[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

FFS  this is what is so infuriating  about LBird. . He never makes any attempt to defend his argument,  He just repeats it over and over and over again – like a JW arguing against evolutionIf you are trained as a molecular biologist are you bound to know more than about more molecular biology than some one who is not trained?  Of course you are!! LBird I cant believe even you are that dense as to deny  this.  Of course, the  rest of can come to know as much about molecular biology if we too were inclined to train up to become molecular biologists as well.  But thats not going to happen in the real world is it? 

Here we have again robbo's individualist, elitist ideology, which completely ignores socio-historical production, and the future of a socialist society, which must be built, by us, employing Marx's method of social theory and practice, using democratic methods from the outset.All this political thinking means nothing to robbo – he's an individualist (he doesn't aim for the democratic control of social production, but for the realisation of the bourgeois ideal of 'free individuals') and an elitist (he assumes that academics 'know better' what 'our world' should look like, than we should). All this elitist individualism (ie. ruling class ideas) comes from robbo's belief in 'matter', which an 'individual' (like him) can 'touch' (by his 'biological' senses).I've said this, time and again, as a political explanation, and to defend the argument of democratic socialists. But, apparently, given his 'senses', robbo can't read. Ironic, eh?But, for Democratic Communists, like me, and for Marx, the defining assumption is 'democratic social production'. The earth is a common treasury, for all, and the social production by all for all, based upon our common resources, can only be realised by democratic means.robbo completely ignores the political and philosophical basis of his ruling class ideology, and so doesn't start from 'democracy' in academia.During the building towards socialism, the ideological dominance of bourgeois academics and bourgeois elitist science, must be replaced by a form of education and science more suitable to the needs, interests and purposes of the revolutionary proletariat. So, we'll see the emergence of challenges to the assumptions of bourgeois education (which robbo ignorantly shares), so that our assumption will be that there will not be an 'academic elite' who isolatedly conduct 'science' for their own ideological purposes. Professors-for-us will be elected, and we will determine what ideological concepts the 'professors' employ in our research, in the buildings and facilities we provide, for our scientific needs, interests and purposes. If the elected can't explain in a language suitable to us, they'll be removed. There won't be any 'priests' using 'Latin' to explain 'The Bible'. Or 'physicists' using 'maths' to explain 'matter'. These are revolutionary assumptions, democratic assumptions, suitable for a revolution.robbos' assumptions, that 'scientists know better' than we do, and that this is a state of nature that can't be changed, says everything about his political ideology, which has nothing whatsoever to say to workers who wish to build towards a democratic socialism.robbo knows nothing, and always resorts to insults, of the sort typical of those who think that most workers are thick as pigshit, and can't argue with professors, like Hawking, who even the SPGB has recently corrected.I've said all this to robbo, but he never discusses 'science' as a social and historical activity, or the social production of 'matter', which we can, as Marx argued, change. robbo wants elite contemplation of 'Truth'.'Materialists' follow robbo, and follow Engels, who didn't have a clue what Marx was talking about, and thought that Marx had reverted to the 'Mind-Matter' problem. Marx unified 'Mind-Matter' as 'conscious activity', where both are required. Any discussion of 'matter' outside of its socio-historical production is a reversion to 'materialism', whereas Marx was an 'idealist-materialist', and he says so, and he criticises 'materialists' as elitists.So, Marx was right about you, robbo. 'The real world'? Conservatives unite, eh, robbo?

