RE: Re: Roemer vs. Marx in Vietnam?

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

>Ian writes:
> > This of course raises, again, the issue of Marx' vs. Roemer's
> > views on exploitation.....

Justin writes:>Roemer is on record as saying that many agricultural laborers
found factory labor liberating. I criticized him for being unhistorical; he
ignores the savage breaking of the new working class to time and labor
disciplibe by poor laws and the like. That said, it may be true in some
cases today.<

I get the impression he glories in being ahistorical, though I doubt that
he'd quote Henry Ford saying that "history is bunk."

Justin writes:>There's a bitter joke that in a labor market the only thing
that is worse than being exploited is not being exploited . . . .<

that's paraphrasing Joan Robinson. (The quote comes up on pen-l once every 3
months or so.)

I wrote:>>But if there is, the structural coercion implicit in that reserve
army would imply that the choices aren't so voluntary, so that Marx's story
applies.<<

Justin: >Well, coercion is not incompatible with voluntariness. You can be
forced to do what you'd do anyway. Coercion is objective and external.
Voluntariness refers to a state of mind.<

that's why I used the word "so" in my sentence. (However, I don't think
"coercion" is always used to mean objective and external forces. There are
no totally-established or objective meanings for the vast majority of
words.)

J D