The nature of the petty bourgeoisie and exploitation

[Thirsty Crow]

Exploitation means someone taking a part of someone's product of labor and doesn't have anything to do with competition or exchange. This demonstrate that you do not understand capitalist exploitation.

Surplus value production and implicitly exploitation are fundamentally linked to exchange and competition. Production in capitalism, be it in a "self-managed enterprise" or in a regular enterprise owned by a private individual, is started in the first place with only one goal - sale, and not any kind of sale, but that which enlarges the chronologically primary mass of capital (profit). This is necessary due to the fact that production is not directly social, but mediated by the form of the commodity, which means that there will be multiple enterprises in a given branch, and there is competition.

Now, even your working definition of exploitation, if we disregard this lack of understanding outlined above, is not accurate. Exploitation works like this: a worker produces more value in commodities owned by the capitalist (or owned by a group of capitalists, and this workers of ours can be included here) than she receives in wages, which are basically the value of the reproduction of her labour power at a given historical and cultural standard (the famous "moral" component of Marx's).



An enterprise can barter or sell it's products and be non-capitalistic - if there is no exploitation in it.There is no way that a self-managed enterprise could enter into barter as the dominant form of its workers obtaining their means of livelihood.

And furthermore, as I've stated above, this enterprise will necessarily engage in commodity production and by extension, in sale. You cannot divorce commodities exchange and exploitation, wven though exploitation can take up seemingly confusing forms, such as self-management (where a workers is granted the right of say in setting the terms of her own and her fellow workers' "self-exploitation").

That's enough of off topic. If you wish to learn about this, feel free to open another thread here.

[Narodnik]

By your logic Tito's Yugoslavia was socialist.
Not only do you not argument your claim that my views are ridiculous, you don't even grasp what my views are. Yugoslavia could not have been a socialist state being that the economy was nationalized and workers' councils weren't there to self-manage the production, but to participate in co-determination with the party/state bureaucracy, which is a purely capitalist practice, being that the workers have a boss.


This demonstrate that you do not understand capitalist exploitation.
This is the case with your message.


Production in capitalism, be it in a "self-managed enterprise" or in a regular enterprise owned by a private individual, is started in the first place with only one goal - sale, and not any kind of sale, but that which enlarges the chronologically primary mass of capital (profit).If an enterprise is self-managed, that means there is no capitalist-employee relation, and thus, the means of production of that enterprise cannot be called capital.


Exploitation works like this: a worker produces more value in commodities owned by the capitalist (or owned by a group of capitalists, and this workers of ours can be included here) than she receives in wages,If you talk about some intristic use-value, that's a meaningless concept because you can only get the full use-value of your products if you are a substinence producer, being that use-value is unquantifiable, it is meaningless to talk about it in any instance of goods changing hands, whether it is barter, commodity production or production for use.

If we are to talk about the exchange-value, then you are sort of right. When a product is sold, the price is divided into expenses for materials and similar, income of the owner of the means of production and worker wages. If the worker and the owner of the means of production are the same person, there is no exploitation, being that the worker receives the full product of his labor.


And furthermore, as I've stated above, this enterprise will necessarily engage in commodity production and by extension, in sale.Commodity production means production for sale, sale is not an "extension" of commodity production, it is it's meaning.


You cannot divorce commodities exchange and exploitationIt is the opposite- you cannot connect the two. Exploitation means taking of someone's product of labor, having non-labor income. That has nothing to do with selling stuff. If an artisan or peasant make something and then that, where is the exploitation? Who is exploited? No one.

[Blake's Baby]

Simple commodity production is not in itself production through the 'capitalist relation' (ie worker and boss in antithetical relationship) but the commodities produced still trade in a capitalist market, and production for that market is still capitalist production even if not derived from wage-labour production. Capitalism is the generalisation of wage labour and commodity production, not the totalisation of wage labour and commodity production. Production for the market (commodity production) in a situation of generalised wage labour is capitalist no matter whether the workers own the firm or not: the income that an artisan producer derives is still conditioned by the wage-labour of others. If a million workers in fctories are producing 5 million widgets a day, the price those widgets sell for is related to the socially necessary labour time to produce them, no matter that a co-operative of 10 workers only produce 20 of them - not 50 - and an artisan only produces 1 per day - not 5. The market determines that the 'going rate' for their production is 5 per worker per day, because that's what industrial production can acheive.

Co-operatives are not socialism; 'Anarcho-capitalism' is not socialism.

[Narodnik]

but the commodities produced still trade in a capitalist marketA product market (in which a worker coop participates) is people buying and selling stuff. It does not participate in the labor market, being that it does not have a employer-employee relation. The products market it does participate in can be made out of enteprises that are mostly capitalist, but that doesn't make the mentioned enterprise (worker coop) capitalist.


Production for the market (commodity production) in a situation of generalised wage labour is capitalist no matter whether the workers own the firm or not.Single artisans and peasants owning their own means of production making products and then selling them are not themselves capitalists, being that they don't anyone's product of labor (they don't extract anyone's "surplus-value") , nor do they have a capitalist boss- no one else is the owner of the means of production they use, and being that they don't exploit anyone, and that they are not exploited, I don't how can their economic action in any way be called capitalistic.

If you live in a slave society, and you're an artisan making something and selling it, living in that society and selling your products in that society cannot by any magic make you a slaveowner, being that you own no slaves. Likewise, the fact that a worker coop exists in a capitalist society (but it doesn't practice capitalist relations- if it were, it couldn't be called a worker coop) cannot make it capitalist.


Co-operatives are not socialism; 'Anarcho-capitalism' is not socialism.Worker co-operatives are socialistic organizations, and "anarcho"-capitalism has nothing to do whatsoever with anything we're been talking abour.

[Blake's Baby]

A product market (in which a worker coop participates) is people buying and selling stuff. It does not participate in the labor market, being that it does not have a employer-employee relation. The products market it does participate in can be made out of enteprises that are mostly capitalist, but that doesn't make the mentioned enterprise (worker coop) capitalist...

Yes, really it does, because an economy is a generalising trend. I can enslave someone and use them to produce goods which I sell. Does that mean I'm a detatched bit of antique slave society in the midst of a capitalist sea? No. The economy is still capitalist.


...
Single artisans and peasants owning their own means of production making products and then selling them are not themselves capitalists, being that they don't anyone's product of labor (they don't extract anyone's "surplus-value") , nor do they have a capitalist boss- no one else is the owner of the means of production they use, and being that they don't exploit anyone, and that they are not exploited, I don't how can their economic action in any way be called capitalistic...

Because they're engaged in commodity production for a capitalist market. Commodity production for a market that is mostly capitalist is still capitalist production, even if it doesn't involve the 'capitalist relation' of wage worker/boss. They are both exploiting and exploited by themselves. They contain in one person both the worker and the boss in capitalist society.


...
Worker co-operatives are socialistic organizations, and "anarcho"-capitalism has nothing to do whatsoever with anything we're been talking abour.

No, really they're not, they're no more 'socialist' than Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union, and 'anarcho-capitalism' is exactly what you're talking about, peasant/artisan production where everyone has 2 acres, a cow and a gun, and there is - magically - no exploitation because no waged labour.

It isn't the 1840s any more, that homesteader/independent peasant ideal doesn't look so topical.

[Thirsty Crow]

No, really they're not, they're no more 'socialist' than Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union, and 'anarcho-capitalism' is exactly what you're talking about, peasant/artisan production where everyone has 2 acres, a cow and a gun, and there is - magically - no exploitation because no waged labour.

I don't think Narodnik is talking about anarcho-capitalism, but of a form of mutualism.


If an enterprise is self-managed, that means there is no capitalist-employee relation, and thus, the means of production of that enterprise cannot be called capital.Of course there is.How do you think that free labour will be hired? By a board of, no doubt, democratically elected officials who function as buyer of labour power. This also disregards the good chance of the development of differing managerial levels with regard to actual power and privileged renumaration.

And in another sense, both the capitalist and the worker here are the same person. Which is exactly the same as the example of the petite bourgeoisie shows us. Do you think that small business owners who do not employ wage workers but work on their own do not engage in capitalist production? Do the means of production here function as anything other than capital - value which is expanded and accumulated?


If we are to talk about the exchange-value, then you are sort of right.The only notion of value that is relevant for examining capitalist production is that of exchange value.


If the worker and the owner of the means of production are the same person, there is no exploitation, being that the worker receives the full product of his labor. Of course, this is not true. Not many of the existing workers' co-op functioned in this way, and those that got close to renumarating workers to the limit of what they actually produce in commodities' value have quickly gone bankrupt.

What is different here is that the individual worker has a say in her own rate of exploitation. Surplus value and profit is necessarily produced for that enterprise to survive on the market. Its mode of division, the actual renumeration and conditions of work, might be a whole lot better than in regular capitalist enteprirses, but that doesn't change the fact that we're dealing with capitalist production here.


It is the opposite- you cannot connect the two. Exploitation means taking of someone's product of labor, having non-labor income. That has nothing to do with selling stuff. If an artisan or peasant make something and then that, where is the exploitation? Who is exploited? No one.
You're very confused.

Ask yourself, what ultimately enables this non-labor income? Sale, that's what. The capitalist doesn't get renumerated if the commodities she's commanded to produce do not sell. So tell me again that exploitation is not connected to exchange.

And in a different sense, the whole purpose of exploitation - the actual labour process, production of surplus value - is exchance, in capitalism that is. So how could you defend this ridiculous notion that one cannot connect exploitation with exchange?

[Narodnik]

Yes, really it does, because an economy is a generalising trend.
So, if I'm an artisan selling my products in a slave society, that makes me a slaveowner, ever though I don't own any slaves?


Commodity production for a market that is mostly capitalist is still capitalist productionThat's like saying that commodity production by a farm without slaves for a market that is mostly slave-labor-using makes that farm a slaveowner farm, even though there's not slaves on it.


They are both exploiting and exploited by themselves. If I "steal from myself" that just means that I take money from myself and give it to myself. In the same manner saying that someone can "exploit himself" is equally nonsensical.


No, really they're not, they're no more 'socialist' than Yugoslavia or the Soviet UnionIn SFRY and USSR the workers had bosses, in worker coops, they don't.


and there is - magically - no exploitation because no waged labour.If there is no wage labor in a firm, there is no exploitation, that's not magic, that's knowing what exploitation is. Exploitation is making non-labor incomes (employer profits, rent, interest, and patent-profits) because being that all income is made by labor, taking non-labor income is parazitism and a type of stealing.


Of course there is.How do you think that free labour will be hired?
Labour is not hired, workers can join a coop, not get hired by one, if that were to happen that someone's labor is bought, that wouldn't be a workers' coop any more.


Which is exactly the same as the example of the petite bourgeoisie shows us.I don't accept Marxist view of classes.


Do you think that small business owners who do not employ wage workers but work on their own do not engage in capitalist production?
I know that. If they do not employ wage workers they by definition do not engage in capitalist production. If they do no engage in other capitalist relation besides capitalist production (renting anything, loaning money for interest, collecting profits from patents) they are not capitalist in any way.


Do the means of production here function as anything other than capital - value which is expanded and accumulated? I consider means of production capital only if it used to establish relations of exploitation.


Surplus value and profit is necessarily produced for that enterprise to survive on the market.Surplus-value is the part of the exchange-value (the money the product is sold for) that the boss takes from the workers (and the whole of exchange-value belongs to the workers, because it is the product of their labour). If there is no boss, but only workers, there is no suprlus-value.

[Thirsty Crow]

Labour is not hired, workers can join a coop, not get hired by one, if that were to happen that someone's labor is bought, that wouldn't be a workers' coop any more.You have no idea how contemporary workers' co-ops function. This is not a matter of definition, but of concrete reality. I'd advise you to read this:

http://www.libcom.org/library/precarious-work-self-management-co-operatives



I don't accept Marxist view of classes.OK.



I know that.You don't. You assume that.


If they do not employ wage workers they by definition do not engage in capitalist production. Your definition is obviously at odds with reality. In other words, you proceed from the assumptions without checking them through an examination of concrete practices, but then you stick to them, turning it all into a kind of idealism.


I consider means of production capital only if it used to establish relations of exploitation.Which means squat since you do not know what exploitation is.



Surplus-value is the part of the exchange-value (the money the product is sold for) that the boss takes from the workers (and the whole of exchange-value belongs to the workers, because it is the product of their labour). If there is no boss, but only workers, there is no suprlus-value. Nope.

This is getting a bit tiresome by now. To cut it short, surplus value is produced by the labour process under which a person or a group of persons appropriates the surplus (arising from the value added by labour) for the sake of expanded reproduction of the inital mass of capital. It matters little if the entire workforce of an enterprise enagage in such appropriation as the social character of production is not changed by this.

And by your token, no production would be able to function effectively in the form of isolated, competing enterprises since there would be no value to reinvest into the expansion of production. So, not only do you not know how capitalist production (and by this I don't simply mean "the labour process" as production is also and at the same time the production of human relations which plays out society wide, worldwide) works, but you'd basically bankrupt a co-op if you ever were part of one :lol:

And lastly, this final quote of yours does not actually address what I wrote when you quoted me. Demonstrate how "surplus value and profit is necessarily produced for that enterprise to survive on the market." is not true.


