On Sun, 30 Jun 2002 09:37:47 "Todd Archer" <todda39 at hotmail.com> said
> Gar said:
>
>
>>You can start with one of Marx's brilliant (and I mean this
>>non-sarcastically) observations - that capitalists buy labor time, not
>>labor. (Yes there are exceptions.) The capitalist class is not large enough
>>to personally extract as much labor as possible during work
>>
>
> I thought it was surplus value, not labour that's extracted.
>
In order to extract surplus value, the workers must work. You must extract labor.
>
>>time, so they have to hire supervisors and managers. They need
>>
>>>coordinators. >A lot of people we would not think of in this context
>>>fulfill a coordinator function. For example engineers and software
>>>
>>designers >help create the workplace, and indirectly play a large role in
>>this type of control. Artists and writers and educators are a means of
>>controlling the flow of information to workers, and help shape how easy
>>they are >to control.
>>
>
> If I read this correctly, you say that any person who is involved in
> "controlling" workers, to broad extent e.g. control of working environment
> by creating it or control of information flow to workers, is a coordinator?
pretty much. There are some subtileties - people who don't actually make decisions, (within the broad context of capitalist contraints) but are mere "transmission belts" for the orders of capitalists or coordinators are not coordinatators.
>
>
>>
>>The very top of this group is so highly compensated for this that they end
>>up as capitalists. But the key here is that coordinators have interests
>>that differ from both capitalists and from workers as a >whole.
>>Coordinators to capitalists are an expense, a labor cost. They want to
>>minimize the cost of coordination. Whereas coordinators want to be
>>indispensable.
>>
>
> All workers, coordinator or not, want to be seen in this light.
I should have been clearer. Because coordinators have greater control of their own circumstances and the circumstances of others they can become indispensable - a choice workers do not have.
> <snip>
> How do they differ from the rest of the working class? They both contribute
> surplus value (pace Wojtek), both are paid a wage, and neither owns the
> means of production.
They have more control over their lives and the lives of other workers. They have a monopoly on the pleasant and empowering tasks. And their interests definitely differ. For example, imagnine a fairly egaltarian form of socialism - one in which all workers were paid about the same per hour. The vast majority of the working class, as I have defined it, would be better off even in strictly financial terms by this definition. Their hourly rate would increase rather than decrease. But the vast majority of coordinators would lose money. So your typical coordinator would be materially worse off under eqalitarian socialism than under capitalism.
Similarly even though coordinators have much less power than capitalists, they still have more power than they would in a poltically egalitarians society. A doctor or a lawyer or a middle manager may not have as much power as a capitalist; but a coordinator in a nation with 250 million peopole has more than 1/250 millionth of the power.
>
>>I know the idea that a class may be defined on some basis other than
>>relation to the means of production is extremely counter-intuitive to
>>Marxists.
>>
>
> If you base your class analysis on "work", then where does it end? Every
> type of new job created requires a revamping of the analysis.
Not true. Does every new type of production machine require a revamping of the Marxist theory of the working class? The fundamentals remain the same. You own enough of the means of production to live on the work of others. Or you don't own the means of production, but help extract surplus value from other workers on behalf of those who own the means of proudction. Or you don't own the means of proudction, and must sell your labor without having the choice of extracting surplus value from others rather than primarily from yourself. In all forms of capitalism up to the present this has remained true.
I suspect that Kelley , if she wanted to and was able to make the time, could tell you some stories about the relations between workers and coordinators that would illustrate my point.