From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Tue Nov 11 2003 - 08:50:07 EST
Ian W wrote: > 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 point that I was making was quite different: capitalists _as capitalists_ are not productive of surplus value and consequently are not exploited. However, because 1 individual can belong to more than 1 class it is possible for a capitalist (especially a petty capitalist) to also be a worker. > 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, No doubt, but simply making "heroic contributions" to the firm's success does not mean that they are productive of surplus value. > 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. I didn't suggest that all small firms are disappearing or irrelevant. However, the statistics on market concentration show quite clearly, for all advanced capitalist economies, a long-term trend towards increasing concentration where the share of output of most markets are increasingly controlled by small numbers of large firms. Part of this process can be historically explained through economies of scale, barriers to entry, and mergers. Marx's explanation of this process begins early on in _Capital_, e.g. Volume 1, Part Four, and focuses on changes in the labor process such as an increasing division of labor, manufacture, and 'modern industry'. We can observe this historically not only in industry (most notably, through the industrial revolution) but also in agriculture and this process helps to drive small firms in agriculture out of the market and force owners of small businesses into the ranks of the proletariat or the industrial reserve army (or perhaps into the 'petty commodity', i.e. 'informal', sector). The advantages of firm size (that also include financial ability) have to be grasped to comprehend the following statistic: in the US, approximately 2 out of 3 small businesses will go out of business within the first 3 years of operation. > For example, I do not > believe strategic decision making will be abolished in a classless > society. It is (potentially) necessary labour. No doubt there will be strategic decision-making in a classless society, but in a classless society there is no longer the production of surplus value and hence the specific meaning under capitalism of 'productive' and 'unproductive' labor no longer has relevance. It will then be a subject of importance only for historians and archaeologists. > 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! We have been talking at cross purposes. No doubt that 'productive' has more than one meaning, but when _I_ was referring to productive labor I was _only_ referring to labor which is productive of surplus value under capitalism. In solidarity, Jerry
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