[PEN-L:4972] Marx, Usury, Exploitation

[cns@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Jim Devine wrongly defines "real real subjection" of labor to capital
("the capitaists control the production process...."). The Marxist
definition is that no matter how highly skilled (or not) a worker is,
the skills are useless outside of the context of capitalist production.
This may appear to be the same definition but isn't.

And -- I've been reading all the talk about, what is a worker? Wrong
question. Right one is, "what is a wage worker?" Part of the definition
is given above. The most important part is that the wage worker is a
"bearer" of the fictitious commodity laborpower, which is "variable
capital." It's variable capital in the quantitative sense (can produce
more value than is required for its own reproduction) because it's
variable in the qualitative sense (can be used to accomplish many
and different tasks, cf drive for more flexibility and intensification of
labor in world capitalism since the late 1970s and 1980s). ALL of
Marx's categories are two-sided -- there is a quantitative (economic)
and sociological (qualitative) side. That goes for S/V, turnover time
for capital, costs of the elements of C and V, etc.

Another way to look at "worker": someone who is supposed to obey orders and
also think for herself at the same time. Someone who objectifies her own
subjectivity, in the labor market, a subjectivity that nevertheless is carried into
production. Someone who resists capital, and rebels. Etc.
Jim O'Connor