Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site topaz.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!columbia!topaz!josh From: josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: What is socialism? (on exploitation) Message-ID: <858@topaz.ARPA> Date: Mon, 4-Mar-85 06:13:23 EST Article-I.D.: topaz.858 Posted: Mon Mar 4 06:13:23 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 7-Mar-85 05:28:26 EST References: <351@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 91 > Carnes: > > Now as to the meaning of "exploitation," I submit the following: "the > control by one section of the population of a surplus produced by > another section of the population." Let me remind Mr Carnes that the Capitalists rake in about 5% of the gross take as profit, while the government (all levels) gets about 40%. Furthermore, the Capitalists have provided that without which the production would have been impossible: namely Capital. Have you, Carnes, or any of you other love-a-tree-and-seize-the-means-of-production types out there ever tried to make so simple an object as a gear, without the proper machines? I have--it takes a couple of days of hard work with a file, and you still get a damn crummy gear. If the Capitalist wants 5% for letting me use a machine where I can make a gear in 2 minutes, he deserves it. > Under capitalism, exploitation takes the form of the extraction of > surplus value by the class of industrial capitalists from the working > class, but other exploiting classes or class fractions share in the > distribution of surplus value. Under capitalism, access to the > surplus depends upon the ownership of property, and thus the > exploited class of capitalism, the proletariat, sell their labor > power to live; though they too are divided into fractions by the > specific character of the labor power which they own and sell. Under Communism, exploitation takes the form of selling grain abroad to improve your balance of payments, while tens of millions starve at home (Russia); of killing tens of millions of "citizens" because they don't fit into your idea of a non-exploitative society (China); of killing off a third of your country's population because --well, because it's there (Cambodia); or of using starvation as a weapon to bring unruly regions into line (Ethiopia). > Capitalism differs from non-capitalist modes of production in that > exploitation normally takes place without the direct intervention of > force or non-economic processes. Capitalism differs from non-capitalistic modes of production in that someone who makes a deal that allows you to make hundreds of time as much as you could before, is seen as exploiting you because he asks--in advance--for a 5% share in the proceeds. > 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. This is pure bullshit. Surplus in any industrial economy, planned or free, is due mostly to the capital (meaning here machines and knowhow) that allow the same people to make more of the same resources than they did before. It doesn't matter a whit what they do with it afterwards. > > But "profit-making" is just capitalist exploitation. But "taxation" is just theft... Haven't we heard all this before? > Its secret gave > rise to the study of political economy; and since Marx disclosed it > orthodox economics has been devoted to covering it up again. Funny; Adam Smith thought that the secret he had discovered was that the great productivity he saw was due to division of labor-- a process which, if I understand correctly, was anathema to Marx. > No > previous mode of production required such intellectual labor to > unearth, display, and re-bury its method of exploitation, for in > previous societies the forms of exploitation were transparent: so > many days of labor given, or so much corn claimed by representatives > of the ruling class. This is still apparent to everyone except Socialists. > >... rate of profit [s/(c+v)] measures surplus value as a ratio of the > total capital advanced, constant and variable [variable capital > refers to that paid out in the form of wages, constant capital is all > other -- RC], the measure of interest to individual capitals, for it > is according to the quantity of total capital advanced that shares of > ... I really had the strongest feeling of deja vu when reading this-- and then I realized what it was. One of my physics profs once showed me his "nut file"--letters sent in by people claiming to have a whole complete new theory that explained all phenomena and disproved the theory of relativity (one guy even went so far at to disprove Newton...) --JoSH