That's putting the cart before the horse. You can't classify the class if you don't know what it is made of.
Tahir: I reckon I do you see. I told you that I thought the class was made of those individuals whose alienated labour brings capital into being. This captures the relational aspect of capital and class and avoids the problem of definition where a class is simply a container in which you put all those who seem to share some feature in common. You professed not to understand this definition, and given your naive remarks about value (putting it mildly) below, I now understand why.
I'm not exempted from working for a living, I'm required to be available for work, to accept any job offer (luckily no-one has made me one in the last 19 years) and apply for a minimum of 3 jobs per fortnight in order to qualify for the dole.
Tahir: The dole has therefore helped you for 19 years to avoid working for a living and therefore according to your own definition has kept you out of the class for 19 years. But that is a crap definition of class. The reason why value is important I think is that it can help us to understand the relationship of the waged to the unwaged as a matter of class composition.
A close examination of the history and rules of welfare actually illustrate class divisions very starkly. The requirement to work is where the class division cannot be disguised. Historically, the subject class class under capitalism has always been required to work, the ruling class never. Obviously if this were not so, there would be no class division, hence no advantage to being a member of the ruling class. Indeed, there would be no one to rule, since the subject class are ruled at the point of production. So the necessity to rigorously enforce the requirement to work.
Tahir: Sure
Of course there are always a substantial number of people who cannot, for one reason or another be expected to work. Those who can demonstrate they are too young, too old, sick or disabled, etc. are exempted, permanently or temporarily as circumstances warrant. Social customs play some part in this, single parents caring for young children are exempt from work in more enlightened societies,
Tahir: Are you serious? Jesus now I have to ask you for your definition of work? You surely mean something different here. Single parents don't work? They create value for capital inter alia by working very hard to reproduce its most precious commodity, labour power. (And mostly they do also do waged work as well, but that's a separate point)
but not in the more backward countries, where they are regarded as dependents/chattels of fathers or husbands. The able-bodied, who cannot work due to a lack of available jobs are also temporarily exempted, but usually grudgingly. Of course all exemptions of the working class from work are policed rigorously and always have been. Not so the ruling class.
Tahir: Again the absurdity of your definition reveals itself. Those who have to work are working class, but now according to you certain members of the class are exempted from working. If you want to insist on definitions at least come up with ones that have some functionality.
>Tahir: What if capital decided somehow to remunerate housework and cut the remuneration of the (male) worker accordingly? Isn't this where the wages for housework movement might lead?
This is already happening. In Australia there are universal family benefits paid to mothers of dependent children, see the wbsite of the federal payment agency at: http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/individuals/pg_payments.htm for full details.
As for wages, they have already been reduced. Until a couple of decades ago, the level of male adult wages were arbitrated according to the male breadwinner concept. The legal doctrine was that male adult wages should be sufficient to support a husband and wife with two dependent children. That has gone out the window now, unless they have dependent children women are expected to work and expect equal pay for equal work. Wages are commensurately lower for both men and women, with one adult wage no longer sufficient to support a family - however some of the cost of raising children is being socialised, through government benefits.
Tahir: So if both are now waged (more or less equally?) do men and women tend to have more or less exchangeable roles in Oz, or do the women still do most of the non-waged work?
Perhaps that hasn't happened in the US (you are a backward lot) but it seems a common phenomenon in the advanced capitalist countries that have shed the anachronistic feudal notions of dependency. Its more efficient the modern way of course.
Tahir: Which are the advanced countries here? What is more efficient?
>>Some do of course, I once worked at the BHP steel mill in Whyalla, boarding at the company's single men's quarters. As well as a bed, the company provided all meals, even a cut lunch.
>
>Tahir: Did they provide prostitutes as well?
I was pretty naive back then. I never thought to ask. But it hadn't occurred to me you'd include sex in the definition of "housework". You yanks really ARE backward, aren't you?
Tahir: First of all I'm not a "yank", I'm South African. Secondly I'm not a backward nationalist of any type (and of all backwardnesses nationalism is the worst in my book). No I tend to think of sex as a separate category from housework, but not an unrelated one. But the role of prostitute is a very pervasive one in capitalist society and needs to be understood. If housework becomes waged, then why shouldn't sex as a service? And if it is, why shouldn't the rights of prostitutes to work in the way they choose be admitted, i.e. to become 'free' workers? Is prostitution merely convenient to capital in the wake of the breakup of families or is it somehow threatening to capital?
>It seems obvious that clean clothes are more valuable than soiled ones, that a meal ready to eat has more value than a raw cut of meat, etc. Or am I missing your point here?
>
>Tahir: I meant value in the marxist sense, value for capital.
I'm still not sure what you imagine the distinction is between Marxist value and ordinary value.
Tahir: It's in Vol. 1 Ch. 1 if you ever need to find out for yourself. (Clue: A shady tree in a forest has 'value' to me but it wasn't created by work.) So if there is only one notion of value, then let me understand your point in your previous post: You said that the 'value' of a laundered shirt was something quite obvious; but you also said that you yourself personally avoid producing value. It seems then that you have a personal slave who produces for you all the things that you 'value' but that you don't want to produce yourself? Still say there is only one notion of value here....?
Since, according to Marx, the value of wages will average around the cost of maintaining and reproduction of the labourer, the socially-necessary cost of housework to support the labourer must figure as a factor in wages. Less than a hundred years ago, a full-time housekeeper would have been a socially-necessary support for every worker, especially those with children. The work just couldn't be got through in the time we take today, with modern industrial products. Technological advances have made such a drain on available labour unnecessary, permitting women to be forced into the labour market along with men.
Tahir: Please explain the last sentence to me.
Which makes it possible to reduce relative wages, as a single wage no longer has to support two people. In other words, the socially necessary cost of supporting the labourer has been reduced, so wages fall in line with Marx's theory.
Tahir: Wow lucky for Marx; imagine if they had fallen another way!
The value of housework has been reduced dramatically, but its still the same sort of value it always has been. Its always been essential for the ntenance of the labourer.
Tahir: How has it been reduced? Whaddya mean? People don't need it as much as they did?
>I don't see how you can distinguish between class definitions and class composition. You can't just skip over the question of class definition as being 'too hard'.
>
>Tahir: On the contrary, I find your definition too simplistic, and since I already know it I don't need to ask anymore.
If you say so. I seem to recall that you still haven't provided any reasons for rejecting the definition, or suggested any alternative. Merely made unsubstantiated assertions. You can't be too sure of yourself.
Tahir: I've now repeated the definition above that I gave your earlier.