Prison Economies

[Rooster]

I was watching an episode of Dilbert (don't laugh, I didn't) and in it he gets stuck in jail. There's a scene were he makes a fuss about how people were arbitrarily trading a certain number of cigarettes for chocolate bars and it got me wondering how you could apply a labour theory of value to that environment. I can't imagine a lot of things being made in prison, apart from moonshine and shivs, but everything else seems to be just in prison devoid of their actual values from the outside world. Cigarettes, chocolate, magazines... well, I guess cigarettes could have value added to them by splitting them up and making new cigarettes...

Anyway, has anyone got any ideas regarding this? Sorry if this thread is stupid :rolleyes:

[a rebel]

i might be off, but things in prison are worth about 10 times there regular street price. As an example, if a pack of cigarettes costs $10, it would be $100 worth of cigarettes in prison. Of course since money is useless in jail, it is converted into a goods to be made into another goods. Also since anything valuable (cigarettes, drugs, ect.) is contraband, its worth even more since it is smuggled in. Its rather interesting to see how people trade goods without money.

[Gorilla]

I was watching an episode of Dilbert (don't laugh, I didn't) and in it he gets stuck in jail. There's a scene were he makes a fuss about how people were arbitrarily trading a certain number of cigarettes for chocolate bars and it got me wondering how you could apply a labour theory of value to that environment. I can't imagine a lot of things being made in prison, apart from moonshine and shivs, but everything else seems to be just in prison devoid of their actual values from the outside world. Cigarettes, chocolate, magazines... well, I guess cigarettes could have value added to them by splitting them up and making new cigarettes...

Anyway, has anyone got any ideas regarding this? Sorry if this thread is stupid :rolleyes:

Most of the labor behind value in a prison economy is going to be the work of smuggling the stuff in.

[bcbm]

now i want a cigarette, thanks

[psgchisolm]

http://www.freejesse.net/book/prison_cooking_essay.htm

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

1. Value is created when human labor is applied to nature.

2. Things can be sold above or below their value in some circumstances.

3. Some things are more difficult to get in prison than others. For example: In most U.S. prisons, candy bars can be purchased in prison, and prisoners are allowed to have them. Marijuana is not allowed, you can't purchase it from the prison, and it has to be sneaked in (by a visitor, guard, up a prisoner's ass, etc) and the person bringing it in and the person selling it are exposing themselves to great risk. Guess which costs more?

[psgchisolm]

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[jinx92]

actually, i was watching a prison documentary a while back which said prisoners would have people on he outside wire money into other prisoners accounts as a way of paying for goods.

[Kronsteen]

in jail [...] it got me wondering how you could apply a labour theory of value to that environment.

It's a good question. I think the simple answer is that Marxism as an economic theory isn't a theory of all forms of trade, or all possible economies. Rather, it's a theory of the creation and movement of capital in a large, productive, industrialised capitalist society.

Prison is none of these things. It's a small, relatively closed world, where readymade items trickle in unreliably from outside. When things get made it's on the level of one-off items like knives made from razorblades stuck in half split toothbrushes - and these aren't usually traded.

There are of course currencies - tabacco, drugs, payphone credit, sexual favours, books etc - but these are practically useful items which can also be traded.

If you think it's preposterous to view prisons are oases of non-capitalism within capitalism, I'd remind you that the fine art and antique markets also can't be explained with a labour theory of value, and I'm not sure that currency speculation can either.