[lbo-talk] LTOV/LTOP )Was [plagiarism watch)

robert mast mastrob at comcast.net
Sat Dec 25 08:15:35 PST 2004


Charles Brown wrote:

"---in capitalism, the human labor power commodity has a unique characteristic that no other commodity has. It is the only source of new value ( exchange-value !). The labor-power commodity can add more exchange-value in producing commodities than the value of the commodities that went into reproducing it.

A women's liberationist might point out that there is no magic about this, although there is some Mrs.tery. The labor power is produced by the domestic labor power give in the home. "Domestic" or reproductive labor is the only source of the only source of new value. This logic is the basis of a unified Marxist and feminist theory of production and reproduction."

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Thanks for reminding us of the central role played by labor in capitalist reality on both the commercial and domestic fronts (merging the two is first rate). And this, on a Xmas eve when, I don't know, you may be trying to escape the commercialism and fantasy that I've tried hard to avoid since my liberation from childhood. You cast my attention back to the fundamentals, which have become obscured by all manner of other (often related) factors, by both the right and left. Like many others, I did the Das Kapital study group scene in the early 70s (never became proficient) where the labor theory of value stood forth strongly. Then it lost favor for various reasons which I'd love to think of as conspiratorial (but that's complicated by legal definition: 'persons colluding to commit a crime'). Maybe "orchestrated attempt" ( Rep. John Conyers' description of the Ohio election irregularities) would fit here.

Relevant to this topic, last Sunday I was part of a seminar that featured a wise and seasoned scholar/activist from Chicago expounding on the facts of production job loss as a result of new technology. His case was strong that there's no turning back from these trends that will continue to immiserate the world's working classes. Workers in production are becoming history. Detroit illustrates this well. But he frustrated me with a curious illustration from the Labor Party's founding convention (Cleveland, 1996) that we had both attended. He somewhat cynically called attention to the line from "Solidarity" that the delegates sang with raised fists: "Without our brains and muscles not a single wheel would turn." His point certainly was that computers and robots make production workers redundant.

I felt obliged to remind our speaker that there's still a paid or unpaid labor force of some 130 million (plus or minus), including many in that evolving category called by some the 'service sector,' mostly low paid and transitory. They have to earn some kind of living. And they make modern wheels turn. Wheels in computers and robots MUST turn as designed and maintained by technology workers. The turning wheels of truck drivers and service personnel are essential for 'just in time' production, meeting Wal Mart schedules, and servicing the needs of some 80 million households, eight million businesses, and untold thousands of public and private service agencies.

Within these centers of production, service, and reproduction, workers also make different, more abstract, wheels turn. Such wheels must keep turning if society as we know it is to be maintained. Management and organization (of commercial or domestic operations) is an essential wheel that turns well or poorly depending on the nature of human participation. The wheel of human services (essential needs) - as expressed in education, health, infrastructure, and domestic reproduction - turns in proportion to the skills and ideology of the workers. More openly commercial services (auto, insurance, leisure, sales, housing, fast food, etc), require compliant workers who turn wheels that affect the bottom line. Without the cooperation of such workers helping make the wheels turn, the system would grind down to a resounding halt, at any level of the workers' situations above.

Mental and physical labor is required for all the above activities. Such labor creates value. Though it seems like a simple proposition to me, too often it is obscured, forgotten, or swept under the rug. The workers themselves become lost in the shuffle. The logic of their potential collective power is put adrift by those on the right who deplore worker agency. Unfortunately, too many on the progressive left buy into such logic, perhaps by default or some kind of burnout. Thus, organized labor continues downhill, the unorganized don't get organized, and collective worker power erodes or doesn't get off the ground. What a great loss and insult to the working class that those who make the wheels turn and create the value have so little say in how that value is used.

But a new year is approaching and I'm encouraged by the potential of further forms of workplace organizing joined to community-neighborhood organizing. Since the commodity of human labor power is generated both on the job and at home, as Charles is saying, what a splendid opportunity to try to find organizing devices that bring these seemingly divergent sectors together politically. Jobs with Justice and southern-based Black Workers for Justice illustrate evolving efforts at this. I'm heartened by quivers of energy being expressed by the Labor Party. Newer groups like U. S. Labor Against the War and the Million Worker March committees being seeded across the country give me new year hope. Community survival groups should become more aroused as their constituencies continue dropping to the bottom, without jobs or a living wage. It makes sense to expect the raising of class and political consciousness of significant numbers of those making the wheels turn and creating value, but getting increasingly less of the benefits from that value. It would help a lot if those of us who purport to understand these things (and are pissed off) would put forth more mental and physical effort to helping turn the class struggle wheel.

Bob

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