Re: China's new Marxist left

[eatonak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

>> I was struck by the vigour with which the assembled Chinese Marxist
>> economists were discussing the law of value--- in particular, how to
>> demonstrate that utility yields value and the capitalist is a productive
>> worker.
>
>> This is ironical, right?
>
> I would be one of the last people to defend the Chinese "Communist" Party.
> Nevertheless, capitalists have a dual role; expropriator and -- albeit to
> an
> infinitely smaller degree -- expropriated:
>
> "The capitalist, as representative of capital engaged in its valorisation
> process - productive capital - performs a productive function, which
> consists precisely in directing and exploiting productive labour. The
> capitalist class, in contrast to the other consumers of surplus value, who
> do not stand in a direct and active relation to its production, is the
> productive class par excellence. [See Ricardo] (As director of the labour
> process the capitalist can perform productive labour in the sense that his
> labour is included in the overall labour process which is embodied in the
> product.)" Marx, 1864, "Results of the Direct [or Immediate] Production
> Process"
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02b.htm
>
> regards,
>
> Grant.
>
>

I am, as many others on this list, very familiar with above quote from
Marx.  In terms of LTV the issue is the classification of productive and
unproductive activities, and then the classification of labor associated
with those activities.  Strictly speaking, issue is not classifying people
per se.  As Marx said above, even a capitalist, in terms of his/her
activities, may engage in productive activities.  If it is the case, there
should an associated productive labor.

Because the amount of labor-time of capitalists, which can fit to this
identification of productive labor, is so small (almost non-existing in
contemporary capitalisms) there is no reason to theorize this phenomenon.
If this is the case then the Chinese economists' attempt to theorize their
capitalists' productive function should be seen as a crude,
pseudo-theoretical justification for constitution of capitalism in China.

Ahmet Tonak