Re: RE: RE: Productive Forces

[miyachi <miyachi9@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: Re: [PEN-L:23309] RE: RE: Productive Forces

on 2002.03.01 01:02 AM, Devine, James at jdevine@xxxxxxx wrote:

> I wrote: >>How do we measure the "productive forces," anyway?<< 
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> Miyachi writes: >We measure productive force by quantity and value of commodities produced. It all. you forget always object people act on. labor productivity itself can't be measured without commodity workers product. An price of commodity is money-form of commodity value, it often hide real value of commodity.< 
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> I don't quite get this. Are you saying that productive forces can only be measured in commodity-producing society? If so, I'd agree. This suggests that folks such as G.A. Cohen who see history as a long process of the increase in the "forces of production" (pushed by an assumed human drive to increase such forces) is limited to only those modes of production that produce commodities - mostly, capitalism. Of course, that goes against Cohen's pretensions, which is to present a "theory of history" (which he presents as belonging to Marx) which applies to all modes of production. 
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> It also means that "productive forces" aren't always a good thing (a sign of "progress"), since producing more commodities (exchange-value) isn't the same thing as producing more use-value. 
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> Eric N. writes: >I would go further. It could be argued that no "objective" measure of the level of productive forces can exist. Presumably a productive force is considered productive because it leads to some good or service that people want and/or need. But, as Smith and Marx recognized, wants and needs are (partly) socially/historically determined.... < 
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> I agree. 
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>  MIYACHI TATSUO
> > Psychiatric Department
> > KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL
> > JOHBUSHI,1-20
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> > miyachi9@xxxxxxxxxx
>
>  I don't say commodity-producing is only result human-being productive forces.
> Human-being always must produce for their living and produce means of production of living,
> and , in addition, they must produce surplus product for their social security.
> In its sense, Hegel said that labor is essence of human-being.
> Important is specific form of surplus value and its exploiltation.
         Below is from Capital. You may be able to understand means of surplus labor
        I expect

       " We [49] have seen that the capitalist process of production is a historically determined form of the social process of production in general. The latter is as much a production process of material conditions of human life as a process taking place under specific historical and economic production relations, producing and reproducing these production relations themselves, and thereby also the bearers of this process, their material conditions of existence and their mutual relations, i.e., their particular socio-economic form. For the aggregate of these relations, in which the agents of this production stand with respect to Nature and to one another, and in which they produce, is precisely society, considered from the standpoint of its economic structure. Like all its predecessors, the capitalist process of production proceeds under definite material conditions, which are, however, simultaneously the bearers of definite social relations entered into by individuals in the process of reproducing their life. Those conditions, like these relations, are on the one hand prerequisites, on the other hand results and creations of the capitalist process of production; they are produced and reproduced by it. We saw also that capital -- and the capitalist is merely capital personified and functions in the process of production solely as the agent of capital -- in its corresponding social process of production, pumps a definite quantity of surplus-labour out of the direct producers, or labourers; capital obtains this surplus-labour without an equivalent, and in essence it always remains forced labour -- no matter how much it may seem to result from free contractual agreement. This surplus-labour appears as surplus-value, and this surplus-value exists as a surplus-product. Surplus-labour in general, as labour performed over and above the given requirements, must always remain. In the capitalist as well as in the slave system, etc., it merely assumes an antagonistic form and is supplemented by complete idleness of a stratum of society. A definite quantity of surplus-labour is required as insurance against accidents, and by the necessary and progressive expansion of the process of reproduction in keeping with the development of the needs and the growth of population, which is called accumulation from the viewpoint of the capitalist. It is one of the civilising aspects of capital that it enforces this surplus-labour in a manner and under conditions which are more advantageous to the development of the productive forces, social relations, and the creation of the elements for a new and higher form than under the preceding forms of slavery, serfdom, etc. Thus it gives rise to a stage, on the one hand, in which coercion and monopolisation of social development (including its material and intellectual advantages) by one portion of society at the expense of the other are eliminated; on the other hand, it creates the material means and embryonic conditions, making it possible in a higher form of society to combine this surplus-labour with a greater reduction of time devoted to material labour in general. For, depending on the development of labour productivity, surplus-labour may be large in a small total working-day, and relatively small in a large total working-day. If the necessary labour-time=3 and the surplus-labour=3, then the total working-day=6 and the rate of surplus-labour=100%. If the necessary labour=9 and the surplus-labour=3, then the total working-day=12 and the rate of surplus-labour  1/3 %. In that case, it depends upon the labour productivity how much use-value shall be produced in a definite time, hence also in a definite surplus labour-time".