Worker Exploitation

[MrMarxist]

Hi all,

Here's something that I've recently read and that I'm worried about. I'd be interested in how you would argue against it. It's from R. Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia.

". . .if there is a sector of publicly owned and controlled means of production that is expandable so that all who wish to may work in it, then this is sufficient to eliminate the exploitation of laborers. . . . if in addition to this public sector there is a sector of privately owned means of production that employs wage laborers who choose to work in this sector, these workers are not being exploited (suppose there is higher pay in the private sector). Suppose that the private sector were to expand, and the public sector became weaker and weaker. More and more workers . . . choose to work in the private sector. Wages are greater in the private sector and are rising continually. Now imagine that after a period of time this weak public sector becomes completely insignificant; perhaps it disappears altogether. Will there be any concomitant change in the private sector? (The public sector was already so small that the new private sector workers don't drive down wages) The theory of exploitation seems committed to saying that there would be some important change; which statement is very implausible."

This is troubling for a leftist. How would you respond?

[Blake's Baby]

I would respond that the argument doesn't make any sense, and therefore doesn't need to be responded to.

Why do you find it troubling?

[MrMarxist]

I would respond that the argument doesn't make any sense, and therefore doesn't need to be responded to.

Why do you find it troubling?

What doesn't make sense? The workers leave the public sector (where they are not exploited) voluntarily, until none are left in it. At that point, there is only the private sector. But since the workers are in the private sector voluntarily, it seems odd to say that they are being exploited there. And yet, Marxism seems committed to saying that they are being exploited in the private sector.

So the question is, if they are not exploited in the public sector, and they leave that sector voluntarily to work in the private sector, what is the relevant difference between the public and private sectors? Why can workers be said to be exploited in one but not the other?

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

What you've disclosed is inane.

The Communist system abolishes monetary compensation in exchange for labor. In addition, let's say their is a system of private owned enterprises that institutes wage-slavery. Competitiveness between the private entity and the workers controlled industry will allow the workers controlled industry to prevail. Education (secondary included), full medical coverage (not the type where you only get partial coverage upon treatment), superb working conditions, housing, food, all elemental essentials for standard living, plus a say in your labor. That alone makes private sector occupations obsolete.

Also, the majority will not possess fiscal currency (as said earlier, we do not compensate monetarily), which leaves no profitable market. With no profitable market, the private entities obtain to no profit, no profit, no business.

[the zizekian]

Hi all,

Here's something that I've recently read and that I'm worried about. I'd be interested in how you would argue against it. It's from R. Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia.

". . .if there is a sector of publicly owned and controlled means of production that is expandable so that all who wish to may work in it, then this is sufficient to eliminate the exploitation of laborers. . . . if in addition to this public sector there is a sector of privately owned means of production that employs wage laborers who choose to work in this sector, these workers are not being exploited (suppose there is higher pay in the private sector). Suppose that the private sector were to expand, and the public sector became weaker and weaker. More and more workers . . . choose to work in the private sector. Wages are greater in the private sector and are rising continually. Now imagine that after a period of time this weak public sector becomes completely insignificant; perhaps it disappears altogether. Will there be any concomitant change in the private sector? (The public sector was already so small that the new private sector workers don't drive down wages) The theory of exploitation seems committed to saying that there would be some important change; which statement is very implausible."

This is troubling for a leftist. How would you respond?

I think that the best way to respond to Nozick’s reasoning is to say that what is being exploited is workers’ future. The private sector can killed the public sector only if it fouls the workers about the real value of money over time.

[Kotze]

"If there is a rape lair at Harvard University that is so big that all weekly raped Guantanamo inmates who wish to be raped there once a month instead may be accomodated, then this is sufficient to elimate the mistreatment of prisoners.

If in addition to this rape lair there is a privately owned rape castle in the ruins of Disneyland Paris, and you are free to choose whether you want to go there instead of Guantanamo or Harvard, you are not mistreated (suppose you are raped there every other month by dogs mutated from the nuclear fallout). Suppose it expands, because it is an inflatable rape castle, and the government rape sector becomes weaker and weaker.

More and more prisoners choose not Harvard, but to be raped in the private sector, where as an additional benefit they don't have to see my buttface." -Robert Nozick.

[the zizekian]

I think that what Nozick doesn’t want to acknowledge is that the private sector can only comes from a corrupted public sector.

[x359594]

As Nozick formulates the question there's a trap. He's narrowly defining the public sector as it exists under capitalism, so that you're forced to choose between one capitalist enterprise and another.

So when Nozick talks about a "public sector" he's taking for granted the structure a capitalist enterprise with bosses and imposed hours, shifts, rest periods, etc. The public sector under socialism is self-managed: hours and shifts are set by the workers, and managers are elected and can be recalled at any time. The wages system is abolished and goods are distributed according to need.

Then the question becomes, "Why would anyone want to work in the private sector where hours and shifts are set by the boss and when the necessities of life are already guaranteed to all?"