If I "steal from myself" that just means that I take money from myself and give it to myself. In the same manner saying that someone can "exploit himself" is equally nonsensical.This is ridiculous. You would not be "stealing from yourself" in this scenario, but you would still give away surplus labour which you would necessarily not get back in some form of renumeration (for instance, a part of profits would be, in a very capitalist way, appropriated by the whole co-op for the sake of expanding production and hiring new labour since the expansion of production, the quantitative rise in output, necessitates more labour; this is necessary in the first place because of competition). So, we're again back to the issue that you would not be renumerated to the full extent of labour that you put in. But you fantasize and imagine you would.

[Luís Henrique]

You do not change the fact that this enterprise is forced to engage in competition, which necessarily implies the following: (exchange) value production, exploitation, and profit. In this case, it is not important how profit is divided among workers (who would presumably hold shares) and what relations of control and management are developed. Stilly you have the basic economic unit of capitalism - the isolated enterprise - engaging in capitalist production and competition.

This is true for a capitalist company under workers' management. It is still capitalist.

It doesn't imply, though, that all productive units in a capitalist society are capitalist companies. The peasant parcel, or the petty bourgeois shop, are not capitalist companies. It doesn't mean that "capitalism is abolished" within their limits - but it means that the peasant or the boutiquier are neither proletarian nor bourgueois.


Exploitation means someone taking a part of someone's product of labor and doesn't have anything to do with competition or exchange. An enterprise can barter or sell it's products and be non-capitalistic - if there is no exploitation in it.

In the abstract, yes - exploitation in a feudal society doesn't imply competition or exchange. But in a capitalist society, exploitation is integrally linked to exchange and competition. Even in a capitalist society, you are right that an enterprise can sell its products and be non-capitalistic - but that is not related to a supposed workers' ownership of the enterprise. A non-capitalist enterprise is one that does not reproduce capital. If it is owned by workers, but reproduces capital - then it is a capitalist company, nevermind it being owned by workers.


Surplus value production and implicitly exploitation are fundamentally linked to exchange and competition.

In a capitalist society, yes.


Production in capitalism, be it in a "self-managed enterprise" or in a regular enterprise owned by a private individual, is started in the first place with only one goal - sale, and not any kind of sale, but that which enlarges the chronologically primary mass of capital (profit). This is necessary due to the fact that production is not directly social, but mediated by the form of the commodity, which means that there will be multiple enterprises in a given branch, and there is competition.

Precisely. Which, as an aside, means that no such thing as "State capitalism" is possible.


And furthermore, as I've stated above, this enterprise will necessarily engage in commodity production and by extension, in sale.

Unless we are talking of an actual revolutionary transition to socialism.


You cannot divorce commodities exchange and exploitation, wven though exploitation can take up seemingly confusing forms, such as self-management (where a workers is granted the right of say in setting the terms of her own and her fellow workers' "self-exploitation").

There is no such thing as "self-exploitation". Even in a workers-owned capitalist company, people are exploited by capital, not by themselves (which is true even for normal, bourgeois-owned, capitalist companies: while the bourgeois is instrumental to the exploitation of workers, and certainly may derive a sumptuary way of live out of such exploitation, it is still capital that exploits people, capitalists being merely functionaries of capital).


If an enterprise is self-managed, that means there is no capitalist-employee relation, and thus, the means of production of that enterprise cannot be called capital.

They evidently can, if the purpose of production is to reproduce the means of production in enlarged scale. There is no capitalist-employee relation, true, but there still is capital-labour relation. That the capital of the company is managed by its workers doesn't mean that it becomes a non-autonomous entity, still capable of exploiting. There's where competition becomes absolutely imbricated in exploitation: since the company, never mind being ruled by its workers, still has to face competition of other companies, its rate of accumulation relative to the rate of accumulation in other companies is fundamental to the preservation of its own existence; if they accumulate too much below the general rate of accumulation, the company becomes increasingly belated, dwarfed, and incapable of sustaining renewed competition, up to the point in which goes bankrupt. But to keep the rate of accumulation of capital similar to that of the other companies means exactly underpaying the workers, even if they are the managers and owners of the company. In which case, they aren't exploiting themselves, but they are acting as foremen toward themselves, on behalf of "their own" capital.


When a product is sold, the price is divided into expenses for materials and similar, income of the owner of the means of production and worker wages. If the worker and the owner of the means of production are the same person, there is no exploitation, being that the worker receives the full product of his labor.

In abstract, the "price is divided into expenses for materials and similar, income of the owner of the means of production and worker wage". But in a capitalist society, "expenses for materials and similar" aren't neutral things or things that can be thought of on the category of use value. No; such things are capital, and the "expenses for materials and similar" aren't dictated by the technical necessities of production, but by the necessities of capital accumulation - therefore they are, as in any capitalist production, the part of "surplus value" to be accumulated as newly expanded capital, not of a mere fund for the reposition of inanimated things.


It is the opposite- you cannot connect the two. Exploitation means taking of someone's product of labor, having non-labor income. That has nothing to do with selling stuff. If an artisan or peasant make something and then that, where is the exploitation? Who is exploited? No one.

You are right about the peasant or artisan: if there is exploitation here (and there certainly is), it must be located outside of the process of production - in circulation and distribution (quite certainly, as per Blake's Baby, due to different productivity of labour in industry and artisanship). But the peasant or artisan are by no means comparable to collective workers in an industrial company, even if those are the owners of the company and so seem to be in a similar structural position (simulaneously owners of means of production and labourers). The difference being that the means of production in a capitalist company are not merely means of production, but constitute capital.

***************

Interesting dialogue, that of yours.

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

It doesn't imply, though, that all productive units in a capitalist society are capitalist companies. The peasant parcel, or the petty bourgeois shop, are not capitalist companies. It doesn't mean that "capitalism is abolished" within their limits - but it means that the peasant or the boutiquier are neither proletarian nor bourgueois.Yes, it does imply just that. And by contrast, your view implies that capitalism as a set of relations which are fundamentally dependent on the core relation between capitalists and wage workers, effectively does not exist in petty proprietor production.

For the I don't know which time, capital can function as self-expanding value also in conditions of the proprietor being the only worker precisely because of the nature of capital, as self-expanding value (variable capital and constant capital being managed by a single person). Capitalism is not only a matter of immediate control over labour (though it is evidently true that this is an important aspect), but of wider social relations of production. The former is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. The lattter is a necessary and sufficient condition.

Why would you want to toss the notion of the petite bourgeoisie out the window?


Precisely. Which, as an aside, means that no such thing as "State capitalism" is possible.
Nice try, but no, that isn't true.


There is no such thing as "self-exploitation". Even in a workers-owned capitalist company, people are exploited by capital, not by themselves (which is true even for normal, bourgeois-owned, capitalist companies: while the bourgeois is instrumental to the exploitation of workers, and certainly may derive a sumptuary way of live out of such exploitation, it is still capital that exploits people, capitalists being merely functionaries of capital).

Capital is not a subject that effectively performs the social function of exploitation. Concrete individuals are. Thus, though it might seem paradoxical, self-exploitation can and does occur (contemporary co-ops). The fact that the existence of capital presupposes the alienation of workers from both the means of production and means of sustenence (this is a historical "act" in which, again, there is no mystic force called capital which does that which can only be done by human beings, but in ideology and in the very social form of the commodity it appears as if there is something like that).

Such views were criticized by people like Marx for their fundamental character of fetishism (which is not merely a personal fault, a fault of reasoning of course).


Interesting dialogue, that of yours.

Maybe it would be best if a mod or an admin split this discussion in a separate thread here in "Learning". It has strayed wildly from the topic at hand.

[Luís Henrique]

your view implies that capitalism as a set of relations which are fundamentally dependent on the core relation between capitalists and wage workers

My view is that capitalism is not a set of relations dependent on rhe relation between capitalists and wage workers, as I very explicitly said:


There is no such thing as "self-exploitation". Even in a workers-owned capitalist company, people are exploited by capital, not by themselves (which is true even for normal, bourgeois-owned, capitalist companies: while the bourgeois is instrumental to the exploitation of workers, and certainly may derive a sumptuary way of live out of such exploitation, it is still capital that exploits people, capitalists being merely functionaries of capital).


Why would you want to toss the notion of the petite bourgeoisie out the window?

And how exactly am I doing that? On the contrary, I'm affirming its existence as a class, distinct from both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.


Nice try, but no, that isn't true.

Then how is competition structurally necessary for capitalism?


Capital is not a subject that effectively performs the social function of exploitation. Concrete individuals are. Thus, though it might seem paradoxical, self-exploitation can and does occur (contemporary co-ops).

No, that's evidently false. Capital is the "automatic subject", and it behaves as if it actually had whims and necessities, that it imposes to its supposed masters as much as into its slaves.


The fact that the existence of capital presupposes the alienation of workers from both the means of production and means of sustenence (this is a historical "act" in which, again, there is no mystic force called capital which does that which can only be done by human beings, but in ideology and in the very social form of the commodity it appears as if there is something like that).

You are very much wrong. The existence of capital predates by many centuries the "alienation" of workers from the means of production and subsistence (I suppose you mean, their expropriation), so it cannot presuppose a phenomenon that only happened much later. And yes, this expropriation is not performed by capital, be it as a mystical force, be it as a very material relation of production. But such expropriation, once performed (usually, by the feudal State in its late phase) doesn't need to be renewed daily; it is part of the historical conditions of the birth of capitalism, not of its reproductive conditions.


Such views were criticized by people like Marx for their fundamental character of fetishism (which is not merely a personal fault, a fault of reasoning of course).

You fundamentally misunderstand the Marxist concept of fetishism. Of course, the fact that capital exploits people as an autonomous monster is due to a fetishist phenomenon, but this phenomenon is not merely ideological nor a matter of false consciousness: it produces its own materiality, and it imposes itself upon not only the conscience of individuals, but also on their material social behaviour - including the social behaviour of the bourgeois.

It is a fetishist relation, but by no means in the same sence animist religions are fetishist - its fetish is a very material relation, and it does not impose itself as a misapprehension of reality, but it indeed builds a haunted, parallel reality - a second nature.


Maybe it would be best if a mod or an admin split this discussion in a separate thread here in "Learning". It has strayed wildly from the topic at hand.

It has. This unfortunately happens quite often. But apparently this subject is a previous issue to a correct understanding of the Russian Revolution and of what went wrong with it.

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

And how exactly am I doing that? On the contrary, I'm affirming its existence as a class, distinct from both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.It's clear as day Luis. If petty proprietors who do not hire additional labour do now own capitalist "companies", as you openly state, then it might be inferred that they do not engage in capitalist production.

This is evidently false as there is a clear difference between forms of self-employment which obviously engage in capital production. Though, to correct the initial assumption, you're actually transforming the notion of the petite bourgeois class by eliminating the individual craft owner, if what I write above stands.


No, that's evidently false. Capital is the "automatic subject", and it behaves as if it actually had whims and necessities, that it imposes to its supposed masters as much as into its slaves.And you fail to find your way out of the fetishism you claim to understand.

Capital does not "behave". Human beings do, and the notion of the subject concerns the doer of an action, and a social relation is no such doer precisely because of its nature as social relation - a framework in which active and concrete subjects, social classes, act. You confuse this framework, which is fetishistically transformed into an active subject as long as the immediate participants' impressions are concerned, for subjectivity. Capital has no, it is no subjectivity of its own and it is predicated upon alienating that of the worker. And sure, there are imperatives and necessities arising from the process of capital accumulation which need to be taken into account and acted upon by the capitalist, but to extend this in a mystical way into a claim that capital is a subjec is to fail to understand how fetishism works.

There is the aprt of the Paris Manuscripts which might be useful here:


The estrangement of man, and in fact every relationship in which man [stands] to himself, is realized and expressed only in the relationship in which a man stands to other men.


Hence within the relationship of estranged labor each man views the other in accordance with the standard and the relationship in which he finds himself as a worker.



If the product of labor is alien to me, if it confronts me as an alien power, to whom, then, does it belong?


To a being other than myself.


Who is this being?

...

The alien being, to whom labor and the product of labor belongs, in whose service labor is done and for whose benefit the product of labor is provided, can only be man himself.


If the product of labor does not belong to the worker, if it confronts him as an alien power, then this can only be because it belongs to some other man than the worker. If the worker’s activity is a torment to him, to another it must give satisfaction and pleasure. Not the gods, not nature, but only man himself can be this alien power over man.


We must bear in mind the previous proposition that man’s relation to himself becomes for him objective and actual through his relation to the other man.

Thus, if the product of his labor, his labor objectified, is for him an alien, hostile, powerful object independent of him, then his position towards it is such that someone else is master of this object, someone who is alien, hostile, powerful, and independent of him. If he treats his own activity as an unfree activity, then he treats it as an activity performed in the service, under the dominion, the coercion, and the yoke of another man.

