> I've been following the comments of Roger Odisio and Rakesh Bhandari on the
> relations among the value of labor power, variable capital, and wages. The
> subject is a bit over my head, and so these comments have taken me a while
> to digest, but I'd like to recap them as best I can and then pose a few
> questions.
>
> 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.
Marx did discuss the realtionship between wages and the vlp in several ways, but, I agree, not to my knowledge in the way, and to the extent, I do. See, e.g., Value Price and Profit, a compilation of two speeches he gave in 1865, particularly Chap. XIII, where he discusses wage movements in response to changes in the vlp, due to, e.g., labor productivity changes. He says that if increased productivity reduces the vlp (because less labor is needed to produce given necesities) and wages do not drop correspondingly, labor would indeed capture some surplus value: "If the working man should resist that reduction of relative wages, he would only try to get some share in the increased productive powers of his own labor".
But Marx did not discuss at any length the implications of wage deviations from the vlp, as I have, for at least the reasons you give. In fact, if you look at the second counteracting influence to the FROP that Marx mentions in vol.3 of Capital--depression of wages below the value of labor power--you will see the germ of both of your reasons. Here it is:
" This is mentioned here only empirically, since, like many other things which might be enumerated, it has nothing to do with the general analysis of capital, but belongs in an analysis of competition, which is not presented in this work. However, it is one of the most important factors checking the tendency of the rate of profit to fall."
When Marx says it is not presented in the 3 volumes, but belongs in an analysis of competition, he makes your first point. Capital is about values not prices. So Marx doesn't talk about how wages deviate from v. He will, of course talk at times about wages, but not to make this point. Invariably when discussing wages he uses the simplifying assumption of wages = v, to allow him, for example, to make a point in terms of things people can see, like wages, rather than in terms of underlying values which are not directly observable. As he does in Value, Price, and Profit. But this passage in Capital shows that he understood that wages did deviate from v and it was an important effect. In fact, he calls it one of the most important factors affecting the tendency for FROP.
Second, because Marx didn't spend any time on the question of wages deviating from v, and because he would typically assume wages = v when he wanted to talk of wages at all, he makes his point about a counteracting influence in terms of wages falling *below* v. The point being that capitalists can capture more surplus value, and thwart the tendency to FROP by forcing wages below v through class struggle. Logically this has its limits because, if continued, first the social reproduction and then perhaps even the physical reproduction of productive labor is threatened. (Note: capital suffers even if wages fall below *social* but not physical necessities, because that in itself reduces labor productivity. As Marx put it, labor's standard of life, and with it labor's productivity, would deteriorate as wages fell below the cost of necessities.)
But you can see that Marx's point doesn't depend on wages beginning at v and being forced below that. Capitalists also capture more surplus value when wages are above v and are forced down towards it. Marx's point is a general, and actually pretty mundane, one. Capitalists can counteract the tendency to FROP by capturing surplus value through the direct class struggle over wages in exchange.
Now, despite the obvious difficulties in measuring the money value of labor's necessities, it is evident to me that for most of the post WWII period in leading capitalist countries, and particularly the US, many wages *have* exceeded v. That's why Meek said it would be one of the first things Marx would notice (although since the 70s, when I think he made the remark, capital has taken backs some surplus value from labor). The fact that Marx never got around to seriously discussing it is a function of both the fact wages probably didn't deviate much from v at that time of early industrialization, and he concentrated on, and never finished, his value framework he used to "lay bare" the laws of motion of capital and capitalism.
But, given an obvious fact of some importance, no marxist would give it short shrift simply because the old man didn't go into it. The economic laws Marx set out are not immutable laws of nature, but historical ones subject to change. The point is to understand today's conditions, not regurgitate some pat answer about yesterday.
> 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.
I don't think Rakesh is saying most of this, and nor do I think most of it makes much sense. He agrees that wages can exceed the value of labor power and that productive labor can thus capture some surplus value. And I'm not sure how "capital" could make sure that labor as a whole does not share in surplus value. Individual capitalists can, of course, drive down wages more than others.
> 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?
How could a rise in wages free labor from the need to sell their LP when by definition they own no MOP and must sell their LP to live?
> 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.
I don't think so. There is an effect here, but you make far too much out of it. A rise in wages will cause an increase in workers' demand for something, but not necessarily more or different necessities. Higher wages don't necessarily add to labor's social necessities. Higher wages, if tied directly to productivity gains (and there is no necessary correlation or there could be no class struggle over wages, etc.), can cheapen g &s and so to some extent reduce vlp.
But it is important to understand that wages and vlp are determined separately. Wages in the direct class struggle with capital, and vlp is a social determination of necessities to reproduce labor as a social class. They can and do go in different directions.
> 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?
Such a theory is not built on the idea that labor "regularly" receives a share of s, but rather on *whether* it does, and if so how much, through the ebb and flow of class struggle. And because of all of the diverse elements of social necessities today, the class struggle takes place on many venues apart from the direct struggle over money wages at the factory or office. You mentioned some of them yourself--education, retirement funds, etc. One example: one of the things welfare "reform" was about was a conscious attempt to drive down the social sustenance and development that poor kids get by having the mother at home, and force her, as a poor woman, into the work force.
So the class struggle between labor and capital includes both the "basket"of labor's necessities and certain elements of surplus value which also is realized in many forms. It is a wide ranging social struggle. Which is one reason why organizing "the working class" to opoose capital is such a difficult task, and often is so insufficiently focused. Then there is the within-capital-as-a-class struggle over the distribution of surplus value in its many forms besides profits.
> 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?
These last two questions are harder to deal with because I don't see the difference between Rakesh and me the same way you do. The only difference I am clear about in our latest exchanges is where the term variable capital fits into the discussion about wages deviating from the value of labor power.
> 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.
But I don't think class struggles are about the value of labor power, or its monetary equivalent, not the least because no one knows exactly what it is, and few marxists even concern themselves with its quantification.
The class struggle is about things people can see--wages and working conditions on the job, what kind of jobs capital offers and who gets them, what kind of education is offered and who gets that, and a whole host of other social issues that affect the distribution of product. Capitalism is a social system and capital's social contol of labor, I think, far exceeds its economic control.
> Also, would Roger give a citation for the comments of Ronald Meek that he
> referred to (on variation of wages from value of LP)?
You might try Meek, Economics and Ideology and Other Essays, or less likely, Studies in the Labor Theory of Value, neither of whichI have at hand. His statement was something I read, I think in the 70s, actually probably in a journal article, that has stayed with me precisely because the difference bewteen v and wages is so much ignored by marxists. I was delighted that he recognized this as well.
RO