--- James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Pedantically speaking 'privileged' is wrong. It is
> not private law that
> creates social inequality, as under feudalism, but
> public law, equally
> applied, that allows social inequality through
> private property (in the
> means of production, to be precise).
>
> Analytically, the way to go further than 'privilege
> is relative' is to shift
> the focus of investigation from the realm of
> consumption, and the
> distribution of goods there, to the realm of
> production and the distribution
> of its means among the social classes.
>
> Not privilege, then, but exploitation is the
> category that will clarify what
> follows it, the unequal distribution of goods among
> the population.
[WS:] I agree, to a point. However, it is important to realize that while both concepts my imply the same empirical reality (measured by the economic value of resources) - they carry different connotations and interpretative frameworks.
"Exploitation" starts with the framework of prosperity being the norm, claims that some people receive resources that fall below that norm, and implies that those "exploited" should be elevated to the norm of prosperity.
"Privilege" otoh starts with the framework of the puritannical notion that prosperity is bad, claims that some people experience that prosperity, which is unjust almost by definition, and implies that those "privileged" be brought down to the puritanical norm of austerity.
I think this is also a big divide between the European and American left. The US left tends to be puritannical deep down their hearts. US lefties tend to romanticize austerity (if not poverty) and loathe prosperity. They may not openly admit it and even deny it, but for an outside observer such a conclusion is difficult to escape.
I realized that for the first time in California when I visited the "alternative" hippe stores with grossly overpriced goods and a meticulously crafted appearance of rustic simplicty. Add to it their frequent romanticizing of the lumpen all around the world, while loathing the US working class, which has pretty much middle class aspirtation to prosperity.
So when you propose to replece the term "privilege" with a different concept, you are not merely proposing a more efficient analyitical tool. You are asking for a change of the entire weltanschauung from one glorifying puritannical austerity to one wallowing in hedonistic materialism. This is an uphill battle, James.
PS. I also think that the concept of 'exploitation" is not analytically useful either, for the reasons implicit in the labor theory of value. The proles receive the market or "exchange" value of their labor, anything above that would be charity. End of story.
I think that a more analytically useful concept is the utilization of the surplus that the labor produces. Private control of that surplus does not gurantee the most efficient utlization of that surplus. Au contraire, it pretty much gurantees waste and ineffciency, which is bad for society and esepecially those who control little resources of their own. Public control of that surplus in a rationally planned economy setting can do much better in distribuing that surplus in a mater that beneficial to the entire society. The "marginal" effect of that distribution to those who now control little resources of their own will be particularly significant.
Therefore, the battle cry of socialims ought to be for the public and planned control and distribution of surplus rather than against exploitation of labor. But again, the latter carries a certain denunciatory, accusatory, finger pointing connotations which some activistists just love to pursue - so again it is about ideological-interpretative mind set rather than analytical usefulness.
Wojtek
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