Every self-estrangement of man, from himself and from nature, appears in the relation in which he places himself and nature to men other than and differentiated from himself.

This italicized conclusion is important here. The actual subject here is quite concretely identified with men other and (socially) differentiated from the worker. And exploitation being a concrete process, it can only be identified with the global relation in which the working class finds itself with capitalists, which again does not preclude the possibility of the whole workforce of an enterprise deciding democratically on the conditions of appropriation - how much to forward for expansion of (value) production, how much for wages etc. etc. In this case, they would actually be performing the function of the capitalist and that of the worker, which is exactly what happens in private production owned by individuals (self-employment and commodity production, thus capitalist production under specific conditions)


Of course, the fact that capital exploits people as an autonomous monster is due to a fetishist phenomenonThe impression, the appearance of this exploitation as an autonomous monster is a product of fetishism. Once this is demasked, the supposedly autonomous monster dissapears. What we have are social classes in conflict over the matters of social production regulated in a certain way.



Notice the contradiction here. First you conclude that a fetishist phenomenon (which one?) causes the fact (whereas Marrx talks about the appearance) that capital exploits labour as an autonomous monster, but the conclusion is not that this fetishism and its result need to be demasked, but that it should be left alone and in operation.



Why do I say that? Well, because that's what you effectively do. To start from the beginning again, a fetishist phenomenon produces an autonomous monster, but then you acknowledge this autonomous monster and thus have no other recourse but to acknowledge the cause which produced the result (this rests on the assumption of a "fetishist phenomenon" probably akin to any kind of a material cause which produces a material result; this of course is wrong since the whole poiht to fetishism in Marx is to connect it to alienated labour and show how ideological mystifications spontaneously arise from the practice of commodity production itself and show how the fetish character of the commodity arises from the nivellation, abstraction of concrete differences between various kinds of concrete labour into labour-as-labour which is the substance of value; this is also a historical process carried forward by the generalization of commodity production, the eradication of the so called natural economy as the dominant form)



but this phenomenon is not merely ideological nor a matter of false consciousnessYou are, of course, attributing these things to me. The point is very simple. Capital has no mind of its own. Human beings do.



it does not impose itself as a misapprehension of realityThis is evidently false. Attributing the characteristics of a relation between men to actual things is a very real misapprehension of reality. The political economy Marx critiques is based on that same error which is not incidental.




The existence of capital predates by many centuries the "alienation" of workers from the means of production and subsistence (I suppose you mean, their expropriation), so it cannot presuppose a phenomenon that only happened much later.You're partially right here. I meant that the existence of capital as the dominant form presupposes the expropriation, alienation of workers from the means of production and subsistence.




And yes, this expropriation is not performed by capital, be it as a mystical force, be it as a very material relation of production.Your approach effectively turns what you call a very real material relation of production into a mystical force with a mind of its own.


Can we get a split and a new thread for this?

[Narodnik]

You have no idea how contemporary workers' co-ops function.

If they don't function as I described, they are not worker coops but capitalist enterprises.


Which means squat since you do not know what exploitation is.

Exploitation is a de jure theft of someone's product of labor, meaning- having non-labor incomes. Employer-income, rent, interest, and patent-holder-income. And that's it.


To cut it short, surplus value is produced by the labour process under which a person or a group of persons appropriates the surplus (arising from the value added by labour) for the sake of expanded reproduction of the inital mass of capital.
Firstly, labor does not add value, it creates all the value of the product, that is, workers are entitled to the entierty of the products of their labor. Secondly, "surplus-value" is a part of the product that the boss takes from the workers, and if there is no boss, there can be no "surplus-value". There can be no stolen money if there is no thief.


Demonstrate how "surplus value and profit is necessarily produced for that enterprise to survive on the market." is not true.
Being that enterprises without bosses (single artisans, peasants and worker coops), which means without "surplus-value", do exist and sell stuff (which market is- people selling stuff), that just means that reality demonstrates the falsity of the view that an enterprise without any "surplus-value" can exist on a market.


for instance, a part of profits would be, in a very capitalist way, appropriated by the whole co-op for the sake of....
Being that the coop is made up of all workers as equals, it means that you appropriate that part youself. You're here using the false logic the capitalist use when they say "the commune will be the new boss of workers". It cannot be, because the commune will be the workers themselves as equals.


So, we're again back to the issue that you would not be renumerated to the full extent of labour that you put in.
You cannot be anything other then renumerated to the full extent of labor that you put in being that there is no boss to take any part of it for himsels, and the collective cannot be a "boss" being that collective is made out of those workers.


In which case, they aren't exploiting themselves
Exactly. Because such a thing is a logical impossibility. And being that they are not being exploited by a boss, and they are not a boss to anyone other and thus exploiting them- there is no exploitation there. I didn't say that commodity production is good, but it is not exploitative.


if there is exploitation here (and there certainly is), it must be located outside of the process of production
Which can be done only by collecting rent, interest, or patent-holder-income. If there's no such a thing, there is no exploitation.


being that the means of production in a capitalist company are not merely means of production, but constitute capital.
And being that a worker coop (which by it's definition doesn't have employer-employee relation) is not capitalist, their means of production do not.

As I said, if a farm not owning slaves exists in a slave society, selling products in that society doesn't make that farm a slaveowner farm, it simply cannot, being that it doesn't have any slaves.

[Thirsty Crow]

Being that enterprises without bosses (single artisans, peasants and worker coops), which means without "surplus-value", do exist and sell stuff (which market is- people selling stuff), that just means that reality demonstrates the falsity of the view that an enterprise without any "surplus-value" can exist on a market.
This isn't true.

There is surplus value in this case. The single artisan transforms first his initial mass of money capital into commodities - the means of production and materials for the labour process. And after the labour process, the value of the commodities which our artisan tries to sell (his stock) is greater than the mass of initial value, of the mass of money capital. This right here is what is called surplus value.

You simply do not understand what the notion of surplus value refers to:


Secondly, "surplus-value" is a part of the product that the boss takes from the workers, and if there is no boss, there can be no "surplus-value".As I said above, you disregard the fact that first products that enter into the production process are at the same time commodities, and that prior to even that, there is the value of money capital. This is crucial here since the surplus refers to the difference in value between the chronolocigally prior mass of value, and the end result after the production process, resulting in greater value than that of the inital amount (which again does not necessarily entail profit).

When I mention how contemporary co-ops work, you revert back to your idealist approach which posits an a prior definition without regard for concrete practice:


If they don't function as I described, they are not worker coops but capitalist enterprises.
You basically ask the world to bow down and comply with your preconceived notions. That's not how it works, though.


You cannot be anything other then renumerated to the full extent of labor that you put in being that there is no boss to take any part of it for himsels, and the collective cannot be a "boss" being that collective is made out of those workers.
You simply have no idea about how the world works.

As I said, if workers in a co-op were renumerated to the full extent, there wouldn't be enough of value to reinvest and thus keep afloat on the sea of competition, ergo, bankruptcy, ergo, unemployment.

[Luís Henrique]

It's clear as day Luis. If petty proprietors who do not hire additional labour do now own capitalist "companies", as you openly state, then it might be inferred that they do not engage in capitalist production.

Well, no. That inference would be wrong. For instance, proletarians do engage in capitalist production, though they do not own capitalist companies. But more to the point, consider the parcel peasant who owns his own land and his own tractor: he certainly is not a capitalist owner of means of production; and even if he hires additional labour, he is exploited by capitalists, in the form of debts, mortgages, quality controls, monopsonic and monopolistic practices, etc. So he is not a capitalist, and he isn't exploited in "capitalist production": he engages in pre-capitalist production, and is exploited in capitalist circulation. That's precisely what constitutes them into a class: the peasantry. By asserting their precise conditions of existence, I am by no means "tossing away" the concept of petite bourgeoisie; on the contrary, I am affirming this concept, against a mistaken, non-Marxist conception that dillutes it into the lower layers of the bourgeoisie.


This is evidently false as there is a clear difference between forms of self-employment which obviously engage in capital production.Yes - one can be self-employed, and be a capitalist exploiter; the only thing it takes is to be actually reproducing capital, not one's own living conditions. A self-employed stock broker, for instance, may well be a capitalist. But then he is not exploiting himself, he is indirectly exploiting others, by parasitising capitalist production. In many sences, this is the direct opposite of a petty bourgeois.

And, evidently, there can be the case you are trying to deal with: proletarians who are the co-operative owners of the means of production. These people engage in capitalist production, and they are exploited - by capital, not "by themselves". It happens that they dispense with a capitalist, ie, with a functionary of capital, the functionaries of capital being those among them elected to managerial positions. They are proletarians - people directly exploited in capitalist production. They are not petty bourgeois, who do not expand capital in production, and they are not self-employed bourgeois as the stock broker referred above, who parasitises "productive" capital and indirectly exploits workers.


Though, to correct the initial assumption, you're actually transforming the notion of the petite bourgeois class by eliminating the individual craft owner, if what I write above stands.I don't see how you do reach such strange conclusion. The individual craft owner is the petty bourgeois par excellence: he engages in pre-capitalist production (not because he does not hire other people's labour force, but because he doesn't reproduce capital); if he is a exploiter, he is a pre-capitalist exploiter like a guild master was; if he is exploited, he is exploited outside the realm of production.


And you fail to find your way out of the fetishism you claim to understand.I don't think so. I think you confuse two very different things that may be both labeled "bourgeois ideology" but cannot be reduced into each other by absolutely no means.


Capital does not "behave". Human beings do, and the notion of the subject concerns the doer of an action, and a social relation is no such doer precisely because of its nature as social relation - a framework in which active and concrete subjects, social classes, act. You confuse this framework, which is fetishistically transformed into an active subject as long as the immediate participants' impressions are concerned, for subjectivity.I don't think I do so. On the contrary, I think you don't see the implications of what you say: is fetishistically transformed into an active subject as long as the immediate participants' impressions are concerned, for subjectivity. So if the problem is merely the participants' subjective impressions, the whole thing would crumble down whenever people realise the fetishisation. But we pretty well know that this isn't the case; if people realise the fetishist nature of their relations, they may well revolt against such fethisisation, but unless such revolt is politically successfull, the fetish still stands. So the necessary conclusion is that this fetishism is of a very different nature.


Capital has no, it is no subjectivity of its own and it is predicated upon alienating that of the worker. And sure, there are imperatives and necessities arising from the process of capital accumulation which need to be taken into account and acted upon by the capitalist, but to extend this in a mystical way into a claim that capital is a subjec is to fail to understand how fetishism works. They impose into human beings as an external subjectivity, without any doubt. And indeed they are an external subjectivity, the alienated subjectivity of the human collective, the objective needs of the process of capitalist acumulation expressed as moral imperatives of human collectivity.


There is the aprt of the Paris Manuscripts which might be useful here:

The estrangement of man, and in fact every relationship in which man [stands] to himself, is realized and expressed only in the relationship in which a man stands to other men.

Hence within the relationship of estranged labor each man views the other in accordance with the standard and the relationship in which he finds himself as a worker.
If the product of labor is alien to me, if it confronts me as an alien power, to whom, then, does it belong?

To a being other than myself.

Who is this being?
...
The alien being, to whom labor and the product of labor belongs, in whose service labor is done and for whose benefit the product of labor is provided, can only be man himself.

If the product of labor does not belong to the worker, if it confronts him as an alien power, then this can only be because it belongs to some other man than the worker. If the worker’s activity is a torment to him, to another it must give satisfaction and pleasure. Not the gods, not nature, but only man himself can be this alien power over man.

We must bear in mind the previous proposition that man’s relation to himself becomes for him objective and actual through his relation to the other man.

Thus, if the product of his labor, his labor objectified, is for him an alien, hostile, powerful object independent of him, then his position towards it is such that someone else is master of this object, someone who is alien, hostile, powerful, and independent of him. If he treats his own activity as an unfree activity, then he treats it as an activity performed in the service, under the dominion, the coercion, and the yoke of another man.

Every self-estrangement of man, from himself and from nature, appears in the relation in which he places himself and nature to men other than and differentiated from himself.But, if so, then you idea that workers in cooperative exploit themselves must of necessity be false: for in this case, "the product of labor" that "is alien to me", and "confronts me as an alien power", belongs to myself - it does not belong to a "being other than myself" unless this "being other than myself", the alien being, to whom labor and the product of labor belongs, in whose service labor is done and for whose benefit the product of labor is provided", is not, in fact, "man himself".

And "if the product of labor does not belong to the worker, if it confronts him as an alien power, then this can only be because it belongs to some other man than the worker", then evidently we would have to find who such other man than the worker is in cooperative production - and if we cannot do it, as the very notion of cooperative production precludes his existence, then we would have to necessarily conclude that not only the workers do not exploit themselves - for then there is no such other man - but also that they are not exploited at all - for according to the text you quote, only another concrete man, different from themselves, would be able to exploit them.

So, either you are wrong in claiming that the workers exploit themselves, or you are wrong in arguing that capital, as an abstraction devoid of human subjectivity, cannot exploit workers.


