Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!laura From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: What is socialism? (on exploitation) Message-ID: <5145@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Sat, 2-Mar-85 08:30:39 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.5145 Posted: Sat Mar 2 08:30:39 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 2-Mar-85 08:30:39 EST References: <351@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 40 I am going to try to distill a somewhat shorter definition of exploitation from Himmelweit's article. Then I am going to take a closer look at it. When you reach a point in history where it is possible to produce more than one consumes, there is a surplus. At this point in time you arbitrarily divide the people who have property from the people who do not. You recognise the work done by the latter and call it labour. From this inequality you conclude that those who labour are exploited by those who have property -- but this amounts to a description of the fact that not everybody has property. Hmmm. I sell labour for money and use the money to buy food. I think I am back to being exploited again. Any definition which produces the conclusion that I am exploited I think needs to be reformulated, because it must not take into consideration something. The only consideration I can use to get me out of the ``exploited'' class is to not consider what I am doing as labour. Contract Computer Programming is interesting that way. I do a fair amount of typing (but negligable compared to the typing of a good secretary, say) but most of the effort I put in and am paid for is thinking, and being creative. This is a far cry removed from ditch-digging. Getting paid for thinking is what attracted me to the field in the first place -- as soon as I discovered that I could make money programming, I quit my 2 jobs and concentrated on programming.. Now, if you do not consider thinkig as labour, then you can say that I eat despite not labouring, and, considering that the food I eat is property, calss me as an exploiter. (if you don't consider the food I eat property, who do you classify me?) But the usefulness of such a definition is questionable. I think that my thinking is valuable, indeed more valuable than ditch-digging. The definition seems to leave thinking as a no-op. Surely it should be worth something in a socialist society -- but I don't see the definition accommodating it. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura