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

[JBrown72073 at cs.com]

Charles Brown writes:
>Human labor power as a commodity is a defining characteristic of capitalist
>relations of production. In precapitalist societies, there was exchange
>of commodities "on the periphery" , but most labor power was not a commodity.
>Also, 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.
>
>
>CB

It's been the basis of several.  : )

OK, but usually women's reproductive labor rightly, I think, regarded as a 
whole different thing than production.  How do you deal with the fact that 
production develops--our capacity develops, it goes through different modes, it has 
the potential to be cooperative in all its phases whereas reproduction (and 
here I'm thinking primarily pregnancy and childbearing) is much more static.  
We bear babies much as we bore them in the neolithic.  It's just not the same 
sort of creature as social labor.  It might be the only source of the only 
source of new value, but it's not just another layer of it, is it?

Jenny Brown