Can anyone disprove this?

[PigmerikanMao]

I found this on a maoist - third worldist website, and although I've always believed there has been at least a small exploited proletariat in the first world, their logic is still pretty sound. Can anyone disprove this?




A rough estimate of the value of labor by Serve the People of IRTR

(originally published 30 June 2005)
(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)
Let’s try to calculate the value of average abstract socially necessary labor. This will give us an idea of how much people produce and who is exploited.
Now that virtually the entire world’s economy is integrated into one giant imperialist formation, we can use Comrade Marx’s labor theory of value to determine what labor is worth. Comrade Marx pointed out that labor is the substance of value. He said that the number of hours of average abstract socially necessary labor needed to produce a commodity represents its value. That means labor of average productivity under the given working conditions for the specified type of work. Therefore, if traded at value, one hour of labor put into harvesting parsnips is exchangeable against one hour of assembling washing machines (if the labor in both cases is of average productivity).
The nominal GDP of the entire world was $31.9 trillion in 2002. (1) This figure represents everything produced in the world, including services (which tend to be overvalued), in a year’s time. The population is about 6.4 billion people. Assume that 2/3 of them work full time on a typical U$ schedule of 2000 hours per year. Then the value of average labor is $7500 per year, or about $3.75 per hour. (Slightly higher, actually, since the world’s population was a bit lower in 2002 than it is today.)
Elsewhere I have seen estimates from the UN that the world’s nominal GDP in 2005 is about $36 trillion. That would put the value of labor at $8400 per year, or $4.20 per hour.
What is the implication? In the U$, the minimum wage is $5.15 per hour, and even higher in some states and cities. If average labor is worth $4.20, then even people making the minimum wage are overpaid on average by about 23%. The average wage in the U$ is about $18 per hour, which is more than 4 times the value of labor.
This little exercise shows that no one legally working in the U$ is likely to be exploited. On the contrary, U$ workers receive superprofits extracted from the Third World by the imperialists and thus benefit from imperialist exploitation. The same goes for most Western European countries, where the minimum wage is generally even higher than in the U$.
To disprove this claim, it would be necessary to show that U$ workers were more productive than average. The truth is that they are probably less productive than the international average, since the intensity of labor tends to be much higher in the Third World.
But there is exploitation in the U$. Chinese garment workers illegally employed in sweatshops for $1.50 an hour and Mexican agricultural workers illegally employed at similar wages are exploited. Possibly some prisoners are exploited as well, although the calculations are a little more difficult in that case. And there may be some isolated Stakhanovites who are so far above the average in productivity that they count as exploited.
Even so, the vast majority of Amerikkkans are clearly not exploited. They are, in fact, exploiters.
Notes.
1. hhttp://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/indic/indic_121_1_1.html.

[nobullshit]

That's just what I'm saying.
I've noticed this strictly among certain Maoists than any other group.
But how do you expect to gain international support if you label an entire people as being an "exploiting class"? "Amerikkkans"?
Third-worldism will only get so far, but don't you want a world transformation to communism? Instead you have these terms and labels that will only repel the working class. :confused:

[trivas7]

Third-worldism is unMarxist and a variant of Narodnism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnik) and supports authoritarian statism. Its analysis is faulty in that it eschews internationalism and pits worker against worker.

[Annie K.]

From fr.wikipedia :
The world's GDP in 2005 is estimated around $60,000 trillions in purchasing power parity, $43,000 in currency.
The world's active population in 2005 is estimated around 3 trillions.

Even the worst stakhanovist in the world isn't working 24h a day, and so the average value of the hour of work can't be calcutated with these numbers.
But we can calculate that the average year of work produces $20,000 in purchasing power parity, $14,333 in currency.

From en.wikipedia, the average and annual minimum wage is, in the united states and with 40 hours of work per week, around $12,168.



The truth is that they are probably less productive than the international average, since the intensity of labor tends to be much higher in the Third World.Wrong.

