Re: Marxological query

["michael a. lebowitz" <mlebowit@xxxxxx>]

At 18:12 22/05/2006, you wrote:
> >From Ch. 6 of Capital when Marx is listing the conditions for the sale of
> labor power
>
> "The second essential condition to the owner of money finding labour-power
> in the market as a commodity is this ? that the labourer instead of being
> in the position to sell commodities in which his labour is incorporated,
> must be obliged to offer for sale as a commodity that very labour-power,
> which exists only in his living self."
>
> i.e. People won't sell labor power if they can sell the goods actually
> produced with their labor.

Actually, there is a 3rd condition which is 
implicit--- the option of renting (or buying) 
means of production must not be available to the 
worker-- ie., capital has 'seized possession' of 
the process of production. Thus, the worker is 
'obliged'. None of what follows, though, flows from what Marx said.
        m


> Does this imply that a condition of selling LP is that as soon as a
> use-value is produced it must be PHYSICALLY out of the posession of the
> laborer (or that there is a tendency towards this happening) ? To
> illustrate, say a worker must screw the head on a doll. Does this imply
> that they have to put the head on the doll on a moving assembly line that
> they can't stop and the doll quickly moves out of their possession? the
> alternative would be that in the capitalist's factory, using the
> capitalist's materials, the worker screws the doll's head and keeps them
> in a box by his side.
>
> Obviously, no LP would be sold in the physically identical case that the
> worker purchases the doll materials, assembles them himself, and sells the
> finished product. And aren't formal property rights reflecting underlying
> material relations? So would LP still be sold if the same physical process
> happened under conditions of capitalist property?

Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6

Currently based in Venezuela. Can be reached at
Residencias Anauco Suites
Departamento 601
Parque Central, Zona Postal 1010, Oficina 1
Caracas, Venezuela
(58-212) 573-4111
fax: (58-212) 573-7724