[lbo-talk] Query BLS replacement data series

Mike Ballard swillsqueal at yahoo.com.au
Sat Nov 20 16:05:58 PST 2010


[Mike Ballard posted}:

"Hence is it that in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working-day, presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e., the working-class."

Karl Marx, CAPITAL Volume I (section on the working day)

------------------- Chuck Grimes said:

The chapter I am reading now:

``As capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital. But capital has one single life impulse, the tendency to create value and surplus-value, to make its constant factor, the means of production, absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus-labour.

Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks...'' (216p)

I really encourage anybody who hasn't to check out Harvey's lectures. Once again:

http://vimeo.com/13535463

Working day is lecture six, so I am reading it before listening, like a good little student. This is turning into a transformative experience, which I need some time to cool off, like a kid who just discovered sex, oh goodie, goodie, goodie.

*********************************************************

Happy orgasms, Chuck. I posted that quote from CAPITAL to illustrate that Marx did indeed define who the working class and capitalist class were. Sometimes, it seems that this concept/reality of class gets lost in the traffic. The class struggle is to a large degree between buyers and sellers of labour power over how long a worker has to create value, over and above what she has sold her skills for in the marketplace.

Hi-ho, Mike B)

*********************************************************************** When classwide solidarity is a crime, the mask of democracy is removed to reveal the ugly face of capitalist dictatorship. http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com/



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