[Spasiba]

Oh for shits sake, fuck that. I live in the US and for that reason I am an exploiter? I am not a capitalist. I own no means of production. Being a citizen here I get minimum wage, and the fact is, thats a good thing, the working class should be guaranteed something like that. The sad thing is that this isn't true for illegals or the billions outside of this country, but it is not my fault. I will do what I can, when I can, to end this, but to assume that because I live in the first world that I am an exploiter is bullshit. These beliefs, to me, seem to worship the third world, and its workers and peasants. This divides us. We need to be united, world wide, with the common goal of socialism in our sights. That is what we must focus on. To have a living wage for every last human being on Earth. The sad thing is how many people think thats a bad idea. But still, I have faith in that, that we can get that, that we can be there, someday. And it won't be through worshipping a class or saying that this countries class is better than that working class because its more productive, when socialism is achieved, I don't want to have people pressured to be super productive by aggresive means, I want them to do it because they want to, be it for themselves, their friends and family, or people as a whole. Also, this kind of class worship is a bad idea since we're trying to destroy classes, in the end we won't all be working class, but instead all people working together doing what must be done, be it at the factory or in the office, and hopefully machines will do the mundane things someday. The point I'm trying to make is this idea that the third world is so much better because they work harder for less and the first world sucks since we are paid so damn much (ohhh yeah, loving life here :rolleyes:) is stupid. We're going to end up destroying this system, lets not celebrate it.

Also, "U$, Amerikkka" bah, grow up, let's not be childish.

[Killer Enigma]

Not only does this example fall victim to major asumptions (e.g. 2/3 of Americans work full-time) but they wish to calculate a global per capita GDP without doing any inflationary adjustment. One cannot simply take the world's estimated GDP and divide it by the number of workers. Countries have different currencies and different rates of inflation, making it impossible to cross-apply one's findings across borders.

Furthermore, this example is categorically anti-Marxist, because the principle of labor exploitation is based on one's relationship to the means of production and the degree of surplus value attained after the entreprenuer/workers are paid. To say that simply because Americans are paid more than third world workers may indicate that their situation is no where near as dire, but it cannot prove that the entire American working class is "exploiting" the third world, least of all from a Marxist perspective.

I have always found the MIM jargon (e.g. "Amerikkka", "U$", etc.) to be juvenile and sophomoric. It's anti-intellectualism at its very worst.

[trivas7]

I have always found the MIM jargon (e.g. "Amerikkka", "U$", etc.) to be juvenile and sophomoric. It's anti-intellectualism at its very worst.
I agree. The same for 'persyn', 'womyn', etc. (seems to be a Maoist thingie?).

[lvl100]

The truth is that they are probably less productive than the international average, since the intensity of labor tends to be much higher in the Third World.
We must not forget the harsh times from third world, but this text is clearly biased.
They ignore the basic economics and compare in the same sentence productivity with labour. Which are different things.
Very simply put, while labour is basicly about the raw work, productivity its a complex result from labour, tech used, education etc etc.

So , even a third world country worker sweat 18 hours/day with a shovel to dig a hole, it will have a very low productivity ( so less real value/hour), comparing to a first country digger who would work only 8 hours with a Caterpillar monster truck.

[Dros]

In response to the OP, yes it can be disproved. If people in the first world are not exploited, then how do companies that employ labor in the first world generate surplus value? Are they buying their labor fairly? Go into a Dunkin' Donuts, a gas station, a distribution warehouse, and I think you'll answer your own question.

[Chapter 24]

Yes, I agree, the MIM approach to the first world is quite immature, and ultimately just divides the working class. It's called the Maoist Internationalist Movement - so why does it seem like the Maoist Third World Movement?

[Devrim]

It is a nonsense argument. If 'exploitation' is an economic term referring to the extraction of surplus value (which it is), workers in high tech jobs in Silicon Valley are actually more exploited than workers in some sweatshop in SE Asia.

It doesn't mean that their conditions are worse. It is very clear that they are better, but the actually rate of exploitation is higher.

Of course, if they don't make a profit out of them, companies tend not to employ people.

Devrim