On "Western workers not exploited" [Archive]

Hiero

12th August 2008, 07:45

If workers in the West are not being exploited, then they are recieving the full value of their labour, are they not? Surely then that would mean that companies in the West would report no profits. This does not appear to be the case.

Their wages would be paid for by the expliotation of other workers in the world. For instance service workers do not add any value to the product, yet they are still paid a wage. If they do not add any value to the product, where do their wages come from? Obviously form the expliotation from other worker's labour.

The question then asks from what labour? A very good question because some countries are coming to be primary consumers, and other countries primary producers. In this system the primary consumers are being employed more in the service sector. The 1st world are coming primary consumers and the service industry grows, while the 3rd world are coming primary producers and consume very little of what they produce.

In this world system the service workers recieve a wage from the expliotation of 3rd world labour. In paying this wage the workers in 1st world can buy the products produce in 3rd world, in this process the bourgeoisie aviod the crisis of overproduction .

Now this are clearly an economic question. Something I am not really able to go into depth with. I get most of these ideas with a discussion of a friend who is doing his phd in political science. What I find ridicilous are orthodox Marxists who think this is a closed case, and of course refer to Marx's analysis that is embedded in a previous historical context.

I think people are trying constantly to resure themselves as commited theoritical Marxists when they attempt to censor any discussion on labour aristocracy and the economic structure of imperialism.

Lamanov

12th August 2008, 11:52

For instance service workers do not add any value to the product, yet they are still paid a wage. If they do not add any value to the product, where do their wages come from?

Yes they do. They produce a service attached to the product.

Thus, the rest of your post is just a senseless triad.

Now this are clearly an economic question. Something I am not really able to go into depth with.

Yeah, just leave it alone; that would be the smartest thing to do right now.

Hiero

12th August 2008, 14:51

Yes they do. They produce a service attached to the product.

And what value does that add?

It is unproductive labour.

Yeah, just leave it alone; that would be the smartest thing to do right now.

So what? Have no opinion at all or just accept what your saying for myself? Infact since I am not able to go into depth about Marxist economics, then maybe i should just leave the sociological and philosophical notions that come from Marx? Maybe no one should start at all then?

It would be quite a ridicilous thing to do. What I am doing is simple asking question and puting forward a thesis, which will result in more study when I have the time. It can only result in two things, negation or confirmation. How can this not be the smart thing to do? What your promoting is ant-intellectualism, that we should not ask questions and not invesitigate, just simply regurgitate what others have discovered.

Lamanov

12th August 2008, 17:05

Joe Hill's Ghost

12th August 2008, 17:28

DjTC has this right on the money. I'd just like to add that the First world is still a manufacturing superpower. However most manufacturing that is left has moved into smaller, more labor efficient factories, employing hundreds or scores rather than thousands. Cult of Reason has the stats, but first world industrial production is still going up in terms of pure output.

The Service industry is designed to service that production. It provides the support necessary to run an industrialized and unequal economy. Or we could take Hiero's tack and condemn impoverished janitors as parasites on the third world.

Random Precision

12th August 2008, 17:35

Their wages would be paid for by the expliotation of other workers in the world. For instance service workers do not add any value to the product, yet they are still paid a wage. If they do not add any value to the product, where do their wages come from? Obviously form the expliotation from other worker's labour.

The question then asks from what labour? A very good question because some countries are coming to be primary consumers, and other countries primary producers. In this system the primary consumers are being employed more in the service sector. The 1st world are coming primary consumers and the service industry grows, while the 3rd world are coming primary producers and consume very little of what they produce.

In this world system the service workers recieve a wage from the expliotation of 3rd world labour. In paying this wage the workers in 1st world can buy the products produce in 3rd world, in this process the bourgeoisie aviod the crisis of overproduction .

Now this are clearly an economic question. Something I am not really able to go into depth with. I get most of these ideas with a discussion of a friend who is doing his phd in political science. What I find ridicilous are orthodox Marxists who think this is a closed case, and of course refer to Marx's analysis that is embedded in a previous historical context.

I think people are trying constantly to resure themselves as commited theoritical Marxists when they attempt to censor any discussion on labour aristocracy and the economic structure of imperialism.

So obviously products just market, distribute and sell themselves. By your argument all truck-drivers and warehouse-operators (even those in the Third World!) are not proletarian either, as they do not directly add value to the product.

Marx actually explained this rather well, it's too bad you don't consider him an authority on economic matters:

Now comes the second act of the process. The entire mass of commodities... must be sold. If this is not done, or only done in part, or only at prices below the prices of production, the labourer has indeed been exploited, but his exploitation is not realised as such for the capitalist, and this can be bound up with a total or partial failure to realise the surplus-value pressed out of him, indeed even the partial or total loss of the capital.
- The Capital, Volume III, Chapter XV

I've got a bright idea. Instead of arguing about these "economic questions" which you "aren't able to go into depth with", why don't you just leave the economics to us, get together a couple friends, buy a Eureka flag and storm the American embassy? :rolleyes:

RHIZOMES

13th August 2008, 03:43

Third-Worldists should not be restricted, they are a legitimate part of the radical left. Many Trotskyists and Maoists agree that a labour aristocracy exists due to the exploitation of the developing world, which enables the bourgeoisie to offer concessions and so avert the danger of revolution in the developed world - Third-Worldists differ from the "mainstream" position only in their analysis of the size of the aristocracy, not in their basic principles and concepts.

^This.

I would agree that first-world workers are better off due to economic imperialism, but they're still not receiving the full value of their labour.

I've actually wondered how many people who believe first-world workers aren't oppressed have even visited a working-class neighbourhood or talked to a worker even once in their entire lives. :rolleyes:

Saorsa

13th August 2008, 04:05

I saw this thing on MIM once when they were talking about how there was no such thing as a "white proletariat" in the First World, and they showed these pictures of SUVs and spa pools to justify their line. It just seemed so rididulous - how many working-class homes had they been to that had an SUV?

That said, Third Worldists shouldn't be restricted. It's a legitimate position that's based on the facts of imperialism, it's just been taken too far.

Random Precision

13th August 2008, 06:02

I've actually wondered how many people who believe first-world workers aren't oppressed have even visited a working-class neighbourhood or talked to a worker even once in their entire lives. :rolleyes:

That's it exactly. Third-Worldism in that sense is nothing more than a bad case of white middle-class guilt.

Hiero

13th August 2008, 07:01

What value? Value value. Labor objectivates itself in the form of value. It doesn't matter if it's service. This labor is "productive" bacause service can't be separated from production of raw materials or "final" products. I mean, what is "service" that it's "unproductive"? Any form of wage-labor activity in the service sector creates value and surplus value, and bosses extract that surplus value.

You can't write off a whole section of the working class based on your assumptions, nationalist in essence, that third world proletariat is "paying off the wages" of the so-called "unproductive" service sector. This is why it's much better to just leave it alone until you get the facts. Otherwise you're just going to insult people.

Service workers produce nothing, they only service. It is unproductive labour. That is quite simple, how they receive a wage is the question.

So obviously products just market, distribute and sell themselves. By your argument all truck-drivers and warehouse-operators (even those in the Third World!) are not proletarian either, as they do not directly add value to the product.

I am not deciding who is proleterian. And I don't understand the rest of the paragraph, have I ever said service industry does not exist?

I've got a bright idea. Instead of arguing about these "economic questions" which you "aren't able to go into depth with", why don't you just leave the economics to us, get together a couple friends, buy a Eureka flag and storm the American embassy?

I've actually wondered how many people who believe first-world workers aren't oppressed have even visited a working-class neighbourhood or talked to a worker even once in their entire lives.

That's it exactly. Third-Worldism in that sense is nothing more than a bad case of white middle-class guilt.

Have any of your read Samir Amin's work "Unequal Development : An Essay On The Social Formations Of Peripheral Capitalism" or "Imperialism And Unequal Development". He is an Egyptian Marxist economist who worked on the economic structure of imperialism. It is he who, after Lenin first started to really work out the implications of imperialism on 3rd world workers and 1st world workers.

I saw this thing on MIM once when they were talking about how there was no such thing as a "white proletariat" in the First World, and they showed these pictures of SUVs and spa pools to justify their line. It just seemed so rididulous - how many working-class homes had they been to that had an SUV?

Well that is your fault for choosing to ignore their work on economics. But I do understand what you mean, sometimes they can be a bit extreme.

It is funny I am told to leave this question to other people, when it seems so far I am the only one who has read any acadamic work on the subject.

Random Precision

13th August 2008, 07:26

I am not deciding who is proleterian. And I don't understand the rest of the paragraph, have I ever said service industry does not exist?

Yes you are deciding who is proletarian. You have said of service workers that "their wages are paid for by the expliotation (sic) of other workers in the world", because "their service does not add value to the product". In the first place this means that service workers are not proletarians, because they don't add value, and in the second place it's wrong, as the service they provide is indispensable to the capitalist's extraction of surplus value, which is what Marx was saying in the quote I provided from The Capital.

And this is true for a Malaysian warehouse-operator and a British salesman of the products stored in that Malaysian warehouse alike.

Joe Hill's Ghost

13th August 2008, 07:26

Services produce nothing, the only service. It is unproductive labour. That is quite simple, how they receive a wage is the question.

This is not logical. Services are productive, because they produce valuable services. For example, if someone cleans my house, this is labor I do not have to do. Thus it has value, just like a baseball has value. In fact, while a baseball is a physical object, the service of cleaning my house is obviously more valuable. It saves me from work or a life of filth. Or if I am a transport worker, I transport goods so that they can be used. I am not producing anything tangible, but I am producing value. If you do not understand this, I don’t know how you are in the CC, this is basic theory.

Hiero

13th August 2008, 07:53

I am talking about value of the product. A product is not sold at a higher price because someone serviced it. The product is complete by the time it gets to the service part. The value your talking about is social, the value society gives to different occupations.

Devrim

13th August 2008, 08:17

I am talking about value of the product. A product is not sold at a higher price because someone serviced it.

This is blatantly not true. A few months ago I bought a new cooker, and an extended service contract was offered to me at a higher price. There was a two year guarantee, and there was an option to extend it to five years for 13 million. So the product was sold at higher price with additional service. I don't think this is so uncommon.

Service is actually an intrinsic part of many products. Would you buy a washing machine without a guarantee?

Devrim

Hiero

13th August 2008, 08:26

Of course you pay for services.

Devrim

13th August 2008, 08:29

You said ' A product is not sold at a higher price because someone serviced it', and I demonstrated quite clearly that in some cases they are.

Devrim

Hiero

13th August 2008, 08:39

You're paying for the service.

black magick hustla

13th August 2008, 08:44

Hiero

13th August 2008, 08:48

So is the consensus on this forum that there is no such thing as unproductive labour? That because in an arbitrary fashion everything that someone does in the form of labour can be valued in some way?

[1. Productive Labour from the Standpoint of Capitalist Production: Labour Which Produces Surplus-Value]

Productive labour, in its meaning for capitalist production, is wage-labour which, exchanged against the variable part of capital (the part of the capital that is spent on wages), reproduces not only this part of the capital (or the value of its own labour-power), but in addition produces surplus-value for the capitalist, It is only thereby that commodity or money is transformed into capital, is produced as capital. Only that wage-labour is productive which produces capital. (This is the same as saying that it reproduces on an enlarged scale the sum of value expended on it, or that it gives in return more labour than it receives in the form of wages. Consequently, only that labour-power is productive which produces a value greater than its own.)

The mere existence of a class of capitalists, and therefore of capital, depends on the productivity of labour: not however on its absolute, but on its relative productivity. For example: if a day’s labour only sufficed to keep the worker alive, that is, to reproduce his labour-power, ||301| speaking in an absolute sense his labour would be productive because it would be reproductive; that is to say, because it constantly replaced the values ( equal to the value of its own labour-power) which it consumed. But in the capitalist sense it would not be productive because it produced no surplus-value. (It produced in fact no new value, but only replaced the old; it would have consumed it—the value—in one form, in order to reproduce it in the other. And in this sense it has been said that a worker is productive whose production is equal to his own consumption, and that a worker is unproductive who consumes more than he reproduces.)

