In 6819 Ian responded to Jerry (who was quoting me) >Jerry is right to say that unfree labour does not necessarily produce >surplus value. It does though, caveats about value being definable only >within capitalist commodity production aside, when unfree labour produces >for the market, as when slaves in the US south produced cotton sold onto >the world market. Marx also makes the point that surplus value can arise >from merchant capital, where the surplus value does not arise from hiring >workers to produce commodities with more value than costs of production, >but from buying cheap and selling dear. > >>Re Rakesh's [6817]: >> >>> We had some argument about whether workers who are not formally free >>> wage laborers could still produce surplus value--I tended to find the >>> old arguments of Jairus Banaji persuasive. I would consider these >>> workers to be clearly proletarians productive of surplus value. >> >>The continued persistence of bonded labour was never in doubt in >>our previous exchange. Jerry, this is bizarre. I never said it was in doubt--with whom are you arguing here? The thesis that has been in doubt remains whether bonded or formally unfree workers can ever produce surplus *value*. You took an extremely negative position on the matter. Neither Brass and Banaji nor I say that all bonded and formally unfree workers produce surplus value. As I introduced the NYT article, I said *these* workers seem obviously to be producing surplus value; after all that they are producing commodities for the world market with commodified means of production that need to be valorized obviously seems to suggest that they are producing surplus *value* in the circuit of capital. > For more information on that subject, see >>Tom Brass _Toward a political economy of unfree labour: case >>studies and debates_ (Library of Peasant Studies No. 16, Frank Cass >>Publishers). Brass's case studies include examinations of bonded labour >>in eastern Peru (and the "enganche system"), northwest India, and northeast >>India. He also attempts a critical evaluation of the role of unfree labour >>in both neoclassical and Marxian theories. Yes, and from what I have read of Brass, he is critical of quasi Marxist ideas such as those you have propounded on the matter! But I have not read this volume. Nor do I imagine have you! > However -- in reply to Rakesh >>-- the continued existence of unfree labour for millions of people globally >>does not of and in itself speak to the question of whether they are >>productive of surplus value. And I never said it did. And you must know that Banaji never said any such thing. Rakesh
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