From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Mon May 15 2006 - 18:32:18 EDT
Jerry, My simple queries (which I didn't fully resolve in my unfinished Phd) suggested a social accounting problem of sorts - suppose you regard the salary bill of workers classified as non-productive labor as a "deduction from surplus-value" (a la Fred Moseley). (1) This would imply total surplus value and total profit in an accounting period *cannot* be identical in principle, because whatever else you might argue, the non-productive labor income is not profit income, unless you are willing to argue that wage costs are really profits (well, they might be in the minor case of stock options or profit-sharing etc. that are part of the remuneration package). Then where does that leave "transformation problem" theories which argue that total surplus value created in an accounting period must necessarily equal total profit? (as you know, I've always dissented from this identity). (2) What if part of the salaries of non-productive labour are "advanced" (to borrow Kliman's terminology) from *previously* existing capital, rather than paid from current gross revenues (as Marx usually assumes)? In that case, it would be difficult to argue they are a deduction from newly created surplus value. Mandel suggested vaguely these salaries are paid "from social capital" but he didn't crack the social accounting problem. Your first reply is, Why not regard non-value-adding salary income as a deduction from the _preceding_ period? My answer would be along the lines: because it is the value of current output we are measuring, and non-value-adding labor is a necessary constituent of that current output, whether gross or net, it is part of the current cost structure of that output. If hypothetically we regard these earnings as a deduction from a previous period, obviously they cannot *also* be counted as part of current (newly created) surplus value. You suggest: There is support in Marx for the idea that these [salaries of non-productive labor] are advanced, I think. After all, if the wages for productive workers are advanced (i.e. V is advanced) then why not also for the wages of unproductive workers? My reply is that Marx's basic principle is that the wages are mainly *not* "advanced", i.e. the worker contracts to work first, and gets paid later. It is true, funds may be held in reserve to pay salaries, but because these funds are replenished from current sales, the actual average "stock" of variable capital in industries during a year is usually much less than the annual flow (this point is ignored by most scholars). You suggest: But, (moving away from Marx) I think that both claims are counter-factual. I.e. wages are _not_ "advanced" by capitalists to workers. Workers receive wages only _after_ they have worked, not before. This might seem to be a trivial point, but I don't think so. There we obviously agree, except that I think it does not "move away from Marx". The point is that if as you say "Workers receive wages only _after_ they have worked, not before", this applies *also* to non-productive labour. Presumably the Marxian gross product is a monetary valuation of a stream of *current* labor. You add: The reason for the delay is structural: it is one of many expressions of capitalist control of the workplace in the sense that it becomes a means to extract work from workers. I.e. since workers know that they won't get paid until _after_ they work, this is used as a form of control by capitalists. It is especially a means by which _new_ workers and the _lowest paid_ (esp. those without savings) workers can be controlled -- it ensures that they will continue to work, at least, until they are paid. If you want to discuss this, let's move it back to the list. (you have my permission to excerpt in part or in full this message). Comradely, Jerry Well I have just mooted it to the list... The general idea is that the Marxian value product for a year must be equal to the sum of current gross incomes generated by production after deduction of costs, be it with a somewhat different grossing and netting procedure than is used in official accounts. At least, that is what Marx anticipates in the Resultate. Anwar Shaikh notes somewhere that Marx's last published definition of productive labor (in Cap. Vol. 1) refers both to the nature of the output (its useful effect) and to the social relation involved. The schoolmaster is capitalistically unproductive if he works e.g. for the state, but productive if e.g. the school is run as a commercial business (in which case he produces capital). But this does not imply that *any* occupation can be either productive or non-productive depending on the social relation within which work is performed, because it depends partly on the nature of the output also. "If we have a function which, although in and for itself unproductive, is nevertheless a necessary moment of [economic] reproduction, then when this is transformed, through a division of labour, from the secondary activity of many into the exclusive activity of a few, into their special business, this does not change the character of the function itself" (Capital Vol. 2, Penguin ed., p. 209). I think Marx wrote this bit after he completed Cap. Vol. 1 though he did not publish it himself. I tend to think that Marx was aware that, with changes in the division of labour, the frontiers of PUPL would change as well, in which case we would need to distinguish between transhistorical realities and emergent historical realities. Of course I am aware that social accounting techniques may never do full justice to the social relations involved in giving and getting, taking and receiving, sharing and excluding etc. but accounting insights are useful to arrive at greater conceptual precision. Jurriaan
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