Productivity in the capitalist sense is based on relative productivity—that the worker not only replaces an old value, but creats a new one; that he materialises more labour-time in his product than is materialised in the product that keeps him in existence as a worker. It is this kind of productive wage-labour that is the basis for the existence of capital.

<Assuming, however, that no capital exists, but that the worker appropriates his surplus-labour himself—the excess of values that he has created over the values that he consumes. Then one could say only of this labour that it is truly productive, that is, that it creates new values.>

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch04.htm

Is there labour to the contray of this productive labour? Or are we all one happy family, no parasites at all?

Hiero

13th August 2008, 08:49

actually most commodities have "service" embodied in it. I dont know what you think exactly constitute "service", but if you mean people employed in the service sector then you are wrong about their role. Even in thje most backward places, commodities dont just "stay" in warehouses. People in the transport service bring it to a shop, and in the shop they sell it to you. without the service sectors, things wouldn't ever be done, because even something very basic is made out of materials that have to be sent from other places by truckers and administered by clerks.

I know...

And not once have said anything in opposition to the obvious reality of how the capitalist system functions. I know that truck drivers, shop stewards, etc exist. I have a life! Infact I encounter this people in a day to day activities.

I am not arguing against their existance.

Devrim

13th August 2008, 08:57

You're paying for the service.

But although you denied it, products are sold at a higher price with service.

In a more sophisticated analysis though services are actually an intrinsic part of a product and actually products themselves.

Devrim

Hiero

13th August 2008, 11:31

13th August 2008, 12:32

Through my reading of this chapter form Marx, [E] Unproductive Labour. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/add1.htm#s12e), I see service labour as unproductive labour. It is unproductive because it is labour that does not transfer into surplus-value. Thus it is distinct from productive labour.

As you said you pay more for a longer guarantee of service, to fix a fault after the product has been sold. You are paying for unproductive labour, as the labour (to fix the machine) does not result in surplus value, it does not go back into capital.

Unlike productive labour, like thoose who build the product, their labour creates surplus value. These product are sold for a profit, that is sold more then the wages paid to the labourer, the profit comes from their expliotation (and ofcourse other market values).

Therefor unproductive labour (services) and productive labour (manufacturing) are both distinct and seperate processes.

Whatever value others have placed on services is purely metaphysical. Just because someone "values" the service does not put it on the same level as productive labour.

Thank you for writing this, it is of course, absolutely correct.

A problem here is that it seems very few people read Marxian economics as distinct from bourgeois economics and therefore don't grasp the difference between surplus value and profit.

Service labours "value" is in the realization of profit not of surplus value: they don't create capital they just facilitate extracting profit from it.

But of course because capitalist firms make rational decisions according to profit maximization not capital maximization the market can sustain a price for service workers time that is in excess of what they contribute to the economy.

So they are 'over paid' in the sense that they are a net economic drain not net economic contributors but their 'overpayment' is not a matter of capitalism's generosity to them but a function of the way it realizes profit. This is one of the fundamental inefficiencies of the capitalist system since if these unproductive labourers were used productively the real standard of living in terms of real capital would increase.

The problem for people who self-identify as "marxists" but do not understand or apply the surplus value/profit distinction when discussing this topic is that they, because they live in bourgeois societies, use profit as the measure by which to judge if someone is 'productive' or not, rather than value. This however includes profit from sources that create no value (internet companies, financial services) or that derive profit out of all proportion to the value they create (i.e. nearly all western firms).

When considered from the standpoint of profit, an investment bank that simply moves money around can appear to be 'creating wealth' but it in fact adds absolutely no value to the economy, its practice is essentially a matter of changing numbers on a computer database. Similarly, when service workers contribution to the economy and service heavy imperialist economies as a whole are assessed using bourgeois measures, they can appear to be adding value when this is in fact often not the case, or barely the case.

This of course is not to say that certain activity classed, by the bourgeois, as 'service sector' does not add real value, but that the level of compensation awarded to people who participate in it need not bare any relation to the amount of value they add because even those who add or create value are still compensated accorded to the profit motive.

To use an example, Starbucks baristas clearly add value when they press coffee beans into espresso; this is also clearly not as much value as is added by columbians harvesting those same beans (the socially necessary hours in coffee bean harvesting are magnitudes more than in espresso pulling)...however the amount that Starbucks baristas are paid compared to columbian coffee farmers, just like the amount investment bankers are paid, is totally out of proportion to the value they add, even though Starbucks baristas add real value and investment bankers do not; so the fact that Starbucks baristas add some value does not mean they are net-exploited in terms of producing more surplus value than they consume. Proletariat (as opposed to workers in general) are those who produce more real capital than they consume, from whom the surplus value of their labour is extracted: a Starbucks barista is not proletarian because while they create value, that value is not at a surplus, it is at a deficit.

Devrim

13th August 2008, 12:46

Hiero

13th August 2008, 12:56

I think that the 'Maoist' ideas

All I got to say is Marx wasn't a Maoist.

Come on, I reference Marx and this is not good enough? It is just crazy Maoist ideology?

No one is saying service sector is not "important".

Just two things
1) It does not produce surplus value, unlike productive labour
2) It therefore is unproductive.

Your taking an idealist stance.

Imagine a picture to illustrate. Productive labour is in the centre as a core. The service labour floats around and only exists in relation to the productive labour.

You can't create a Telecommunitions provider unless there is expliotation of labour that produces thoose products. Infact, no one would even think of creating a provider company without the development of science to create thoose products and actually production phase.

13th August 2008, 13:28

I think that the 'Maoist' ideas being pushed here are of little value economically, and are mostly a political argument to justify their ideas.

It is true that moving money about in a bank doesn't create value. However some services do.

Take the place where I work for example, a Telecommunications service provider. Without the service provide by this company and others like it, the real tangible physical products, mobiles phones, would be little more than worthless junk.

The service is in a very real way a part of the value of the product.

Devrim

I'm gonna refer to what I added to my original post as a response:

This of course is not to say that certain activity classed, by the bourgeois, as 'service sector' does not add real value, but that the level of compensation awarded to people who participate in it need not bare any relation to the amount of value they add because even those who add or create value are still compensated accorded to the profit motive.

To use an example, Starbucks baristas clearly add value when they press coffee beans into espresso; this is also clearly not as much value as is added by columbians harvesting those same beans (the socially necessary hours in coffee bean harvesting are magnitudes more than in espresso pulling)...however the amount that Starbucks baristas are paid compared to columbian coffee farmers, just like the amount investment bankers are paid, is totally out of proportion to the value they add, even though Starbucks baristas add real value and investment bankers do not; so the fact that Starbucks baristas add some value does not mean they are net-exploited in terms of producing more surplus value than they consume. Proletariat (as opposed to workers in general) are those who produce more real capital than they consume, from whom the surplus value of their labour is extracted: a Starbucks barista is not proletarian because while they create value, that value is not at a surplus, it is at a deficit.

Joe Hill's Ghost

13th August 2008, 17:38

13th August 2008, 19:34

Without a starbucks employee actually making the coffee there wouldn't be any bloody coffee, and thus no profit/surplus value for Starbucks. While coffee growers are paid low prices, this does not mean that they have contributed more value than anyone else, without the labor to turn the coffee bean into real coffee they would be harvesting aromatic seeds and nothing more.Joe Hills Ghost, you clearly don't grasp the issue here between profit and surplus value.

The barista's job is necessary, but the amount of socially necessary labour they perform in relation to the amount their compensated is far smaller. The farmers contribute more in real terms because it takes more socially necessary hours of labour to make the coffee beans in a cup of espresso than it takes to turn the coffee beans into espresso (thats something anyone can do in minutes).

While coffee growers are paid low prices, this does not mean that they have contributed more value than anyone else,No of course not, don't be dense, the reason why they've contributed more value than anyone else is because they contribute more hours of socially necessary labour to the finished product.

without the labor to turn the coffee bean into real coffee they would be harvesting aromatic seeds and nothing more.Sure, but it takes almost no labour at all to tun the beans into coffee ...specifically it takes about 2 minutes of untrained unskilled labour. Getting the beans takes months of trained labour.

While a Starbucks barista is certainly paid a high wage in comparison to a third world grower, a starbucks employer must be paid a high wage becuase he/she lives in a more expensive country and belongs to a working class that has deemed those wages unacceptable. They're paid what the market will bare and the market follows the logic of profit maximization, which is to say the remainder for a capitalist firm after total investment has been accounted for without distinction between constant and variable capital. This is also how goods are priced, (this is commodity fetishism). The reason why starbucks baristas are paid more than columbian coffee farmers is because while their variable capital contribution is far less the constant capital contribution is higher as the places they work represent a higher concentration of constant capital from the reinvestment of accumulated profit.

But again, this wont make sense if you don't accept the difference between surplus value and profit, which you don't appear to. This is of course Marx's point in the labour theory of value.

BobKKKindle$

13th August 2008, 20:00

While a Starbucks barista is certainly paid a high wage in comparison to a third world grower, a starbucks employer must be paid a high wage becuase he/she lives in a more expensive country

The argument that wages are high simply because the cost of living is also high is incorrect, because many cities in the developing world are actually more expensive (as shown by this (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/contemp/whitemyths/internationalprices2005.pdf) article, which takes New York as base of comparison and examines how much it would cost to purchase a set of goods or sustain a similar lifestyle in different cities around the world) and so the fact that workers are not payed as much means they are not able to purchase as many goods and consequently have a much lower standard of living, despite the fact that third-world workers make the most important contributions to the value of the products we consume.

Joe Hill's Ghost

13th August 2008, 20:12

Joe Hills Ghost, you clearly don't grasp the issue here between profit and surplus value. Actually I think I understand it rather well. It’s a pretty simple theory. The profit extracted by the capitalist is the surplus value that should have gone to the worker. That’s the keystone of the whole argument.

The barista's job is necessary, but the amount of socially necessary labour they perform in relation to the amount their compensated is far smaller. The farmers contribute more in real terms because it takes more socially necessary hours of labour to make the coffee beans in a cup of espresso than it takes to turn the coffee beans into espresso (thats something anyone can do in minutes).

Define socially necessary labor. Farming coffee beans seems about as socially necessary as turning those raw beans into coffee. It’s not like coffee is a necessity or anything.
Baristas make a lot of coffee, and most of it is not that simple. I would know since I’m good friends with 15 or so baristas. Anyway, the value of a properly brewed yuppie latte is far more valuable than a raw coffee bean. While farmers may put in long hours, what they produce is not that valuable without additional labor. It has no real use. The real value of the product comes from the processing, transport, and preparation of the coffee bean, all done by other sections of workers.

Sure, but it takes almost no labour at all to tun the beans into coffee ...specifically it takes about 2 minutes of untrained unskilled labour. Getting the beans takes months of trained labour. This is incorrect. You must process the coffee beans, transport the coffee beans, package the beans, distribute the beans, grind the beans, and then make the coffee. Also, working at starbucks is not untrained or unskilled labor. It’s actually quite difficult to memorize 400 combinations of flavors, grinds, and sizes, while operating machinery that’s patently dangerous.

They're paid what the market will bare and the market follows the logic of profit maximization, which is to say the remainder for a capitalist firm after total investment has been accounted for without distinction between constant and variable capital. This is also how goods are priced, (this is commodity fetishism). The reason why starbucks baristas are paid more than columbian coffee farmers is because while their variable capital contribution is far less the constant capital contribution is higher as the places they work represent a higher concentration of constant capital from the reinvestment of accumulated profit.

But again, this wont make sense if you don't accept the difference between surplus value and profit, which you don't appear to. This is of course Marx's point in the labour theory of value. It doesn’t make a lot of sense because you’re using nebulous Marxist jargon. Plain simple language is best for any sort of political discussion.

