss of
1861-63--more carefully.  As for returning to the Ch. 5 quagmire, I'm
keeping to a self-imposed restriction not to pursue that issue any further
on OPE-L--though if the following piques your interest and leads into Ch. 5
territory I'd be pleased to pursue it with you offline.]

In a nutshell, Albritton takes issue with Brenner's contention that British
"agrarian capitalism" was the prime mover of capitalism, arguing the
commodification of labor power is a necessary basis of the latter, and that
LP was insufficiently commodified until the 2nd half of the 19th (!)
century to allow commercial farming in Gr. Br. to be called
"capitalist."  I find the topic, and several of the historical details
adduced in the debate, to be intrinsically interesting, but the debate
itself annoying in that the central issue seems to me miscast by Albritton
right from the beginning, and Zmolek doesn't really call him on
it.  [However, in light of Albritton's characterization, I now understand
why Rakesh has taken issue with my suggestion that putting-out was
characterized by commodification of labor power!]


Albritton, in my reading, gets off on the wrong foot right off the bat in
his initial 1993 article in JPStud by asserting

"In order for value to be able to expand itself according to the basic
formula of capital M-C-M', capital must totally subsume the labour and
production process such that all inputs and outputs are totally
commodified."  [1993, p. 420]

Albritton gives no reference or justification for this reading, and to me
it seems highly problematic.  Let alone that "labour process" and
"production process" refer to the same thing, and that subsumption in the
Marxian sense Albritton putatively intends has nothing whatsoever to do
with the commodification of *outputs* (this being presumed in the first
place), Albritton simply and fundamentally misrepresents Marx in asserting
categorically that M-C-M' *requires* "total subsumption" of labor under
capital.  To the contrary, I read Marx as repeatedly asserting, in the
Grundrisse, Ec Mss 1861-63, Resultate, and KIII, that in two historical
cases, usury and merchant capital respectively financed productive activity
(the putting-out system being an instance of the latter), reaping surplus
value via the circuit of capital M-C-M' *did not* involve subsumption of
labor under capital.

But my major problem with Albritton's framing of the argument lies in his
conceptualization of "fully commodified labor power" (FCLP), for which also
he gives no theoretical justification or grounding in Marx's writing.  By
his definition, FCLP has no less than 6 components:

1) Workers are completely separated from all means of production;
2) Workers have no means of support outside their wage.  "This implies[sic]
that they must receive a 'subsistence wage'..."
3) Wages are paid frequently (usually weekly) in money form.
4). The relation between capital and labor is totally impersonal in the
sense that capital treats labor as simply a commodity input. In other words
capital freely hires and fires labor as needed, and "*freely organizes the
combination of labour-power and other productive inputs in the production
process.
5) Workers must, at least in principle, be mobile in order to be able to
respond to changes in supply and demand in the labour market.
6) No form of extra-economic force interferes with the labor market whether
from labor, capital, landlords, the state, or any other interventionist
source.  [p. 424]

Ach, where to begin?  This definition is an incredibly unwieldy basis for a
careful historical analysis.  Marx's definition is much simpler:  labor
power is commodified if capitalists can find on the market individuals who
offer their ability to work for sale.
Albritton's condition (1) deals with a (possible) *economic basis* for
labor power commodification (LPC), not the condition itself; and while Marx
did think this was a necessary condition for LPC, he didn't include this as
part of his definition of the phenomenon.  Bad form at least to include
one's theory of the phenomenon in the definition of the phenomenon--the
theory could be wrong, and even non-dispossessed workers might supply labor
power (as indeed they often do)--what then?

(2) has the same problem as (1), but adds the non sequitur that if workers
receive no other means of support, the wage must be at its subsistence
level.  This is not necessarily the case, of course, and Marx does not
categorically affirm this conclusion (i.e., he allows the possibility that
the wage may rise above its subsistence level).

(4)  assumes in effect that subsumption of labor under capital (SLC) is
simply an aspect of LPC.  But this need not be the case--arguably, in fact,
the putting-out system is an instance in which you have LPC but not SLC
--and more to the point this is not how Marx defines the terms (More on
this point below).  For Marx, SLC presupposes LPC, but not necessarily
vice-versa.

(5)  again confuses market conditions that inform LPC rather than LPC
itself.  Suppose that non-mobile coal mining workers sell their labor power
in an Appalachian "company town."  I don't see why their labor power can't
be considered commodified from a Marxian perspective.

(6) seems excessively strong, since it suggests, as Marx never did, that
labor power was not commodified in any labor market to which the Factory
Acts (for example) applied.  Nonsense.  Marx's whole point that legislation
like the Factory Acts was *necessitated* by capitalism's rapacious greed
for surplus labor once LP was commodified.

In short, when Albritton defines FCLP in this way, I think he establishes
his point at the cost of making it essentially irrelevant to what
Brenner--or Marx--was arguing.

