re: Jerry's 6839 > >I agree that the redistribution of surplus value does not explain >the whole picture where 'backward conditions' (what a terrible >expression!) prevail. In order to explain this and the wider global >context, we not only have to look at the distribution of surplus >value but also at the distribution of *wealth*. There is a wealth of mahogany and other tropical *trees* in the forests of Brazil (for an ecological analysis of this clear cutting there is work by the Marxist biologist John Vandermeer). There is an abundance of mahogany and other tropical *hardwood* as a commodity in the warehouses of Northern furniture makers, thanks to Brazilian slave labor. > Moreover, the distinction between surplus value and *surplus >product* also has important meaning. Why is it again that formally unfree labor can never produce *surplus value* in individual enterprises even if (as Banaji himself underlines) capital-as-a-whole does indeed depend on formally free wage labor? Why is it that a slave plantation cannot ever be a capitalist enterprise? How are computer programmers on H1B visas formally free workers--they are after all tied to a single employer; yet do they not produce surplus value in the form of code? All the best, Rakesh
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Apr 02 2002 - 00:00:07 EST