From: Gary Mongiovi (MONGIOVG@STJOHNS.EDU)
Date: Tue Oct 23 2007 - 17:31:19 EDT
To Ian: "The LTV is essential to the argument that capitalist profit is unpaid labour-time. I am literally working for free, giving away my living moments for the benefit of another." Yes, I grant that this is one way to look at what is going on. But there are other ways, and how is one to mediate among them? Moreover, I don't see how this is substantively different from the argument that workers are exploited to the extent that they do not receive the whole of the net product: they produced it all, and if capitalists, who didn't produce any of it, are able to expropriate a part of it because they own the means of production, that amounts to a taking and hence to an injustice. The existence of any nonproductive class means that some members of society are toiling for the benefit of others, for otherwise the nonproductive class would cease to exist. One doesn't need to measure the economy's accounts in units of labor time to suss this out. Of what quantitative significance is the ratio of surplus labor to the labor embodied in the wage bundle? I.e., what do we learn from knowing the rate of expolitation that we can't figure out from the simple fact that capitalists, because they own the means of production, can dictate the conditions of employment and skim off part of the value produced by workers? Gary -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L on behalf of Ian Wright Sent: Tue 10/23/2007 4:24 PM To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Cc: Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Incoherence of the TSSI - consensus? > What matter, it seems to me, are the power imbalances stemming from workers' alienation from the means of production. We can talk about these clearly enough without adopting Marx's labor value analysis. The LTV is essential to the argument that capitalist profit is unpaid labour-time. I am literally working for free, giving away my living moments for the benefit of another. The surplus-school rejects this since it does not resolve the classical contradictions of the LTV. In my view, its critique of capitalism is the poorer because of it.
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