Re: the mita

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote:
> >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.[*]

Louis responds:
> ... Karl Marx had very little understanding of the rest of the world
> in terms of "modes of production". He theorized something called the
> "Asiatic Mode of Production" that had no correlation with reality. He knew
> little about Africa or Latin America, which is understandable given the
> fact that solid information was not easy to come by and even it if did,
> there was no compelling political reason for him to examine it. Marx and
> Engels, when they did write about Latin America, wrote howlingly ignorant
> things. Marx wrote that Bolivar was a bandit. Engels supported the USA
> against Mexico in the war of 1847 based on a basically racist attitude
> toward what he regarded as "unproductive" (ie., lazy) Mexicans.

Just because I cited Marx's theory doesn't mean that I believe that
everything the poor old bastard said was true or applies to all situations.
(I don't know where you got the idea that I was a dogmatist.) Similarly,
just because he and Fred were wrong on a lot of empirical matters (though
Hal Draper had an suggestive article on Bolivar) doesn't mean that we
should can their theory completely. Remember, I advocate not quoting from
the Masters but instead the use of the living Marxian political economy
that is used by many in the social sciences.

On specifics, Marx presented a very good argument for the case that merely
buying & selling don't lead to the creation of surplus-value. It's integral
to the "labor theory of value." In fact, if we reject it, then it sure
looks as if all we've got is neoclassical economics (supply, demand, and
"imperfections," which only describes the superficial appearances of
commodity-producing society). Or we've got no theory of commodity-producing
society at all -- or at best a fuzzy theory. The latter may do if one's
main task is only to describe and/or denounce, but it's hardly satisfying
if one is trying to understand, in order to get a long-term perspective
that might help with strategy, tactics, and the like.

Also, I in no way rely on Marx's "theory" of the Asiatic Mode of
Production. Instead, I use the somewhat similar concept of the "tributary
mode of production" developed by Samir Amin and others. BTW, Amin seems
very conscious of the dependency theory and "third worldist" perspectives.

> Mercantile capitalism nowhere addresses the specific forms of value
> creation in places like Peru and Bolivia. It rather is concerned with how
> capital is exchanged by those at the top.

This is _exactly_ what I was saying. I'm glad you've changed your mind on
this issue.

> For example, Mandel notes that
> piracy is a key element in the development of mercantile capital. What is
> missing from this picture is how silver got out of the ground originally
> before Francis Drake got his hands on it.

This is absolutely right, though I think it's a mistake to fetishize
silver, as I've argued before.

> It took a PROLETARIAT to get it out of the ground, didn't it?

Why can't the back-breaking, bone-crushing, work of mining silver be done
by slaves or other forms of forced (non-proletarian) labor? In fact, forced
labor fits the job better (back before the development of fancy machinery)
much better than free proletarians. Most free proletarians won't do that
kind of job unless the alternatives are significantly worse -- or the pay
is very high. I doubt that the latter was true under the _mita_. South
African gold mines used the extra-economic force involved with the system
of apartheid to make sure that the former was true.

Of course, you might be using a different definition of "proletariat" than
I do. As I've said before, definitions are conventional rather than being
something that can be settled absolutely and completely. But I try to use
Marx's definitions as the basis for my convention. (Not that he was always
right.)

> The 'mita' was an early form of capitalist exploitation of labor. ...

That's by your definition, i.e., under the theoretical conventions that you
follow. (BTW, I'm unclear what your theory is.)

Under my definition, I would say that the mita was a kind of forced labor
(and thus not a proletarian kind of labor, i.e., not under the direct aegis
of industrial capital, full-blown capitalism). As I noted, the product of
this forced labor was distributed by merchant capital, which was able to
claim "a piece of the action," a part of the surplus-product that this
forced labor produced.

> >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.)
>
> Mercantile capital describes the Kelly Services? Only on PEN-L, I'm afraid.
> Most everybody else would call this "services," or the temporary labor
> sector of American industry.

Yeah, but it's often a mistake to apply common-sense descriptive terms if
one's goal is to understand. I'd say that Kelly not only provides
"services" (i.e., that common sense isn't wrong in this case) but is also a
form of merchant capital that has been incorporated in, and subordinated
to, the societal process of industrial capital (full-blown capitalism). I
think that the latter adds something to our understanding of what's going
on. It would be a mistake to stop with the common-sense conception.

