Brendan asks:
Isn't your restriction of commodity-producing labour to wage labour at
variance with Marx's own practice? "Simple commodity production" would be a
contradiction in terms. But isn't the labour of the petit-bourgeois producer
of products for sale also abstract labour? Our software packages are
basically no use to us and we are strongly motivated to alienate them.
Imo the work of petty commodity producers does not enter fully into the
abstract labour metric, because in the absence of the constraints of the
wage labour relation the reduction of concrete to abstract labour is
effected only indirectly via the sale of the output of such labour as a
commodity.
The strength of your desire to sell your (no doubt excellent) software is
neither here nor there. Of course you *may* be doing your management
accounting in a way that shadows a wage labour relation. But then you not -
either taking more on the job leisure than a wage-labourer could get away
with, or 'super-exploiting' yourselves in the manner of the caricature of a
family run corner shop.
Brendan goes on:
I would argue that petit-bourgeois production plays a significant role in
developed capitalism, especially in particular industries (like farming) and
particular places (like Aotearoa/New Zealand). After all, it's not just
being replaced by capitalist production, it's also being generated anew
within the capitalist milieu.
None of these empirical facts alter the abstract conceptual model, for which
petty-commodity producers are not necessary to the reproduction of the
system as such. Look at it the other way round: if producer co-operatives
became the dominant form of direct production relations, would we not need a
different model to adequately capture the dynamics of this new system?
Michael
"Books are Weapons"
PS: I did not mean to impugn at all, as I am sure he knows, the 'importance'
, in all kinds of ways, of his co-operative. It just ain't capitalist! My
guess is that if it became very successful in terms of valorisation, Brendan
would be bought out (no doubt devoting the proceeds to socialist and Maori
causes ...).
-----Original Message-----
From: Brendan Tuohy <reg@reddfish.co.nz>
To: 'MICHAEL@MWILLIAM.U-NET.COM' <MICHAEL@MWILLIAM.U-NET.COM>
Date: Tuesday, March 02, 1999 9:06 AM
Subject: RE: [OPE-L:562] Re: RE: Commodity
Kia ora Michael.
I thought I'd write to you directly since I got a sense from your message
that this is an old controversy you weren't particularly keen to revisit on
OPE-L.
You wrote:
I can see the problem. However, in terms of the abstract model of capitalist
commodity production and exchange, the product of a worker cooperative is
inadequate to the concept 'Commodity'. In terms of an *interpretation* of
the conceptual model needed so that it might inform understanding of
Brendan's cooperative we might expect it to be unstable. Just because it is
embedded in capitalist generalised commodity production and exchange, there
will be economic pressures for it to either gradually transform itself into
a capitalist enterprise, or one acting as if it was constitued by capitlaist
direct relations of production, or for it to be driven out of business. Of
course, the more optimisitc scenario would be that this cooperative would be
a constitutive part of a major socioeconomic transformation driven by
economic social and political struggles that eventuate in the transcendence
of capitalism.
For this reason, Brendan's software is, imo, grasped by the value-form, but
is not (yet) commodified. One may think of an analogy with labour-power that
is irreducibly united with human persons created and produced in the private
sphere, again under non-capitalist direct production relations. But I will
not bore you all with my minority arguments that labour-power is not
adequate to the concept Commodity although it is grasped by the value-form.
(There are, of course, also disanalogies between software packages that are
contingently produced under non-capitalist direct relations of production,
and labour-power that, on my interpretation, could never be adequately
commodified.)
<end quote>
Isn't your restriction of commodity-producing labour to wage labour at
variance with Marx's own practice? "Simple commodity production" would be a
contradiction in terms. But isn't the labour of the petit-bourgeois producer
of products for sale also abstract labour? Our software packages are
basically no use to us and we are strongly motivated to alienate them. Want
to buy some? :-)
I would argue that petit-bourgeois production plays a significant role in
developed capitalism, especially in particular industries (like farming) and
particular places (like Aotearoa/New Zealand). After all, it's not just
being replaced by capitalist production, it's also being generated anew
within the capitalist milieu.
What conceptual advantage do you want to gain by restricting commodities to
wage labour?
Brendan
PS I have no exaggerated view of the economic importance or stability of
organisations like my own workplace ReddFish intergalactic
(http://www.reddfish.co.nz). But, at 12 years old, we have proved more
durable than most computing firms. And I am optimistic for the future of
socialism. :-)