Clearly if the situation were reversed, with first world self employed farmers providing third world coffee, the baristas at Starbucks in Lagos would receive far less than the farmers. But you can’t physically pay those kinds of wages because the working class won enough battles to make them a thing of the past and they won't buy anything. I’m reminded of a passage in “The Jungle” when Jurgis remarks how high wages are in the States, and yet how little you can buy with them.

I’m also waiting for your answer about non proletarian workers. Are Baristas not a revolutionary population?

Edit: Bob I'm not going to reply to you if you use MIM articles, they're not a reputable source by any stretch of the imagination.

black magick hustla

13th August 2008, 20:38

I think TC's definition (and if it is really Marx's, which I doubt) of what constitutes a proletariat or not is politically worthless.

A lot of service sector workers in the third world tend to get paid more than field workers and industry workers (and they clearly invest less units of socially necessary labor than the latter).Take Mexico for example - more than 50 percent of workers work in the service sector. In fact, in most industrial cities in Mexico, most workers are actually from the service sector. I think this is the case with every country that isn't largely agricultural based - I think this is also the case with China. It is not the question of which countries are dominated by finance-capital, but the fact that the most advanced industrially a country is, the bigger the service sector becomes.

I am not a marxist scholar and I would first call myself a left communist than a marxist. I read Capital a few years ago, but I didn't study it in the University like you did. So I can't probably sustain a scholarly argument with you. However, I can tell you that if your definiton of what constitutes a "proletarian" is the real marxist one (i.e. what in your eyes doesn't constitute unproductive labor (most of the service sector)) then it is politically worthless, in so far, virtually everywhere in the third world where there is a significant proportion of industrial workers, take Mexico, Brazil, China etc, there is a bigger proportion of people who do unproductive labor. I think the most important characteristic of the proletariat, is not in what sector is employed, but the fact that they are wage-slaves. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense - because its not like the industrial proletariat is always in industry, most of the time it is pushed around the service and industrial sector. Hence why the lumpenproletariat is called "proletariat" - it is a faction of the proletariat in as much as he only has his labor-power to sell, but albeit its the most reactionary faction.

OI OI OI

13th August 2008, 20:39

Originally Posted by PigmerikanMao http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../showthread.php?p=1215164#post1215164)
As for the wage drops in the UK, these are minor decreases and those paid are still paid more for their labour than what it is worth. Just because they are bought off with a little less money then before is not the same as a renewal in exploitation.

So if they are paid more for their labour than what it is worth how do capitalists extract a surplus? Or maybe the capitalists operate in the Western World not for profits but only to create jobs and give more money to workers than they are worth just because they love them so much.

I don't think that such ideas belong to this forum.

My post might be too simplistic but the argument is ridiculus to begin with.

Die Neue Zeit

14th August 2008, 02:36

TC- Your arguments do not hold water. Without a starbucks employee actually making the coffee there wouldn't be any bloody coffee, and thus no profit/surplus value for Starbucks. While coffee growers are paid low prices, this does not mean that they have contributed more value than anyone else, without the labor to turn the coffee bean into real coffee they would be harvesting aromatic seeds and nothing more. While a Starbucks barista is certainly paid a high wage in comparison to a third world grower, a starbucks employer must be paid a high wage becuase he/she lives in a more expensive country and belongs to a working class that has deemed those wages unacceptable.

PS. If you deem someone not "proletarian" does that mean they are not a potential revolutionary population. Are only proletarian workers revolutionary?

I've been keeping a tab on your conversation with RevLeft's most theoretically deep sectoral chauvinist, and I must say that she is wrong in so many areas (again, I refer to Chapter 2 of both my work and Kautsky's Erfurt commentary - the latter having been regarded by Lenin himself as authoritative - but with different bolded texts ;) ):

There is still a third category of proletarians that has gone far on the road to its complete development – the educated proletarians. Education has become a special trade under our present system. The measure of knowledge has increased greatly and grows daily. Capitalist society and the capitalist state are increasingly in need of men of knowledge and ability to conduct their business, in order to bring the forces of nature under their power […] Under this system education becomes a merchandise.

A hundred years or so ago this commodity was rare. There were few schools; study was accompanied with considerable expense. So long as small production could support him, the worker stuck to it; only special gifts of nature or favorable circumstances would cause the sons of the workers to dedicate themselves to the arts and sciences. Though there was an increasing demand for teachers, artists and other professional men, the supply was definitely limited.

Since those days the development of higher education has made immense progress. The number of institutions of learning has increased wonderfully, and in a still larger degree, the number of pupils.

[…]

The time is near when the bulk of these proletarians will be distinguished from the others only by their pretensions. Most of them still imagine that they are something better than proletarians. They fancy they belong to the bourgeoisie, just as the lackey identifies himself with the class of his master. They have ceased to be the leaders of the capitalist class and have become rather their defenders. Place-hunting takes more and more of their energies. Their first care is, not the development of their intellect, but the sale of it. The prostitution of their individuality has become their chief means of advancement.

Joe Hill's Ghost

14th August 2008, 02:49

I would agree with you on this. My parents have bourgeois pretensions becuase of their bachelors degrees from pretty basic colleges. Yet one has been unemployed for some 2 years now, and the other is working 65 hour weeks...and we're in debt...a lot of debt. Thank god I got that scholarship!

Die Neue Zeit

14th August 2008, 02:52

Bourgeois pretensions, or petit-bourgeois pretentions (more likely, given all the "upper class" and "middle class" mainstream rhetoric)?

Joe Hill's Ghost

14th August 2008, 03:18

Petit bourgeois more or less.

Devrim

14th August 2008, 07:28

There are lot's of good arguments against the 'Maoist' pseudo economics being put forward here.

'Oi Oi Oi' sums it up very simply:

So if they are paid more for their labour than what it is worth how do capitalists extract a surplus? Or maybe the capitalists operate in the Western World not for profits but only to create jobs and give more money to workers than they are worth just because they love them so much.

JHG makes some good points about coffee:

Without a starbucks employee actually making the coffee there wouldn't be any bloody coffee, and thus no profit/surplus value for Starbucks.

In fact I don't really see what the difference is between a worker on a car production line, and one in Starbucks (OK the Starbucks workers are also involved in sales). Both of them produce a product for sale from raw materials.

Marmot made some good points about the working class in the so-called 'third world':

However, I can tell you that if your definiton of what constitutes a "proletarian" is the real marxist one (i.e. what in your eyes doesn't constitute unproductive labor (most of the service sector)) then it is politically worthless, in so far, virtually everywhere in the third world where there is a significant proportion of industrial workers, take Mexico, Brazil, China etc, there is a bigger proportion of people who do unproductive labor. I think the most important characteristic of the proletariat, is not in what sector is employed, but the fact that they are wage-slaves.

In fact one of the reasons that the service sector is so massive in the 'third world' is because labour is so cheap. One of the things that always shocks foreign visitors here is the amount of workers in a bar, or restaurant. Many more than there would be in a comparative place in the west. We also have jobs that have long disappeared in places like the UK, such as petrol pump attendant, and cinema usher. Why because labour is cheap.

Some of the quasi-'Maoist' arguments on the other hand have been awful:

You can't create a Telecommunitions provider unless there is expliotation of labour that produces thoose products. Infact, no one would even think of creating a provider company without the development of science to create thoose products and actually production phase.

In fact, the provider obviously comes before the production phase. Why produce a mobile phone if there is no service provider. If you can't get a signal there is no point having a phone.

Even its theoretical expression is extremely weak:

To use an example, Starbucks baristas clearly add value when they press coffee beans into espresso; this is also clearly not as much value as is added by columbians harvesting those same beans (the socially necessary hours in coffee bean harvesting are magnitudes more than in espresso pulling)...however the amount that Starbucks baristas are paid compared to columbian coffee farmers, just like the amount investment bankers are paid, is totally out of proportion to the value they add, even though Starbucks baristas add real value and investment bankers do not; so the fact that Starbucks baristas add some value does not mean they are net-exploited in terms of producing more surplus value than they consume. Proletariat (as opposed to workers in general) are those who produce more real capital than they consume, from whom the surplus value of their labour is extracted: a Starbucks barista is not proletarian because while they create value, that value is not at a surplus, it is at a deficit.

The whole problem here is how it pretends to look at things on a class level at some points, and then completely ignores it at others.

In the 'third world' class becomes unimportant. In fact, Columbia coffee farmers are not exploited. They are exploiting the workers who are harvesting the coffee.

When we are in the west though every small detail of the process becomes important. Even though it admitted that value is added by the baristas, it seems not to be enough value. The whole notion here is absurd.

Let's take this argument to its logical conclusion/confusion. Imagine there is a worker in a car factory, Mehmet. Mehmet's work patterns change everyweek (This is common practice in car plants). On week he is involved in the actual physical production of the car, the next week he is merely involved in washing it. Is Mehmet adding more value to the car in the week that he is producing than when he is washing? Does this change in value cause his class status to flucuate on a weekly basis? Is in fact the economic basis of this entire argument complete rubbish?

Well, yes it is. The point here is not the economic arguments that are being put forward by the 'quasi-Maoists' at all. They are worthless. It is just a cover for an attack on the whole idea of class politics. In the west, the working class is bourgoise. ...And in the 'third world' they don't care about class anyway favouring all sorts of bourgoise alliances. So let's all give up on the whole idea of class politics and concetrate on women, gays, minorities, the poor, oh and of course middle class university students which is the social mileau which this argument eminates from.

Devrim

Hiero

14th August 2008, 09:10

There are lot's of good arguments against the 'Maoist' pseudo economics being put forward here.

No there isn't.

All these arguments ignore the scientific work on economics by Marx that I referenced. So while I have made the attempt to use and understand Marx, the rest simply ignore it.

I think this is the difference between my arguement, TC, Bobkindle's (not that I am saying we are in agreement about everything) in opposition to the idealist argument against us.

These things known as unproductive labour and productive labour exist, they are not assigned by us. Marx simply discovered them, as he often said about his entire work that he was simply critiquing the existing system and it's proccess. While others in this thread work backwards, they look at the system from the metaphysical level. They have set out political ideology and enforce it onto reality.

For me there is nothing more to discuss, except discussing Marx's work.

black magick hustla

14th August 2008, 09:17

No there isn't.

All these arguments ignore the scientific work on economics by Marx that I referenced. So while I have made the attempt to use and understand Marx, the rest simply ignore it.

I think this is the difference between my arguement, TC, Bobkindle's (not that I am saying we are in agreement about everything) in opposition to the idealist argument against us.

These things known as unproductive labour and productive labour exist, they are not assigned by us. Marx simply discovered them, as he often said about his entire work that he was simply critiquing the existing system and it's proccess. While others in this thread work backwards, they look at the system from the metaphysical level. They have set out political ideology and enforce it onto reality.

For me there is nothing more to discuss, except discussing Marx's work.

So basically you are saying the mayority of workers in countries like Brazil and Mexico are not proletarian in the sense they are not extracted surplus value (because they do not do productive labor. after all the biggest sector in Mexico is the service sector) and therefore most of them are not exploited. Basically, you are implying that the mayority of people living in "imperialist-opressed nations" are not exploited at all!

Maoism collapses on its own weight, doesn't it?

Hiero

14th August 2008, 09:47

So basically you are saying the mayority of workers in countries like Brazil and Mexico are not proletarian in the sense they are not extracted surplus value (because they do not do productive labor. after all the biggest sector in Mexico is the service sector) and therefore most of them are not exploited. Basically, you are implying that the mayority of people living in "imperialist-opressed nations" are not exploited at all!

Where did I say that?

I have made distinction between two things, 1st world and 3rd world and unproductive labour and productive labour.

What you have done is just bundle and reduce it all to the one thing. Which is contrary what Marx did, and that was break down little bits of the system and place them back into the larger context of capitalism . If you read Marx's stuff where he critiques other bourgeoisie economists you will see he often finds that they reduce processes and gave generalised analysis of the processes in capitalism. What he did in a dialectical materialist fashion was break these things down and relate them to other things in the system.

