From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Mon Jun 09 2003 - 07:21:32 EDT
Re: The 'cultural and moral' component (was Meillassou[Was: The 'cultural and moral' component (was Meillassoux on population and wages)] (The following is an attempt to address an issue being discussed in this thread a bit more concretely be singling out an individual struggle for discussion.) Marx gives us an explanation in _Capital_, in his analysis of absolute surplus value, for why capital strives to increase the length of the working day. He notes that, in addition to physical limits (there are only 24 hours in a day and workers need time to sleep and eat to be productive for capital), there are *social limits*. On this point, he does not expand greatly other than to suggest that capitalist efforts to increase absolute s will meet working class resistance. (Why didn't he expand on the topic of *social* limits when introducing the concept of absolute s? I think Mike L would say it was a topic that logically fits better within the design of Book 3 on "Wage-Labour" than Book 1 on "Capital"). Let *us* ask: what then determines the length of the working day? Clearly, the "needs of capital" _alone_ do not determine the outcome. What of the "needs" of workers? The struggle for the 8 hour day occurred during Marx's lifetime and indeed he helped launch and guide that movement since it was initiated by the International Workingman's Association (i.e. the First International). This movement was not simply or even primarily an attempt to preserve jobs in the face of technological unemployment. It was rather a struggle between capital, which only conceives of workers from the standpoint of what's good for capital, and workers, who conceive of themselves not only as wage-workers but as living people with their own goals and aspirations. This is the point I think Mike L is making. Consider the slogan in the US (and possibly in Europe as well) of the 8-Hour-Day movement: "8 hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, 8 hours for what we will." How can this possibly be comprehended _only_ as resistance to the 'needs of capital'? To comprehend class struggle as a real *struggle*, i.e. in actuality, one must recognize that the demands of the working- class do not arise _only_ in a 'defensive' manner: they, not infrequently, are also expressions of a deep-seated desire to make their lives better and *more* (fuller; more complete). The slogan above captures an expression of that -- a desire for leisure time to do "what we will." The next question to ask might be: why do workers desire more leisure time? ... what do they want to do with more leisure time? Unless the working-class is conceived multi-dimensionally with subjectivity (i.e. as real human beings) than class struggle in its various forms and more concretely can not be comprehended. Class analysis requires that workers be stripped of their "character masks." In solidarity, Jerry
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