Re: [OPE-L] Why aren't non-labourers sources of value?

[Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:51 PM +1000 4/7/05, Nicola Taylor wrote:
> (imo) Marx's key insight into the social relations of capital is
> that workers trade their labour-power freely.

This is rich! Marx's key insight is that the wage labor contract is free.

But let's look at the rest.

> as usual I find myself aligned with Jerry on this issue.

an appeal to authority?



>  What is important in Marx is the fact that labourers sell their
> *labour power* on markets.

what is important about it? let's see if we find out.



>   They do not sell themselves.

this is implied in the above.


>  Moreover, the *labour power* paid for in the wage must be converted
> by capitalists into *labour* - a process that is by no means assured.


Is labour assured in the case of slaves? The whip is superfluous then.


> Where people, animals and machines are *owned* the capital-labour
> relation cannot exist,

but it only follows in the case of slaves that the capital-labor
power relation cannot exist




> in the very real sense that the sale of labour power does not take place;


This is part of the definition of slavery.




> in relations of slavery, for example, workers do not willing sell
> their labour but on the contrary are traded body and soul against
> their will.


yes, I think we can agree.

>



> The slave owner may, if he choses, work his slave to death just as
> he may work a donkey to death.

Ah it will come as a relief to so called free wage workers that they
are never--in fact cannot be-- worked to death.


> (imo) Marx's key insight into the social relations of capital is
> that workers trade their labour-power freely.  i.e. the crucial
> distinction is not between humans, land, donkeys etc but between
> living *labour* and the *labour power* purchased for wages.


And why is the the crucial distinction? An argument has yet to be presented.

Rakesh