Like I said, you work backwards. This approach is idealist, as it addresses a problem with a concluded ideology, rather then a scientific method. So you try to fit all workers into the one idea of explioted proleteriat to appease the fantasy of world revolution.

BobKKKindle$

14th August 2008, 09:52

So if they are paid more for their labour than what it is worth how do capitalists extract a surplus?Capitalists are able to pay workers more then the value of their labour by making use of surplus which is generated through the exploitation of workers in the developing world. Increasingly, throughout the world and across many economic sectors, the physical production of goods is moving to the developing world, as shown by the consistent decline in manufacturing industry in the developed world and the corresponding growth of the service sector, measured as a proportion of total economic output. Workers who are employed in the service sector generally do not add value to products and so are categorized as part of the unproductive workforce, which means that are dependent on the surplus value generated through the exploitation of other workers, and so have a direct interest in maintaining the exploitation of the developing world, because, in the absence of this exploitation, of if workers were able to lower the rate of exploitation by taking action against employers and successfully demanding improvements in wages, their living standards would suffer.

Define socially necessary laborSocially necessary labour is not concerned with whether the finished product is "necessary" for society (this is a subjective issue which depends on the tastes and preferences of each individual consumer) but is defined as "the labour time required to produce any use-value under the conditions of production normal for a given society and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent in that society". (Source: Das Kapital, Chapter One)

Edelweiss

14th August 2008, 11:41

To say that the service sector is "unproductive labor" is just stupid, and has nothing to do with Marxism. In the service sector your labor is being sold. Either directly, like in the temp work industry, or indirectly, in case the end consumer or another bushiness pays service as a value when buying a product. In any case, those hiring you, are directly profiting from your labor, and the difference between your wage, and the amount your labor is being sold, represents the surplus value and thus your exploitation. Really fucking simple actually.

Only because your labor doesn't produce a physical product, that doesn't mean there is no surplus value and no exploitation. That is a terribly outdated point of view, especially in times of a giant temp work industry. It's total and entire bullshit.

Devrim

14th August 2008, 12:20

Capitalists are able to pay workers more then the value of their labour by making use of surplus which is generated through the exploitation of workers in the developing world.

This is an absolutely ludicrous argument. It implies that the purpose of capitalists running companies in the west is to distribute the surplus generated by the labour of workers in the 'developing world' to workers in the west.

I suppose that they are doing it out of pure altruism.

Why on earth would a capitalist set up a business with the intention of doing that?

To keep with the coffee example, raw coffee beans is not a product that many people want to buy. A cup of Starbucks coffee is. Work goes into producing this product, and surplus value is extracted.

Part of the failure of the 'Maoists' here is to understand what a 'product' is, but as I said earlier. The pseudo-economics is not at all important. It is just a justification tacked on to their anti-working class politics.

Devrim

Devrim

14th August 2008, 12:22

These things known as unproductive labour and productive labour exist, they are not assigned by us.

Unfortunately you seem unable to understand the difference between them.

Devrim

Hiero

14th August 2008, 13:42

To say that the service sector is "unproductive labor" is just stupid, and has nothing to do with Marxism.

It comes from Marx.

Unfortunately you seem unable to understand the difference between them.

Devrim

I explained it and there was no direct response from you or anyone else. If it is avioded, I am lead to believe two things 1) it is correct 2) it may be wrong, but you are not the person to set me right.

Really what do you expect me to say "Oh see that point where you proved what your saying"?

All the responses have so far avioded the direct discussion on Marx's distiniction between unproductive labour and productive labour, and service labour being the former. Unless you can show me your economic thesis that proves that Marx is outdate or wrong, I am inclined to stay with Marx on this one.

Edelweiss

14th August 2008, 14:02

It comes from Marx.

well okay, even if it's "unproductive labor" in a strict Marxist sense, that doesn't mean that there is no exploitation and no surplus value, since those owning your labor are directly profiting from it. A service worker is selling it's labor just like a factory worker does. I don't see any effective difference here.

Devrim

14th August 2008, 15:07

All the responses have so far avioded the direct discussion on Marx's distiniction between unproductive labour and productive labour, and service labour being the former. Unless you can show me your economic thesis that proves that Marx is outdate or wrong, I am inclined to stay with Marx on this one.

The problem isn't with Marx. It is with your understanding of Marx. A cup of coffee is a product in the way that a car is in the way that airtime is. Just because they are labelled by bourgeois economists as being part of the 'service' sector, it doesn't mean that they don't produce anything.

There is a distinction between productive, and non-productive labour. Your problem is that you can't see what production is.

As I said though, it is not a serious economic analysis. It is more of a justification for anti-working class politics.

Devrim

OI OI OI

14th August 2008, 20:18

Apart that I absolutely agree with Devrim and the others that are fighting against the absurd idea that workers are paid more than they are worth in the Western World, this position that people like Bobkindles have might be dangerous for the labour movement in the Western World and justify attacks against the working class which are carried out now and will be carried in the future with increased intensity because of the crisis of capitalism.

So to advocate these ideas in a popular leftist forum is not only ridiculus as this is a ridiculus argument that is paraphrasing Marxism (just like the "unproductive" service sector thing) , but if spread among the conciousness of revlefters , who some of them are active in a party/movement this can have some implications in the work of certain individuals, who will be discouraged to fight "for these overpaid western workers".

Such transmision of ideas are dangerous to the labour movement.

I would propose a restriction to those who transmit ideas like that.

LuÃs Henrique

14th August 2008, 21:07

OI OI OI

14th August 2008, 21:21

I wouldn't support the restriction of imbeciles that believe that first world workers are paid more than they produce.

But they obviously lack any grasp of revolutionary theory, and shouldn't be in the CC.

I believe that they should be restricted for the reason I explained above, but yes I agree obviously that those people lack any basic grasp of revolutionary theory and at least be removed from the CC.

LuÃs Henrique

14th August 2008, 21:23

To say that the service sector is "unproductive labor" is just stupid, and has nothing to do with Marxism.

Yes, it is extremely misguided.

They confuse services that are sold as a commodity - in which obviously value is created - and services that are not.

When a car factory, for instance, directly employs cleaning teams, those cleaning teams are "improductive", because they do not produce a commodity. When the same car factory hires the cleaning team from a different company, the service of the cleaning teams is a commodity, and those workers are productive.

What these fools fail to understand is that "productivity" is a cathegory that only makes sence within the capitalist frame. A "productive" worker is a worker that makes more capital for its employer, not a morally superior worker who isn't "lazy".

And this has nothing to do with the divide between industry and services, except for the fact that industry is always productive, and services are not necessarily so.

Luís Henrique

black magick hustla

14th August 2008, 21:26

Where did I say that?

I have made distinction between two things, 1st world and 3rd world and unproductive labour and productive labour.

What you have done is just bundle and reduce it all to the one thing. Which is contrary what Marx did, and that was break down little bits of the system and place them back into the larger context of capitalism . If you read Marx's stuff where he critiques other bourgeoisie economists you will see he often finds that they reduce processes and gave generalised analysis of the processes in capitalism. What he did in a dialectical materialist fashion was break these things down and relate them to other things in the system.

Like I said, you work backwards. This approach is idealist, as it addresses a problem with a concluded ideology, rather then a scientific method. So you try to fit all workers into the one idea of explioted proleteriat to appease the fantasy of world revolution.

you didnt offer any counter-argument. you basically said "heh youdont understand marx youre a reductionist youre an idealist *smokes blunt*". you and TC argued that people who get paid for doing unproductive labor, which in TC's words (which you seem to agree with) mean they are basically getting paid for extracting the surplus from real proletarians, aren't exploited. After all, how can they be exploited in the marxist sense if they aren't producing any value from where a surplus could be extracted?

I think that you don't understand how capitalism works. You try to measure it as if capitalism is made up of a artisans where everyone did very tangible work. You say I make up my mind first and then use theory to justify it, I think it is the other way around. I think maoist theory was made up to justify opportunistic politics.

Your whole political framework basically crumbles.

Die Neue Zeit

15th August 2008, 02:42

Capitalists are able to pay workers more then the value of their labour by making use of surplus which is generated through the exploitation of workers in the developing world.

Sympathizing with Third Worldism, huh? :glare:

Where I come from, unless you're a big-time professional athlete, big-time celebrity, or whatever, there's no chance in hell that First-World workers will get even close to the full value of their labour. Businesses are divided into branches, subsidiaries, and what not, and profit maximization in as many branches as possible is the objective. The objective of cost reduction in the cost centers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_centre) and corporate head offices already implies labour exploitation there!

When a car factory, for instance, directly employs cleaning teams, those cleaning teams are "improductive", because they do not produce a commodity. When the same car factory hires the cleaning team from a different company, the service of the cleaning teams is a commodity, and those workers are productive.

What these fools fail to understand is that "productivity" is a category that only makes sense within the capitalist frame. A "productive" worker is a worker that makes more capital for its employer, not a morally superior worker who isn't "lazy".

Comrade Luis, I prefer to "err" on the anti-sectoral-chauvinist side and say that in-house cleaning teams are "productive," in the sense that they have less cost than outsourcing them (hence why vendor invoices for temp workers have a huge markup). Without the cleaning teams whatsoever, there can be machinery dirt problems down the road.

Hiero

15th August 2008, 04:20

A "productive" worker is a worker that makes more capital for its employer, not a morally superior worker who isn't "lazy".

Makes more capital?

See this is what I am talking about money, profit, surplus value and capital are all thrown into category.

People are giving their own description of the capitalist system, they aren't basing it on any economic study. But I am sure you have more important things to do, like lead the vanguard of reolutionary newspaper wielding students.

NiccolÃ² Rossi

15th August 2008, 08:24

Makes more capital?

See this is what I am talking about money, profit, surplus value and capital are all thrown into category.

A productive worker is one who directly produces surplus-value and as such expands capital. I'm certain you will not disagree.

The point Luís Henrique is trying to make (the most correct thus far) is that (some) "service" workers produce commodities (albeit in a non-physical form) and thus are directly exploited and expand capital.

A prostitute for example or a singer or a private janitor or security guard is a productive worker. But hey, you would already know this since you love to quote Marx:

A singer who sells her songs on her own account is an unproductive worker. But the same singer, engaged by an impresario, who has her sing in order to make money, is a productive worker. For she produces capital.'

Devrim

15th August 2008, 08:32

The point Luís Henrique is trying to make (the most correct thus far) is that (some) "service" workers produce commodities (albeit in a non-physical form) and thus are directly exploited and expand capital.

I think I got there too:

The problem isn't with Marx. It is with your understanding of Marx. A cup of coffee is a product in the way that a car is in the way that airtime is. Just because they are labelled by bourgeois economists as being part of the 'service' sector, it doesn't mean that they don't produce anything.

There is a distinction between productive, and non-productive labour. Your problem is that you can't see what production is.

Devrim

Hiero

15th August 2008, 09:06

A productive worker is one who directly produces surplus-value and as such expands capital. I'm certain you will not disagree.

The point Luís Henrique is trying to make (the most correct thus far) is that (some) "service" workers produce commodities (albeit in a non-physical form) and thus are directly exploited and expand capital.

A prostitute for example or a singer or a private janitor or security guard is a productive worker. But hey, you would already know this since you love to quote Marx:

You don't even understand the quote. Marx makes a distiniction between service workers who are productive and thoose who aren't, it is based on if their labour contributes to surplus-value, which is then reinvested into new capital. Something I already went over earlier in the thread. Nothing new to me. You on the other hand take one side of the sentance as objective fact for all services workers.

Luís Henrique statement implied that workers directly create capital. He mistakes surplus value, profit and money for capital. So he misses the proces of turning money into capital to create more money. Which would imply that at the end of the work day the capitalist automatically has new capital. Which makes capitalism very easy as the capitalist will never fail. However we have seen where no matter how much work is done, some capitalist go under, as seen in a depression. Which of course results in overproduction. So alot of labour, but nothing to come from production to create new capital.

