[lbo-talk] Re: working class?

[Victor]

Piecework and a daily wage (including overtime etc.) are all exchanges (not 
sale) of labour power for subsistence.  The wage of the industrial  labourer 
has nothing whatsoever to do with the value of his labour, but rather with a 
socially determined estimation of how little he needs to reproduce himself 
and a new generation of workers.  The capitalist enterprise sells the labour 
invested in production and not the labourer, and it is the difference 
between the estimated minimum necessary minimum wage and the actual exchange 
value of the labourer's produce that generates surplus value.  The 
capitalist can do this because he owns the means of production (machines, 
materials etc.) that the worker must have access to in order to earn a 
living.

The itinerant tailor and doctor sells his product for its market value, and 
thereby the labour involved in producing the service or thing he trades in. 
He is a self-employed producer and trader in commodities.

That's the real shit.
Victor
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Bartlett" <billbartlett at dodo.com.au>
To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2005 16:22
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: working class?


> At 2:54 AM -0700 20/10/05, Mike Ballard wrote:
>
>>Working class people own their skills which they sell
>>on the labour market to an employer for a wage.  Non-working class people 
>>can
>>sell their skills and time as well e.g. an independent tailor or an 
>>independent
>>doctor.  They are not working class because they own/ they are paid for 
>>the
>>product of their labour, in this case a service.
>
> Where do you get this bullshit? A piece-rate worker in a sweat-shop gets 
> paid according to the product of her labour. What has that got to do with 
> the price of tea in China? If she isn't working class then what is she?
>
>>   They are not selling their
>>skills and time to an employer who will then own the goods and/or services 
>>of
>>their labour.
>
> Of course they are. You are making an absurd fetish out of the difference 
> between being a bricklayer being paid by the hour for laying bricks, or 
> getting paid according to the number of bricks laid. Either way, in 
> substance, the bricklayer sells his labour power. Either way, the 
> labourer's relationship to the means of production is the same, either way 
> they have to work for a living.
>
> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tas
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>