 I see the Leninist windbag and ex SWPer,  LBird, is at at again – completely misrepresenting what his opponents have to say as per usual. Im bored with having to endlessly  debunk the BS he constantly churns out and if  he thinks I am an "individualist" he would also have to criticise Marx as an individualist too.  Marx after all said things like “the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all" Thats sheer individualism by LBird's warped thinking so why does not LBird condemn Marx as a "bourgeois individualist" ? As for the "social production of truth" , yes "truth" , or what people believe to be the truth, is socially produced but that does not mean you have to vote on it for chrissakes!. LBird fails to understand what the issue is about.   My toothbrush is also "socially produced if you think of all the components that go to make a toohbrush.  Could I be bothered to vote on all the multiple processes involved in putting togther a toothbrush?  Hell no! Its idiocies like this and idiots  who propound them that reduce socialism to a laughing stock in the eyes of workers I dont want "elite contemplation of the Truth" because 1)  i dont want scientifc theories rigidified into eternal dogmas sanctified and rubber stamped by a vote which is what Lbirds wants and 2) becuase as far I am concerned if somebody wants to have a say about a  particular scientific theory then let them; there should be no barriers whatsoever on debate.  So actually my position is an ANTI-elitist one  What I am saying is quite different though LBird lacks the wit to grasp this – that in practice the sheer logistics of getting to grips  with any particular field  of scientifc endeavour means that the very most anyone can hope to achieve is to become thoroughly competent in one or two fields perhaps and therefore to remain relatively ignorant in thousands of other fields.  Its inevitable and its not a problem for a socialist society anyway. Does LBird deny this?  Can he seriously tell us that each and every one of us can become a trained and accomplished Molecular biologist and a trained and accomplished practitioner of every other of field of scientific  endeavour as well?  Over to you LBird.   Answer the question and stop ducking it.  Would you have just anyone come into the hospital and perfom a surgical operation on your brain in  communist society? Why are you so terrifed of anwering a straightforward question?

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

You keep insisting that only a materialist minority can determine 'truth'

Can you site one instance where anyone other than yourself has said that?  For instance, I would sugest that Robbo has never said that, …

Read robbo's post following yours, YMS. And then tell me what he says. He doesn't mention workers' democracy, only elites, who are 'bound to know' better than the rest of us.

 FFS  this is what is so infuriating  about LBird. . He never makes any attempt to defend his argument,  He just repeats it over and over and over again – like a JW arguing against evolution If you are trained as a molecular biologist are you bound to know more than about more molecular biology than some one who is not trained?  Of course you are!! LBird I cant believe even you are that dense as to deny  this.  Of course, the  rest of can come to know as much about molecular biology if we too were inclined to train up to become molecular biologists as well.  But thats not going to happen in the real world is it?  Apart from form anything else there are tens of thousands of other jobs that need to be done for society to continue and for which people likewise need to be trained.  So it is only right and proper, and eminently sensible, that people shuld be able to pursue whatever job or jobs that interest them most.  It is literally impossible to become a specialist in everything  – unless LBird  believes humans beings are capable of attaining  divine like omiscience  (which wouldnt suprise me in the least given his oher crackpot ideas he has been peddling here)  or  he believes that specialism and a social division of labour can be eliminated with all the obvious consequences that flow from this,  Presumably LBird thinks just anyone can be snatched randomly off the street to perform a surgical operation on his brain.  I would love for him to put this into practice.  Actually come to think of it , who knows – it might actually result in an improvement in his thinking prowess Does the facr that a molecular biologist trained in her specialised field is bound to know more than a person who is not trained mean that she has any more power over anyone else in a socialist sciety,  Once again, and emphatically – NO! It is in the arena of practical decisionmaking that a "real workers democracy" will exist, NOT in the arena of abstract scientific debate for which there is simply no need for democratic desisonmaking.  It would be quite stupid and pointless trying to democratically determine the "truth" of a scientific theory and also, incidentally, totally against the spirit of scientific enquiry which is supposed to be constantly self critical and opposed to the establishment of rigid dogmatic "truths"    Deal with the argument I presented for saying this, LBird ,  Dont just boringly repeat over and over again your same old dogmatic postulate which forms the beginning middle and end of every argument you ever attempt here

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

MBellemare wrote:

As for May 68, any idea of a Leninist, vangard party, armed-revolution and/or a storming of the winter-palace, is super-problematic to me, as they tend to lead down dark, bloody, rabbit holes. 

