[lbo-talk] Doug, on Salon

[Barry Brooks]

> Bill: "The core of Marxist theory as I understood it was that all profit
> ultimately derived from labour."
>
> [WS:]  Yeah, and this was also a falsehood or reductionism rooted in missing
> the role of productivity in creating value.  Labor may be creating all
> value, but how much of that value it creates depends on its productivity,
> and productivity depends on capital investment.  In the middle ages, surplus
> value created by labor was extracted by feudal lords and either consumed or
> passed along to lord's offspring.  Hence the productivity of labor in the
> middle ages did not change that much and the only way to increase surplus
> was by increasing labor input (more people working on more land).
> Capitalism separated investment capital from patrimony, and labor
> productivity started to improve rather quickly. Unlike feudal lords, who were
> a purely parasitic element of the medieval economy, capitalists actually
> perform labor that produce value inasmuch as their labor increases the
> productivity of all labor.  From that pov, capitalist is a hybrid of a feudal
> lord inasmuch as he engages in conspicuous consumption and a worker inasmuch
> as he invests capital to improve the productivity of labor.  The balance of
> these two roles of the capitalists - parasitic drones engaged in conspicuous
> consumption and worker bee producing surplus value for others - varied among
> different socio-political settings.  I'd say that most of the US capitalist
> class is of the mostly parasitic variety, whereas in Asia and parts of Europe
> it is more of the worker bee kind.
>
>
>
> -- Wojtek

Whatever the beneficial results of investing capital may be it seems that the
capitalist's motive for improving the productivity of labor is mainly that it is
a means to the end of reducing the wage cost of production. Wages come out of
their pockets.

Exporting jobs, importing cheap labor, making workers play musical chairs with
scarce jobs in a slowed economy, increasing productivity, and busting labor are
all driven by the capitalist's desire to cut wages costs and to win the class war.

The profits of investment are called unearned income because they were not
received in return for effort. A prenure is one who takes, although taking
involves some effort. Entrepreneurs buy businesses and take the profits...nice
work if you can get it.

Want to sort out the parasites and the workers? Don't bother. We are all
parasites on the planet. In a robot economy we will all be takers. That's were
rising labor productivity is taking us. Imagine a dog infested with fleas that
have blood sucking machines and believe growth is good. Call the ASPCA.

Barry

http://www.dictionary-french-english.com/en/dictionary-french-english/preneur
preneur = taker