Jerry, Fine... so now we are examining labourers imprisoned by capitalist society, and which in some cases more or les compells them to work. ie slaves. Lets take this aspect of the use of the modern prisoner. It would require better study of overall costs etc.. as you say to asses whether thgis was profitablke, or an attempt simply to reduce state expenditure. What I was trying to open up is the question, under / in a direct capitalistic society, what does the variation in legal status mean for the definition of wage labour ? I am sure that in primitive prison conditions a clear profit could be made from exploiting prisoners, yet they would not be free labourers. The price of the commodities they produce would be set by the market. Here we would get value and surplus value produced (state owned or not). It is a little way from here to the practical enslavement of workers in company owned towns with no alternatives, subject to horrendous discipline etc in much of capitalist production ... eg the compounds now surrounding Jakarta. I am concerned that we don't treat the categories used in Marx's analysis of a mature capitalism as a formal template by which to judge whether or not capitalism is at work.. we should be assessing the process as it develops... how in the case of US slavery, wage labour could not be found and a 'temporary' resolution had to be found . Capital as a relation could not be exported as Marx underlines in his chapter on colonialism and West's ideas. So capitalism created the slave system for that specific and transitory period.... it was capitalistic in nature, it was not genuinely 'feudal', it was a throw back. I think we have come across this question of what i would call formal definition versus historical analysis in our exchanges about the state's production activities, which comes out again in what you say eg...... > must represent a capitalist enterprise -- but rather than being privately > owned and controlled prisons they are part of the state apparatus......... > > 2) prisons are not structured on a 'for profit' basis. Well, apart from your later comments the Public/Private partnerships in the UK have seen the growth of privately run prisons making a profit from their 'service'... ie transfering surplus value via state tax system.. so I think you meant to say 'not structured to craeted surplus value'... which is then clarified as such when you say...... > > 3) the funding for prisons represents a *deduction* from surplus value. > 4) prisoners are "free" in no sense of the term (other than, typically, the freedom to work or stay in one's jail cell.)... This irritates bourgeose society so that compulsion to work has always accompanied prison regimes > > 5) even where the products of prison labor are sold on the market, the > cost to imprison individuals in the US is significantly higher than the > market price of the 'commodity' output produced per prisoner. As of 1996, > the average cost nationally to the state per prisoner per year was $17, 650. > Do you really think then that the market price of the 'commodity output' > (producing items like license plates, or grooming pets, or cleaning city > parks or building roads) is greater than $17,650/annum/prisoner? (If not, > then one might say wryly -- if one believes in such fictions -- that the > prisoners are engaged in the production of 'negative surplus value' and are 'exploiting' the state! I trust though that Paul does not want to make that argument -- nor do I [but the possibility of negative s has been defended in past by other listmembers].) [NB: obviously the costs of imprisonment/ > prisoner vary very significantly internationally.] Obviously not Jerry.... but the aim is to create revenue to reduce the costr of prisons. In the process independent capitalists may make profit. > > Consequently, I would explain the cost of prisons differently: they > represent a deduction from surplus value paid for by taxation. Generally I agree. > A *different* form of prison labor has developed, though, in recent years > in the US: *the corporate use of prison labor*. Federal laws require (as I understand them) that prisoners must give consent < ho! ho!... what is the real alternative for most of them without money even to buy soap?) for them to be employed in this manner and that if they are producing goods that are to become part of "domestic commerce" then they must be paid the "prevailing wage" (this > normally means the "minimum wage"). [NB: A loophole in the law, though, > allows corporations to pay prison laborers below the "prevailing wage" > if the goods are not sold on domestic markets, i.e. if they are exported!] > In these cases, though, I think we are talking about *wage-labor* > employed by capital -- even though there is a lack of some aspects of > "freedom" normally associated with wage-labour (e.g. the state obviously > restricts who they can be employed by). So now... you have not yet taken the point that prisoners are forced into slave labour in many parts of the world, they produce commodities for those running the prisons (state or not)..... how is this different from other slave regimes in societies dominated by capitalism ? We have to separate reality from legality in our examination. This is my question. Cheers Paul
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