I think you will find that that is precisely what  the SPGB has been saying for 100 years now,  Vanguardism can only have one outcome – to reproduce a class based society as the vanguard steps into the shoes vacated by the old ruling class

But you support 'Material Vanguardism', robbo.You keep insisting that only a materialist minority can determine 'truth', and you openly say that you won't allow workers to democratically decide whether to employ the ideological concept of 'matter' (which you pretend contains 'truth'), or whether to replace 'matter' with (as the bourgeoisie suggest) 'mass' or 'energy', or with (as Marx suggested) 'inorganic nature' (which is his rendering of Ancient Greek concepts like 'hupokeimenon' or 'prote hule').Whilst the SPGB doesn't challenge Engels' 'materialism', it will remain, in effect as a "Leninist, vanguard party", which MB succinctly analyses in political terms. 'Matter' is a 'dark, bloody, rabbit hole'. 'Matter' can't be voted upon (it supposedly 'just exists', whereas 'hupokeimenon' is simply a passive ingredient into social labour), whereas the product of our work upon 'inorganic nature' can be voted upon.The only answer is Marx's: workers' democracy, and social theory and practice, in our production of our world, 'organic nature'.

  Christ, not this boring crap yet again from the ever predictable, LBird No, LBird, by "vangardism" I mean the capture of political power by a minority in advance of the majority becoming socialist .  I am not referring to the fact that  a trained Molecular Biologist is bound to know a lot more about molecular biology than the rest of us who are not trained and are probably for the most not likely to be particularly interested in the subject. In socialism a Molecular Biologist will have no more power than anyone else because the social relationships of socialism – free access to goods and services and volunteer labour – dissolve the very structure of  political power itself.  Its only Leninists like yourself with your bizarre obsessive utopian vision of society wide planning and the impostion of a  single mega plan on the whole of humanity, who will massively reinforced elite power by default  and completely destroy all trace of democracy in the process. 7 billion people can't possibly all become trained Molecular Biologists – let alone trained in al those other occupations that exist out there. So there are very obvious  structural limits to what we can contribute to the "truth" of some theory in the field of molecular biology.  – though why you want for us  to vote on such a "truth" escapes me.  Your exhibit the exactly same mentality that Medieval authorities of the Roman Catholic Church  displayed towards those who would question their dogma that the sun revolved aorund the earth and not the other way round.  Except you want to enshrine scientific truth as a dogma by giving it the rubber stamp of a democratic vote by 7 billion people rather than the word of God .  But that has got sod all to do with what democracy is supposed to be about Unless you propose that all specialisiation and any kind of social division of labour should be eradicated in socialism, and provide us with some compelling reason why this would be both remotely feasible and beneficial,  then your drivel will continue to be regarded with the contempt and ridicule it richly deserves

[robbo203]

Dave B wrote:

  The argument was or inferred by neo Leninists that they could have had communism in Russia in 1914 or whatever because it was a large economy or the 5th largest etc. And was thus not a backward country. That was not Lenin’s position incidentally around the time and somewhere he said Russia as regards economic backwardness was like that of China.  

  Sure, I understand the point you are making,  The neo Leninists you refer to would be dead wrong to infer that  socialism was possible in Russia back them  because in terms of aggregate output the Russia economy was the fifth largest in the world at that time (even assuming you can have "socialism in one country" which you can't).  This would be to overlook that what counts as far as the "objective preconditions" for socialism are concerned is  not aggregate output but the per capita output – or per capita productivity,  The evidence I have come across suggests this was on the low side both for industry and agriculture  (Tsarist Russia had to resort to large scale wheat imports at times) and certainly, not enough to sustain a socialist society.  Neverthlesss, that doesnt invalidate the point that Russia at the time was the 5th largest eonomy if only becuase of its huge population, relatively speaking

[robbo203]

MBellemare wrote:

 As for May 68, any idea of a Leninist, vangard party, armed-revolution and/or a storming of the winter-palace, is super-problematic to me, as they tend to lead down dark, bloody, rabbit holes. 