This italicized conclusion [Every self-estrangement of man, from himself and from nature, appears in the relation in which he places himself and nature to men other than and differentiated from himself] is important here. The actual subject here is quite concretely identified with men other and (socially) differentiated from the worker.And so, either the young Marx is right, or I am. But, as seen above, if the young Marx is right, then you are also necessarily wrong. We would have, both of us, you and me, to either reconsider our positions, and admit that the exploitative relationship in capitalist production is a personal relationship between labourer and capitalist, and renounce to the ideas of an exploitation by an abstract entity (me) or of workers by themselves (you) and perhaps even of workers being exploited by any kind of non-personal entity (the State, impersonal corporations, etc) - or contend that the young Marx was wrong in this one.


And exploitation being a concrete process, it can only be identified with the global relation in which the working class finds itself with capitalists, which again does not preclude the possibility of the whole workforce of an enterprise deciding democratically on the conditions of appropriation - how much to forward for expansion of (value) production, how much for wages etc. etc. In this case, they would actually be performing the function of the capitalist and that of the worker, which is exactly what happens in private production owned by individuals (self-employment and commodity production, thus capitalist production under specific conditions)Evidently if exploitation is a concrete process as Marx has it in the text you quoted, then the possibility of "the whole workforce of an enterprise deciding democratically on the conditions of appropriation - how much to forward for expansion of (value) production, how much for wages etc. etc." is precluded. For then, as you identify exploitation with the subjective decisions of capitalists (they exploit exactly when they avow to themselves all decisions regarding how much to forward for expansion of value, how much for wages, how much for their private conspicuous appropriation), you would have to admit that the subjectivity of exploitation is gone, and the workers are again free, their product no longer confronting themselves as alien, as the power of other men. It's only in admitting that capitalist exploitation can be - and in fact, ultima ratio, is - impersonal that we can understand how workers who are owners in a cooperative are exploited: they are exploited because the apparently "subjective" decisions of capitalists are in fact objective necessities of capitalist accumulation: the conditions and the product of their labour must still face them as alien, not because they are the imposition of the subjectivity of another man, but because they are the imposition of the objective needs of capital. Which again is the case in traditional, capitalist owned, enterprises: what the capitalist, as an individual, believes are his own subjective decisions, are nothing more than the necessities of capitalist accumulation, imposed into by a force as external to him as his own whims are external to the workers' subjectivities.

And of course, you are again mixing two very different things. Workers in a cooperative are workers in a capitalist enterprise, that happens to be owned by themselves. They reproduce capital, and are exploited in the process of capitalist production. Artisans and peasants do not reproduce capital, they do not exploit anyone - neither others, nor themselves - in the process of capitalist production, and they are not exploited - by no one, neither others, neither themselves - in the process of capitalist production. They may, or may not, exploit others in pre-capitalist ways, and they nowadays are quite certainly exploited by capitalists in the process of capitalist circulation - but this is very different from workers in a cooperative.


Notice the contradiction here. First you conclude that a fetishist phenomenon (which one?) causes the fact (whereas Marrx talks about the appearance) that capital exploits labour as an autonomous monster, but the conclusion is not that this fetishism and its result need to be demasked, but that it should be left alone and in operation. I think you are reading something I didn't wrote. Of course it shouldn't be left in operation; it should be destroyed. But on the contrary of what you think, it cannot be destroyed by "unmasking" it, nor by destroying the capitalist as a physical entity. It is the social relation, which is capital, and which is perfectly able to function without "the capitalist" (and indeed increasingly functions without him, or with him being relegated to a parasitary, non-productive position, as a mere "money capitalist"), that must be destroyed.


You're partially right here. I meant that the existence of capital as the dominant form presupposes the expropriation, alienation of workers from the means of production and subsistence.And you are again wrong. The matter is not whether capital is the dominant form - form of what, for starters - but whether capital thrives in the interstices of production, or whether it takes control over production.


Your approach effectively turns what you call a very real material relation of production into a mystical force with a mind of its own.By no means. Thre is nothing mystical about capital; it's only mystified by people. But once it is mystified, it acquires a dynamic of its own, that cannot be opposed by people by a mere act of will. It is completely different from gods - I may be externally forced to pretend to believe in gods to avoid being burnt at the stake, but this won't have an ounce of weight in my intimate, unconfessed opinions. But I do have to practically believe in the incarnation of value into bits of metal or pieces of paper, or commodities in general, and indeed in my own activity as a human being, lest I am effectively impossibilitated to participate in society.

Such is the strength of capital.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Exactly. Because such a thing is a logical impossibility.

It is.


And being that they are not being exploited by a boss, and they are not a boss to anyone other and thus exploiting them- there is no exploitation there.

But here you are wrong. In the case you dispute, because capital acts as an independent entity, opposing workers. If their cooperative does not accumulate capital as much as its competitors, it will be driven out of competition, ultimately out of existence, and the workers consequently will have to return to the labour market as common proletarians. To avoid that, they must take the same decisions concerning the distribution of profits - how much goes to reinvestment, and how much goes to wages. True, they can redistribute the capitalist's conspicuous fund among themselves - an by that way enjoy a better living standard, at least for some time, than workers in privately owned companies. But they will still have to impose themselves Fordist-level labour intensity, improve productivity, therefore posing the issue of demissions, and at this point, managerial positions in the cooperative stop being merely administrative and become political.


I didn't say that commodity production is good, but it is not exploitative.

In abstract, no, it is not necessarily exploitative. But within a capitalist society, I don't see how to avoid it. And even as an abstraction, it will become exploitative in the measure that some commodity producers will be more successful than others, igniting the process of capital accumulation, if there aren't feudal landlords or something similar to thwart that process and keep everybody down by pre-capitalist exploitation.


Which can be done only by collecting rent, interest, or patent-holder-income. If there's no such a thing, there is no exploitation.

Well, no. It is more complicated than that; you might exploit people due to differences in productivity. If a capitalist company can produce 100 pairs shoes with 20 hours of abstract labour, then the value of a pair of shoes is going to be the value added in 12 minutes of labour. If an independent artisan takes one hour to produce a pair of shoes, then he is going to be heavily underpaid when he sells his shoes, regardless of the fact that he is not pimped by a boss.

But even if so - a workers cooperative in a capitalist market cannot do without patents, and - much more importantly - credit, so it cannot avoid circulation-borne redistribution of wealth in favour of capitalists.


And being that a worker coop (which by it's definition doesn't have employer-employee relation) is not capitalist, their means of production do not.

This wold only be the case if the coop existed within a non-capitalist society; otherwise, no, their means of production would still be capital and extort surplus-value from them.


As I said, if a farm not owning slaves exists in a slave society, selling products in that society doesn't make that farm a slaveowner farm, it simply cannot, being that it doesn't have any slaves.

Well. I would like to know how would a farm not owning slaves exist in a slave society. Would it pay wages to its labourers? That presupposes a well-developed market, that probably can't exist within a slave society. And it presupposes a mass of free workers - free from slavery or serfdom, but also "free" from any relation to means of production and consumption; otherwise where would our non-slave farm find its labourers?

I don't think it would work.

But if we admit, for the sake of argument, that it would be possible - then I don't see also how to compare the push of slavery to the push of capital. Capital pushes everything into its orbit, by prevaling in market, through ever-lowering prices due to ever-increasing productivity. Slavery, I think, cannot do anything remotely similar.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

It certainly makes him an appropriator of and commander over surplus labour.

How that?


You should pay more attention to the idea that never could have been developed by Marx, the idea of the abolition of private property on the very basis of capitalism itself.

And again - if capitalist exploitation is a personal relationship between man and other man, and if, moreso, capitalism presupposes competition, how can be private property abolished on the very basis of capitalism itself?


If you conceed that the bureaucracy was positioned in relation to the means of production and conditions of labour in a fundamentally differen way than workers, then yes we're talking about full blown social class here,

Well, no, they are not positioned in relation to the means of production and conditions of labour in a fundamentally different way than workers - they are stil fundamentally sellers of labour power - so... we are not talking of a full blown social class here (which would, by the way, have to be a "third" class, since their relation to the means of production and conditions of labour is fundamentally different than that of the bourgeoisie - but where do these "new classes" keep appearing from?)


and not a "caste" (really, how did this clumsy transposition from "feudal" Indian society to a workers' state ever happen?).

That would be undeniably Trotsky's fault. Indeed, bureaucracy, either under capitalism or in whatever the SU and similar working class paradises where, is by no means a caste or anything vaguely similar to a caste.


Then you might go back and examine the Marxist notion of social class without embarassing attempts at dodging the issue.

And that still is, as far as I am informed, dictated by the issue of property of means of production. Or am I mistaken?

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

Luis, you really shouldn't pose as a person all that knowledgeable, given that you obviously think that there can be exploitation in circulation and exchange:


...he certainly is not a capitalist owner of means of production; and even if he hires additional labour, he is exploited by capitalists, in the form of debts, mortgages, quality controls, monopsonic and monopolistic practices, etc. So he is not a capitalist, and he isn't exploited in "capitalist production": he engages in pre-capitalist production, and is exploited in capitalist circulation. This is the mercantilist viewpoint though tempered by elements of Marx's critique of political economy (of course, in a confused manner), and not that of Marx and those who judged his analysis correct and useful. And if you can't see how imagining exchange and circulation as spheres of exploitation tears down the whole of the theory of value, then go back to Marx, please, or you can conclude with the whole of capitalist apologia (to be precise, that part of this apologetics which hasn't tossed the notion of value out the window altogether) that surplus value is created through exchange, circulation. Or you could show some of his writings which support this ridiculous notion.

Anyway, your disastrous grasp on the notion of exploitation definitely means that you should consult Marx some more.

Does this lack of understanding have something to do with another error, that of imagining that a person can engage in pre-capitalist production in capitalism? Do you not see that the basic mechanism of capitalist production still holds here, that money capital is forwarded for the means of production and materials for labour, that through the labour process these two combine to produce commodities whose value is greater than that of the initial mass of value, and the final gamble to make it all pay out, placing the commodities on the market for sale. Please enlighten me why should anyone be so foolish so as to conclude that this doesn't represent capitalist production, no matter the social status of the producer, no matter the lack of profitability which might drive her out of business?

[Luís Henrique]

Luis, you really shouldn't pose as a person all that knowledgeable, given that you obviously think that there can be exploitation in circulation and exchange:

I don't think I am posing as a knowledgeable person.


This is the mercantilist viewpoint though tempered by elements of Marx's critique of political economy (of course, in a confused manner), and not that of Marx and those who judged his analysis correct and useful. And if you can't see how imagining exchange and circulation as spheres of exploitation tears down the whole of the theory of value, then go back to Marx, please, or you can conclude with the whole of capitalist apologia (to be precise, that part of this apologetics which hasn't tossed the notion of value out the window altogether) that surplus value is created through exchange. Or you could show some of his writings which support this ridiculous notion.Of course value is not created through exchange. But where did I imply such?

You are confusing two very different things: 1. that capitalist exploitation is based upon the creation of value, which is only possible within commodity production, and 2. that therefore there can be no exploitation in the realm of circulation. But, evidently, the latter does not follow from the former; otherwise how would there be capital before capitalism? Or how would there be exploitation that is not based in value, such as feudal exploitation, for instance? Or, even in capitalism, how does unproductive capital obtain profits, if it doesn't, as implied in its name, produce value?

And, also evidently, that's your own confusion, not mine.


Anyway, your disastrous grasp on the notion of exploitation definitely means that you should consult Marx some more.Consulting Marx is always a good idea. Consulting one's own brains is not a bad one too.

But, to quote yourself, is crap like this really necessary?

If you can make the point that I am wrong, such kind of adjectivation shouldn't be necessary. If, as I believe, you can't - as you haven't yet explained how "workers themselves" are "another man", or how private property can be eliminated within capitalism if competition is essential for capitalist accumulation, for instance - then it won't help you, and you will again and again have to face the problems implied in your conception of capitalism, classes, exploitation, capital, etc.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Why is competition absolutely necessary for the existence of capital? Is it not wage-labour that is as said by Marx?

I don't think Marx ever implied that there is only one necessary condition for the existence of capital - or for its domination of the productive activity.

He is quite clear that capitalism can only exist on the basis of the production of commodities though, and it is hard to see what the necessity of commodities would be if there was no private property - who would sell and who would buy those commodities, if not separate private proprietors?

(But, even if Marx never said that capitalist exploitation cannot exist without competition, LinksRadical does:
This demonstrate that you do not understand capitalist exploitation.

Surplus value production and implicitly exploitation are fundamentally linked to exchange and competition. Production in capitalism, be it in a "self-managed enterprise" or in a regular enterprise owned by a private individual, is started in the first place with only one goal - sale, and not any kind of sale, but that which enlarges the chronologically primary mass of capital (profit). This is necessary due to the fact that production is not directly social, but mediated by the form of the commodity, which means that there will be multiple enterprises in a given branch, and there is competition.

