Re: Re: Re: the mita

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 04:29 PM 05/25/2001 -0400, you wrote:
> Jim Devine:
> >with regard to the case of contemporary Africa: in the world system,
> >merchant capital has become subordinated to industrial capital (part of a
> >unified system), so one might say that Africa is dominated by industrial
> >capital even if it isn't part of it.
>
> This makes absolutely no sense to me.

Merchant capital = buying & selling consumer and producer goods on the
market, M-C-M. As Marx argues, it's impossible (for a system of merchant
capital as a whole) to extort surplus-labor -- and produce a
surplus-product -- simply through buying and selling such goods.[*]
Nonetheless, it's possible for an individual merchant to make a profit if
there are differences in prices (that aren't swamped by transportation
costs, etc.) More likely, M-C-M makes a profit by taking "a piece of the
action," a fraction of the surplus-product resulting from some labor
process, in return for facilitating the marketing, etc., for the direct
exploiter (the slave-owner, feudal lord, the industrial capitalist, etc.)
Thus merchant capital lives off of various modes of exploitation.

Industrial capital = buying labor-power and other inputs to use in
production to produce consumer & producer goods which are sold on the
market for a profit (M - C - M'). Unlike for pure merchant capital, the
M' > M arises from the production process itself, because the labor done
produces more than enough to cover the cost of the labor-power hired. This
occurs because of proletarianization, the separation of the direct
producers from both direct coercion in production and from direct access to
the means of production and subsistence. (This is Marx's "double freedom.")
Whereas merchant capital can exist in the interstices of non-capitalist
societies, industrial capitalism incorporates an entire society (and is
continuing to swallow more and more of the world each year, creating a
world society).

In last 200 years or so, most non-capitalist modes of exploitation have
been swept aside (often after a preliminary phase where they were
subordinated to merchant or industrial capital), so that merchant capital
has gone from "mediating" between industrial capital and other modes of
exploitation to simply being a phase in the circulation of industrial
capital, either in the buying of inputs or the selling of outputs. Often,
in fact, it's part of the same bureaucratic apparatus. Many merchandising
efforts today involve more that just buying and selling and are thus kinds
of industrial capital (something is actually produced, rather than titles
to property being transferred). (Being in a separate bureaucracy often
promotes profits, however. For example, merchant capital describes the such
companies as Kelly Services, which facilitates the purchase of labor power
by industrial capitalists.)

Africa has been almost totally subordinated to the world market, which
itself is dominated by industrial capital. This is especially true in
raw-material extraction, traditional tropical crops, and the new commercial
agriculture. There's not much in the way of industrial capital itself,
except in "advanced" areas like the Republic of South Africa and Egypt,
though the low-wage/pliable workers/high pollution path to capitalist
development might be possible. However, as an article posted to pen-l noted
awhile back, many countries are much more open to the cold wind of the
world market than rich countries are.

Nonetheless, there are areas which have been shoved aside by the capitalist
juggernaut. In this case, Joan Robinson's quip applies: there's one thing
worse than being exploited by capitalism, i.e., not being exploited. Once
capitalism is established, it's better to work for capital than to be
unemployed. (Once the world capitalist system is established, this is akin
to the "rational core" of Brad's recent comment that it's better to get a
loan from the IMF than to not do so. If you're poor and the banks refuse to
lend to you, Lenny the Loan-Shark's services seem like a good thing.)

> >The "stoop labor ... under conditions of widespread coercion" is exactly
> >the kind of forced-labor mode of exploitation that isn't true
> >proletarianization, isn't part of full-blown industrial capitalism in
> >Marx's terms. My statement started with "if merchant capitalism ... were
> >the same as industrial capitalism" because I _reject_ that premise.
>
> Neither does this [make sense].

I don't want to repeat myself (since I think the explanation can be found
above).

Instead, I want to make Brenner's point -- which builds on Marx -- about
the difference between the situation where workers are subject to direct
coercion (by the boss, not just by the state) and true proletarianization
(the double freedom). I think this is the essence of Brenner's theory, even
though it's been largely ignored in recent pen-l discussions.

Under situations where labor is subject to direct coercion, such events as
increasing marketization typically do not lead to technical improvements.
(NB: "improvement" is defined in capitalist terms.) Instead, the incentive
is for the boss to simply increase the degree of coercion. Thus, the rise
of the world grain market encouraged what Engels (I believe) called "the
second serfdom" in Eastern Europe. Marx also writes about how subordination
to the world market lead to the worst forced-labor exploitation [see
chapter 10, section 2, of volume I of CAPITAL].

Further, in European feudalism, the direct producers were the ones who had
direct control over the production process most of the time, even though
they were subject to coercion in terms of being punished if they didn't
produce enough of a surplus-product for the lord. This lack of control of
the production process by the lords meant that they had little or no
_ability_ to introduce technical improvements. Thus, feudalism was not
"progressive" in terms of agricultural technology, though it was often very
good at producing new types of weapons. The latter were encouraged by the
political fragmentation and constant wars. (Slavery also discourages
technical progress, since slaves resist any but the simplest kinds of work.
I know that if I were a slave, I'd act dumb and break the boss-man's
equipment.)

