Dear Paul C, > > Regarding your pithy plumbing puzzle (below), let me offer two answers: > > No! your plumber does not create value under capitalism as s/he not wage > labor, employed by a capitalist who subsumes your plumber, and extracts a > surplus that is deployed in a manner that reproduces the rapacious > relationship. > > Yes! value is created because the plumber is a composite of conflicting > roles: one as a repressed worker, the other as a (self) repressing owner, > who -- in order to stay in business -- has to reinvest in technology that > increasingly degrades his own worklife. > > The second answer depicts the lives of many of us under capitalism. Each of > us constitutes a multiplicity of role sets, where the individual roles are > frequently in conflict (e.g., we are wage labor, but have pension funds > driven by accumulation priorities, that invest in firms that pollute, etc. > etc.). This contemporary context is important (the answer would be > different if your plumber lived in a world of independent commodity > producers; absent accumulation processes). After all, value is a social > relation. > > Fraternally, TT > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Paul Cockshott <paul@cockshott.com> > To: <ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu> > Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2000 6:29 AM > Subject: [OPE-L:4256] RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Part Two of > VolumeIII of Capital > > > > > > Paul Z: > > > > > > Tony, You confuse surplus-value production with surplus production. Only > > wage labor produces value and surplus value. > > > > Paul C: > > I hired a plumber to fix my central heating yesterday, did his (self > > employed) > > labour create no value? > > > > > > > >
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Oct 31 2000 - 00:00:12 EST