Being a hardass classical Marxist with no sympathy for Western Maoist revisionism, I respectfully yet firmly disagree with Justin, Brian, and Rocker. Cheaper commodities -- be they due to super-exploitation of workers in poor nations or huge subsidies given to giant agribusinesses or whatever -- effectively serve to cheapen the labor-power of workers in rich nations (as well as in poor nations) by cheapening the customary means of subsistence (or their substitutes) and/or instruments of labor and raw materials; and therefore to increase the relative surplus value.
***** In order to effect a fall in the value of labour-power, the increase in the productiveness of labour must seize upon those branches of industry whose products determine the value of labour-power, and consequently either belong to the class of customary means of subsistence, or are capable of supplying the place of those means. But the value of a commodity is determined, not only by the quantity of labour which the labourer directly bestows upon that commodity, but also by the labour contained in the means of production. For instance, the value of a pair of boots depends not only on the cobbler's labour, but also on the value of the leather, wax, thread, &c. Hence, a fall in the value of labour-power is also brought about by an increase in the productiveness of labour, and by a corresponding cheapening of commodities in those industries which supply the instruments of labour and the raw material, that form the material elements of the constant capital required for producing the necessaries of life....
The cheapened commodity, of course, causes only a pro tanto fall in the value of labour-power, a fall proportional to the extent of that commodity's employment in the reproduction of labour-power. Shirts, for instance, are a necessary means of subsistence, but are only one out of many. The totality of the necessaries of life consists, however, of various commodities, each the product of a distinct industry; and the value of each of those commodities enters as a component part into the value of labour-power. This latter value decreases with the decrease of the labour-time necessary for its reproduction; the total decrease being the sum of all the different curtailments of labour-time effected in those various and distinct industries. This general result is treated, here, as if it were the immediate result directly aimed at in each individual case. Whenever an individual capitalist cheapens shirts, for instance, by increasing the productiveness of labour he by no means necessarily aims at reducing the value of labour-power and shortening, pro tanto the necessary labour-time. But it is only in so far as he ultimately contributes to this result, that he assists in raising the general rate of surplus-value. [3] The general and necessary tendencies of capital must be distinguished from their forms of manifestation.
(Karl Marx, _Capital_ Vol. One, Part IV "Production of Relative Surplus Value," Chapter Twelve "The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value," <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch12.htm>) *****
You see, the main insight of classical Marxist theory is paradoxical -- counter-intuitive even. Cheaper food, cheaper shirts, cheaper raw materials and industrial equipment to produce them, in short cheaper everything may appear to "benefit" workers (especially those in rich nations), but the cheapening of such commodities essentially serves to cheapen the labour-power of all workers who subsist on them directly or indirectly (as well as fattening them in the American case, as Michael Pollan, Greg Critser, etc. have revealed), giving more surplus value -- and therefore more power -- to capitalist who exploit them.
As I've argued in the thread on Marxism and bodies with regard to disablement, classical Marxism is not a philosophy of inequality indignant at workers in rich nations being better off than workers in poor nations, nor is it a philosophy of utility idealizing the cheapening of commodities that allows consumption of more and more. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>