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From: josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: What is socialism? (on exploitation)
Message-ID: <919@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 9-Mar-85 08:31:02 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.919
Posted: Sat Mar  9 08:31:02 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Mar-85 07:41:33 EST
References: <358@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 128

Carnes:
> JoSH writes:
> > production would have been impossible: namely Capital.  Have you
> > ... ever tried to make so simple an object as a gear,
> > without the proper machines?  
> 
> So it was the capitalists who invented and built the machines!  But
> someone who designs or builds things, as long as he does so, is a
> worker.  A capitalist, as capitalist, receives income solely by
> virtue of his *ownership* of machines and factories.  

Here's where you make the basic break that I don't:  I think that
someone should be able to devote time now, to work without pay,
to scrimp and save, to *invest*, with assurance that the just reward
will come later.  Without this assurance, no one will create the
capital in the first place.  

> To say that the
> capitalists "provide" the means of production is like saying that
> someone who has stolen your car "provides" you with a car by selling
> or leasing it back to you.

Let's not confuse the issue by talking about someone who has stolen
something--you'll find that I'm at least as opposed to theft as you are!
Let's get down to the nitty gritty, the case that tests the ultimate
point:  we can worry about where to draw lines later.

Case:  My neighbor makes gears by hand, one every two days.  He makes
enough for a decent living and some of the amenities (beer, tv?).
I do the same but only 3 days a week--I barely make enough to survive.
The other days I spend on the gear-making machine I'm building.
It's purely my choice--I could live as well as my neighbor if I liked.
Finally the machine is finished.  With it, I, or my neighbor, alone,
can make ten times the gears that both of us could make before.  I make
a deal with him:  He can use the machine, and not working as hard 
as before, take half the money (making more than before); I, on 
my part, will do absolutely nothing, and collect the other half
as profit.

Now: is this exploitation?  It's the acid test: no stealing, no
inherited wealth, just the crux of your definition:  I'm making
money from another man's labor, because of something I own.

> 
> > Capitalism differs from non-capitalistic modes of production in that
> > someone who makes a deal that allows you to make hundreds of times
> > as much as you could before, is seen as exploiting you because he
> > asks--in advance--for a 5% share in the proceeds.
> 
> No, that's not what I (or rather Himmelweit) said.  She said that
> capitalism is exploitative because the capitalist class appropriates
> wealth that another class produced.  The deal described above has
> nothing to do with the capitalist production process.  For instance,
> it doesn't include wage labor.  
> 
It was very much the laborers, and not the capitalists, who were
in favor of the general shift from piecework to wage labor.
I, for one, can certainly see why.

> >> The surplus in the capitalist mode
> >> arises from the specific character of its production process and,
> >> especially, the manner in which it is linked to the process of
> >> exchange.
> > ...
> Himmelweit is talking about where the surplus originates in
> capitalist production and how this process works, not about the causes
> of the increased productivity of labor.

But they are one and the same!  *Capital* is precisely that which
creates the increased productivity of labor, and which makes possible
the "profit" the capitalist makes.  *Capital* is the factor separating the
man who farms an acre with a stick, and the one who froms a square mile
with a combine.  *Capital* is the difference between a man who digs ten
feet of ditch with a shovel, and one who digs 10,000 feet with a backhoe.
A capitalist is one who has made possible the explosion of wealth of the
modern industrial world; and justly deserves any profit he has gotten 
therefrom.

> > that the great productivity he saw was due to division of labor--
> > a process which, if I understand correctly, was anathema to Marx.
> 
> No, it wasn't anathema to Marx.  Marx greatly admired Smith and
> adopted and further developed Smith's insights on the division of
> labor.  If you don't understand Marx's position on this subject,
> let's talk about something else.

I was thinking about Marx's ideas on alienation, and how the assembly-
line worker never sees the whole thing which he had a part of making.
However, if you want to explain at more length, please do.  I'm 
perfectly content to hear about Marxism from a Marxist.  I do reserve
the right to point out the holes as I see them...

> > complete new theory that explained all phenomena and disproved the
> > theory of relativity (one guy even went so far at to disprove Newton...)
> 
> It is hard to respond to something which is apparently not an
> argument but just a form of name-calling.  The strongest feeling I
> get from reading JoSH's response is that at this point he is not
> interested in making an honest effort to understand Marxian and
> socialist thought.  If he wishes to persuade skeptics like me that
> libertarians are thoughtful and well-informed people, this is not the
> way to do it.  A common denominator of libertarians on the net, even
> the economically sophisticated ones, is that they have absolutely no
> notion of what Marx said and thought.  Either they're interested in
> learning or they're not, but we can only have a meaningful discussion
> when the participants on various sides genuinely try to understand
> the others' points of view.  
> 
> Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes

To be more precise, the Marxist theory seemed to put too much significance
on what seems to me to be the class structure of Victorian England,
and to present these (primarily social) frictions as economic theory
pertinent to (comparatively classless) America today seems silly.
Thus to some degree, Richard is right, in that I'm only interested
in Marxist thought from a historical point of view.  Further, to 
be quite honest about it, I'm not so interested in convincing him
of the merits of libertarian thought (if he wants convincing, try
Rothbard, For a New Liberty, Collier Books, New York, 1978) but
to "exploit" his position as a counterpoint to my own arguments--
which are as much for my own benefit as anyone else's.  It is
intellectually stimulating to encounter the thoughts of a well-read
socialist after the gabbledy-gook one normally hears.

So keep it up, Richard, I disagree with every word you say,
but I will defend to my moderate discomfort your right to say it.

--JoSH