[the zizekian]

I think that if Nozick would still be alive, he would be stunned to see that the best economic system is the Chinese one where the capitalist sector is showcasing corruption at its utmost.

[MrMarxist]

I think that the best way to respond to Nozick’s reasoning is to say that what is being exploited is workers’ future. The private sector can killed the public sector only if it fouls the workers about the real value of money over time.

That's very interesting. Could you say a bit more about what you have in mind regarding the value of money over time?

Thanks for a helpful post (there aren't many).

[Revolution starts with U]

That's very interesting. Could you say a bit more about what you have in mind regarding the value of money over time?

Thanks for a helpful post (there aren't many).

I don't know why you're looking for a good answer to a completely horse fucked question...

(This is just a side note; how can a "free" market exist, and what is a "voluntary" job? Aren't these contradictory?)

But back to the major point of this being uber dumb... suppose the workers DIDN'T choose to go into the private sector? What then?

Nothing. That's what. The question is the height of bullshit.

[Note that I could ask questions like: why is an expandable public sector sufficient to eliminate exploitation? Why are people who choose to work in the private sector not being exploited? Where is this magical private sector that raises wages faster than public (cuz yo, that don't happen)?
But I won't ask these questions because I'm not going to discuss suppositions inside of suppositions of hypotheticals. In short, this question poses no problem for a leftist. No. It only poses a problem for anybody who would read it and actually think it is relevant or means anything.]

[the zizekian]

That's very interesting. Could you say a bit more about what you have in mind regarding the value of money over time?

Thanks for a helpful post (there aren't many).

What I meant in a nutshell is that even if someone receives a higher (pre-tax) income in the private sector, it remains that it is ultimately the public sector that is in control of taxation (post-tax income).

[Lucretia]

Hi all,

Here's something that I've recently read and that I'm worried about. I'd be interested in how you would argue against it. It's from R. Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia.

". . .if there is a sector of publicly owned and controlled means of production that is expandable so that all who wish to may work in it, then this is sufficient to eliminate the exploitation of laborers. . . . if in addition to this public sector there is a sector of privately owned means of production that employs wage laborers who choose to work in this sector, these workers are not being exploited (suppose there is higher pay in the private sector). Suppose that the private sector were to expand, and the public sector became weaker and weaker. More and more workers . . . choose to work in the private sector. Wages are greater in the private sector and are rising continually. Now imagine that after a period of time this weak public sector becomes completely insignificant; perhaps it disappears altogether. Will there be any concomitant change in the private sector? (The public sector was already so small that the new private sector workers don't drive down wages) The theory of exploitation seems committed to saying that there would be some important change; which statement is very implausible."

This is troubling for a leftist. How would you respond?

Nozick completely mangles Marx's notion of exploitation. In another excerpt, he conflates exploitation with the production of a social surplus. It's troubling that a professor at Harvard would have such difficulty discerning the difference between the democratically decided production and investment of surplus, and the undemocratic appropriation and use of surplus in a class society.

Anybody who has actually read Marx, not just skimmed it and excerpted tiny portions in an attempt to grind an ideological axe, knows that Marx's notion of exploitation included but was not confined to the realm of economics. Rather, it involved the coercion of others for purposes of gaining an advantage. I'll leave it for you to figure how this relates to Nozick's criticism here of certain people "voluntarily" leaving and entering various "sectors" of economy -- which is itself meaningless to speak of in terms of how a socialist economy would be configured.

But my response to this particular passage would be that it contains a completely unrealistic scenario (at least the thought experiments of John Rawls -- the liberal philosopher to whom Nozick was responding with this book -- were fascinating in a mystical kind of way). Here Nozick posits a scenario in which workers in a private capitalist economy would be remunerated more than those in a publicly controlled socialist economy. But this makes no sense, for the greater pay of workers in a private economy would mean that there would technically be less "profit" (surplus) than in a public economy which (unlike capitalism) doesn't even depend on the creation of ever greater rates of profit. Plus, how would the owners of the means of production in this private sector manage to stave off others from acquiring control (and thus presumably receive the greatest remuneration of all)? Well, through the use of police, etc., obviously. But that just begs the question: how are the owners of the means of production able to exert the kind of influence necessary to command a police force, etc., and still manage to pay higher wages to workers than those in the public sector/economy where NO police force is necessary? Presumably the owners would need to have a large cache of wealth to dole out to garner the loyalty of the police, yet if this is the case, how do workers in that society manage to have higher wages? It seems everybody -- both the owners and the non-owners are richer. But where does this extra money in the private economy come from? And why doesn't the public sector have this money, too?

