Reply To: Harry Cleaver replies
Not having read Cleaver’s book, I am limited in what I can say about his comments above. Perhaps what lies behind the criticism of Cleaver’s point about the capitalists imposing work on the workers is that it, inadvertently or otherwise, gives credence to the politicians’ constant mantra about need for investment to “create jobs”. Investment is not undertaken by capitalists so that workers can have jobs and earn a living. Investment is undertaken by capitalists essentially with a view to securing a financial return. No Profit, No Production.
Cleaver’s comments on class struggle, reform and revolution seem a little confused. No one is suggesting that the struggle for higher wages is not something workers should engage in. But that is not reformism. Like so many on the Left, Cleaver is conflating trade union struggle with reformism and coming to quite the wrong conclusion – that opposition to reformism (which is essentially a political struggle) means opposition to workers struggling for higher wages – an economic struggle waged by trade unions. Marx himself made this distinction in his letter to Bracke and it is a crucial one
On the question of wage levels, while it true that this is influenced by the intensity of class struggle, it is also true that the intensity of class struggle is, in turn, influenced by other factors over which workers or indeed capitalists, have no control – notably capitalism’s tendency towards periodic recessions. As for the “social wage” there is no such thing as a free lunch in capitalism. Insofar as free services and forms of state welfare have to be paid for, the money obviously has to come from somewhere. Ultimately it derives from the capitalists’ profits through taxation.
Being a deduction from profits which Cleaver seems to agree “are essential to maintaining and expanding the imposition of work”, this must logically express itself as a compensating downward pressure on wages as a key component of the capitalists’ cost of production . Or does Cleaver imagine the capitalists through their political representatives in the capitalist state extend to the workers a social wage out of the goodness of their hearts? Of course not. Capitalists are in competition with each other domestically and on the international stage. To that end they have to cut costs to minimum and the question of social wage must therefore be organically linked to the question of the money wages worker receive, insofar as they both impact on profit levels . These things are not hermetically sealed off from each other but interact through the whole system of capitalist financing.
Of course, it does not follow that, if the social wage goes up, the money wage will automatically go down. No one is saying that. Obviously this tendency is mediated by the class struggle even if the efficacy of this struggle is constrained by other factors such as the onset of recessions. But if Cleaver is suggesting that there is NOT a long term tendency for the social wage and the money wage to relate to each in an inverse fashion then I think he is wrong and I dont think it is a view that Marx would have endorsed either. It would render his entire labour theory of value incoherent.