- and here I think he is exactly right.)

So, what happens to these multiple enterprises when private property is abolished? Or what happens to capitalism when there are no longer multiple enterprises and competition? It seems to me that either there are no longer multiple enterprises, no competition, no more mediation through the form of commodity, no need to enlarge the primary mass of capital, and consequently, no more capitalism - or, on the contrary, that the multiple enterprises continue to exist under some form, and the State "property" of all capital is nothing but a façade, competition lingers under the so-called "planned economy", production is still mediated by the form of commodity and designed to sell products to enlarge the primary mass of capital - but then it is capitalism, not "State capitalism", and certainly not "State capitalism" in the same sence that we call capitalism under Roosevelt, or Hitler, "State capitalism" - and evidently, since there are no longer individual capitalist to match those individual capitals that masquerade as State property, workers must be exploited by capital in itself, not by individual capitalists, who don't exist, nor by the State, that cannot be the actual proprietor, since these are still individual capitals, nor by bureaucrats, who are mere agents of the State.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Does this lack of understanding have something to do with another error, that of imagining that a person can engage in pre-capitalist production in capitalism? Do you not see that the basic mechanism of capitalist production still holds here, that money capital is forwarded for the means of production and materials for labour, that through the labour process these two combine to produce commodities whose value is greater than that of the initial mass of value, and the final gamble to make it all pay out, placing the commodities on the market for sale. Please enlighten me why should anyone be so foolish so as to conclude that this doesn't represent capitalist production, no matter the social status of the producer, no matter the lack of profitability which might drive her out of business?

Well... what is the basic mechanism of capitalist production? If it is the buying of labour force, which is then employed in the production of commodities, under the direct supervision of management... then no, such is not capitalist production. And it is not difficult to understand that, if you realise that the same kind of relation that takes place between finance capital, or even productive monopolist capital and peasants and petty bourgeois also can exist between those big capitalist enterprises and smaller, but undeniably capitalist companies - as the relations, for instance, between textile companies and banks, or between providers of intermediate products and huge automobile factories - are we going to argue that these smaller companies are proletarian, in their relation with the monopolistic ones? Or, on the contrary, that such relations are equitable, and that the monopolies do not carve upon the profits of the smaller companies?

Or, if not wage labour, what is the basic mechanism of capitalist production? Indebtment? Mortgages? Tied sales? Dumping? Franchises? Monopolistic profits?

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

I don't think I am posing as a knowledgeable person.
Sorry. I shouldn't have written that.


Of course value is not created through exchange. But where did I imply such?You can't have it both ways. Exploitation is (surplus) value production in capitalism. So either our artisan isn't exploited by financial capitalists, or you hold a mercantilist, bourgeois view.


that therefore there can be no exploitation in the realm of circulation. But, evidently, the latter does not follow from the former; otherwise how would there be capital before capitalism?You explicitly stated that the modern artisan is exploited.


Or how would there be exploitation that is not based in value, such as feudal exploitation, for instance? Or, even in capitalism, how does unproductive capital obtain profits, if it doesn't, as implied in its name, produce value?It obtains profits through a redivision of value produced.


And, also evidently, that's your own confusion, not mine.The confusion is all yours. You were the one claiming that farmers and artisans today are exploited by financial capital. So, either you used the term in a metaphorical way (which enables you to drawn the wrong conclusion of contemporary artisan production being "pre-capitalist", which is just ridiculous) with the purspose of twisting it so it supports your argument, or you actually hold a view which is anything but Marxist.



The impressionistic, anti-Marxist view of state cappers...
How about answering my question?

[Luís Henrique]

Sorry. I shouldn't have written that.

Mkay.


You can't have it both ways. Exploitation is (surplus) value production in capitalism. So either our artisan isn't exploited by financial capitalists, or you hold a mercantilist, bourgeois view.

In which case, anyone who talks about unproductive capital holds a mercantilist, bourgeois view. Which would include all Marxists that I know, even Marx himself.


You explicitly stated that the modern artisan is exploited.

Well, yes - but such exploitation can only take place in circulation, not in production.


It obtains profits through a redivision of value produced.

And such redivision takes place where, if not in circulation?


The confusion is all yours. You were the one claiming that farmers and artisans today are exploited by financial capital. So, either you used the term in a metaphorical way (which enables you to drawn the wrong conclusion of contemporary artisan production being "pre-capitalist", which is just ridiculous) with the purspose of twisting it so it supports your argument, or you actually hold a view which is anything but Marxist.

Well, they are quite obviously exploited by finance capital (and by productive capital also, through monopolistic and monopsonic practices). They transfer value to capital. But their mode of production is quite obviously non-capitalist: they are not wage labourers, they do not sell their labour power, they sell their products. So how are they exploited? In the realm of circulation.

There is nothing non-Marxist about that. Value can be only produced in the production of commodities. An artisan or a peasant that produces commodities produces value; such value can be appropriated by herself in its totality, or shared between her and various capitalist entities. How is this value transfered to capital, if she isn't a wage labourer? You answer it when you say that unproductive capital "obtains profits through a redivision of value produced": that's how a peasant or artisan is exploited: "through a redivision of value produced" that takes place entirely in the market. It doesn't mean that value is produced in the market, in circulation: it merely means it is redistributed there.

Now let's suppose you were right, and that value, besides being only produced in the process of production of commodities, could also be only appropriated there. Then the process of transfer of surplus value from a factory to a bank would imply that the bank was indeed producing commodities and selling them to the factory. But then why do we call finance capital "unproductive capital"? All Marxist analysis of finance capital would be wrong, and we would have to replace it by an analysis in which finance capital is productive capital. But this would only lead to further contradictions, as finance capital does not produce commodities to sell.

So let's be clear: value can only be produced in the production of commodities (and then it doesn't matter whether it is capitalist production of commodities or not), but it certainly can be redistributed in the circulation of commodities, which was the predominant form of exploitation in all pre-capitalist societies, but happens as a matter of routine within capitalist economies too, even if it is (and by far) no longer the most important mechanism of exploitation.

Unless you want to argue that the transfer of value from a factory to a bank happens within the realm of circulation, but the transfer of value from a peasant farm or an artisan shop to a bank, albeit being exactly of the same nature, misteriously takes place in the sphere of production.


How about answering my question?

You could lead by example, explaining how "workers themselves" are "another man", or how private property can be eliminated within capitalism if competition is essential for capitalist accumulation (and yes, I know from where you are taking such idea (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch27.htm), so don't just link there - explain how Marx could possibly be saying what you mistakenly believe he is saying), or what is the "basic mechanism of capitalist production".

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

Mkay.
In which case, anyone who talks about unproductive capital holds a mercantilist, bourgeois view. Which would include all Marxists that I know, even Marx himself.You don't known what you're talking about.
The mercantilist, bourgeois view rests on the notion that value is produced in (unequal) exchange. This has nothing to do with the Marxist view on financial capital.


Well, yes - but such exploitation can only take place in circulation, not in production.
And we're back to the issue at hand. You hold a mercantilist view. "Such" exploitation is fundamentally alien to the theory of value which is the basis of the critique of political economy.

Luis, a few posts above you said that obviously exploitation does not occur in exchange, circulation. And then you contradict yourself openly here.


And such redivision takes place where, if not in circulation?Redivision of surplus value already produced. This happens on the basis of exploitation which is 1) enabled by debt, by credit but 2) which doesn't occur in circulation, but in production, and thus to conclude that financial capitalists exploit our small capitalist artisan is not a valid statement, and even more so in the light of the fact that you could conclude that for every single small business owner, and even up to medium sized firms which are squeezed by their larger competitors (the only criterion being that the de facto owner works alongside his workforce). There can be no and there is no exploitation in circulation.


Well, they are quite obviously exploited by finance capital (and by productive capital also, through monopolistic and monopsonic practices). Quite obviously you don't know what exploitation is. Monopolies and monopsonies constituting exploitation is, quite frankly, one of the more ridiculous claims I've heard from people who actually know quite a bit about the world and Marxism. It is obvious that you confuse consequences of competition with exploitation, which is tantamount to confusing the viewpoint of the working class (exploitation) with that of the small capitalists (bankruptcy). There is a reason to all that talk about proletarianization of the petite bourgeoisie (artisans included) but that implies necessarily that only a section of the bourgeoisie can be subject to that process (how would an already constituted proletariat be proletarianized again?).


They transfer value to capital. But their mode of production is quite obviously non-capitalist: they are not wage labourers, they do not sell their labour power, they sell their products. So how are they exploited? In the realm of circulation.They are not exploited in a usual sense of the term. I already explained that artisan production today follows the same structural pattern of every capitalist production. So, no, I'm afraid that you're dead wrong.


How is this value transfered to capital, if she isn't a wage labourer?In the same way that a medium sized enterprise whose owner happens to enage in work sees that redivision - through a financial contract resulting in interest. Interest itself is a product of exploitation only in a mediated way, as it depends not on financial capitals' successful surplus value extraction (financial capital does not do this), but on other capitals' accumulation, which absolutely rests on surplus value extraction and on profits.

Redistribution of value, or how it appears in capitalist finance - the redistribution of profits - is decidedly not exploitation.

Again, Luis, if you think that monopolistic and monopsonic practices, and lending with interest, constitute exploitation, you're dead wrong and peddling a rehashed mercantilism.


You could lead by example, explaining how "workers themselves" are "another man", or how private property can be eliminated within capitalism if competition is essential for capitalist accumulation (and yes, I know from where you are taking such idea (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch27.htm), so don't just link there - explain how Marx could possibly be saying what you mistakenly believe he is saying), or what is the "basic mechanism of capitalist production".I asked my questions. I've no intention of shifting that debate to you. And to be clear, as you're attributing to me the defense of the state capitalist thesis, it is clear from my exchange with Lev that I'm not doing any such thing. I'm actually asking him whether the USSR was a class society.


but it certainly can be redistributed in the circulation of commodities, which was the predominant form of exploitation in all pre-capitalist societies, but happens as a matter of routine within capitalist economies too, even if it is (and by far) no longer the most important mechanism of exploitation.

You're essentially saying here that a good part of the social production of certain regions and countries is "non-capitalist" and "pre-capitalist", which means that Marx was very much wrong in analysing exploitation in capitalist society, and that society appears as a mix of sorts - clearly capitalist sections, clearly pre-capitalist ones..

The thesis is that pre-capitalist exploitation (by the way, you're wrong about that; the predominant form of exploitation in feudal societies was not mercantile, but based on serfs' bondage; this holds for slavery as well; and even here you are wrong in that you conceive of circulation as being the locus of exploitation in any hsitorical social-economic formation) persists in an unchanged form to this day.

To reiterate, a redivision of profits, even if such that it eats away at all the profits of an artisan, is not exploitation.

Furthermore, as I've shown and you have yet to refute this, contemporary artisan production is thouroughly capitalist. The owner forwards money capital for the commodities - the tools and materials for the labour process - and after that labour process, the value of the commodities produced is greater than the initial mass, and the owner sells his goods as commodities. This is all very simple in fact.

And finally, exploitation occurs in the first stage of the productive process, the actual production itself.

[Luís Henrique]

You don't known what you're talking about.
The mercantilist, bourgeois view rests on the notion that value is produced in (unequal) exchange.

Which is a view I don't hold at all. Value is not produced in exchange, be it equal or inequal. Value is only produced in commodity production. In an unfair exchange, value is transferred, either from buyer to seller, or the other way round. In a fair exchange, no value is transferred. But since value is not immediately visible, fair exchanges must be the exception, not the rule.

In order to properly analyse capitalist exploitation, Marx presumes a market where only fair exchanges are performed. But this is a useful abstraction, just like a physicist abstracts air resistance when understanding gravity; unfair exchanges are still pretty the rule under capitalism. True, for a huge part, such unfair trades are randomic, so they cannot transfer value in a systematic way. But where there are monopolies or monopsonies, value (which is not created in circulation, or in exchange), is systematically transferred to the monopolistic seller from buyers, or to monopsonic buyers from sellers.


And we're back to the issue at hand. You hold a mercantilist view. "Such" exploitation is fundamentally alien to the theory of value which is the basis of the critique of political economy.

You are just being silly, or purposefully misreading me. Value is only created in commodity production. It can be transferred in circulation, and if such transfers happen in systemic way, then it is exploitation in circulation, which does not involve creation of value.


Luis, a few posts above you said that obviously exploitation does not occur in exchange, circulation. And then you contradict yourself openly here.

If I said there can be no exploitation in circulation, then I was obviously wrong. But more probably I said, or at least meant, that there cannot be (specifically) capitalist exploitation in circulation: the specific nature of capitalist exploitation is that it occurs - contrary to all other kinds of exploitation - in the sphere of production.


Redivision of surplus value already produced.

Yes, of course.


This happens on the basis of exploitation which is 1) enabled by debt, by credit but 2) which doesn't occur in circulation, but in production, and thus to conclude that financial capitalists exploit our small capitalist artisan is not a valid statement, and even more so in the light of the fact that you could conclude that for every single small business owner, and even up to medium sized firms which are squeezed by their larger competitors (the only criterion being that the de facto owner works alongside his workforce).