 I think you will find that that is precisely what  the SPGB has been saying for 100 years now,  Vanguardism can only have one outcome – to reproduce a class based society as the vanguard steps into the shoes vacated by the old ruling class

[robbo203]

Dave B wrote:

 That we looked at or I presented on libcom a few years ago. It was due to the nonsense about Russia being the 5thlargest economy in the world in 1905 or whatever. Which wasn’t Lenin’s position as he took the position that Russia was one of the most backward. 

 Dave I  am curious as to why you say it is "nonsense"  that Russia was the fifth largest economy in  the tsarist times – a claim I have come across myself as well.  In per capita terms, yes, Russia was backward but in aggregate terms, given the sheer size of the population,  the claim seems reasonable.  In fact, Russia had some of the largest and technologically advanced factories in the world  at the time  – like the giant Putilov works.  After the disaster of the Crimean war, there was quite a serious push to industrialise the economy

[robbo203]

Hud955 wrote:

  Then by means of an abstract argument based on labour-time it argued that workers in the "global north"  (the terminology morphed as well at this point.)  directly consumed the labour of workers in the "global south".  

Just one small point,  Rchard, that might be worth emphasising in your debate with this guy… There is no question that in the productive sector of the global north, workers are clearly exploited. I earlier gave an example .  While average hourly cost of employing factory workers in America was $23.32, these same workers produced on average an hourly output of $73.45    So they produce far more than they get back in return and the economic surplus is then distributed in all sorts of ways. One of these ways is ultimately  to finance the unproductive sector of the economy.  Does that mean that workers in the unproductive sector are "exploiting" workers in the productive sector?  Of course not.  The idea is absurd.  In Marx's time there were apparently about one million domestic female servants  in England.    By the logic of these Maoist Third Worldist types, the scullery maid in a stately home was exploiting her sister who worked as a factory hand in a textile mill! Of course the make up of the unproductive sector is very different today than it was in Marx's time.  Rather than being focussed on the personal consumption needs of the capitalists,  it has developed much more directly out of the commercial and other needs of the productive sector  itself.  The salaries of bank workers, for example, are ultimately financed out of surplus value but that hardly puts these workers in an exploitatitve relationship  vis=a-vis workers in the productive sector.  Capitalism needs banks as much as it needs the productive sector to generate the surplus value (from which the banks take a cut in the form of interest payments) for capital accummulation and so needs to employ workers to work  in both the unproductive and productive sectors of the economy.  Exploitation occurs at the level of the working class as a whole whatever sector they work in.  That is why you cannot really separate productive and unproductive workers along the lines that one is exploited and the other not –  for much the same reason that you cannot have  a properly functioning productive sector in a  modern capitalist without a whole host of unproductive activities coexisting alongside it.  These latter provide for  the necessary conditions under which the realisation of surplus value can occur

[robbo203]

MBellemare wrote:

@Robbo Comment #264  You raise important issues. I see you are mulling over the same issues. I would say that "theoretically" price can be increased, ad infinitum. The theory, I've introduced, stipulates so.  The reason they are not raised immediately is the social antagonism from the working population.The imperative I introduce is: "Whatever an entity can get away with in the marketplace is valid and legitimate". This does not mean that entities get away with their price manipulations everytime. There are times when there is push back. Notwithstanding, I would argue that we are right now in the early stages of a broad tendency to raise prices beyond the reach of the working population, where capitalists are beginning a long protracted war of attrition, since the 1970s, againt the working population, to return the working population into servitude over the next century or so. An economic slavery akin to feudalism! I see the advent of return to the dark ages, a corporate dark age, where knowledge is suppressed, knowledge advancement is suppresed, knowledge sharing is suppressed, technology is suppressed etc. I call this the rise of  micro-fascism, where no-one of any significance advances and only the obedient and obedience is rewards and worthy of merit, and given positions of influence. Universities in north america are increasingly closed spaces filled with the indoctrinated, who produce indoctrination on a mass scale.  As a result, the working population increasingly finds itself in a the predicament of social immobility, stagnation, both intellectually and financially.     

