Roger's view is that class struggle may enable workers to receive wages that are higher than the value of LP, and therefore > v. This means that even productive workers may receive a part of surplus value. And according to Roger, the working class *as a whole* receives a part of s in "advanced capitalist countries," so wages being > value of LP is not just an exceptional case.
Now, as far as I know, Marx never puts it this way. But this may be so only because, in the works I have read, Marx analyzes cases where commodities, including LP, circulate at their value. Or it may be, as Roger suggests while discussing Ronald Meek, that this phenomenon only became widespread after Marx's death. ("If Marx were to come back, this is one of the first things he would notice, Meek said.") In any case, Roger's view seems a not unreasonable way of looking at things, of explaining why wages respond to class struggle.
Rakesh, on the other hand, says that wages are normally set at the value of LP. He seems to want explain most variation in wages as effects of the struggle over what counts as socially necessary in reproducing LP. The skirmishes of this struggle change the value of LP and therefore v. He does allow that "certain" workers receive wages > value of LP, but sees this as exceptional, and not the normal mechanism of the influence of class struggle on wages. Capital, he says, tries to make sure this "does not obtain for the class as a whole." Productive workers, then, do not normally receive any of s.
Rakesh's view also strikes me as a not unreasonable way of looking at things. It is clear that most variation of wages, even in rich countries, does not change the relations of production to the point where workers are freed from the need to sell their LP. Why not? Precisely, I think, because workers usually spend even increased wages on means of subsistence, rather than becoming part-time or petty capitalists. (At least this is the case if houses, retirement funds, and children's education are means of subsistence, as I think they are.) And so a general rise in wages could be seen as a general in rise in the expected, that is socially necessary, cost of reproducing LP. The generalization of a higher level of wage in a given society can be seen as a rise in the value of LP, and conversely with a general decrease in wages.
So Roger's and Rakesh's view both seem attractive, though they contradict each other. As I see it, the disagreement raises several questions:
1. What are the implications of building a theory on the proposition that productive workers in rich countries regularly receive part of surplus value (or not)? What are we better or worse able to see with a theory constructed this way?
2. Is the difference more than a matter of theory-specifying? In other words, are Roger and Rakesh really making different empirical claims? If so, what are their implications?
3. If there is something empirical at stake, is there an empirical way to choose among the claims?
I hope that the disagreement between Roger and Rakesh doesn't run out of steam without reaching these questions. In fact I'd like to ask both of them, and anyone else who is interested, to propose answers.
I am asking because I think the answers might have real practical implications. Working class communities and community organizations around the world are engaged in struggles over what is socially necessary to reproduce LP -- that is, over the value of LP. If I better understood the substance of this disagreement, I think I might be better able to understand how these struggles articulate with other parts of the class struggle.
Also, would Roger give a citation for the comments of Ronald Meek that he referred to (on variation of wages from value of LP)?
Tom Thomas Waters twaters at panix.com Bronx, New York