[OPE-L:7462] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: definitely not about Ch. 5

[Rakesh Bhandari <rakeshb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gil,

first a substantive issue. Albritton seems to argue that the law of
value only regulates capitalist production when labor power has been
fully commodified for the following reason:

for  production to be subordinated to the maximal valorization of
value, capitalists have to be indifferent to use value, and such
indifference can only rest on the foundation of the more or less full
commodification of labor power. For example, firms can only easily
disinvest  to the extent that labor costs are not fixed as they are
in slavery, and firms can only freely enter extra profitable
industries if they can easily draw from a free wage labor pool not
tied down by extra economic coercion.

I don't think this argument is quite successful in connecting the
regulatory power of the law of value to the commodification of labor
power.

After all, slavery did not necessarily prevent capitalists from
achieving indifference to use value. Fogel argues that American
slavery was a highly flexible, efficient form of capitalism.
Plantation owners were quite adept at shifting their crop mixes in
response to price signals; slaves were rented out to mfg enterprises
when this was most profitable; slaves were sold to other plantation
capitalists who could exploit them more intensively.

So far, I think Weeks has the best argument for the connection
between the regulatory power of the law of value and the full
commodification of labor power.  And I don't think it quite works in
the case of modern plantation slavery in part because the means of
subsistence can be monetized to some extent without the
commodification of labor power.

Now of course Albritton agrees with this to some extent. He considers
merchant payment to craftsman in the putting out system as piece
wages, though of course these craftsmen were not formally speaking
free wage workers since they had nominal control of the means of
production.

Now to our acrimony--the question of whether you need to chill out or
whether I am chilling speech.


>   What's more, I think it would have a seriously chilling effect on
> our discussions if every time A asks B for his or her opinion about
> author C, B has stop and consider that possibility that his or her
> comments will be forwarded to C for refutation.

What you call a chilling effect I would call a honing effect. It did
not even occur to me that people submit criticism to public archives
(which are not private offlist emails) without stopping to consider
the refutations which could be offered. If I submit a criticism to a
publically accessible forum, I look forward to the possibility of a
reply in my in box. Otherwise, I do not submit it public.  I also
think that it is perfectly obvious that there is a right of rebuttal
to criticism made in a publically accessible forum.

If your criticism is very tentative, then submit it privately and
offlist. In this case you could have sent your post to Michael L or
me offlist so there need not have been a chilling effect.

What should be chilled--that is disallowed--is the making of
criticism of someone in a publically accessible forum without
allowing--nay, encouraging-- that person's rebuttal. Especially if
that person is a fellow critical theorist.




>  Our discussions are by their nature tentative, and should not be
> taken presumptively as serious indictments of others' work for which
> they automatically deserve the opportunity for rebuttal.

Now who's doing the chilling? People don't deserve the opportunity
for rebuttal even if they have been criticized in a publically
accessible forum?.


>  Furthermore there's the ever-present danger that some listmembers
> might use this as a selective threat to discourage the making of
> arguments they dislike.

Again I don't consider it a threat but a dialectical opportunity if
my criticism is submitted to the person I criticized. I--nay we--may
learn something from discussion, each changing our position.


> I take this as a very serious matter for the list and ask that it be
> taken up by Jerry and the oversight committee.
>
> Gil

OK.

Rakesh