Nozick doesn't explain. I guess if the answer is that the private economy contains more advanced means of production, and more natural resources, then the question becomes: which is more important for your quality of life -- more stuff in a society of exploitation, or less stuff in a society with no exploitation? But this is far from the original question N is trying to address, which is the validity of Marx's ideas on exploitation, and the exploitative society with "more stuff" doesn't magically become non-exploitative just because people prefer it to a non-exploitative society with less stuff. For there is always the possibility, a possibility which Nozick does his best to pretend doesn't exist, of the richer society be organized along more egalitarian lines. And at any rate, I think it's obvious here that Nozick is using sleight of hand with the concept of "choice" in regards to workers in the wage economy.

Nozick is trying to construct a Disney-like fantasy capitalism where everybody happily chooses to participate. In so doing he is basically ignoring rather than refuting the crux of Marx's theory of economic exploitation -- which is that the private ownership of the means of production results in people producing for able-bodied non-producers who in turn use the appropriated product to control the working conditions of the producers. Obviously nobody would voluntarily "choose" this, so it requires inane philosophers like Nozick to construct silly hypotheticals so as to confuse people into thinking they might.

I suppose one respond to my criticism would be that Nozick is not talking about two separate economic formations, but rather separate sectors of the same economy. But this just shows how fucked N's thinking on this issue is: a public sector under capitalism is not a system where the means of production are held in common. The public sector is under the control of a state which is thoroughly bourgeois. He's making the same mistake of conflating state control with socialism that M-Ls and Republicans make.

[the zizekian]

I think we can say that labor force exploitation is strictly related to what the labor force needs to simply reproduce itself.

[Blake's Baby]

Hmmm. We appear to have a communication problem.

I said:

I would respond that the argument doesn't make any sense, and therefore doesn't need to be responded to.

Why do you find it troubling?

And you replied:


What doesn't make sense?

The argument you posted doesn't make sense.



...
The workers leave the public sector (where they are not exploited) voluntarily, until none are left in it...

Right; there's several bits of not making sense. The 'unexploited' workers in the public sector... that doesn't make sense. The 'voluntary' nature of their leaving 'non-exploiting jobs' doesn't make sense, the idea that there is a sector that is set up as a jobs-playground by capitalism doesn't make sense.


...
At that point, there is only the private sector. But since the workers are in the private sector voluntarily, it seems odd to say that they are being exploited there...

Not voluntary, because there no such thing as a system where people 'voluntarily' work for necessity (ie survival); and 'exploitation' is question of economics not will. If capitalists are making money from the workers, the workers are economically exploited whether they like it (hey, some jobs are quite nice) or not (many jobs are horrible).


... And yet, Marxism seems committed to saying that they are being exploited in the private sector...

Yes, because exploitation isn't about how nice your job is, it's about how much your boss makes from your work.


...So the question is, if they are not exploited in the public sector...

...then this 'public sector' doesn't exist, and if it does they are exploited...


... and they leave that sector voluntarily to work in the private sector...

... this 'public sector' isn't real, and the question of what people do 'voluntarily' when they must work to eat to live and you already said that wages are higher in the private sector, which would mean (wage inflation driving price inflation and all) that the 'voluntary' leaving of the private sector is actually 'voluntary' in the sense that these people chose to be exploited by the private sector rather than chosing poverty; which isn't actually much of a choice at all, is it? In other words, it's not 'voluntary' its necessary.


...what is the relevant difference between the public and private sectors?

The main difference is that the private sector exists and the public sector doesn't.


...
Why can workers be said to be exploited in one but not the other?

The can't, the argument doesn't make sense, because 1-the 'public sector' isn't real, it's a pointless construct that Nozick must posit in order to justify an argument that doesn't address any real issues; and 2-if the workers were making stuff in the public sector then they were being exploited and Nozick's whole definition of the problem in the very first sentence is so flawed as to render the entire problem of no more consequence than the fart of a horse.


So, I'll ask again:

Why do you find it troubling (except in so far as you might not like the smell of horse-fart)?

[the zizekian]

Hi all,

Here's something that I've recently read and that I'm worried about. I'd be interested in how you would argue against it. It's from R. Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia.

". . .if there is a sector of publicly owned and controlled means of production that is expandable so that all who wish to may work in it, then this is sufficient to eliminate the exploitation of laborers. . . . if in addition to this public sector there is a sector of privately owned means of production that employs wage laborers who choose to work in this sector, these workers are not being exploited (suppose there is higher pay in the private sector). Suppose that the private sector were to expand, and the public sector became weaker and weaker. More and more workers . . . choose to work in the private sector. Wages are greater in the private sector and are rising continually. Now imagine that after a period of time this weak public sector becomes completely insignificant; perhaps it disappears altogether. Will there be any concomitant change in the private sector? (The public sector was already so small that the new private sector workers don't drive down wages) The theory of exploitation seems committed to saying that there would be some important change; which statement is very implausible."

This is troubling for a leftist. How would you respond?

Nozick should know that the incentive to eliminate a competitor (the private sector here eliminates the public competitor) is to have the power to exploit consumers by increasing prices.