> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Jonathan Nitzan
> Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 7:52 PM
> To: LBO
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] New Imperialism or New Capitalism?
>
> I'll try to clarify.
>
> To exploit somebody is to take from him/her something that is "theirs."
> I believe -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- that Marx took from Locke
> the notion of ownership by virtue of creativity. The worker creates the
> product, which in turn makes the product "belong" to him/her. Now, in a
> commodity producing society the capitalist takes from the worker part of
> what the worker produces. For this reason, Marx says that the worker is
> being exploited. And, indeed, ownership per se produces nothing, so I
> think that we can both agree that capitalist owners, as a group,
> "exploit" the rest of society. Furthermore, in a hypothetical fully
> capitalist society, where all human activity is carried through the
> market and paid for in $, we can compute the overall "rate of
> exploitation." This rate would be the ratio of all capitalist income to
> all non-capitalist income.
>
> But that is it.
>
> In order to compute exploitation in ANY SUBSET of that society, we need
> to know precisely "how much" each worker contributed to the product in
> question (a contribution measured in units of "abstract labor").
> Unfortunately, this is knowledge that we neither have, nor can we have
> (neo-Ricardians have shown just the tip of the iceberg on this issue;
> the problem goes much deeper into what is creativity and whether or not
> it could be broken down into quantitative inputs in the first place).
> Now, unless we can identify individual contributions, we cannot know
> whether a Microsoft engineer (or a poor peasant, for that matter) is
> being "exploited," or rather is himself "exploiting" other workers (you
> cannot exploit capitalist owners, by definition). By the same token, we
> cannot derive the "profit margin" of any capitalist or group of
> capitalists (save all capitalists) by "knowing" the extent to which they
> exploit their workers -- simply since this "extent" is unknown, and
> indeed unknowable.
>
> This is why we say that if the notion of abstract labor goes, so does
> the notion of exploitation.
>
> Clearly, workers usually are far less powerful than capitalists; that is
> what makes the world we live in run to the tune of capitalists rather
> than workers. We all know that workers struggle to survive and that in
> many parts of the world their conditions are not different from Marx's
> England. Furthermore, in our data on differential accumulation we show
> that, over the past century, the relative power of capitalists has grown
> exponentially. But the growth of this relative power cannot be connected
> to the Marxist concept of "exploitation" (save in the overall sense
> noted above).
>
> Jonathan Nitzan
>
> Michael Dawson wrote:
>
> >"We can quantify the architecture of power, but we cannot denominate this
> >architecture in units of 'abstract labour' and definitely not in units of
> >'surplus value.' And without abstract labour and surplus value, a whole
> host
> >of derivative concepts - [including] 'exploitation'- lose their
> analytical
> >meaning."
> >
> >Here's my criticism:
> >
> >You treat exploitation as a conceptual derivative of Marx's "surplus-
> value"
> >concept. If that concept's not valid, then exploitation disappears, in
> your
> >view.
> >
> >In the real world, meanwhile, exploitation is a real fact caused by real
> >power relations. Most people have nothing to sell but their labor-power.
> >Because of this fact, the minority of wealthy investors is able to pay
> for
> >labor-power (working time) while retaining ownership of labor's products.
> >In the real world, this crucial gap is known as the profit margin on
> >workplace production, and it is the object of immense managerial
> attention,
> >which is designed to maximize the size of the gap.
> >
> >You say this reality, the core of exploitation in Marx's terms, doesn't
> >exist.
> >
> >Really?
> >
> >___________________________________
> >http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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