> the shortening of necessary
>labour time is a good thing isn't it? the problem consists in whether
>or not this is attached to a limitless lengthening of surplus labour,
>as it is now.
Good for whom, Angela? Not for labor. The shortening of necessary labor time due to technological change, *per unit of output*, raises the rate of exploitation (s/v) and allows for the creation of surplus value on an expanding scale. It allows for increasing the mass of surplus value, all of which is controlled, in one sense or another, by capital, relative to the reproduction cost of labor. But shortening of labor time has no necessary connection to time actually worked, or to wages or income per worker. No necessary connection to wages, that is, unless you believe the fiction that wages have something to do with labor's marginal productivity, ala the neoclassical model.
But you make an important point. Technological improvements allow for a virtual "limitess" expansion of surplus value, subject only to capital's ability to realize it in the exchange process (in some form or another--not simply profits, of course). This seems to be one thing Rakesh has been missing in the discussion so far. Surplus value is not limited by labor time.
I believe there has in fact been a tremendous expansion of surplus value since WWII, when carefully measured, relative to the other output shares--constant and variable capital. All of the surplus value is potential profit. But more and more of it is realized in other forms--taxes for government, wages and salaries beyond the social reproduction cost of labor (the wage part has been shrinking lately), the pay of a growing army of unproductive labor necessary to grease the machinery of production, whole industries of "waste" (e.g., advertising, legal) needed to help reproduce capitalist social relations), and on and on.
This pool of "potential profits" means that the financial bubble everyone has been talking about has a larger foundation than is often thought. That's not to say the bubble is not a problem; it is, of course. However, capital's resources to deal with it should not be underestimated either. For example, everyone can see the success capital has had recently in taking back for itself some of the surplus value that had been going to workers in the form of wages in excess of v. When I have more time I want to come back to this point about the struggle over the distribution of realized surplus value, because I think it is the heart of the matter.
>which raises the question: is communism defined by the abolition of
>private property or the abolition of the value form? the latter is
>certainly not reducible to the former.
Communism can be defined as the abolition of private property *in the means of production* (only). That, I think, is synonymous with elimination of the value form.