> You wrote:
> > Viewing the putting-out system through the lens of Marx's analytical
> > categories, I understand the putting-out system to be an instance of the
> > circuit of merchant's capital that involves the commodification of labor
> > power but *not* the subsumption of labor under capital, in even the
> > formal sense.  Insofar a this system is a form of surplus value
> > production, then subsumption is not required for capitalist exploitation,
> > or at least wasn't required under the class conditions obtaining in that era.
> >
> > If this is an accurate summary, it prompts two questions:  first, what
> > made it possible for capitalist exploitation to occur without even the
> > formal subsumption of labor under capital, and second, would it be
> > possible for surplus value to exist--if perhaps not at the same magnitude
> > as in the circuit of industrial capital characterized by wage labor and
> > capitalist production--on the basis of putting-out production under
> > modern class conditions?

>         There are two questions that, in my view, need clarification: (1)
> what do you mean by formal subsumption

I mean it in the same sense that Marx does--indeed, my intent is exactly to
proceed from his definition--as spelled out in the Resultate and the Ec
Mss. 1861-63.  Formal subsumption is said to exist when "the capitalist
intervenes in [a pre-existing labor] process as its director, manager"
(Resultate, p 1019) without at all changing the process of production
itself (which would constitute the real subsumption of labor under
capital).  Thus *formal* subsumption involves (merely) direct oversight of
given production processes by capitalists.  As we'll see below, Marx
explicitly excludes the putting-out system from this rubric.

>  and (2) what do you mean by the putting-out system? Consider several
> alternative states. In each, the craftworkers own some of their own means
> of production (e.g., a loom) and work within their own homes.
>         A. The craftsman (X) obtains raw materials (RM) from the merchant
> (Y), transforms them in some way and yields all the finished products
> (P)  to Y and receives in return a money-payment.

This is the scenario that corresponds to my understanding of the
putting-out system, though your use of the verb "obtains" for what  X does
with the raw materials may beg a question.  One could as readily--and
perhaps more historically accurately-- put it that merchant Y supplies
craftsman X with raw materials and engages him to transform them to
finished products (P) for a consideration paid in money.

>         B. X obtains RM from Y, transforms them and yields a portion (q)
> of P to Y; the remaining portion X sells as commodities (in C-M-C). q is
> determined in accordance with a contractual ratio of P/RM.

>         C. X obtains RM from Y, transforms them and yields a portion (q)
> of P to Y; the remaining portion X sells as commodities (in C-M-C). q is
> determined as a given proportion of P.

I take cases (B) and (C) to be particular forms of usury capital, in which
the initial capital is supplied in commodity form.  Here the word "obtains"
is operative:  X determines the production process, and thus determines
what raw materials are needed.  Here q, whether it's "determined in
accordance with a contractual ratio of P/RM" "determined as a given
proportion of P" or simply a fixed payment, takes the form of an interest
payment or profit share.

>         There are obviously other variants but these may suffice. How
> would you distinguish among these? Ie., do you see these as qualitatively
> different?

Yes, for the reason suggested above:  in *supplying* a given set of raw
materials to the craftsman, the merchant capitalist to that small extent
plays a role in determining the process of production. I take the key
difference between putting-out merchant capital and interest capital
financing production to be that in the latter case, the capitalist does not
determine the conditions of production in any way.  However....

>         I would describe A as a case where the worker is formally
> subsumed under capital. The worker here has property rights in neither
> the raw materials nor the finished products, works in accordance with the
> goal of that merchant and only in and through the merchant-
> manufacturer's capital.

Of course, we're all free to use definitions as we see fit.  But following
Marx, I do not characterize case (A) as an instance of formal subsumption:

"A further example is *merchant's capital*, which commissions a number of
immediate producers, then collects their produce and sells it, perhaps
making them advances in the form of raw material [Bingo!--GS], etc. or even
money.  It is this form that provides the soil from which modern capitalism
has grown and here and there it still forms the transition to capitalism
proper.  Here too we find no formal subsumption of labor under
capital."  [Resultate, p. 1023]

(He repeats this distinction in the Ec Mss of 1861-63 as well.)

>  Obviously, the limited surveillance means that workers are cheating as
> much as possible in order to extract themselves from this relationship
> but this would not alter the nature of the relation.

Yes, and under Marx's conceptual framework, this cheating was part of what
prompted the move to formal subsumption of labor under capital, leading to
the possibility of reaping gains in the form of *absolute* surplus
value.  Marx again:

"The fact is that capital subsumes the labour process as it finds it, that
is to say, it takes over an existing labour process...And since that is the
case it is evident that capital took over an available, established labour
process.  For example, handicraft....If changes occur in these traditional
established labour processes after their takeover by capital, these are
nothing but the gradual consequences of that subsumption.  The work may
become more intensive, its duration may be extended, it may become more
continuous or orderly  under the eye of the interested capitalist...Thus
[formal subsumption]...as a form of compulsion by which surplus labour is
exacted by extending the duration of labour time... [Resultate, p. 1021]

>         Now, if my deduction holds (and the putting-out system
> encompasses A), your premise above is faulty.

I agree that the putting-out system encompasses A, but not, in Marxian
terms, that it thus involves formal SLC.

>  So, either you don't consider A as part of the putting out system or you
> don't view it as formal subsumption. In either case (or both), it would
> be interesting to know why.

Yep, the latter--see above.  I'll be interested to know what you think--you
may recall that you're the one who got me involved in the study of the
putting-out system in the first place, back in the original PEN-L Chapter 5
debate.

Gil