> >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.
>
> No, I have referred to it from the beginning. In essence it defines
> capitalist class relations as those that prevailed in 19th century Great
> Britain. Thus, based on this Aristotelian formal logic approach, everything
> that does not fit into the category is characterized as "non-capitalist" or
> "pre-capitalist".

I'd like to see some backing for this assertion. Brenner sets up an
abstract model, it's true, but the basic idea is Marx's, i.e., that
proletarianization (if done enough) can unleash relative surplus-value
extraction.

> Except when Marx himself described slave plantations as
> CAPITALIST. In which case it is conveniently ignored by you.

As I say above, just because Marx said something doesn't mean it's true,
especially since "He knew little about Africa or Latin America...  [and]
wrote howlingly ignorant things."

Michael Perelman says the quote is from the _Grundrisse_, which is a set of
unfinished notebooks that neither Marx nor Engels edited for publication.
Though the _Grundrisse_ is very suggestive and often brilliant, I'd treat
it as raw material for further thought rather than as Marx's final word or
as representative of his mature theory. Actually, the same applies to the
_Theories of Surplus Value_, so it doesn't matter where the quote comes from.

I wrote that feudalism was subject to
> >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.)
>
> Slavery might discourage technical progress, but it facilitates capitalist
> progress.

Right! I never said otherwise. As even Brenner notes, the profits from the
slave plantations helped the "progress" of industrial capitalism. This is
the key point of agreement in the Brenner vs. Blaut debate.

> Without slavery and other forms of unfree labor in the New World,
> the "free labor/rapid technological progress" paradigm of 18th and 19th
> century would have never taken shape.

"would have never taken shape"? How can you say that? it -- the assertion
that forced labor was necessary to the development of industrial capitalism
and the free labor/rapid technological progress -- sounds like a classic
case of what economic historians call a "counterfactual" (since there never
was a world in which industrial capital developed that didn't have forced
labor).

To use a famous example of counterfactual thinking, Robert Fogel argued
that railroads weren't necessary to the economic development of the United
States (since canals could do the job just as well in most circumstances,
etc.) Going beyond that specific and absurd counterfactual, the basic
conclusion of the discussion of these kinds of propositions is that they
only work under the assumption that one's theory is a really good
description of the way the world works. That is, if one believes in Fogel's
theoretical assumptions, his counterfactual assertion may make sense
(depending on how well he mobilizes empirical facts to make the argument).

What this implies is that if you are to make counterfactual assertions, we
must know what  _your_ basic theory is. That is, what are your basic
assumptions that allow you to make this kind of assertion?

> The capitalist SYSTEM is like a huge
> factory, with smart white people running complicated machines and people of
> color sweeping the floor.

right, though I don't think that white people are any smarter than people
of color. This is the kind of world system that has been developing for the
last couple of centuries, dominated by industrial capital.

> >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.
>
> Why do you insist on repeating things that everybody understands?

Because you specifically said you didn't understand, but I didn't know what
_specifically_ you were referring to. Besides, I aim my messages to
communicate with everybody on pen-l, not just to reach you, and I don't
know what people know or don't know. Further, I was contrasting it to the
situation under feudalism.

> This debate is not about the outcome of the industrial revolution, but the
> much
> more complex and harder to define process of early capitalism in the
> colonies which Marx never addressed.

Right. As I said, however, I wasn't treating Marx's writings as some sort
of Bible.

> >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.
>
> I am an expert. You are wrong.

One of the good things about the "new Left" of the 1960s and after is the
slogan "Question Authority."

But I would never question your credentials as an expert on Babylonian studies.

I'll simply assume that you're right, that markets -- and thus merchant
capital -- didn't exist back then.  But my point is that markets existed a
long time before industrial capitalism. For example, the ancient Greek
agora was an example of a market that existed long before industrial
capitalism and instead worked within the context of the slave mode of
exploitation and petty commodity production. This fits with my point, i.e.,
that "merchant capital" can exist independent of full-scale capitalism and
thus isn't the same thing as full-blown capitalism.

> >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.)
>
> Your interpretation is wrong. They did rely on wage labor of the same type
> that existed in England. Wage labor became generalized in colonial Peru
> long before it did in much of Western Europe.

_How_ is it wrong? I'd like to hear more about the type of wage labor that
existed under the iron heel of Spanish oppression. The
latifundia/minifundia system was a later invention? the Spaniards allowed
workers to freely move between jobs and never used corporal punishment --
at the same time they deprived them of alternatives besides working for the
capitalists as a way to survive?

