Claus Germer (cmgermer@sociais.ufpr.br)
Fri, 8 Oct 1999 21:43:01 -0300
Paul Cockshott wrote:
> What I am trying to argue in this series of posts is that M Williams
> criticism of
> Smiths comment about unproductive labour leaving behind nothing which
> persists beyond its performance is unfounded. I am arguing that all
capital
> accumulation presupposes a material accumulation of transformed physical
> objects. The unit of account for our equating these diverse physical
objects
> is labour hours, but that such objects must exist for capital to
accumulate.
>
> Labour which does not either directly or indirectly lead to the
production of
> such objects, is, as Smith originally pointed out, unproductive.
>
> It appeared to me that you were implying that the existence of money
allowed
> capital to escape from this constraint on accumulation pointed out by
Smith,
> in the sense that accumulation of value could take place without an
equivalent
> accumulation of use values by taking the form of an accumulation of
money.
> I now realise that you were not saying that, and that you agree that any
> accumulation of capital must have an associated accumulation of
transformed
> matter.
Your argument is not plainly clear to me, so I'll try to break the subject
down into smaller pieces:
1. I think we agree that, in your words, any accumulation of capital must
have an associated accumulation of transformed matter. I woul add, however,
that this accumulation of matter consists of the addition of productive
capital in each sector, i.e., means of production and of consumption by the
labour-force;
2. the mentioned accumulation of capital requires that the capitalist sells
the commodity produced, converting it into money capital, in order to then
convert the surplus-value into an addition of new capital, which he
purchases from the producers of means of production. Thus, he makes the
metamorphoses C'-M' -- M-C ... where I assume M-C to represent only the
conversion of the surplus-value into new capital;
3. from this it is clear that the capitalist who accumulates does not need
to produce himself a product able to persist physically for any time. The
only condition is that his value-product be larger than the capital he
advances, or that M'>M, i.e., that he gets a surplus-value in money-form,
which has then to be converted into means of production, which are produced
by other capitalists. The means of production have of course to be in a
natural form suitable for the production of the use-values to be produced
with their aid;
This is what I would understand that you mean in the folowing sentences:
>I am arguing that all capital
> accumulation presupposes a material accumulation of transformed physical
> objects. The unit of account for our equating these diverse physical
objects
> is labour hours, but that such objects must exist for capital to
accumulate.
> I agree of course that private schools no more produce their own means
> of production than does a cotton factory.
In this sense, Smith's view that
> Labour which does not either directly or indirectly lead to the
production of
> such objects, is, as Smith originally pointed out, unproductive.
is obviously mistaken, since it would mean that only labour expended in the
production of means of production and means of consumption for labourers
would be productive. This would be a sort of physiocratic concept of value.
4. However, your following statement confuses me, because it seems that you
give another meaning to the concept of productive labour, when you say:
>The point to determine is whether
> the labour in a given enterprise contributes to the production of the
social
> surplus product.
I would say that this is easy to determine, because the surplus product is
made up of use values and has to be composed of the additional means of
production and of consumption needed for the intended accumulation, plus
the part consumed by the capitalists.
And you go on saying that (I repeat the complete statement):
> I agree of course that private schools no more produce their own means
> of production than does a cotton factory. The point to determine is
whether
> the labour in a given enterprise contributes to the production of the
social
> surplus product.
>
> Some private schools do some do not. Consider the contrasting cases of
> a private engineering school and a private military college all of whose
> graduates
> go on to become career soldiers. The former contributes indirectly to the
> production
> of the basic commodity, the latter does not. The private military college
> is thus
> unproductive and any accumulation of buildings etc that it acquires is
the
> result of surplus value produced in other parts of the economy. The same
> applies to capital that accumulates in the Pantex factory in Texas.
4. It seems to me that you are introducing a moral judgement of the
use-value produced in order to classify the labour which produces it as
productive or unproductive. The only condition for a product of labor to be
a commodity, however, is that it possesses use-value, regardless of their
moral ou ethical quality. As Marx states it, a commodity is "a thing that
by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature
of such wants, whether ... they spring from the stomach or from fancy,
makes no difference".
If both schools in your example are private, i.e., they are both capital,
then they both sell the same general commodity - teaching - and they do it
through wage workers - teachers and others - whose wages are smaller then
the value they produce in their working day. What the school-capitalists
need is not a commodity that lasts for some time, but the surplus-value
produced by their wage workers, converted into money form, which they then
are able to convert in an addition to their capital invested in their
schools. In the case of teaching an many other sorts of commodities, their
consumption coincides with their production, but they are use values whose
consumption satisfies definite human wants.
5. If your argument were true, the work that produces the commodities that
enter the personal consumption of the capitalists, as well as many others,
would be unproductive. So, your definition of the commodity would have to
include not only value and use-value, but also a classification of the
use-values based on moral judgement.
6. Finally, you talk of the production of a basic commodity as a criterium
of the productive character of labour, whose meaning is not clear to me,
like in the following:
> I dont think that is true. Teaching transforms the material brains of the
> pupils
> which persist in this transformed state. It is for this reason, that some
> teaching
> enters into the basic commodity.
As to the other subject:
>>I'm not sure that it is appropriate to analyse isolated countries, since
>>capital has been an international phenomenon from the beginning. The
>>west-european countries, like any other advanced cpaitalist country, have
>>either imported labour force or exported capital when necessary in order
to
>>attend the needs of their accumulation. Thus, there hasn't really existed
a
>>concrete situation like the one you mention.
> There has, in Britain from the late 60s to the early 1980s the conditions
> that I described applied. An actually declining productive labourforce,
> no net export of capital yet accumulation of constant capital leading
> to an absolutely classic textbook crisis of the falling rateof profit.
Don't you think we should take into consideration the fact that the British
capital is not just the one that is applied within the country, but
consists of its extensions all over the world. Thus, it is not appropriate
to think of the movements of British capital as only those that occur
within Great Britain? If this were correct, the rate of profit within GB
would necessarily include the profit earned by British capital in their
global operation, which is probably what you have in mind.
Comradely,
Claus Germer
cmgermer@sociais.ufpr.br
Departamento de Economia
Universidade Federal do Paraná
Rua Dr. Faivre, 405 - 3º andar
80060-140 Curitiba - Paraná
Brasil
Tel: (041) 360-5214 - Ufpr
(041) 254-3415 Res.
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