Under full-blown or industrial capital, on the other hand, the ability to
apply direct coercion is severely limited, while the production process is
under tremendous amount of direct control by the capitalists' proxies. This
encourages rapid technical change in production. (An exception is with
craft-workers, who control a lot of the production process by dint of their
skills. This is an important reason for the "deskilling" tendency that
Braverman describes so well.) Brenner argues that some transitional forms
of agriculture -- such as the system of tenant farmers that arose with
enclosures in England -- have a similar technically "progressive" impact.

> >I used that phrase simply because I rejected the premise. In fact, it seems
> >to me that A.G. Frank leans toward the capitalism = market (industrial
> >capitalism = merchant capitalism) perspective, so this ahistorical vision
> >seems to have its adherents.
>
> Yes, much of what you argue reminds me of A.G. Frank from a reverse mirror
> standpoint. The notion that there is this thing called 'mercantile
> capitalism' that existed in ancient Babylonia and in contemporary Congo is
> essentially ahistorical.

I don't know about the Congo, but saying that mercantile capital existed in
ancient Babylonia is simply saying that markets existed back then. If I
remember correctly, some of Hammurabi's code referred to market
transactions. If there any experts on this subject reading this, please
correct me if I'm wrong.

> >Right, but one can be exploited in the production of use-values. Marx makes
> >the point that this kind of exploitation has natural limits, whereas
> >exploitation for exchange-value does not [see chapter 10, section 2, of
> >volume I], but that doesn't mean that exploitation in the production of
> >use-values doesn't happen. After all, in the "natural economy" phase of
> >feudalism, most of the exploitation was done to produce use-values.
>
> Feudal exploitation? Like turning over a percentage of one's crops to the
> Lord so he could feed his soldiers? Methinks this is not what was going on
> in 18th century Jamaican sugar plantations.

yup, but it still involved forced labor. There are lots of kinds of forced
labor besides feudal serfdom.

> >it's a phrase, one that indicates that I don't have the time to look this
> >issue up, but that since you seem to have a lot of Latin American  history
> >on tap, you could do so.
>
> I already did coming home on the bus. James Lang states that by the 1700s
> Spanish colonial haciendas were involved in large-scale production of
> cotton that were used in local 'obrajes', the original textile sweatshops.
> I guess this was mercantile capitalism also.

That doesn't contradict what I've read. My interpretation is that these
_obrajes_ probably did not truly involve proletarian labor because the
workers were peons and were competing with those under slave-like
conditions. (I don't have enough information, though, to be conclusive.)
It's like the ancient Roman proletariat, which never "took off" and became
the main kind of direct producers, because its members competed with slave
labor.

> >What I was saying is that debt peonage (which typically is much more than
> >debt peonage, because the creditors are in league with the landlords,
> >merchants, and the state) is not the same as proletarianization as Marx
> >defined it (involving the double freedom, i.e., freedom from direct
> >coercion and from direct access to the means of production and subsistence).
>
> So the characters in Traven's novels who received a wage for chopping down
> a mahogany tree were "proletarian," while those who stood next to them
> chopping the same trees in order to pay off a debt were "nonproletarian"?

I think it's a mistake to emphasize individuals in this context. The
_system_ in which they worked was semi-proletarian. Instead of encouraging
"relative surplus-value extraction," the system encouraged the bosses to
use more direct coercion.

> Were these debt peons and hundreds of thousands of others like them in
> Mexico who rose up against the government in 1910 just under an illusion
> that they were confronting the capitalist system?

I'm not sure they thought of their struggle as one against capitalism _per
se_. The 1917 revolution seems the first that in which many had
anti-capitalist consciousness, though maybe the Paris Commune counts.

Objectively, I'd say they were opposing a hybrid system, one in which
direct coercion was combined with purer capitalism. The fact that the
situation was mixed (and developing unevenly) helps explain the
incompleteness of the Mexican revolution.

> The Mexican revolution of 1910-1920 was one of the greatest
> anti-capitalist struggles of this hemisphere. If we can't recognize this,
> then we have no business in politics.

The Mexican revolution had a lot of anti-capitalist aspects, but it also
opposed corruption and perceived "imperfections" of capitalism (including
debt peonage). It was also a nationalist revolution and opposed to the
specifics of the Porfirio Diaz regime (which was subordinating itself to
the U.S.) My impression was that people weren't fighting for socialism.
Most rural rebels of the lower classes were fighting for land of their own
-- what became the ejidos -- and freedom from debt. I don't have the
details in my working memory at this time, but Eric Wolf's PEASANT WARS OF
THE 2OTH CENTURY had a lot of good stuff on this subject.

[*] This is a key conclusion that Gil Skillman rejects. I don't think that
he understands the perspective of Marxian political economy and tries to
reduce it to neoclassical economics (supply, demand, and "imperfections").
However, I don't think it would be worth (re)arguing about at this time.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine "Segui il
tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.)
-- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.