Also take note that I never talked about who or who is not explioted, we got to this discussion because some people didn't even know that some labour was unproductive as they have no idea of Marxist economics.

Also can I have a link?

LuÃs Henrique

15th August 2008, 11:53

You don't even understand the quote. Marx makes a distiniction between service workers who are productive and thoose who aren't, it is based on if their labour contributes to surplus-value, which is then reinvested into new capital. Something I already went over earlier in the thread. Nothing new to me. You on the other hand take one side of the sentance as objective fact for all services workers.

Certainly there are productive services, and improductive services. The difference between them is, productive services are delivered in the form of commodities, improductive services are not.

To the common sence, the distinction is also a moral one: "productive" workers are righteous, honest people, who contribute their share to society, and "improductive" workers are lazy bums. This moralisation, of course, has nothing to do with Marxism.

Luís Henrique statement implied that workers directly create capital. He mistakes surplus value, profit and money for capital.

The end of capitalist production is the production of more capital. You are right that this may fail, if surplus value cannot be realised. And I will add, it is always possible that an individual capitalist will spend his surplus value in luxuries, instead of expanding capital - and, to a certain extent, all capitalists do that; after all, they have to reproduce themselves too, and they are not capital themselves.

So he misses the proces of turning money into capital to create more money. Which would imply that at the end of the work day the capitalist automatically has new capital. Which makes capitalism very easy as the capitalist will never fail. However we have seen where no matter how much work is done, some capitalist go under, as seen in a depression. Which of course results in overproduction. So alot of labour, but nothing to come from production to create new capital.

Either that, or, perhaps, labour spent in creating unsellable commodities is improductive labour...

Guess which...!

Also take note that I never talked about who or who is not explioted, we got to this discussion because some people didn't even know that some labour was unproductive as they have no idea of Marxist economics.

Well, evidently there is improductive labour.

But the point under discussion seems to be, that some equate "improductive" labour with unnecessary labour, and the condition of being an "improductive" worker with the condition of being not a proletarian.

(And, heck, some go to the extent of saying that most, or all, first world workers are not proletarians, that they are paid more than the worth of their labour, even if they are "productive" workers!)

And all of this results in a completely distorted concept of social classes. As if someone who quits a welder's job to become a janitor was changing social classes (in some cases, it goes to the extreme of denying that working class children are part of the class, that retired people are proletarians, that housewives are members of the working class, etc).

Luís Henrique

Hiero

15th August 2008, 12:13

ertainly there are productive services, and improductive services. The difference between them is, productive services are delivered in the form of commodities, improductive services are not.

To the common sence, the distinction is also a moral one: "productive" workers are righteous, honest people, who contribute their share to society, and "improductive" workers are lazy bums. This moralisation, of course, has nothing to do with Marxism.

But the point under discussion seems to be, that some equate "improductive" labour with unnecessary labour, and the condition of being an "improductive" worker with the condition of being not a proletarian.

(And, heck, some go to the extent of saying that most, or all, first world workers are not proletarians, that they are paid more than the worth of their labour, even if they are "productive" workers!)

And all of this results in a completely distorted concept of social classes. As if someone who quits a welder's job to become a janitor was changing social classes (in some cases, it goes to the extreme of denying that working class children are part of the class, that retired people are proletarians, that housewives are members of the working class, etc).

Wow I am surprised, your not even trying to distort my words your just making shit up now. Quoting me doesn't hide your lies.

No where did I ever apply morals, or deem any labour as unneccassary.

It's like I am talking about one thing, and your talking about another. The fact that you jumped to the conclusion that I have made moral stance on this to me feels like it is you who is taking a moral position. This topic has come so taboo (inpart because of the hype around MIM and thoose morons who actually belief it was a party in the traditional sense), that dealing with it in a Marxist fashion has become strictly forbidden. So it is you who has taken a moralist stance to come defend all thoose who work and to save them from Marx's scientific analysis.

Really I can't see any point in this discussion if you're not going to engage me or the material (beyond posting little snipets that amount to a sentance, which infact support my arguement). You stick to your worker fetishism and I will keep with my Marxist studies.

NiccolÃ² Rossi

15th August 2008, 12:44

I think I got there too

Yeah, sorry Devrim, I missed that. :blushing:

You on the other hand take one side of the sentance as objective fact for all services workers.

No Hiero, I don't. You keep going on about being misrperesented and then you go and post this. :rolleyes:

Let us read again what I wrote:

The point Luís Henrique is trying to make (the most correct thus far) is that (some) "service" workers produce commodities (albeit in a non-physical form) and thus are directly exploited and expand capital.

*Emphasis Added*

Also can I have a link?

No worries. Marx’s Economic Manuscripts of 1861-63 Part 3) Relative Surplus Value k) Productivity of Capital. Productive and Unproductive Labour (http://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1861/economic/ch38.htm)

Just to clarify, do you believe unproductive service workers are part of the proletariat?

LuÃs Henrique

15th August 2008, 14:31

It's like I am talking about one thing, and your talking about another.

Exaaaaaaaaaaaaaaactly.

We are talking about different things.

You are talking about your own personal positions.

I am talking about those who think first world workers are paid more than the value of their work.

Luís Henrique

chimx

15th August 2008, 18:11

I generally agree with Luis from what I've read of this thread. I think it's important to remember that capitalist division of labor has significantly complicated production relations, making it difficult to maintain a black and white view of labor: productive vs. unproductive, exploited vs. unexploited, etc.

Karl Marx addressed this fact in his second volume of Capital, a quotation I suggest you all read carefully:

To the capitalist who has others working for him, buying and selling becomes a primary function. Since he appropriates the product of many on a large social scale, he must sell it on the same scale and then reconvert it from money into elements of production. Now as before neither the time of purchase nor of sale creates any value. The function of merchant’s capital give rise to an illusion. But without going into this at length here this much is plain from the start: If by a division of labour a function, unproductive in itself although a necessary element of reproduction, is transformed from an incidental occupation many into an exclusive occupation of a few, into their special business, the nature of this function itself is not changed. One merchant (here considered a mere agent attending to the change of form of commodities, a mere buyer and seller) may by his operations shorten the time of purchase and sale for many producers. In such case he should be regarded as a machine which reduces useless expenditure of energy or helps to set production time free.

Unproductive labor in this sense is unproductive, but it plays an important role in the overall reproduction of capital due to labor division.

To use another example that I've mentioned before on these forums, imagine a janitor working in a factory. The janitor does not produce any commodity. The janitor's sole job is to clean and organize the factory floor so as to free up the time of the productive laborers in the factory so that they can produce more efficiently for the capitalist and thus create a greater surplus value (since they won't be bothered by unproductive tasks now).

The janitor is assisting in the reproduction of capital and the creation of surplus value despite not being a productive laborer. This is due to the division of labor and is equally applicable to service sector workers, or other jobs that "western workers" commonly have. Despite being unproductive, they increase the overall surplus value extracted by the capitalist.

Die Neue Zeit

16th August 2008, 02:11

^^^ Correct (regarding the complication and your janitor example). Also, on the other hand, I have classified lawyers as being OUTSIDE the proletariat, even if they work as employees for a law firm, because all they do is engage in unproductive legal cases (not to mention their being in the same league as cops and judges).

chimx

16th August 2008, 05:44

I agree with that, because while unproductive laborers such as janitors and service sector employees contribute to the overall creation of surplus value and the reproduction of capital, state bureaucrats -- from politicians, aides, lawyers, down to police I suppose -- do not contribute to the overall production of surplus value, but rather come at the expense there of. (i'm sure there are exceptions to this though). Their relationship to production is distinct from those other groups, both productive and unproductive, that we've mentioned.

Lamanov

17th August 2008, 14:51

I wouldn't support the restriction of imbeciles that believe that first world workers are paid more than they produce.

But they obviously lack any grasp of revolutionary theory, and shouldn't be in the CC.

I agree. Having basic class-struggle opinions should count as a "basic grasp of revolutionary leftist theory".

We should make a policy of this.

Hiero

18th August 2008, 07:33

I agree. Having basic class-struggle opinions should count as a "basic grasp of revolutionary leftist theory".

We should make a policy of this.
All this will amount to is restricting intellectual and acadamic study of Marxism in place of cult worship of any wage earners, or worker as messianic figures. And what for? So you can justify pub politics.

Marxism is a science that is not afraid to break taboos. It is not afriad to say the revolutionary proleteriat are massed mostly in the 3rd world and there is no revolutionary proleteriat in the 1st world at the moment. It is no wonder why we have people like LSD and Ever close Union who drop out of revolutionary politics, because they have never been in a revolutonary situation and yet are too ignorant to consider the global application of Marxist science. The same for the old veterans who literally thought revolution was just around the corner.

Marxism is something that goes beyond workers politics, it is a science that attempts to understand the system, and only from it's scientific approach does philosophy, sociology and politics emerge. It does not work backwards, which is what the post-modern Marxists do, they enforce notions of worker revolution and explioted proleteriat onto "culuturally" excepted notions of workers in the first world.

So if you really want to restrict thoose who you claim are "thirdworldist" then go ahead. If you do it only shows how petty you really in your attempt to devoid the forum of scientific materialist approach, and reduce Marxism to radical unionism for the first world.

18th August 2008, 07:44

Oh look!:

You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general: the same as what the bourgeois think. There is no workers' party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England's monopoly of the world market and the colonies.

I've just exposed Engels, the co-founder of Marxism, for having less than a "basic grasp of revolutionary leftist theory", unlike some chuckleheads on the internet who really know what they're talking about.

Good thing we have such sophisticated thinkers as Luis and DJ-TC to straighten it out for people who might think to peel back the most superficial, workerist/unionist first world chauvinism that passes for leftism on this forum.

black magick hustla

18th August 2008, 08:03

Oh look!:

I've just exposed Engels, the co-founder of Marxism, for having less than a "basic grasp of revolutionary leftist theory", unlike some chuckleheads on the internet who really know what they're talking about.

Good thing we have such sophisticated thinkers as Luis and DJ-TC to straighten it out for people who might think to peel back the most superficial, workerist/unionist first world chauvinism that passes for leftism on this forum.

I don't know if Engels implied that the english proletariat had no revolutionary potential. However, the fact is that your concept of "proletariat" is politically worthless as it excludes not only most workers of the first world, but also most workers of the third world. If what you say is true, the proletariat in the whole world is a very small minority. I also think that why people like you with tankie third-worldist politics don't really give a damn about the class composition of third world movements, and lump everything into one giant popular force. This is because their concept of proletariat is virtually non-existant in the population and therefore they can't base their politics on it.

NiccolÃ² Rossi

18th August 2008, 12:25

Marxism is something that goes beyond workers politics, it is a science that attempts to understand the system, and only from it's scientific approach does philosophy, sociology and politics emerge. It does not work backwards, which is what the post-modern Marxists do, they enforce notions of worker revolution and explioted proleteriat onto "culuturally" excepted notions of workers in the first world.

Whilst you are correct that Marxism does not work by "enforcing notions of the workers revolution and the exploited proletariat onto "culturally" excepted notions of workers in the first world", it just as equally does not work by enforcing notions such as proletariat being only those direct producers of surplus value. If it did such nonsense things it would come to all sorts of wacky conclusions such as, like with Devrim's example, Mehmet being a prole one day and a member of the "culturally excepted notion of the working class" another, that is a potential revolutionary one day and an ally of the bourgeoisie the next...

You are also yet to directly answer the question I posed before: are unproductive service workers part of the proletariat?

Lamanov

18th August 2008, 12:41

Marxism is a science that is not afraid to break taboos. It is not afriad to say the revolutionary proleteriat are massed mostly in the 3rd world and there is no revolutionary proleteriat in the 1st world at the moment.

No, fuck off and your little elitist "understanding of Marxist science". This is not about the lack of revolution in the "West", this is about people ignoring exploitation, wage labor or at best denying the whole section of the working class its factual position. Little condescending scab-fucks like you are one of the reasons workers are discouraged to fight and to believe how "ideas are enemies".

