From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Mon Oct 09 2006 - 14:52:50 EDT
> As I see it, the issue is not whether there is wage slavery or not, but > whether the distributional conflict is determined by relations of > production > or not, i.e. whether the distribution of gross product is determined by > the > ownership of productive assets and products, or not. Seems to me that Marx > is saying you cannot analyse *distributional* conflicts in separation from > the conditions under which output is *produced*, you need one theoretical > framework for this, encompassing both production and distribution. His > substantive argument being, that the employer already owns the surplus, > prior to its distribution. > > Jurriaan > I think this is a fabulous formulation, and it seems to me that here is the basis of as an important debate between Sraffians and Marxians as the hoary value debate. That capital already owns the worker-produced gross product, including the very means to the workers' lives, and that this ownership allows capital to resist any redetermination of workers' subsistence allotment that would undermine the basis of its own power and its own growing consumption needs are exactly the features of slavery. This of course does not mean that Marx ruled out the possibility of a rising real wage as Ajit seemed to suggest in a recent message. As long as capital can reproduce itself and meet its luxury demands there is always the basis for material improvments in the condition of the working class. "But just as little as better clothing, food, and treatment, and a larger peculium, do away with the exploitation of the slave, so little do they set aside that of the wage-worker." Rakesh
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