[lbo-talk] Re: What Is Value, Anyway?

Tom Walker timework at telus.net
Tue Apr 12 12:03:24 PDT 2005


Wojtek wrote,


>So unless we develop a different concept of exploitation, one that does not
>depend on the notion of the surplus transfer, we are in a rather weak
>position. We either have to accept that US working class deserves more than
>people elsewhere in the world, or agree with the employers that they are
>overpaid. Neither one is a good choice. Yet, I do not think that the left
>has any good alternative to this dilemma.

To speak in generalities, it seems to me that the idea of developing "a different concept of exploitation" addresses the matter from a stereotypically left position, that the problem to be solved is an environmental one of unjust social structures. But the matter about the "consumption patterns of the US working class" adopts the standard conservative view that the problem to be solved is about "character".

I would agree, if such is your meaning, that it is not one or the other. The weakness of the left is that it evades the character issue precisely because the right makes such a big fucking deal out of it. But if people are inherently good, as we on the left assume, why are so many of them jackass reactionaries against even their own best interests? And why are so many lefties jerks, too? It's enough to make one long for the consolation of original sin. And that's all it is: consolation, just as "surplus value" or "supply and demand" don't so much explain as console us for the inexplicable.

But I'm suggestion that understanding these master tropes _as_ consolations rather than as explanations might itself be a gesture in the direction of explanation.

The Sandwichman



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