So?

Systemic transfers of wealth are exploitation. If such exploitation occurs in the process of production, then you have capitalist exploitation, which is only possible in capitalist production. If it happens outside production, then it happens in circulation (or even in extra-economic spheres, such as feudal or slave exploitation. If it happens in circulation, it is no less exploitation than exploitation in production; it just isn't the specifically capitalist form of exploitation.

In the case of a medium sized firm - or even of a huge firm - that systematically transfers value to monopolies, then the only reason it doesn't make sence to say it is exploited is because the value it transfers to the monopolies wasn't created "by the firm", but by workers, who are the ones being exploited - directly by the medium-sized firm, and indirectly by the monopolies. In the case of a peasant or artisan, who produces himself the value that is transferred to the monopolies, they are exploited, and exploited by the monopolies, not in production, since they are not wage labourers, but in circulation.


There can be no and there is no exploitation in circulation.

So there can be no pre-capitalist exploitation, or is capitalist exploitation already exploitation in the process of production? How so?


Quite obviously you don't know what exploitation is.

Maybe. Explain me what it is, then, in a way that does not lead to the conclusion that exploitation only begins with generalised wage labour!


Monopolies and monopsonies constituting exploitation is, quite frankly, one of the more ridiculous claims I've heard from people who actually know quite a bit about the world and Marxism.

I would appreciate if you tone the epithets down.


It is obvious that you confuse consequences of competition with exploitation, which is tantamount to confusing the viewpoint of the working class (exploitation) with that of the small capitalists (bankruptcy).

Most clearly I do not.


There is a reason to all that talk about proletarianization of the petite bourgeoisie (artisans included) but that implies necessarily that only a section of the bourgeoisie can be subject to that process (how would an already constituted proletariat be proletarianized again?).

So to you the petty bourgeosie is in fact a layer of the bourgeosie?


They are not exploited in a usual sense of the term. I already explained that artisan production today follows the same structural pattern of every capitalist production.

To me, the "structural pattern" of capitalist production is wage labour. If your "artisan" is a wage labourer, then he is a proletarian, not an artisan. If he produces commodities directly for sale, then he does not produce in the same structural pattern of every capitalist production, never mind how many times you may "explain" to me the that he does. And if he produces commodities directly for sale, he retains property of these commodities until he sells them, very unlike proletarians, whose products are the property of their employer. And if so, the value he produces isn't directly appropriated by a capitalist - he, artisan, either keeps such value in its entirety, or, which is nowadays the rule, transfers it to others - to capital, in practice - through mechanisms very different from capitalist production.

But, of course, I don't know anything, so perhaps the structural pattern of capitalist production is something else than wage labour, in which case I wonder why we bother to call it "capitalist production" for starters.


So, no, I'm afraid that you're dead wrong.

I'm so dead wrong that you are already changing your discourse. From "they are not explored at all", we are now coming to "they are not exploited in a usual sense of the term". So if you want, they are exploited in an "unusual" sence of the term: their livelihood is reduced to something very similar to that of a proletarian, though not by the "usual" method of acquiring their products by buying their labour power.


In the same way that a medium sized enterprise whose owner happens to enage in work sees that redivision - through a financial contract resulting in interest.

Right, except it is completely wrong. A medium sized enterprise still has to produce sizeable profits, enough that it may accumulate capital. So the "exploitation" (because here, really, it is not an actual case of explotitation) of medium-sized, or small sized, or big sized, enterprises by monopolies finds its limits in the profit rate that allows for accumulation - otherwise, the enterprise, big or small, goes bankrupt and ceases to exist as an instance of capital. But the artisan, or the peasant, may be exploited to a wholly different degree: as long as she is able to reproduce her labour power and her instruments of production, she subsists as an artisan or peasant: there is no need to allow her any kind of profit or accumulation.


Interest itself is a product of exploitation only in a mediated way, as it depends not on financial capitals' successful surplus value extraction (financial capital does not do this), but on other capitals' accumulation, which absolutely rests on surplus value extraction and on profits.

In the case of non-capitalist producers, such as peasants or artisans, directly on the production of value, which is not comparable to extraction of surplus value or capital accumulation.


Again, Luis, if you think that monopolistic and monopsonic practices, and lending with interest, constitute exploitation, you're dead wrong and peddling a rehashed mercantilism.

Well, then you will have to redefine mercantilism. By your own definition, it rests on the assumption that value is created in circulation. But I don't share such assumption; as I have more than once reiterated, I believe value can only be created in commodity production. So you are either thinking of mercantilism in a way that doesn't match your own professed definition, or you are deliberately misrepresenting my views. Then, either: a) explain what definition of mercantilism you are using, that allows for an explicit negation of the magical creation of value in circulation, or, b) address my points, not your mercantilist straw man.


I asked my questions. I've no intention of shifting that debate to you. And to be clear, as you're attributing to me the defense of the state capitalist thesis, it is clear from my exchange with Lev that I'm not doing any such thing. I'm actually asking him whether the USSR was a class society.

So I take you are not going to explain how "workers themselves" are "another man". In other words, you have brought into discussion a text by Marx that directly undermines your claim that workers in a cooperative "exploit themselves". You want that text to hold against what you perceive as fetishist position of mine (that workers are exploited by capital, not by capitalist per se), but not to be taken into account when it comes to discussing the hypothesis of self-exploitation...

And you are also not willing to discuss (with me, at least) whether private property can be eliminated within capitalism if competition is essential for capitalist accumulation. Because, of course, old Marx's text that is the basis for your position directly contradicts young Marx's text you need to deny the idea that workers are exploited by capital.

So be it. But then there is the problem with what the"basic mechanism of capitalist production" is. Apparently, to you, it is not the appropriation of surplus value in the process of production, by buying labour power for the value of labour power, but appropriating the whole value of the products of such labour power. And this is directly linked to our own discussion of what exploitation is, isn't it? So, what is the basic mechanism of capitalist production?


You're essentially saying here that a good part of the social production of certain regions and countries is "non-capitalist" and "pre-capitalist", which means that Marx was very much wrong in analysing exploitation in capitalist society, and that society appears as a mix of sorts - clearly capitalist sections, clearly pre-capitalist ones..

And where did Marx ever say or imply that there are no pre-capitalist sections in modern societies? If he ever did, he was clearly wrong, for even today such "sections" clearly exist - not even to talk about his own time, when they were evidently even larger and more important.

You confuse the existence of pre-capitalist relations of production - that are obvious everywhere wage labour hasn't yet become the method of appropriation of value - with the idea that those archaic relations exist independently of capitalism and constitute an alternative to it, which is evidently false.


The thesis is that pre-capitalist exploitation (by the way, you're wrong about that; the predominant form of exploitation in feudal societies was not mercantile, but based on serfs' bondage; this holds for slavery as well; and even here you are wrong in that you conceive of circulation as being the locus of exploitation in any hsitorical social-economic formation)

I don't think I ever said it was mercantile; I merely denied that it was based on production.


persists in an unchanged form to this day.

I hope you aren't telling me that the exploitation of slaves and serfs was based in wage labour. And if you aren't, then you have to acknowledge that exploitation is possible without the capitalist method of acquiring production by paying for labour power - ie, outside of the sphere of production. But, to the point, no, I don't believe that pre-capitalist exploitation persists in an unchanged form to this day.


To reiterate, a redivision of profits, even if such that it eats away at all the profits of an artisan, is not exploitation.

No, it is all fair and good, I suppose. We can safely tell artisans and peasants that they overwork themselves like mules, to earn a low-standard life, while making others rich, but, no, they aren't being exploited, or at least, not exploited in the "usual" sence of the word. I am pretty sure they will be very happy with such explanation, and might even be convinced that capitalism is a great thing - after all, it reduces them to povery, but it does not "exploit" them.


Furthermore, as I've shown and you have yet to refute this, contemporary artisan production is thouroughly capitalist. The owner forwards money capital for the commodities - the tools and materials for the labour process - and after that labour process, the value of the commodities produced is greater than the initial mass, and the owner sells his goods as commodities. This is all very simple in fact.

What you are describing is domestic production, which by no means is "thoroughly" capitalist (it is clearly a transitional form between simple commodity production and capitalist production), and much less the "basic capitalist method of exploitaton"... But, of course, it is by no means even the most common form of artesanal production nowadays. Rather artisans buy their instruments of production in the market (usually through credit, which creates a problem of debt, which is one form that capital finds to put its hands over artisan production), use them to produce stuff in the market; since their productivity is much lower than the average productivity of capitalist competitors, the prices at which they can sell their products are very low and don't allow for any accumulation - though if they are fortunate and smart enough, they may find a niche market in which the artesanal nature of their product is an use value of itself, in which case they will probably be able to upgrade their living standards, and even perhaps accumulate some capital, moving upwards from the petty bourgeoisie to the very lowest ranks of the bourgeois.


And finally, exploitation occurs in the first stage of the productive process, the actual production itself.

Typical capitalist exploitation, yes (to the extent that "actual production" includes the buying of labour power, which already seems unlikely to me; in truth, exploitation seems to me to necessarily include the whole productive process).

There is plenty of exploitation going on on other forms, though, especially in agriculture.

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

Which is a view I don't hold at all. Value is not produced in exchange, be it equal or inequal.
This is the only way that would enable you to claim that the contemporary artisan is exploited.


You are just being silly, or purposefully misreading me. Value is only created in commodity production. It can be transferred in circulation, and if such transfers happen in systemic way, then it is exploitation in circulation, which does not involve creation of value.
No.

These imbalances in the division of profits can be systemic to a high degree, and yet it would be meaningless to talk about exploitation being grounded in circulation. The whole notion of exploitation in circulation is false.


If I said there can be no exploitation in circulation, then I was obviously wrong.You were explicitly referring to Marx there. Make up your mind.


But more probably I said, or at least meant, that there cannot be (specifically) capitalist exploitation in circulation: the specific nature of capitalist exploitation is that it occurs - contrary to all other kinds of exploitation - in the sphere of production.
This is of course the entirety of the semantic scope of the term "exploitation" when it is applied to capitalism.


Systemic transfers of wealth are exploitation.
Only if you abandon the Marxist use of the term in favour of a more colloquial one (I think this is what you're doing here) which necessarily implies a kind of a mercantilist view (since you acknowledge that exploitation is tanatamount to surplus value production in capitalism, you necessarily need to conclude that surplus value is also created in exchange and circulation). You simply cannot escape this contradiction when you keep on arguing that there is exploitation in circulation, which implies a faulty notion of exploitation.


If such exploitation occurs in the process of production, then you have capitalist exploitation, which is only possible in capitalist production. If it happens outside production, then it happens in circulation (or even in extra-economic spheres, such as feudal or slave exploitation. This is nonsense. Do you really want to tell me that slavery and serfs' bondage were based on extra-economic "spheres"? The whole mode of production - the economy - was based on these relations, which in your articulation turn out to be "extra-economic".



If it happens in circulation, it is no less exploitation than exploitation in production; it just isn't the specifically capitalist form of exploitation.The relations between a wage labourer to capital is that of the formers' exploitation.

What you call "exploitation" with regard to the relationship between the owner, artisan, and financial capital and capitalist monopolies, is fundamentally different in that this is based on competition, which means that, in practice, the mass of profits the individual owner obtains (what profits do wage workers obtain?)will be insignificant in the greater scheme of things. But the relation underpinning it is fundamentally different from that of the wage worker.


I would appreciate if you tone the epithets down.Sorry, but this does not constitute an ad hominem. I honestly think that the viewpoint you put forward is confused, at best.


So to you the petty bourgeosie is in fact a layer of the bourgeosie?Just observe the words you write here. It would be precious if the notion of the "petite bourgeoisie" applied to anything other than a specific stratum of the bourgeoisie. One would think that this confusion in thinkers such as Marx is totally inexplicable given the intricate detail and depth of analysis.




To me, the "structural pattern" of capitalist production is wage labour. If your "artisan" is a wage labourer, then he is a proletarian, not an artisan. If he produces commodities directly for sale, then he does not produce in the same structural pattern of every capitalist production, never mind how many times you may "explain" to me the that he does.I explained the difference most clearly. You do not engage in refuting this.
You even argue my postion when you say that:


And if he produces commodities directly for sale, he retains property of these commodities until he sells them, very unlike proletarians, whose products are the property of their employer. Which should put this debate to rest, as it is based on a mistaken notion of "exploitation" in the first place.

[Luís Henrique]

This is the only way that would enable you to claim that the contemporary artisan is exploited.
[...]
These imbalances in the division of profits can be systemic to a high degree, and yet it would be meaningless to talk about exploitation being grounded in circulation. The whole notion of exploitation in circulation is false.

That's what you evidently think. Which would mean that in your opinion exploitation is something peculiar to capitalism


You were explicitly referring to Marx there. Make up your mind.

I don't think so. Indeed, I don't think I ever said there can be no exploitation in circulation, either referring to Marx or not. But if you would be kind enough to point out where did I say that...


