Interesting... I see two clarifications are required: 1) when I say 'capital-labour' relation I emphatically **DO NOT** mean a relation of production. The capital-labour relation describes a relationship constituted in circulation (i.e. by the whole capital circuit of production and exchange, within which the moment of production lies). This is so because the exchange of labour-power for wages (prior to production) is the key part of it (see also, Marx's volume 2, ch.1 argument for the *necessity* of wage labour as the initiating moment of the transformation of money-capital into productive capital). From this perspective, the *owners* of slaves and serfs are not faced by the same Value Form 'requirements' as the *employers* of wage labour. For me, only the latter relation - as constituted by Marx's circulation of capital, is a capital-labour relation. 2) I emphasis that 'exploitation' is concept specific to the capital-labour relation (as I have defined it). This is because exploitation has to do not only with the split between labour power and means of production (which would indeed give rise to a variety of 'forms of exploitation'), but with a prior payment of wages and as a result of that, the subsumption of living labour under the aspect of time (by which I mean that the measure of labour by time and intensity is a 'formula' peculiar to the capital-labour relation; also, Marx, vol.1, ch.1). Slaves and surfs are not 'exploited' in this sense. 3. I don't want to deny that Banaji's different definition and use of exploitation (which implies that exploitation can take 'forms' other than the one defined by the wage and the clock) is wrong or irrelevant or not useful. Also, I don't want to say that your call for a distinction between 'forms of exploitation' and the 'relation of production' is unviable. IMO, the only test of this is whether these concepts are applicable and valid for the *specific* inquiry and the *particular* problem you have in mind. My object of inquiry is the fully developed capitalist economy where wage-labour is purchased as an input to the production of commodities intended for markets. The problem is to determine all the necessary conditions of the existence and reproduction of this peculiar social form. Of course, I agree with you that removing the concepts from this context renders them meaningless. best Nicky --------------------------------- At 06:54 4/04/02 -0800, you wrote: >Nicky writes in 6896 > >>I think that the most fruitful way forward theoretically is to >>emphasise our agreement on two key points: 1) that the capital-labour >>relation is more fundamental than the exchange relation, > >If the exchange relation includes what both Banaji and Meillasoux >call the form of exploitation, then it is possible that a >capital-labor relation of production could be in place even if the >form of exploitation makes it seem otherwise: in the chapter on the >Oxford Press website Banaji gives the examples of the use by 19th >century Cuban agrarian capitalists of slaves and antebellum American >Southern industrialists employment of serfs. > >At any rate, I thought I would note the attempt to differentiate the >form of exploitation from the relation of production. Is the >distinction viable? I think so... > > > >>and from this 2) >>money and capital must be theorised as a relationship with labour along two >>interconnected dimensions (reflected in the circuit of capital): the >>exchange (in markets) of labour power for wages > >but this does not follow from 1--no?-- since the capital labor >relationship (presumably within the abode of production) is more >fundamental than the exchange relation of which the payment of wages >is a form. > > > >>and the subsumption of >>living labour (in production) under the aspects of time. > >Lukacs--spatialization of time? That is, tasks are to be completed in >a determinate *space of time*--time thereby losing its flowing and >other non spatial qualities? Colletti seems to me too dismissive of >such phenomenological insights as so much vitalist clap trap. I >learnt a lot from Postone. > >Rakesh > ----------------------- Nicola Taylor Faculty of Economics Murdoch University South Street Murdoch W.A. 6150 Australia Tel. 61 8 9385 1130 email: n.taylor@stu.murdoch.edu.au
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu May 02 2002 - 00:00:08 EDT