From: Ian Wright (ian_paul_wright@HOTMAIL.COM)
Date: Mon Nov 10 2003 - 14:29:20 EST
Hello Jerry, Thanks for your reply. Let me address some of the logical issues, before discussing the reality of the examples we are discussing. On the possibility that a single individual can act as both wage-earner and capitalist owner you wrote: >Thus, it is possible for 1 person to be both productive of surplus value >and >not productive of surplus value but in those instances those individuals >are splitting their time performing qualitatively different economic >functions. Essentially this was my point -- that concepts such as "capitalist" or "worker" refer to social relations, not properties of individuals, and therefore it is logically possible for the same individual to perform more than one of these roles during the working day. The further point is that the theory of exploitation does not stand or fall with the possibility that the labour of capitalist owners does in fact contribute to the total value of a firm's product (which I originally thought was your concern). In fact, even if overnight all capitalist owners were somehow struck by overwhelming guilt and decided to "muck in" with their workers, this would in no way alter the fact that these very same owners own and control all the revenue, and hence receive profit-income. This profit-income arises from the social relationship between capitalist and worker, and not from any property of the individual capitalist, such as entrepreneurial skills or any other heroic property of the individual. And to get as close to reality as possible, there is no need to deny the possibility that some capitalists may indeed make heroic contributions to their firm's success, but the point is, whether they do or don't, they still receive profit-income, and hence there is no necessary connection between the labours of owners and their monetary rewards. Switching now to the reality of the example of a small business. You wrote: >To begin with, what's wrong with this is that you selected a hypothetical >example (rather than a "concrete" one) concerning ... small business. The >petty-bourgeoisie is not one of the "two major classes" in capitalist >society and it is a class which, due to the process of the concentration >and centralization of capital, become less and less "major" alongside >the accumulation of capital. Empirically, small businesses constitute the enormous majority of firms, although in terms of sales, number of employees and capital employed, they are, of course, small. The average size of US firm in 1997 was about 25 employees. I don't agree that there is a process of increasing capital concentration that results in the disappearance or increasing irrelevance of small firms. In fact, firm sizes, whether measured by sales or number of employees, follow a very stable Zipf distribution that seems to be stable over a very long period of time (decades). So there is no evidence that the proportions of small firms in the economy is changing in any significant way, although of course small firms are subject to greater volatility in their growth patterns, and new ones form and existing ones go out of business all the time. In all I think my original example was quite realistic (and will remain so for many years to come). >I can think of _no_ concrete example of >where any _major_, i.e. non-petty, capitalist performs "similar >tasks" in the production process as wage-earners who are productive >of surplus value. Yet, they typically _are_ on payroll for the reasons >I indicated above. I agree that big capitalist owners do not perform similar tasks to their workers, and in fact most owners don't even get involved in the day-to-day running of firms. I wish now I hadn't used the word "similar" in my example, as the point doesn't rely on the fact that the labour of the capitalist is similar to that of the worker. Even if the tasks are highly dissimilar (e.g., strategic decisions versus manual labour) it is still possible for both kinds of labour to contribute to the value of the product. For example, I do not believe strategic decision making will be abolished in a classless society. It is (potentially) necessary labour. Switching to the meaning of "productive" labour: You wrote: >You write above that you tend to believe that "if someone is willing to >pay for some labour then it is productive in the economic sense." >Then you must believe that _state employees_ are productive of surplus >value since the state pays for their labour time? (Or -- a less >meaningful >question -- what about all of the young people who are employed >part-time by working-class families to 'baby-sit' their own children or >mow their lawns or shovel their snow? Someone is obviously willing to >pay for their labor -- does that mean that they are productive of surplus >value?) Yes, I am confused and ignorant about the distinction between productive and unproductive labour. I agree with Rubin that the term "productive" really needs to be changed, because it has very little relationship to the normal english meaning of the word "productive". It is very confusing. But when I wrote rather sloppily that if labour is paid then it is productive "in the economic sense" I didn't mean to imply that it is productive of surplus-value. Production of surplus-value requires a network of enduring social relationships designed to systematically generate it -- that is, a capitalist firm. So of course I do not think that paying the local boy scout to wash your car is systematic exploitation, although it may be more or less fair depending on how much you pay him! -Ian. _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
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