This is of course the entirety of the semantic scope of the term "exploitation" when it is applied to capitalism.

So, you are admitting that the term "exploitation" has a different scope when applied to other modes of production. Which then becomes the issue: whether people who don't produce in a capitalist mode of production a) exist, and b) are exploited, and how.


Only if you abandon the Marxist use of the term in favour of a more colloquial one (I think this is what you're doing here) which necessarily implies a kind of a mercantilist view (since you acknowledge that exploitation is tanatamount to surplus value production in capitalism, you necessarily need to conclude that surplus value is also created in exchange and circulation). You simply cannot escape this contradiction when you keep on arguing that there is exploitation in circulation, which implies a faulty notion of exploitation.


How confuse.

Production of surplus value is the specific capitalist method of exploitation; it is not "tantamount" to exploitation. It is also the only way to exploit people directly in production; all other forms of exploitation take place either in circulation, or in non-economic spheres. Any other kind of appropriation of value, other than direct production of surplus value through wage labour, consequently, must happen not by the creation of value, but by its transfer, which can only happen in circulation (and no, this doesn't apply to feudal exploitation, not because it happens in production, but because it is not based on value, so it does not depend on the production of commodities).


This is nonsense. Do you really want to tell me that slavery and serfs' bondage were based on extra-economic "spheres"? The whole mode of production - the economy - was based on these relations, which in your articulation turn out to be "extra-economic".

So how does the exploitation of slaves or serfs happen? It cannot be through the production of surplus value, for feudalism doesn't rest on the production of commodities, and outside the production of commodities there is no production of value, much less surplus value. And in slavery there can be no issue of production of surplus value, even if commodities are produced, because there is no wage labour, so there is no possibility of the use of labour power producing more than the value of such labour power - which isn't a commodity and consequently cannot have value.

So yes: the whole modes of production were based in extra-economic coercion of serfs and slaves: the excedent was not extracted economically through circulation and/or production, but politically through direct violence against the direct producers.


The relations between a wage labourer to capital is that of the formers' exploitation.

What you call "exploitation" with regard to the relationship between the owner, artisan, and financial capital and capitalist monopolies, is fundamentally different in that this is based on competition, which means that, in practice, the mass of profits the individual owner obtains (what profits do wage workers obtain?)will be insignificant in the greater scheme of things. But the relation underpinning it is fundamentally different from that of the wage worker.

Of course it is fundamentally different from that of the wage worker. The wage workers sell their labour power for a price, that corresponds, more or less, to its value. The capitalist uses his newly acquired commodity, labour force, to produce commodities, the sum of which have more value than the labour power they sold.

An artisan or peasant buys means of production, to which he applies his labour power (and that of his family and, being the case, journeymen). He then sells the products of his own labour power (and that of his family and journeymen) in the market. Since he and his family and journeymen are human beings, their product is more than what is necessary to reproduce their labour power, so there in an excedent. However, if they live in a capitalist society, this excedent is systematically extorted, going to capital. How? Through a redistribution, in circulation, of value. If you don't want to call that "exploitation", fine, but then it is your definition of exploitation that is unusual, not mine.


Sorry, but this does not constitute an ad hominem. I honestly think that the viewpoint you put forward is confused, at best.

So I think of yours. Indeed, I also that it is ridiculous and specious, and that you are so desperate in your lack of arguments that you have to studiously avoid responding to very reasonable questions about your arguments, besides resorting to several odd strawmen. But hey, I could have avoided saying those things in such way, couldn't I? Do you really want me to put in print everything I think of you?


Just observe the words you write here. It would be precious if the notion of the "petite bourgeoisie" applied to anything other than a specific stratum of the bourgeoisie.

Oh, so you really don't know what the petty bourgeoisie is... and I am the confused person?


One would think that this confusion in thinkers such as Marx is totally inexplicable given the intricate detail and depth of analysis.

One would think that Marx does not make such confusion at all, and clearly distinguishes the petty bourgeosie from the bourgeoisie.


I explained the difference most clearly. You do not engage in refuting this.
You even argue my postion when you say that:
And if he produces commodities directly for sale, he retains property of these commodities until he sells them, very unlike proletarians, whose products are the property of their employer.

What I said is the Marxist position: proletarians sell their labour power to capitalists. But since the petty bourgeois does not sell his labour power to capitalists, he is not a proletarian. And yet you say that "artisan" [ie, petty bourgeoios] "production today follows the same structural pattern of every capitalist production". So what is that structural pattern that is not wage labour, or perhaps is wage labour but doesn't imply the buyer of labour power is the owner of the production?


Which should put this debate to rest, as it is based on a mistaken notion of "exploitation" in the first place.

Certainly. But it is you who don't know what exploitation is, and keep jumping from one definition to another, or even avoiding definition at all, evading questions, resorting to namecalling and strawmen, and other childish tactics to conceal your ignorance and presumption.

Take care.

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

That's what you evidently think. Which would mean that in your opinion exploitation is something peculiar to capitalism

No.

To say "mode of production" is to say "mode of exploitation". Histrocially, this has always been grounded in the stage of the labour-production process which is called production (in a more narrow sense than that of the production process as this also includes the production of the social relations).

In antique slavery, exploitation was based on the legally and practically recognized non-ownership over labour power and of course, of the means and conditions of production.

Feudal relations have altered that form of exploitation, and based it on the natural economy of the lord-serf relation (which itself was being monetized as time passed by but that does not mean that this exploitation simultaneously shifted to the sphere of circulation). Here I am not interested in the primitive form of capital, with guilds and guildmasters as opposed to apprentices. This was not the predominant mode of exploitation in that social-economic formation, and the mode of exploitation itself was based in production "proper", not circulation. This is what is common to both slavery, feudalism, and capitalism.

But what is different is the mode of exploitation, and here the differences are stunningly great both in their consequences for the life of the labourer and the overall dynamic of society.


Any other kind of appropriation of value, other than direct production of surplus value through wage labour, consequently, must happen not by the creation of value, but by its transfer... Wage labour is not the only kind of labour that produces value in capitalism, but it is the dominant kind, in percentual proportion of humanity who work as wage labourers, and in the mass of value which is created in this way.

The other kind is self-employed labour which, as I've clearly shown, produces value as value (surplus value with it), but the person who labours here is not only an owner of her own labour power, but also of the means of production, conditions of labour, and the product of labour.

And to be more specific, when financial capital is concerned, we're talking about the redivision of profits as this operation takes place not after the production of commodities is finished, but when the value of the commodities is realized through sale and this can only mean that the artisan engages in the realization of value she produced in the exact same way that any capitalist enterprise does.

It is quite another thing to recognize that when interest needs to be payed, a good part of the profit might change pockets, and thus force the artisan to effectively work for her own subsistence, but that is competition doing what competition does, not exploitation.


Oh, so you really don't know what the petty bourgeoisie is...Small capitalists. That's what the term means. Or does it mean small owners who engage in pre-capitalist production?


One would think that Marx does not make such confusion at allPlease, enough with this. Prove that Marx discussed the contemporary (to him of course) petite bourgeoisie as anything other than capitalist owners.

[Luís Henrique]

Small capitalists. That's what the term means. Or does it mean small owners who engage in pre-capitalist production?
[...]
Please, enough with this. Prove that Marx discussed the contemporary (to him of course) petite bourgeoisie as anything other than capitalist owners.

Mkay. Here you have the complete list of instances of the use of the phrase "petty bourgeoisie" in Marx&Engels:

"petty bourgeoisie" site:www.marxists.org/archive/marx/

Show me in which of these quotes they say that the petty bourgeoisie is a part of the same class as the bourgeoisie, and not a different class.


To say "mode of production" is to say "mode of exploitation".

In which case, why does Marx say the following:


Usurer's capital employs the method of exploitation characteristic of capital yet without the latter's mode of production. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch36.htm)

- if, as you insist, he considers "mode of production" the same as "mode of exploitation"?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

You might also like to explain this:


We have seen that merchant's capital and interest-bearing capital are the oldest forms of capital. But it is in the nature of things that interest-bearing capital assumes in popular conception the form of capital par excellence. In merchant's capital there takes place the work of the middleman, no matter whether considered as cheating, labour, or anything else. But in the case of interest-bearing capital the self-reproducing character of capital, the self-expanding value, the production of surplus value, appears purely as an occult property. This accounts for the fact that even some political economists, particularly in countries where industrial capital is not yet fully developed, as in France, cling to interest-bearing capital as the fundamental form of capital and regard ground-rent, for example, merely as a modified form of it, since the loan-form also predominates here. In this way, the internal organisation of the capitalist mode of production is completely misunderstood, and the fact is entirely overlooked that land, like capital, is loaned only to capitalists. Of course, means of production in kind, such as machines and business offices, can also be loaned instead of money. But they then represent a definite sum of money, and the fact that in addition to interest a part is paid for wear and tear is due to their use-value, i.e., the specific natural form of these elements of capital. The decisive factor here is again whether they are loaned to direct producers, which would presuppose the non-existence of the capitalist mode of production-at least in the sphere in which this occurs — or whether they are loaned to industrial capitalists, which is precisely the assumption based upon the capitalist mode of production. It is still more irrelevant and meaningless to drag the lending of houses, etc., for individual use into this discussion. That the working-class is also swindled in this form, and to an enormous extent, is self evident; but this is also done by the retail dealer, who sells means of subsistence to the worker. This is secondary exploitation, which runs parallel to the primary exploitation taking place in the production process itself. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch36.htm) The distinction between selling and loaning is quite immaterial in this case and merely formal, and, as already indicated, cannot appear as essential to anyone, unless he be wholly unfamiliar with the actual nature of the problem.

It seems that Marx actually uses the term "exploitation" in many other sences that you don't recognise, including the renting out of habitations for individual uses. It seems that Marx either thinks value is created in renting of houses (in which case he would be a mercantilist), or that he thinks there can be "exploitation" without creation of value. In which case he would be, what? A Luís-Henriquist?

Bad, bad Marx.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

That such modes of expression are not accidental mistakes, but correspond to Marx's actual way of thinking, is strongly suggested by the fact that the above passage, in Das Kapital, echoes the one below, in the Grundrisse:


The important thing is that both interest and profit express relations of capital. As a particular form, interest-bearing capital stands opposite, not labour, but rather opposite profit-bearing capital. The relation in which on one side the worker still appears as independent, i.e. not as wage labourer, but on the other side his objective conditions already possess an independent existence alongside him, forming the property of a particular class of usurers, this relation necessarily develops in all modes of production resting more or less on exchange -- with the development of merchant wealth or money wealth in antithesis to the particular and restricted forms of agricultural or handicraft wealth. The development of this mercantile wealth may itself be regarded as the development of exchange value and hence of circulation and of money relations in the former spheres. Of course, this relation shows us, on one side, the growing independence, the unbinding of the conditions of labour -- which more and more come out of circulation and depend on it -- from the worker's economic being. On the other side, the latter is not yet subsumed into the process of capital. The mode of production therefore does not yet undergo essential change. Where this relation repeats itself within the bourgeois economy, it does so in the backward branches of industry, or in such branches as still struggle against their extinction and absorption into the modern mode of production The most odious exploitation of labour still takes place in them, without the relation of capital and labour here carrying within itself any basis whatever for the development of new forces of production, and the germ of newer historic forms. In the mode of production itself, capital still here appears materially subsumed under the individual workers or the family of workers -- whether in a handicraft business or in small-scale agriculture. What takes place is exploitation by capital without the mode of production of capital. The rate of interest appears very high, because it includes profit and even a part of wages. This form of usury, in which capital does not seize possession of production, hence is capital only formally, presupposes the predominance of pre-bourgeois forms of production; but reproduces itself again in subordinate spheres within the bourgeois economy itself.

Enough?

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

Okay, with regard to the burning issue of single persons as artisans and traders:


In order to share in the mass of surplus-value, to expand the value of his advance as capital, the commercial capitalist need not employ wage-workers. If his business and capital are small, he may be the only worker in it. He is paid with that portion of the profit which falls to him through the difference between the purchase price paid by him for commodities and their actual price of production.


But, on the other hand, the profit realised by the merchant on a small amount of advanced capital may be no larger, or may even be smaller, than the wages of one of the better-paid skilled wage-workers. In fact, he brushes shoulders with many direct commercial agents of the productive capitalist, such as buyers, sellers, travellers, who enjoy the same or a higher income either in the form of wages, or in the form of a share in the profit (percentages, bonuses) made from each sale. In the first case, the merchant pockets the mercantile profit as an independent capitalist; in the other, the salesman, the industrial capitalist's wage-labourer, receives a portion of the profit either in the form of wages, or as a proportional share in the profit of the industrial capitalist, whose direct agent he is, while his employer pockets both the industrial and the commercial profit. So, what we have here is a self-employed trader, who is quite clearly called an independent capitalist.

