From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Thu Apr 14 2005 - 11:27:11 EDT
At 2:21 PM +1030 4/14/05, Ian Hunt wrote: >Dear Rakesh, >I think you have not understood my point- sorry for not expressing it >clearly. I agree there is conflict between slaves/serfs and their >masters. I agree that in slave commodity production, surplus value is >produced. Labour time also plays a role. However, the drive for >relative surplus value present in capitalism, with a salient role for >labour displacing technical change, would not be part of the dynamic >of slave commodity production. Capital in this form can afford to be >technically lazy, since necessary labour time is set at the master's >command, not through competition between labourers in the market >place. Dear Ian, Yes, yes, you had not mentioned the concept of relative surplus value, and I certainly see the logic of this argument that the transition from absolute to relative surplus value depends on the attainment of the civic equality of labor; however, we should check this argument against the history of technical change on the plantations. For their time, they may not have been technological laggards. Why would a plantation owner have been more reluctant to carry out mechanization where this was possible and could be profitable. If mechanization rendered redundant slaves that had already been paid for or were inherited gratis as progeny, those slaves could be sold or forced to purchase their freedom through commodity production as independent peasants. Were slaves more likely to mishandle machines than free wage laborers (as Cairnes and Olmstead suggested)? Charles Post convincingly argues that there is no reason why with the right mixture of coercion and incentives slaves could not work machinery as effectively as free wage laborers. Slavery may not have fettered mechanization. Whether indentured, slave or free wage labor had been used, there may have simply been limited possibilities of mechanization in the cleaning of tobacco leaves, the picking of cotton seeds and the harvesting of sugar. In other words, slavery was resorted to exactly because mechanization was difficult, the demands for labor were high and the treatment of labor terrible in these agricultural activities (so free labor would not do it). Moreover, the eventual lag in the industrialization of the American South vis-à-vis the Northeast was probably in part the result of the plantations using the child and female labor on which early industrialization depended. Children and women were not as extensively used in the kind of farming practiced in Northeast and Midwest. Thanks for the clarification. Yours, Rakesh > Obviously, I did not mean for you to extrapolate from my words >that there is a more fundamental difference between industrial >capitalism and others forms of capitalism based on slavery, merchant >or financial capital than the above. >cheers, >ian > >>At 11:47 AM +1030 4/14/05, Ian Hunt wrote: >>>If can chip in here too. It is not clear that in total >>>mechanization, labour time would retain its significance: as Chris >>>suggests, the issue is that of a conflict of interest between >>>labourer and capitalist, when both have a formally equal social >>>standing. Machines, no matter how ingenious or creative, would have >>>no interests in potential conflict with capital unless they had lives >>>of their own and consciously pursued their own interest in those >>>lives. If they did and had formally equal social standing, then the >>>social relations of capital would have a place. On the other hand, if >>>they were persons but lacked equal social standing, we would have >>>slave or feudal commodity production: labour time no doubt would play >>>a role here but not the same as under capitalism. >> >>I don't understand this--there is no conflict between slaves/serfs >>and masters? Why is equal standing necessary for there to be a >>conflict of interest? Why must there be a conflict of interest among >>people of equal (juridical?) standing for surplus value to be >>produced, and to be the aim of production. Certainly surplus value >>can be produced even if people do have equal juridical standing, but >>this does not prove that they must for it to be produced. >>rb > > >-- >Associate Professor Ian Hunt, >Head, Dept of Philosophy, School of Humanities, >Director, Centre for Applied Philosophy, >Flinders University of SA, >Humanities Building, >Bedford Park, SA, 5042, >Ph: (08) 8201 2054 Fax: (08) 8201 2784
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