> >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.
>
> There is no such thing as a "semi-proletarian" system. This term makes no
> sense.

I'm not the one who invented the term. So you'll have to explain why it
makes no sense. To me, it expresses the fact that the pure cases of theory
(proletarian, non-proletarian) often don't exist in pure form in empirical
and historical reality. We often see mixed forms, as when Trotsky, in his
HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, argues that Russia had an unevenly
developing combination of capitalism and pre-capitalist social relations.

BTW, most observers would say that Britain didn't jump directly and
instantly from non-capitalist labor systems to proletarian labor systems.
Rather, the development was incomplete for a long time and happened uneven.
Landlords used feudal means -- if they were available -- to get their
workers to work, while trying to control them via paternalism. There are
long periods in which much of the labor relation could be described as
"semi-proletarian," though the Enclosure Movement and the end of "parish
relief" purified the proletarian status of the direct producers.

> There IS a system called capitalism.

Of course there's something called capitalism. No-one said any different,
so I see no need to SHOUT. The key question is what capitalism is, plus
when and how capitalism started. It used to be that you defined
"capitalism" solely in terms of market relations, avoiding Marx's
distinction between merchant capital and industrial capital, but you seem
to have given up that way of thinking. Now you are saying that industrial
or full-blown capitalism began in Peru, which seems to contradict your
previous citation of Mariategui, who pointed to feudalism there. I'm
confused by your theory.

> When the capitalist can not procure free labor, he will use indentured
> servants, slavery or whatever.

This assumes that the free labor doesn't resist. Self-dubbed "free-born
Englishmen" often successfully fought against forced labor. I think it's a
mistake to think of capitalists as omnipotent, always getting their way.

> In fact the capitalist of the 17th and 18th century made no real
> distinction between black slaves picking cotton in Georgia and the white
> men and women in Manchester making finished final textile products from the
> cotton. If the factory workers had a means of escape and fertile land to
> work, they would have been enslaved as well.

In the Northern U.S. before the Civil War, it was relatively easy to escape
factory work by going to the frontier, while indentured servitude went away
in the early 1800s. Free whites had enough political power to resist
enslavement, while manufacturing isn't a good place for slaves and Northern
agriculture wouldn't have worked with the gang labor that prevailed on
Southern plantations. As Habbakuk makes clear, the relative scarcity of
labor-power encouraged relatively high wages (compared to Manchester).
Despite this, capitalism prospered in the North, especially after it was
protected from British competition. Part of this was the low cost of cotton
to the manufacturers (because of the super-exploitation of slave labor),
but the Brits got the same kind of advantage. The fact is that the Northern
capitalists could use their control over the labor process to introduce all
sorts of labor-saving technical change (one kind of relative surplus-value
extraction). This allowed the capitalists to be profitable _despite_ the
high wages.

> >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.
>
> Actually, the goals of the Mexican revolution were identical to those of
> nearly every 20th century revolution.

that's because almost every 20th century revolution was largely a
peasant-based one.

> The problem is that anarchism rather
> than Marxism was the main political current on the left. One of Zapata's
> major bases of support was the textile workers, who were turning the cotton
> picked by debt peons into finished products in much the same manner that
> was the case for the prior 250 years. To understand Mexico, I'd advise you
> to read Adolfo Gilly's "Mexican Revolution" or John Mason Hart's
> "Revolutionary Mexico".

I don't find such bibliographic references to be very useful unless it's
explained what the authors say and why their books are relevant.

You make it sound as if Zapata and his supporters had simply supported
Marxism rather than anarchism, everything would have gone okay. It's very
ahistorical to think that Marxism could have taken root in Mexico in 1911,
while anarchism is a natural consequence of the land hunger I described.

> Here is a little bit from Hart that should show
> you that the revolution was not just about resentful peasants:

I didn't say that it wasn't _just_ resentful peasants, while "resentful" is
your word, not mine. (I don't appreciate the implication that I was
sneering at the peasants.) Note I said "Most rural rebels of the lower
classes were fighting for land of their own ..." rather than "all rebels"
or something like that. I described the revolution as _complex_, not as a
simple peasant revolution. Perhaps I should repeat myself more often, until
it's clear what I'm saying. ;-)

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.