You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general: the same as what the bourgeois think. There is no workers' party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England's monopoly of the world market and the colonies.

TC, you're so pathetic. You can't even find a better "evidence" then a private letter of one old socialist to another bit younger socialist who exchange their sentiments on working class consciousness (in a private letter you're allowed to exaggerate and be a pessimist). (I could in the same manner claim how working class in Bosnia is suffocated with nationalism, but it doesn't mean they are not exploited and that they can't develop internationalist and class-struggle lines.)

Did the colonial situation change much when 1911: Liverpool general transport strike (http://libcom.org/history/1911-liverpool-general-transport-strike) occurred? No, it didn't.

This is not even worth discussing, because I believe majority of members here agree with me; go ahead, type down your triads and proclamations; I don't think you'll convince anyone though.

This is because their concept of proletariat is virtually non-existant in the population and therefore they can't base their politics on it.

It's a consequence of their rotten politics and the inability to revive their failed ideology withing the working masses. The only way they can revive it in the "Third World" is by usage of nationalist principles.

LuÃs Henrique

18th August 2008, 14:16

I've just exposed Engels, the co-founder of Marxism, for having less than a "basic grasp of revolutionary leftist theory", unlike some chuckleheads on the internet who really know what they're talking about.

Good thing we have such sophisticated thinkers as Luis and DJ-TC to straighten it out for people who might think to peel back the most superficial, workerist/unionist first world chauvinism that passes for leftism on this forum.

In case you don't notice, Engels was referring to a political phenomenon: workers supporting capitalist order. But this happens in the US and the UK, and also in Malaysia, Thailand, Brazil, Kenya, Guatemala or Bangladesh.

What MIMites and quasi-MIMites argue is very different: that those stupid English workers described by Engels were not mistaken in their positions, but rather correct in defending their own class interests...

Luís Henrique

Lamanov

18th August 2008, 14:25

black magick hustla

18th August 2008, 15:40

I do think a lot of service sector is worthless and only a sympton of capitalist putrefaction. A lot of the service sector doesn't produce new resources and instead only moves them around. However, the thing that makes the proletariat "proletariat" is wage-slavery. Otherwise, it would be a worthless label, because industrial workers bounce from sector to sector - it would be stupid to say that some months they are proletarian and others they aren't.

black magick hustla

18th August 2008, 15:50

I do think a lot of service sector is worthless and only a sympton of capitalist putrefaction. A lot of the service sector doesn't produce new resources and instead only moves them around. However, the thing that makes the proletariat "proletariat" is wage-slavery. Otherwise, it would be a worthless label, because industrial workers bounce from sector to sector - it would be stupid to say that some months they are proletarian and others they aren't.

LuÃs Henrique

18th August 2008, 15:58

I do think a lot of service sector is worthless and only a sympton of capitalist putrefaction.

This is also true of significant parts of the industrial sector. Or aren't weaponries and ammo plants "productive"?

Luís Henrique

Lamanov

18th August 2008, 16:02

I do think a lot of service sector is worthless and only a sympton of capitalist putrefaction. A lot of the service sector doesn't produce new resources and instead only moves them around.

It's "worthless" in the sense of "reasonable production" (i. e. from our standpoint of planned economy - democratically or otherwise), but it's not worthless from the standpoint of Capital. If it didn't bring profit, it wouldn't be in operation.

But, anyway, truth is that "service sector" is also producing values (i. e. the workers who work in that sector) because services are 'use-values' just like "regular" products, and the labor objectified in these services creates value and surplus value, which, operating in the form of exchange-value, gives back profit. Devrim makes a good point on services being "organically connected" to products.

We will need "services" in communist society just like we would need clothes, food and trams.

However, the thing that makes the proletariat "proletariat" is wage-slavery. Otherwise, it would be a worthless label, because industrial workers bounce from sector to sector - it would be stupid to say that some months they are proletarian and others they aren't.Yes, it would be stupid. It would be like saying that a fired caffe worker didn't "really" get fired, and that she's still "exploiting Third world".

Hiero

18th August 2008, 16:10

In case you don't notice, Engels was referring to a political phenomenon: workers supporting capitalist order. But this happens in the US and the UK, and also in Malaysia, Thailand, Brazil, Kenya, Guatemala or Bangladesh.

What MIMites and quasi-MIMites argue is very different: that those stupid English workers described by Engels were not mistaken in their positions, but rather correct in defending their own class interests...

Luís Henrique

Incase you didn't notice:

You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general: the same as what the bourgeois think. There is no workers' party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England's monopoly of the world market and the colonies.

1.) Anyone who claims "western" workers are not exploited should be out of the CC.
2.) Anyone who claims "service sector" workers are not exploited because they "don't produce anything" (like services aren't produced, or at least are an "inherent part of the products") should be out of the CC.
3.) Anyone who identifies lawyers, managers, cops, preachers etc. with the "service sector" workers should be out of the CC, or restricted.
4.) Anyone who claims "western" workers exploit "third world" workers should be restricted.

Then go make a restriction thread.

This is also true of significant parts of the industrial sector. Or aren't weaponries and ammo plants "productive"?

Luís Henrique

You still don't got it. You're moralist to the core.

Lamanov

18th August 2008, 16:18

Hiero, you've been here five years and didn't learn anything. It's a damn shame.

P.S.

I repeat: personal letter of Engels (or anyone) is not evidence.

Bobi

18th August 2008, 16:18

LuÃs Henrique

18th August 2008, 16:24

Incase you didn't notice:

You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general: the same as what the bourgeois think. There is no workers' party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England's monopoly of the world market and the colonies.

We should ban him for homphobia, for using the word "gaily".

Luís Henrique

Hit The North

18th August 2008, 23:10

I agree!

So do I.

We should ban him for homphobia, for using the word "gaily".

Luís Henrique

:laugh:

BTW, those who are making noises about the distinction between productive and service labour are being deeply sectarian, arguing (presumably) for the precedence of one section of the working class over another. The fact of the matter is that capitalism is in motion. In order to complete its circulation it requires free labourers on a massive scale occupied in both manufacturing, tertiary and service sectors so the distinction between productive and non-productive labour is a formality. Moreover, the circulation isn't complete until capital has been realised in the market so our function as consumers is also crucial. The system needs to churn out lots of wage slaves, because it needs a buoyant money economy to lubricate the exchange of commodities.

No one should deny, however, that the use of cheap labour in the developing world, or through regimes of enforced migrant labour status, is significant to the success of global capitalist accumulation; but surely, from a class-struggle perspective, the rate of exploitation of workers is in inverse relation to the level of working class organization. The heavy weight of exploitation borne by third world workers is a result of their lack of rights, lack of organization, lack of education, in one word, lack of power. Capitalists give nothing away. You have to fight them for it. It's up to third world workers to role back the levels of exploitation weighing on their heads and fight for their place in society. Undoubtedly there will be some huge struggles to come.

LuÃs Henrique

18th August 2008, 23:59

No one should deny, however, that the use of cheap labour in the developing world, or through regimes of enforced migrant labour status, is significant to the success of global capitalist accumulation; but surely, from a class-struggle perspective, the rate of exploitation of workers is in inverse relation to the level of working class organization.

Exactly. And it is not significant to capitalist accumulation in the naïve way pseudo-Leninists argue (that surplus-value is extracted exclusively in the third world, and first world workers are paid more than they produce). It is significant because capitalism takes advantage in an international division of labour, that allows it to keep workers in technologically advanced industries - in which relative surplus value is the rule - physically, and legally, separated from workers in backward industries - in which absolute surplus value reigns.

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

19th August 2008, 01:16

You still don't got it. You're moralist to the core.

So, the increased emphasis in war and war industry isn't a symptom of "putrefaction"?

Luís Henrique

Bilan

19th August 2008, 01:20

4.) Anyone who claims "western" workers exploit "third world" workers should be restricted.

Anyone who holds such a politic doesn't understand in the slightest the organization of the global capitalist system.
Period.

chimx

19th August 2008, 02:32

If TragicClown wanted more damning evidence of that this is a common position in Marxist circles, I would have suggested she quote Lenin rather than that flimsy Engels quote.

"[T]he exploitation of oppressed nations—which is inseparably connected with annexations—and especially the exploitation of colonies by a handful of “Great” Powers, increasingly transforms the “civilised” world into a parasite on the body of hundreds of millions in the uncivilised nations. The Roman proletarian lived at the expense of society. Modern society lives at the expense of the modern proletarian. Marx specially stressed this profound observation of Sismondi. Imperialism somewhat changes the situation. A privileged upper stratum of the proletariat in the imperialist countries lives partly at the expense of hundreds of millions in the uncivilised nations."

And perhaps even worse:

"monopoly yields superprofits, i.e., a surplus of profits over and above the capitalist profits that are normal and customary all over the world. The capitalists can devote a part (and not a small one, at that!) of these superprofits to bribe their own workers, to create something like an alliance . . . between the workers of the given nation and their capitalists against the other countries."

Now personally, I simply disagree with Lenin's analysis, or at the very least his wording. I think it is probably true that thanks to class struggle and the subsequent development of progressive labor laws, workers in imperialist countries may be exploited at a lesser rate than those in the 3rd world, but for Lenin to call this "bribery" is very misleading as it implies a payment in excess of the value of their labor, which as has been mentioned, really doesn't make any sense economically.

Random Precision

19th August 2008, 02:40

That part of Lenin's theory of imperialism is simply wrong, this has been repeatedly demonstrated. He was trying to find an answer to the problem of social-patriotism in World War I and ended up blaming it on the workers in the parties of the 2nd International instead of the party and trade-union bureaucracy that really was responsible.

There's a detailed demolition of it here: http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/128

Now personally, I simply disagree with Lenin's analysis, or at the very least his wording. I think it is probably true that thanks to class struggle and the subsequent development of progressive labor laws, workers in imperialist countries may be exploited at a lesser rate than those in the 3rd world, but for Lenin to call this "bribery" is very misleading as it implies a payment in excess of the value of their labor, which as has been mentioned, really doesn't make any sense economically.

Yeah. This.

Led Zeppelin

19th August 2008, 12:25

Lenin limited his "bribery" theory to the upper stratum of the working-class, not to the working-class as a whole, and he was specifically referring to the labour leaders and the labour bureaucracy of the Second International and the trade unions who were "bribed" and then "fooled the workers".

He should have added, however, that, also within the working-class movement, the opportunists, who are for the moment victorious in most countries, are “working” systematically and undeviatingly in this very direction. Imperialism, which means the partitioning of the world, and the exploitation of other countries besides China, which means high monopoly profits for a handful of very rich countries, makes it economically possible to bribe the upper strata of the proletariat, and thereby fosters, gives shape to, and strengthens opportunism. We must not, however, lose sight of the forces which counteract imperialism in general, and opportunism in particular, and which, naturally, the social-liberal Hobson is unable to perceive.

And in speaking of the British working class the bourgeois student of “British imperialism at the beginning of the twentieth century” is obliged to distinguish systematically between the “upper stratum” of the workers and the “lower stratum of the proletariat proper”. The upper stratum furnishes the bulk of the membership of co-operatives, of trade unions, of sporting clubs and of numerous religious sects. To this level is adapted the electoral system, which in Great Britain is still “sufficiently restricted to exclude the lower stratum of the proletariat proper"! In order to present the condition of the British working class in a rosy light, only this upper stratum—which constitutes a minority of the proletariat—is usually spoken of. For instance, “the problem of unemployment is mainly a London problem and that of the lower proletarian stratum, to which the politicians attach little importance...” [9] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch08.htm#fwV22P282F01) He should have said: to which the bourgeois politicians and the “socialist” opportunists attach little importance.

