exploitation (was: Mandel and Keynes, spell-corrected)

[William S. Lear]

On Sun, September 20, 1998 at 08:09:51 (-0700) James Devine writes:
>Bill Lear wrote: 					
>>Capitalism is a system based upon the exploitation of labor.  Without
>>the exploitation of labor, the system literally would not, could not,
>>exist.  Workers should recognize this by merely uttering the words "I
>>am a worker".
>
>>To get a concrete grasp of this, you must understand not only what
>exploitation means (all other things equal, a person is exploited if they
>must labor more than the average amount people work in the economy) but
>also the relationship between inegalitarian distribution of resources
>("capital") and the potential for exploitation.<
>
>Instead of working more than average (which suggests that all those above
>the median aren't exploited), there's got to be a better definition. First,
>exploitation is a society-wide phenomenon (the capitalists exploit the
>working class as a whole),  obviously with implications for individuals.
>The sign that exploitation occurs is that the average real wage rate
>(averaging across society) is below the average product of labor. Though it
>doesn't work exactly, for the individual the sign of exploitation is that
>the worker's wage is below the average product of his or her labor. (It
>doesn't work exactly, because some labor is purely redistributive.)

I think you meant to say "below the median" rather than "above".  I
did say "all other things equal", and I meant that quite broadly.
Comparing across industries is not really possible (how do you compare
two workers, one of whom works X hours and the other works Y hours?),
but comparing workers to owners is easy.  That's what I meant by my
cet. par. remark, vague as I was with it.

But, accepting your expansion, perhaps you could give us a very simple
example of, say, a two-good economy in which exploitation occurs,
using to your terms.  So, let's assume we have the standard corn and
steel economy.  Set it up so you have 100 people and 2 of them have X
dollars, where X is (more than) enough to run a factory, and 98 have
X/Y dollars where Y is large enough to leave X/Y far below the amount
necessary to run (own) a factory.  Suppose those working in the steel
industry work an average of S hours, and those in the corn industry
work C hours.  Could you lay out the "real wage rate" within and
across industries, and the "average product of labor".

What I would like to see, ultimately, is an example which allows me to
point to one person and say "See, this person in the economy is
screwed --- they are exploited", and not to say that only for a group
of people.

The reason I like my simplified version is that it allows you to point
to individuals.  Once the simplified version is internalized, it's
kind of easy to see it everywhere...


>>Unequal distribution of resources allows some to hire others to work for
>them, to produce profit for them.  This is exploitation, and it is also the
>very definition of a working capitalist economy.  Note that exploitation
>need not mean horrific working conditions, etc. --- it is something quite
>specific, and quite simple...<
>
>It's more than unequal distribution of resources (as Gary Dymski and I
>successfully argued against John Roemer in ECONOMICS & PHILOSOPHY a few
>years ago). Among other things, capital (both money-capital and means of
>production) must be scarce and the capitalists must control production and
>accumulation. 

But, unequal distribution must occur, correct?  Imagine that capital
is not scarce, but it is unequally distributed (above, let X grow as
large as you want, but also let Y keep pace to keep the 98 out of the
ownership game).  Doesn't that just mean that capital is scarce to
some but not to others?

Bill