I wrote:
> "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"
You responded:
> It is a complete absurdity, and the only reasonable person who would >write
>such a thing is, unfortunately, a Marxist who is trying to apply the flawed
>reasoning of the LTV to the logical processes of the world.
As I have explained to Angela, I was referring here to productivity gains (note the phrase shortening of labor time *per unit of output*). It is obvious then isn't it, that productivity gains have nothing necessarily to do with time actually worked? Perhaps you would have been better served attacking this as a platitude, rather than an absurdity.
You continued:
> To then say that shortening of necessary labor time has:
>
>" 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."
>
> - is entirely reasonable. Fortunately, one has nothing logically to do
>with the other. The fact that wages do not necessarily go up with
>technological advance has nothing to do with the demonstrably fictitious
>concept of inherent labor value or its bastard cousin "surplus value". To
>say that the better workers can produce the more they can be exploited is
>exactly like saying the fatter your wallet is, the more you can be robbed
>of.
Here you meant the "more" workers can produce, not "better" didn't you? Let's assume you did. Now if you will read the last two sentences again, you should be able to see how they contradict one another. Right, wages--particularly real wages, i.e., purchasing power--don't necessarily rise just because of technological advances that raise output. Then it's clear isn't it, that more output per worker is *NOT* the same as workers having fatter wallets to rob? Because they don't have fatter wallets. Just check the movement of real wages in the last 25 years or so.
Moreover, even if wages did rise in lock step with output gains, that has nothing to do with what I was talking about--a rise in s/v. As I am sure you know, having reached such stark and definitive conclusions about Marxian analysis, v is a measure of worker social subsistence (reproduction cost), determined outside of the production process. It has nothing per se to do with wages. So output gains, with a given worker reproduction cost, show up as more surplus value, with two essential caveats: (1) the effect on c if the gains are due to technological change, and (2) over time some of the enhanced output may improve the basket of goods, raising social subsistence. Most of the gains, however, do tend to raise the mass of s, and s relative to v, as is clearly evident from an examination of post WWII US data.
Whether wages, and real wages, rise or not, then, is mainly about the distribution of realized surplus value (assuming wages exceed v).
You continued:
>It is self-evident and unconnected to any tortured LTV logic. By the
>"increased exploitation" pseudo-logic of the LTV, one would have to believe
>that *increasing* necessary labor time would *diminish* the rate of
>exploitation, something so obviously farcical that it requires a
>well-schooled and serious Marxist just to get the explanation out without
>laughing.
See above. Since I assume you mean increased labor time in some general sense, and are not asserting a rise in the reproduction cost of labor, v would be unaffected, and s/v would surely rise.
You continued:
> All technological improvement is an unqualified good, as is the shortening
>of necessary labor time. Only unsound reasoning would lead a person to
>another conclusion.
This assertion is so fraught with error, can be attacked on so many levels, that I will let others on this list more clever and widely read than I respond to it, if they think it worth their time.