The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists in one of the numerous branches of industry, in one of the numerous countries, etc., makes it economically possible for them to bribe certain sections of the workers, and for a time a fairly considerable minority of them, and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or given nation against all the others. The intensification of antagonisms between imperialist nations for the division of the world increases this urge. And so there is created that bond between imperialism and opportunism, which revealed itself first and most clearly in Great Britain, owing to the fact that certain features of imperialist development were observable there much earlier than in other countries.

And that is all just from his work Imperialism, I could find numerous more qoutes saying the same thing and consistently defending the idea of there being a majority proletarian class in the west. His entire revolutionary theory was based on the idea that the revolution would spread to the more advanced nations. When Lenin talks of "bribery" he is specifically referring to the Social-Democrat movement which betrayed Marxism and took the road of oppertunism, they belong to the "upper stratum of the proletariat" and are "only a small minority of it".

And I believe he has a good point there. Social-democracy became so intertwined with the capitalist system that they became a part of it, the leaders and bureaucracies became dependant on it, this is a materialist analysis of their betrayal. It would be idealist to say; "Oh, well, they just changed their minds because they were bored with revolution."

Obviously, out of such enormous superprofits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their “own” country) it is possible to bribe the labour leaders and the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy. And that is just what the capitalists of the “advanced” countries are doing: they are bribing them in a thousand different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert.

This stratum of workers-turned-bourgeois, or the labour aristocracy, who are quite philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings and in their entire outlook, is the principal prop of the Second International, and in our days, the principal social (not military) prop of the bourgeoisie. For they are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, real vehicles of reformism and chauvinism. In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie they inevitably, and in no small numbers, take the side of the bourgeoisie, the “Versaillese” against the “Communards”.

Unless the economic roots of this phenomenon are understood and its political and social significance is appreciated, not a step can be taken toward the solution of the practical problem of the communist movement and of the impending social revolution.

Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat. This has been confirmed since 1917 on a world-wide scale.

Now, this may not have any relation to the world of today if you consider managers and other such "agents of the bourgeoisie and labour lieutenants of the capitalist class" to be no different element in the working-class movement, but I do, and let's be honest here, Lenin is not referring to the "general worker" when he is referring to "the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy" and "labour leaders", he is referring to those social-democrats and other such scum who spend most of their time making millions in corporations and then become "labour leaders" when they want some fame, like for example Wouter Bos, the leader of the Dutch Labour Party who used to work at Shell as some executive director.

So no, he was not wrong, Chimx just took a few qoutes out of historical context and presented them as "Lenin's opinion".

chimx

19th August 2008, 14:15

Lenin does not consider the 'upper strata' to be the labor aristocracy, but rather the majority of trade union members.

That said, Lenin felt that things changed between Engels' time and his own. Speaking of the "bourgeoisification of workers" that Engels mentioned, Lenin said, " It was possible in those days to bribe and corrupt the working class of one country for decades. This is now improbable, if not impossible."

So no, Lenin is speaking of bribing the whole of the working class, not just the upper strata, but feels that such a plan is improbable with the development of monopoly capitalism worldwide. He instead thinks bribing the "upper strata" of workers is now all that is possible, which if you read the quote LZ posted, is still disagreeable with his inclusion of union members as opposed to the leaders and bureaucratic aristocracy.

Led Zeppelin

19th August 2008, 14:59

Let's see here:

Lenin does not consider the 'upper strata' to be the labor aristocracy, but rather the majority of trade union members.

"And in speaking of the British working class the bourgeois student of “British imperialism at the beginning of the twentieth century” is obliged to distinguish systematically between the “upper stratum” of the workers and the “lower stratum of the proletariat proper”. The upper stratum furnishes the bulk of the membership of co-operatives, of trade unions, of sporting clubs and of numerous religious sects. To this level is adapted the electoral system, which in Great Britain is still “sufficiently restricted to exclude the lower stratum of the proletariat proper"! In order to present the condition of the British working class in a rosy light, only this upper stratum—which constitutes a minority of the proletariat—is usually spoken of."

You should know that at the time Lenin was writing this, only a minority of proletarians were in trade-unions in Britain, hell, Lenin says this himself; "only this upper stratum—which constitutes a minority of the proletariat—is usually spoken of".

But Lenin does not even say that all of the "upper strata" is oppertunist or can be bribed, on the contrary, he says that only the "upper strata of the Labour Aristocracy" is bribed into oppertunism: "Obviously, out of such enormous superprofits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their “own” country) it is possible to bribe the labour leaders and the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy."

So only the upper stratum of the Labour Aristocracy (which in turn is the upper stratum of the proletariat) can be (and is) bribed, that sounds about right yes, I have already posted an example but there are numerous more, just look at the main Trade-Unions and Social-Democratic parties of your countries, and the leaders and bureaucracies which dominate them.

19th August 2008, 18:52

If TragicClown wanted more damning evidence of that this is a common position in Marxist circles, I would have suggested she quote Lenin rather than that flimsy Engels quote.

Clearly your interpretation is the obvious and correct one, the Trots here are just being opportunistic in denying the Leninist theory of imperialism's social implications for the working class.

It might however be pointed out that I've actually used the same 1916 Lenin pamphlet in revleft before: its not an either or thing Lenin and Engels positions are consistent with each other. Its these opportunistic national chauvinist trots who want demand the myth that Marxism is cultural workerism.

And, for god sake, for people who have been trumping up a small line deprived of context in Marx's pre-Das Kapital notes that he allowed to drop out of publication to be replaced with his later economic theory as 'proof' of their misinterpretation to deny a very late Engels letter to another economist written after the major Marxian economic and political works, and before Marx's death, is ridiculous.

Devrim

19th August 2008, 19:08

You should know that at the time Lenin was writing this, only a minority of proletarians were in trade-unions in Britain, hell, Lenin says this himself; "only this upper stratum—which constitutes a minority of the proletariat—is usually spoken of".

As a point of information in 1910 trade union members made up 14% of the British workforce, and in 1920 43%.

The majority of the increase in membership came in two periods, the syndicalist revolt 1910-14, and the second in the war years.

So the membership of Trade unions in 1916 can possibly be estimated at about two workers in five, a minority albeit a small one.

But Lenin includes more than the trade unions:

The upper stratum furnishes the bulk of the membership of co-operatives, of trade unions, of sporting clubs and of numerous religious sects.

It is hard to tell if these groups constituted a minority or a majority.

Lenin, however, believed in to be a minority:

In order to present the condition of the British working class in a rosy light, only this upper stratum—which constitutes a minority of the proletariat—is usually spoken of.

He was notoriously ill-informed about Western Europe though.

Devrim

Led Zeppelin

19th August 2008, 19:59

Regardless, the fact of the matter is that Lenin was a Marxist, not an idealist idiot like some people here who believe that most workers in the west are not exploited, and then try to put that same view on people like Marx, Engels and Lenin to justify it, while at the same time pretending to know everything about Marxist economic theory when in reality they know hardly anything and only repeat (and distort) general phrases.

And I think we all know who that refers to.

Out of curiosity though, what is the source for those numbers?

chimx

19th August 2008, 20:04

I don't think that is what TC believes. She said she agreed with me that the rates of exploitation are simply different, not that it ceases to exist with "western workers". I assume you believe this too as it is a very crucial point to Lenin's imperialism: that capitalists in imperialist countries can tap into 3rd world resources and extra "super-profits". The fact that there is "regular" and "super" surplus value extracted is enough to say that different rates of exploitation exist.

That said, there are others in the left that do take it a step further to say that many workers in the west have ceased being exploited. I agree with everybody that this opinion is wrong and that people should be educated otherwise, but it is not something that is restriction worthy and it is also something we need to acknowledge as being very common in Marxist-Leninist circles.

Led Zeppelin

19th August 2008, 20:13

I
That said, there are others in the left that do take it a step further to say that many workers in the west have ceased being exploited. I agree with everybody that this opinion is wrong and that people should be educated otherwise, but it is not something that is restriction worthy and it is also something we need to acknowledge as being very common in Marxist-Leninist circles.

You don't think hardly anything is restriction-worthy, so this is not a surprise.

I do.

Devrim

19th August 2008, 20:18

Out of curiosity though, what is the source for those numbers?

The source is a book called 'La Gauche Communiste en Allemagne (1918-1921)' by Gilles Dauvé and Denis Authier.

It has a table of percentage union membership, which looks something like this:

1910

1920

1930

Germany

8
42
24
Britain

14
43
22
United States

6
12
7

The bit about the periods of union growth comes from my general knowledge of the period, but a quick look at Wiki agrees:

The years 1910-14 witnessed serious industrial unrest and an enormous increase in trade union membership, which affected all industries, though to differing extents. World War I (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I) resulted in a further increase in union membership, as well as widespread recognition of unions and their increased involvement in management.

Devrim

EDIT: the table didn't come out as I planned, but I am sure people can understand it.

Zurdito

20th August 2008, 06:18

ok so let me get my head round this.

sorry to go "micro", but whatever...

let's say I own this web address and several others, and make a profit from it through advertising and charging members. I pay Malte to run it for me, and don't even visit the site. Each month, I get a profit, and I pay him his wages out of that. How did I make a profit if I didn't exploit him?

I feel embarrassed to use that example on Revleft, let alone the CC, but apparently a service sector worker isn't exploited, so therefore that wouldn't be exploitation. In fact, I wouldn't even be a capitalist, would I? As I don't invest any variable capital.

Now I can see the argument that sectors like this are wasteful and rest upon super exploitation in other sectors. But not how these sectors are "unproductive" - productive labour is anthing which meets a demand expressed in that society. If you demand that your car is washed and I pay the people I employ to wash it for you less than I charge you, then I exploit them, simple, so simple.

By the same token, mining diamonds for Paris Hilton to wear is not exactly socially "useful", but it's certainly productive labour, and the workers are certainly exploited. Isn't the whole point of capitalism that it's an anarchic system and that labour is wasted and production misdirected? and that therefore various sectors "boom" way beyond their social usefulness or their creation of anything useful to the "real economy", and out of this boom attract proletarians, who then...cease to be proletarians and become as parasitical on society as their employers? WTF?

So, are proletarians who work in factories making shoes for rich people to waste thier time buing too many pairs of, converted into parasites on their relatives who staed in the countryside producing rice or sugar? what if those proletarians experience rising living standards and betterliving standards than the peasantry thanks to this process and have some political allegience to groups committed to continuing it? Does this make them complicit with the bourgeoisie and the increasing move towards parasitical sectors of production in search of the highest rate of profit?

Now regarding third worldism.

Of course capitalists can make a common cause with their workers. if they couldn't, there would be reovlution in every country in the world! Obviously if the national bourgeoisie can export capital then it can for a time offset the need to step up the rate of exploitation at home. Brazil exports capital to most of south America (at least from Bolivia downwards), does this mean that Brazilian workers therefore exploit Argentinians? I'm pretty sure that Brazil's emergence as a regional power in some part helps its recent economic boom (making Lula the regions most popular President I think, or maybe after Uribe), so therefore, the Brazialian proletariats interests are identical to those of the bourgeoisie?

Or maybe if the Chinese state can send peasants to settle Tibet and offset land shortages, then Chinese peasants have a common interest with the Chinese bourgeoisie, and exploit Tibet.

In Argentina this year there was mass public support in favour of the land owning oligarchy being exempt from taxes and price controls by the central government - workers in small provincial towns and landless super-exploited rural workers saw a common interest in that if these regions were booming and exempt from having their wealth taken by the centralised state, then there would be more business in their towns/more work on the farm, = higher wages, etc. Even the industrial proletariate by a majority in m experience and the experience of nearly all activists here, supported the lockout by the landowners, using the logic that it was demand from this boom that was keeping them in work and keeping their wages growing.

The point being, that 1.) bourgeois ideology does convince many workers in all countries that what is best for an economic boom, i.e. maximum measures to increase the rate of profit, is best for everyone, 2.) that it's extremely easy to divide workers along regional/national lines in the hope that their own area can boom at the expense of others, and 3.) the third world is not exactly ont he verge of revolution so the whole "where's the revolution in the west" line is pretty poor. In fact France has come closer to a revolution in the past 5 ears than Argentina or Brazil have.

