Carrol is right. Marx is saying from the point of view of justice, everything is square with the exchange of wages for labor power. That gives the worker no claim to the product of labor. There is exploitation, but it si not based on unequal exchange. The worker is not entitled to the SV he produces merely because he produces it. In fact, value doesn't really exist until it is realized, so if there any entitlement these show up in the sphere of circulation. Of course there is explaoitation, but what is wrong with it is something else.
Marx is crystal clear and absolutely unambiguous about what it is. It is the deprivation of freeom that goes into conditions of production under wage labor: the worker is coerced because he lacks means of production and so must work for the capitalist class; he is dominated in the process of production, where the factory system is a sort of enslavement by the hour, and he is alienated multiply but most crucially from, himself, so he cannot determine he own activity and enjoy what Marx calld "real freedom." As for justice and fairness, Marx is transpaarent (whough in my view mistaken) that justice is relative to the mode of production. Hence Carrol's correct interpretation.
This is a very short statement of the argument of my What's Wrong With Exploitation. Nous 1995. I can't believe it's been a decade since I wrote that.
jks
--- Michael Dawson <MDawson at pdx.edu> wrote:
> Carrol Cox is multiply astounding. Now, to top it
> all off, he reveals he
> doesn't possess so much as a below-average
> undergraduate's understanding of
> Karl Marx's central argument! WTF?
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org
> [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> > On Behalf Of Curtiss Leung
> > Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 9:15 AM
> > To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> > Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Missing the Marx
> >
> > > So "labor's product" is _not_ the worker's
> product, it is
> > > the product (as Locke claimed) of the capitalist
> who purchased that
> > > labor power.
> >
> > Sure. And there isn't a trace of irony or sarcasm
> in this passage
> > from Ch. 7, Sec. 1 of _Capital_:
> >
> > ==========
> > The capitalist paid to the labourer a value of 3
> shillings, and the
> > labourer gave him back an exact equivalent in the
> value of 3
> > shillings, added by him to the cotton: he gave him
> value for value.
> > Our friend [the capitalist], up to this time so
> purse-proud, suddenly
> > assumes the modest demeanour of his own workman,
> and exclaims: "Have I
> > myself not worked? Have I not performed the labour
> of superintendence
> > and of overlooking the spinner? And does not this
> labour, too, create
> > value?" His overlooker and his manager try to hide
> their smiles.
> > Meanwhile, after a hearty laugh, he re-assumes his
> usual mien. Though
> > he chanted to us the whole creed of the
> economists, in reality, he
> > says, he would not give a brass farthing for it.
> He leaves this and
> > all such like subterfuges and juggling tricks to
> the professors of
> > Political Economy, who are paid for it. He himself
> is a practical man;
> > and though he does not always consider what he
> says outside his
> > business, yet in his business he knows what he is
> about.
> > ==========
> >
> > By Carrol Cox's straight-faced reading, the words
> of the capitalist
> > and his men should be taken at face value, and
> therefore no such thing
> > as surplus value would exist.
> >
> > I could go into this more, but I have a cake in
> the oven, and no more
> > time to reply.
> >
> > Curtiss
> > ___________________________________
> >
>
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>
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