Re: RE: Re: Marx vs. Roemer

[<gskillman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think the difference between Roemer and Marx concerning the role of (systemic
or class) coercion is more apparent than real, more a matter of choice of
language and emphasis rather than deep analytical differences.

According to Roemer's analysis, capitalist exploitation *requires* differential
class ownership of scarce means of production (DOSMP). In a two-factor world,
differential ownership means that workers must work for capitalists to secure
their subsistence.  Scarcity means that labor power is in excess supply
relative to means of production, implying a reserve army exists.  In this
world, coercion exists at the class level:  workers may choose *which*
capitalist to work for, but will suffer if they don't work for *some*
capitalist.  Thus I don't see the suggestion that exploitation can exist
without at least class-level coercion in Roemer's world.  Forgive me if I got
it wrong, Justin, but I thought the point of your 1995 article was just that.
If so, if Roemer ever said exploitation in his sense didn't involve coercion,
he was just applying the wrong notion of the term.

On a separate note, in my reading capitalist exploitation in Roemer's sense
does not reduce to Elliot and Dymski's notion (taken from a passage in Volume
III) of "secondary exploitation"; that is, it does not involve simple
redistribution of values that existed prior to the initiation of the relevant
circuit of capital.  Roemer's isomorphism theorem states that the profits
accrued by capitalists in hiring labor power are equivalent to the interest
payments capitalists would receive in an otherwise identical economy in which
capitalists loan the means of production to workers rather than capitalists
hiring labor power.  In both cases, the surplus value received by capitalists
is produced *subsequent to*, and in fact is financed by, the initial M in the
circuit of capital.

This argument is based on reading Marx's definition of surplus value as
stipulating *two* conditions:

1) the production of new value, financed by the initial M in the circuit of
capital, and

2) appropriation of a portion of that newly produced value by someone other
than the producer, namely the capitalist(s) who provided the initial M (cf
Marx's comments in V.I, chapter 5 about a commodity-owner adding his own labor
to his own means of production)


I *don't* see Marx anywhere stipulating direct capitalist control of production
(i.e., subsumption of labor under capital)as part of his *definition* of
surplus value, or thus capitalist exploitation.  To the contrary, he repeatedly
affirms instances in which capitalist exploitation arises without labor
subsumption.

Gil

> Justin writes:>Roemer's point is logical, that on his notion of
> exploitation, you can have
> exploitation without corcion. I discuss this at length in my paper on
> the
> subject; so dooes Jim in his and Dymski's now classic paper.<
>
> BTW, in terms of purely normative issues, in my 1996 article in Bill
> Dugger's book INEQUALITY (Greenwood Press), I follow Arjun Makhijani to
> define "exploitation" as "taxation without representation." Capitalists
> "tax" (coerce) workers using their class monopoly of the ownership of
> the
> means of production and subsistence, the reserve army of labor (or
> similar
> institutions), and thus the supervisor's credible threat of the "sack."
> (Strictly speaking, it's not just the macro-level capitalist supremacy
> (the
> producers' proletrianization) and the micro-level subjection of labor by
> capital, but it's also the workers' conscious submission that allows
> this
> state of affairs. Obviously, the power of the capitalist class is also
> crucial.)
>
> If one accepts this normative definition of exploitation, then the
> Roemerian
> idea of exploitation without coercion doesn't make sense. If some people
> surrendering a piece of the pie to others in a totally and utterly
> voluntary
> way, it's not taxation (coercion) without representation. (Thus, what
> John
> Elliott and Gary Dymski call "secondary exploitation" (redistribution of
> surplus-value via markets) isn't really exploitation at all in these
> terms.)
>
>
> Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
>
>
>
>