Re: [OPE] Reply to critics

Hi Paula:

No, it is simply another way of saying that labor which produces commodities is
not the same as labor which sells commodities. The distinction is not that one
type produces a service and one does not since service labor can be - but doesn't
have to be - labor which produces a commodity.
 
I think you have confused 'good' with 'commodity': this would follow the conventional
- and, in my view, inconsequential - distinction between goods and services.

> A service is only a use-value,
 
 
This is wrong on so many levels. To begin with, services can come to have an
exchange-value. You might not want to recognize that because, in so doing,
you would be led through further consideration that services can have an exchange-
value because many take the commodity-form and hence represent value.
 
By the way, have you considered the following import of your perspective: if
services - by definition - are not commodities then one would be led to believe
that increasingly over time, especially in the period of late capitalism, there
is a tendency for more and more of what is offered for sale on markets to NOT
be commodities???!! That is, your perspective leads one to believe in a
tendency for de-commodification under capitalism! Yet, imo, this is the
opposite of the trend under capitalism where everything increasingly comes
to take the form of commodities.
 
 
> If you're going to argue that
> services are commodities whenever the labor is exchanged with capital, then
> you'll have to include insurance, retail, real estate, etc. Sorry, but you
> can't have your cake and eat it.
 
 
I never tried to have and eat the cake. You must not have heard what I have
been saying. There are several conditions which need to be met for service
labor (or ANY labor) to be productive of commodities and surplus-value.
They include:
- wage labor exchanged against capital;
- the labor must be production labor (i.e. actually engaged in production,
part of the production process);
- the service must produce surplus-value rather than merely be
concerned with legal title, including ownership, or sale of the commodity.
 
 
In solidarity, Jerry
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                                                
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Received on Tue Oct 26 09:12:40 2010