Quite frankly, I don't know how to deal with this notion of "secondary exploitation", but one possible line of argument would connect it to the demonstration in Vol. 3, Ch 17 which states:


This is realisation of commercial profit by raising the price of commodities, as it appears at first glance. And, indeed, this whole notion that profit originates from a nominal rise in the price of commodities, or from their sale above their value, springs from the observations of commercial capital.

This is the line of reasoning which I believe you assume behind the notion of the "secondary exploitation". The argument continues:


But it is quickly apparent on closer inspection that this is mere illusion. Assuming capitalist production to be predominant, commercial profit cannot be realised in this manner.
The bolded part is especially important as it is pertinent to our discussion.

The conclusion being:


It was seen in the supplementary equalisation of profit through the intervention of merchant's capital that no additional element entered the value of commodities with the merchant's advanced money-capital, and that the extra charge to the price, whereby the merchant makes his profit, was merely equal to that portion of the value of the commodities, which productive capital had not calculated in the price of production, i.e., had left out. The case of this money-capital is similar to that of the industrial capitalist's fixed capital, since it is not consumed and its value, therefore, does not make up an element of the value of commodity.

And most clearly:


...so merchant's capital derives profit from not paying in full to productive capital for all the unpaid labour contained in the commodities (in commodities, in so far as capital invested in their production functions as an aliquot part of the total industrial capital), and by demanding payment for this unpaid portion still contained in the commodities when making a sale.

So it would seem that swindling in commerce actually secondarily exploits productive capital.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch17.htm

I've left out the argument on the costs of circulation as it is only a further ellucidation on the concrete way mercantile capital makes its profits, but it has already been shown that, what I suppose is behind the notion of a "secondary exploitation", is possibly refuted by the analysis up to the point of the introduction of the costs of circulation.

Apart from this, I don't know what to make of this notion of "secondary exploitation" which appears only once in the whole of the works by Marx and Engels at marxists.org and it is because of this fact that I think it is highly unlikely that it could be taken as a definite, developed category (apart from the possible monopolistic "secondary exploitation" of all consumers)

But to return to our issue:


Show me in which of these quotes they say that the petty bourgeoisie is a part of the same class as the bourgeoisie, and not a different class.

This is most clearly seen in the quote provided above, which specifically refers to a commercial capitalist employing no wage workers as "independent capitalist".

So, can we resolve this issue now given the fact that it is clear that the precondition for this arguemnt of the "independent capitalist" is that:



But it is quickly apparent on closer inspection that this is mere illusion. Assuming capitalist production to be predominant, commercial profit cannot be realised in this manner.


...and it is, what I've been claiming all along.

I see no way you could argue that independent capitalists engage in pre-capitalist modes of production since the assessment of those individual owners as "independent capitalists" rests on

1) the profit mechanism of commercial capital which itself depends on
2) capitalist production being predominant

And frankly, I really think that the first two quotes I provided can either serve as that which will finish off this debate, or like something that will prompt a quote mining to show some perceived inconsistencies in Marx's thought as it stands above.

As far as I'm concerned, the matter is resolved.

[Luís Henrique]

Quite frankly, I don't know how to deal with this notion of "secondary exploitation"

Well. A first quite obvious thing would be to acknowledge that you were mistaken concerning Marx's use of the term "exploitation". And that your mischaracterisations of such lax use of terminology as "mercantilist" or "ridiculous" were misguided.


Okay, with regard to the burning issue of single persons as artisans and traders:


In order to share in the mass of surplus-value, to expand the value of his advance as capital, the commercial capitalist need not employ wage-workers. If his business and capital are small, he may be the only worker in it. He is paid with that portion of the profit which falls to him through the difference between the purchase price paid by him for commodities and their actual price of production.
So, what we have here is a self-employed trader, who is quite clearly called an independent capitalist.

The possibility that such kind of entrepreneur is clear, and I have even explicitly raised it:


A self-employed stock broker, for instance, may well be a capitalist.

What is under discussion however is whether the common petty-bourgeois, who is unable to accumulate capital, is a capitalist or not. In the passage you quote, Marx seems to be of such opinion. But since he usually characterises the petty bourgeoisie as a class apart from the bourgeoisie, the issue demands more in depth analysis.

Your other points, later; I'm in a hurry now.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Okay, with regard to the burning issue of single persons as artisans and traders:

So, what we have here is a self-employed trader, who is quite clearly called an independent capitalist.

Engels also says this:


With its slender capital [the petty bourgeoisie] shares the status of the bourgeoisie, but by the insecurity of its livelihood it shares that of the proletariat

Clearly calling the petty bourgeois' funds "capital"... but even while doing this, he also states, just a few lines above, that


Apart from the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the large industry of today also gives rise to a kind of intermediate class between the two, the petty bourgeoisie.

quite explicitly, so, calling the petty bourgeoisie a class apart from the bourgeoisie.

These sentences seem to me contradict one another. But nowhere in Engels or Marx we can find the notion that the petty bourgeoisie is just a sector or a layer within the bourgeosie; it is always taken into account as different class. So what it looks more likely here is that Engels was making use of the word "capital" in a loose way, not as a scientific category.


Quite frankly, I don't know how to deal with this notion of "secondary exploitation", but one possible line of argument would connect it to the demonstration in Vol. 3, Ch 17 which states:


This is realisation of commercial profit by raising the price of commodities, as it appears at first glance. And, indeed, this whole notion that profit originates from a nominal rise in the price of commodities, or from their sale above their value, springs from the observations of commercial capital.

But it is quickly apparent on closer inspection that this is mere illusion. Assuming capitalist production to be predominant, commercial profit cannot be realised in this manner.

This is the line of reasoning which I believe you assume behind the notion of the "secondary exploitation".

Well, no. That's not the line of reasoning I assume behind the Marxian notion of secondary exploitation.

Here Marx is talking about something quite different: the popular delusion that commercial capital obtains a profit by selling things above their value. He is demonstrating that the opposite is true: that commercial capital buys the commodities it intends to sell below their value, and obtains a profit by selling them at their value.

Which is what you have quite correctly called a "redivision" of surplus value among the several sectors of capital involved.

What you seem to forget is that such redivision is limited by the equalisation of the profit rates: if commercial capital makes a better rate of profit than industrial capital, then capital will move from industry to commerce, increasing the competition within the latter and reducing it within the former. Competition thus works as a leveller in the relations among different individual capitals, which is to say, in the relations among different sectors of one class, that of the bourgeoisie (true, monopolies do make things somewhat more complicated, but I don't think they creates two different classes, the monopolistic bourgeoisie opposed, as a class, to the rest of the bourgeosie),

But the relations between bourgeoisie and petty bourgeosie are by absolutely no means regulated by the equalisation of the profit rate; the extortion of surplus value from the petty bourgeoisie by the bourgeoisie is only limited by the subsistence of the petty bourgeois: commercial capital still doesn't make superprofits by re-selling the products it buys from the petty bourgeois above their value, but by buying them from the petty bourgeois below their value. But if the profit rate of commercial capital is bigger than the profit rate of the petty bourgeois artisan or peasant, the petty bourgeois "capital" (and the use of quotes here are intended to indicate I don't believe such funds constitute actual capital) cannot move into commerce to re-equalise the profit rate. So competition does not work as a leveller in the relations between the funds of the petty bourgeois and capital or individual capitals, nor, consequently, in the relations between the petty bourgeoisie as a class and the bourgeoisie as a class.


The argument continues:


But it is quickly apparent on closer inspection that this is mere illusion. Assuming capitalist production to be predominant, commercial profit cannot be realised in this manner.

Or, at least, not in a systemic way. It obtains profits


[by] participat in levelling surplus-value to average profit, although it does not take part in its production. Thus, the general rate of profit contains a deduction from surplus-value due to merchant's capital, hence a deduction from the profit of industrial capital.

Which is the same way it obtains profits from its relations with the petty bourgeois seller: it buys below value, to re-sell at actual value. To what extent it underpays the petty bourgeois seller? To the extent its (the commercial capital's, that is) profits in such operations match the average profit rate (otherwise other capitals would migrate to such a gold mine, increasing competition between individual commercial capitals). But the fact that the "profit" of the petty bourgeois here fall much below the average rate of profits (and are in fact only limited by her subsistence and that of her means of production) doesn't count at all; if her funds are "capital", they are a peculiar kind of "capital" that doesn't have a "vote" in the forming of the average rate of profits.


So it would seem that swindling in commerce actually secondarily exploits [I]productive capital.

That's not the actual issue (which includes the profits of finance capital, as well as the profits of industrial capital in its relation as a seller to petty-bourgeois buyers). But to cut it short, there is no exploitation here if the profit rate of commercial capital is levelled by competition to the "productive" (ie, industrial or agricultural) capital.


Apart from this, I don't know what to make of this notion of "secondary exploitation" which appears only once in the whole of the works by Marx and Engels at marxists.org and it is because of this fact that I think it is highly unlikely that it could be taken as a definite, developed category (apart from the possible monopolistic "secondary exploitation" of all consumers)

My suggestion, again, is that you realise that Marx didn't use the term "exploitation" in the way you thought, limited to only the extraction of surplus labour through the mechanism of buying labour power for its value and then selling its products for a different, unrelated, value (that of its products). Rather Marx uses "exploitation" quite like us normal mortals, as a term that denotes systemic expropriation, be it in production, be it in circulation, of surplus labour from one individual or group by another individual or group.

Gee, there is even one passage where he (or perhaps Engels) talks about "exploitation" of nations by other nations.


But to return to our issue:


Show me in which of these quotes they say that the petty bourgeoisie is a part of the same class as the bourgeoisie, and not a different class.

This is most clearly seen in the quote provided above, which specifically refers to a commercial capitalist employing no wage workers as "independent capitalist".

But what such quote shows is very different. There is no question of the existence of individual independent capitalists employing no wage workers (though I doubt nowdays it is common in commercial capital). What makes a capitalist a capitalist is not the employment of wage workers (though what makes capitalism capitalism is the generalised employment of wage labour), but the fact that he or she owns capital, ie, self-aggrandising money. That's the issue; if a person can make her money to reproduce in an amplified way without employing wage labour, she is a capitalist; if someone can't make his money to bring forth even more money (in a systemic way, of course; I'm not talking about crises or eventual disasters), then he isn't a capitalist, never mind how many journeymen he might employ.


So, can we resolve this issue now given the fact that it is clear that the precondition for this arguemnt of the "independent capitalist" is that:


But it is quickly apparent on closer inspection that this is mere illusion. Assuming capitalist production to be predominant, commercial profit cannot be realised in this manner.

...and it is, what I've been claiming all along.

Well, no. You have been claiming most different things: that the petty-bourgeoisie isn't a class apart, that there can be no exploitation in circulation, that workers in a cooperative exploit themselves, that capitalist exploitation requires the existence of an individual capitalist, that capital is an abstraction that cannot actually exploit people - and that all those notions are very clearly and transparently Marx's own notions. All of these have been debunked: Marx believed in the existence of exploitation in the realm of circulation, that the petty-bourgeoisie is a class apart from the bourgeoisie, that capitalist exploitation does not need the existence of individual capitalist, that capital is a very material force that actual compells people into doing things in order to reproduce it. Whether Marx was right or wrong about those subjects, of course, is a different issue. But in all of these, if you are right, it is because Marx is wrong, not because you are upholding the perfect hermeneutics of What Marx Really Said.


I see no way you could argue that independent capitalists engage in pre-capitalist modes of production since the assessment of those individual owners as "independent capitalists" rests on

1) the profit mechanism of commercial capital which itself depends on
2) capitalist production being predominant

Ah, the confusion.

I have in no way argued that capitalists, be them independent or not, engage in pre-capitalist modes of production. But what your quote proves is that there are "independent" capitalists that do not engage in any mode of production, capitalist or otherwise, because their particular "department" within the reproduction of capital is in circulation or credit, and is therefore unproductive: commercial capitalists and money capitalists in general, from the shareholder or individual usurer who employ no one to financial conglomerates who employ thousands of wage slaves.

And, because these people do not engage in production, their profits must come from someone else's production: that of workers in other capitalist enterprises, most commonly, or, less commonly, and increasingly less commonly that of people engaged in any other modes of production - including, proeminently, the petty mode of production of the peasant and the artisan.


And frankly, I really think that the first two quotes I provided can either serve as that which will finish off this debate, or like something that will prompt a quote mining to show some perceived inconsistencies in Marx's thought as it stands above.

As for quote mining, I have tried to avoid it or keep it to a very bare minimum. Indeed, I think I have only resorted to quotes here because you dared me to, and even then because you were being quite petulant, arguing that my positions had absolutely no base in Marx, but were some weird case of "mercantilism".


As far as I'm concerned, the matter is resolved.

As far as I am concerned, the matter is resolved, too: you have been peddling a weird interpretation of Marx, that cannot subsist when confronted to either reality or actual Marx's writings, and calling people who disagreed with your very peculiar "interpretation" anything from "ignorant" to "bourgeois". Hopefully that's over.

You gave me good advice in this thread: to refer to Marx more often. Abide by it, too, and you will avoid such problems in the future.

Luís Henrique