PS, it should be noted that the moaists in Argentina supported the lockout, so, at least no internal contradiction I guess.

chimx

20th August 2008, 06:27

your micro example doesn't really work as it doesn't take into account labor division spread through multiple countries. The theory is I believe that workers in the west don't create a surplus value and instead the capitalist only actually makes a profit from the exploitation of 3rd world labor.

For example close to my town, Boeing employs tens of thousands of employees here in Seattle. They make the airplanes and make on average about $27/hr. However, they don't create the planes from scratch, but rather they assemble large parts of them from smaller components that are created overseas, presumably at a cheaper cost to the capitalist. The capitalist extraxts the super-surplus value from the 3rd world worker and bribes the Boeing employee with a pay rate that exceeds the value of his labor to assemble them.

That is the idea at least. I think it is silly.

Zurdito

20th August 2008, 06:55

well it was just an example about the service sector.

but to expand it in that direction: using that example, if I go bust and sack Malte, and then he finds work in a post-bust, much more competitive, globalised market, for a multi-nat, with less rights as a worker and more profit made from each unit of variable capital invested in him (and from what I have read the third worldists here do not deny that a profit s made from variable capital invested in service sector or first world workers and that it gets a return, but simply say that this isn't the same as exploitation), then how did he go from being exploited int he first example but not in the second? OR he wasn't exploited in the second.

BTW I use that example because it's true to life outline for man in the western working class in the last 30 years.

Devrim

20th August 2008, 07:01

For example close to my town, Boeing employs tens of thousands of employees here in Seattle. They make the airplanes and make on average about $27/hr. However, they don't create the planes from scratch, but rather they assemble large parts of them from smaller components that are created overseas, presumably at a cheaper cost to the capitalist. The capitalist extraxts the super-surplus value from the 3rd world worker and bribes the Boeing employee with a pay rate that exceeds the value of his labor to assemble them.

The point as you know is nonsense. Boeing buys the smaller components (I doubt very much that they own the suppliers) and then uses them to make planes. They make a profit on this activity, and value is produced. If they didn't they wouldn't do it.

Devrim

LuÃs Henrique

20th August 2008, 11:14

The point as you know is nonsense. Boeing buys the smaller components (I doubt very much that they own the suppliers) and then uses them to make planes. They make a profit on this activity, and value is produced. If they didn't they wouldn't do it.

Typically they don't own the suppliers.

The reasoning for this outsourcing is also always very clear:

"We outsource the parts of the production process that add less value to the final product, and keep to ourselves the parts that add the most value."

That's the reason why Boeing is a gigantic company, while its suppliers are, generally speaking, much, much, much smaller.

Now it is true that the monopolistic character of Boeing enables it to impose rules on its suppliers, and even to maintain its profits in a higher margin, so that, from the pov of its bourgeois suppliers, Boeing "exploits" and "oppresses" them, because a part of the surplus value they extract from their workers is necessarily redistributed to Boeing. But this has nothing to do with Boeing workers not being exploited.

Luís Henrique

Die Neue Zeit

25th October 2008, 02:53

1.) Anyone who claims "western" workers are not exploited should be out of the CC.
2.) Anyone who claims "service sector" workers are not exploited because they "don't produce anything" (like services aren't produced, or at least are an "inherent part of the products") should be out of the CC.
3.) Anyone who identifies lawyers, managers, cops, preachers etc. with the "service sector" workers should be out of the CC, or restricted.
4.) Anyone who claims "western" workers exploit "third world" workers should be restricted.

Given the new cops thread in the Learning forum, why didn't you start such expulsion threads? ;)

As for chimx's remarks on "bribery," for the most part the notion that First World workers aren't exploited for their labour value is BS. However, I have entertained exceptions (but NOT pertaining to tred-iunionisty): high-profile "celebrities" who don't invest their big $$$ (certain actors, athletes, "journalists," and so on). Any thoughts?

Hiero

25th October 2008, 09:27

Given the new cops thread in the Learning forum, why didn't you start such expulsion threads?

He did. The thread was closed because it lacked any coherency to be enforced. And really most people are too ill-informed to vote in such a thread.

Bilan

25th October 2008, 09:32

As for chimx's remarks on "bribery," for the most part the notion that First World workers aren't exploited for their labour value is BS.

Yes, that is exactly what it is, but I'll put it bluntly: It's fucking bullshit, and those who adhere to it are anti-working class and should be booted out of the CC. Period.

However, I have entertained exceptions (but NOT pertaining to tred-iunionisty): high-profile "celebrities" who don't invest their big $$$ (certain actors, athletes, "journalists," and so on). Any thoughts?

Those people aren't really "workers" now, are they?
I think most of them would sit, if within the proletariat at all, in the very upper layers of it.
More, they exist everywhere - "developing world" or "developed world".

chimx

30th October 2008, 07:14

Those people aren't really "workers" now, are they?

Of course they are. They're dues-paying union members who sell their labor power to earn a living.

Yes, that is exactly what it is, but I'll put it bluntly: It's fucking bullshit, and those who adhere to it are anti-working class and should be booted out of the CC. Period.

How is it "anti-working class"

Plagueround

30th October 2008, 09:23

Of course they are. They're dues-paying union members who sell their labor power to earn a living.

What about movie stars who make more from the movie production than the movie makes? Is the studio now a member of the proletariat? OMG MINDFUCK! :lol:

chimx

30th October 2008, 14:56

movie stars are dues-paying union members who sellt heir labor power to earn a living.

Plagueround

30th October 2008, 21:14

movie stars are dues-paying union members who sell their labor power to earn a living.

Disregarding the fact that very few of these stars are likely to not invest their money and sticking with that definition, is it possible an all encompassing analysis of what defines working class may need a little objective thought beyond the rigid definition of a person's relationship to the means of production? I have a hard time believing when defining "workers" Karl anticipated or included someone who makes more from one movie than a small business owner manages to make in their entire lifetime (despite being an "owner"). I'm certainly not as well versed in Marx as some here, but it seems capitalism has become much more complicated than it was in his time (although almost all of his critiques still hold a lot of truth).

Bilan

2nd November 2008, 10:36

How is it "anti-working class"?

How is disregarding the exploitation of the working class in the developed world, anti-working class?
Don't be daft.

Hiero

2nd November 2008, 14:05

Disregarding the fact that very few of these stars are likely to not invest their money and sticking with that definition, is it possible an all encompassing analysis of what defines working class may need a little objective thought beyond the rigid definition of a person's relationship to the means of production? I have a hard time believing when defining "workers" Karl anticipated or included someone who makes more from one movie than a small business owner manages to make in their entire lifetime (despite being an "owner"). I'm certainly not as well versed in Marx as some here, but it seems capitalism has become much more complicated than it was in his time (although almost all of his critiques still hold a lot of truth).

Karl Marx actually did. The problem is understanding Karl Marx. He uses terms that have very specific objective, economic and scientific purposes. Marx not only look at the system of workers and capitalist, he looked specifically at how capital is created, what role classes and individuals play in this. Also Karl Marx wrote political stuff, which are really no more then long pamphlets which are political conclusions made from his economic findings.

The political pamphlets over time will become obsolete. So people make a great error and read say something like "Communist Manifesto" and conclude two things 1) this represents the modern world 2) This is Marxism. It is a political pamphlet derivide from Marxism. It is not comparable to the economic work of Karl Marx.

People continute to make this error and use Karl Marx's political stuff as science, or when they try to use the more scientific/economic stuff they do not understand the level of difference and make general statements out of very sophisticated work.

We see on this site this problems occuring constantly. When discussing class for instance a few people get confused between workers who have some authority and workers who do not. Not understanding Marxism, they take on a Weberian analysis of a corporate structure. Weber was a sociologist who look more specifical how power was distributed through structures other then class. So all of sudden a worker who has a bit of power becomes petty-bourgeosie.

Take another example in this thread.

Now I can see the argument that sectors like this are wasteful and rest upon super exploitation in other sectors. But not how these sectors are "unproductive" - productive labour is anthing which meets a demand expressed in that society. If you demand that your car is washed and I pay the people I employ to wash it for you less than I charge you, then I exploit them, simple, so simple.

Sure very simple. Productive labour meets a demand expressed in society. That is a very reasonable explanation of society determining what is productive. However it is not Marxism. Marxism is materialism, material conditions determine ideas, ideas do not determine material conditions. So how can the superstructure determine what is and isn't productive in economic matters (base or structure)?

When Karl Marx talks about productive labour, he talks about an objective thing in society. Thoose people who engage in labour that does not generate surplus value which then turns into capital is unproductive labour. He looked at such people say a self employed singer, or tutor. The earn money, they even make a profit. This profit goes straight to expenses such as neccisites of life and the material needed to keep employment. The labour never creates surplus value. If the singer or tutor works for a company, sells their labour to a capitalist, and the profit is taken by the capitalist, this is productive labour. The profit becomes surplus value and latter capital. It is reinvested back into the company to start again to make more profit and in turn capital. It is productive labour. This is how Karl Marx used the term, forgot what ever google dictionary tells you, Karl Marx is using this terms above general usage.

Thoose are some of the complexities Marx was dealing with in his time. So imagine today the complexities in a late imperialist world. Now if people can't even understand what Karl Marx had to deal with then, and constantly choose to ignore sources cited then how are they able to deal with modern complexities? The reality is they don't. They take a very dogmatic approach to Marxism. This limited and dogmatic approach leads to horrendous threads like this one where they hide behind their philistine views and very limited understanding of Marx and try to stifle debate about these complexities as it is outside thier naive view of political economy.

And look what happens, when you mention the possibility of a large section of western workers engaging in unproductive labour, not being explioted and thus wages being paid by the productive side of labour in the 3rd world, people just want you to shut up as he endangers their fantasy their 1st world revolution is just around the corner. And ofcourse they will quote some outdate political pamphelt by Marx and ignore the economic and scientific work, which are the working tools of Marxism.

Also take note that in the example people keep bringing up, they constantly confuse profit with surplus value. So basically if you work at a shop, and you are sales person and you sell a tv for $1000, people here believe your labour value is $1000 because you worked to make that sale.

Nothing Human Is Alien

2nd November 2008, 20:25

I don't want to commit the time to get too involved in this discussion, but...

Also take note that in the example people keep bringing up, they constantly confuse profit with surplus value. So basically if you work at a shop, and you are sales person and you sell a tv for $1000, people here believe your labour value is $1000 because you worked to make that sale.That's obviously not the case.. But "some people here" think that salesperson isn't exploited.. or even isn't a worker.

Of course we have to look at the complete process of production, from the extraction of raw materials, to transportation, packaging, and finally, sales. This is all a part of the commodity process.

To put it simply, all the workers involved in the commodity process "put it" more than they "take out." They're all exploited.

"It is indeed the characteristic feature of the capitalist mode of production that it separates the various kinds of labour from each other, therefore also mental and manual labour – or kinds of labour in which one or another predominates – and distributes them among different people. This however does not prevent the material product from being the common product of these persons, or their common product embodied in material wealth; any more than on the other hand it prevents or in any way alters the relation of each one of these persons to capital being that of wage-labourer and in this pre-eminent sense being that of productive labourer. All these persons are not only directly engaged in the production of material wealth, but they exchange their labour directly for money as capital, and consequently directly reproduce, in addition to their wages a surplus value for the capitalist." - Marx

* * *

As for the labor aristocracy, we've discussed it before. Many folks here are under the mistaken idea that the labor aristocracy is made up of the workers who have struggled for gains and won. That's incorrect. The labor aristocracy is made up of those at the very top of workers organizations like unions, not rank-and-file workers.

Here's an old thread on the question (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=967614&postcount=170).

And the labor aristocracy is not limited to the imperialist countries: "...imperialist capitalism creates both in colonies and semicolonies a stratum of labor aristocracy and bureaucracy..." - Trotsky, “Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay.”