From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Thu Apr 07 2005 - 11:21:38 EDT
At 11:51 PM +1000 4/7/05, Nicola Taylor wrote: >(imo) Marx's key insight into the social relations of capital is >that workers trade their labour-power freely. This is rich! Marx's key insight is that the wage labor contract is free. But let's look at the rest. >as usual I find myself aligned with Jerry on this issue. an appeal to authority? > What is important in Marx is the fact that labourers sell their >*labour power* on markets. what is important about it? let's see if we find out. > They do not sell themselves. this is implied in the above. > Moreover, the *labour power* paid for in the wage must be converted >by capitalists into *labour* - a process that is by no means assured. Is labour assured in the case of slaves? The whip is superfluous then. >Where people, animals and machines are *owned* the capital-labour >relation cannot exist, but it only follows in the case of slaves that the capital-labor power relation cannot exist >in the very real sense that the sale of labour power does not take place; This is part of the definition of slavery. >in relations of slavery, for example, workers do not willing sell >their labour but on the contrary are traded body and soul against >their will. yes, I think we can agree. > >The slave owner may, if he choses, work his slave to death just as >he may work a donkey to death. Ah it will come as a relief to so called free wage workers that they are never--in fact cannot be-- worked to death. >(imo) Marx's key insight into the social relations of capital is >that workers trade their labour-power freely. i.e. the crucial >distinction is not between humans, land, donkeys etc but between >living *labour* and the *labour power* purchased for wages. And why is the the crucial distinction? An argument has yet to be presented. Rakesh
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Apr 08 2005 - 00:00:02 EDT