 Hmmm,  This all sounds  a bit like conspiracy theory to me, Michel – the capitalists colluding to impose some sort of neofeudalistic fascist regime on an increasingly regimented and servile working class.  I am very wary of these kinds of Big Brother dystopian narratives.  You make the capitalists sound  like some kind of uber race endowed with a superior knowlege, foresight and an ability to cooperate that workers singularly lack,  The capitalists are nothing special and they certainly dont control their system,  They cannot just direct it to  behave in whatever  fashion they desire.  A return to the Dark Ages? How are they going to possibly enforce that in this day and age of social networking – not to mention continuous and growing  displays of popular discontent? Nope I cant see things panning out as you suggest.  Instead, I think  capitalist society will just continue to muddle through as it always does unless and until workers collectively and consciously takes steps  to bring it an end – or else some catastrophic event like a nuclear war happens  I suppose its the Jeremiah in you that prompts you to say right we are "right now in the early stages of a broad tendency to raise prices beyond the reach of the working population",  But why would capitalists want to do that? They want to sell  their goods and increase their market share vis-a-vis their market rivals.  They dont want to be lumbered with a whole bunch of unsold commodities which workers cannot afford to buy ,  which  will force them to cut back on production and thereby curtail the flow of profts coming their way.   And as I have said several time now,  it is simply not true that ALL prices are rising in relative terms.   There  many kinds of goods which relatively speaking are cheaper today than the were a decade ago, for example.  I provided you with one or two links making this point.   

MBellemare wrote:

I would argue that the coercive laws of competition can be short-circuited, via "networking", an unquantifiable force influencing price. If we had true competition, as Marx argued, capitalism would have collapsed decades ago, as profits would have deterioriated to nil. Capitalists do price their goods too high, hence the rising debt-load upon the working population.  

 When did Marx say if we had true competition capitalism would have collapsed?  I  would be interested if you could cite a source for this claim .  My understanding is that Marx did not believe capitalism would collapse of its own accord though  his buddy,  Freddy Engels thought it might in the 1880s I fail to see how the  laws of competititon can be shortcircuited via "networking" and  you dont really explain the mechanics of this process anyay.  Marx made the point in Grundrisse that " Capital exists and can only exist as many capitals".  Even in the most collectivised and heavily regulated version  of capitalism – the so called command economy of Soviet state capitalism where prices were (supposedly) set by the central authorities , there was intense competition at  every level of society over funding and materials allocations , most notably between the state enterprises themselves which were obliged to keep profit and loss accounts and could be heavily penalised by going into  the red.and  so effectively functioned as separate capitals in their own right If Soviet state capitalism went nowhere near to shortcuiting the laws of competition, how do you propose to do this via "networking"?

[robbo203]

gnome wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

The SP should be churning out several pamphets a year along these lines.  As a format it is so obviously convenient when you have to refer people to the socialist position on a particular subject matter.  I dont know why the Party does not do it

Currently the SP doesn't appear to have the human resources capable of "churning out several pamphlets a year".  We've managed to produce the Martov one so far this year but we're having difficulty getting the one on the Russian Revolution out in time for the centenary…

 Thats a pity Dave.  Perhaps the idea needs to be promoted in the SP to see what kind of response  it elicits. Does the Party not have a "pamphlets committee" (or whatever it was called)  anymore? Such a body could take it upon itself to commision pamphlets by directly approaching individual writers to come up with something or, as Alan suggests, compile pamphlets out of old articles with a common theme. I cant stress enough the benefits of having publications in a pamphlet form.  It enables a much more detailed , multi-angled and rounded  examination of a particular subject than is possible with an isolated article appearing in the SS. I know I have mentioned this example before but take the case of the Libertarian Alliance which the SPGB has debated on several occasions.  They are a tiny outfit, a fraction of the size of the SPGB, yet they manage to produce an astounding array of publications.  Check out their literature stock here  http://www.libertarian.co.uk/?q=publications Why can't the SPGB do something similar? It just needs the imagination and the will to make it happen

[robbo203]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Once more we have the "progressive' demand for the UBIhttps://commons.commondreams.org/t/why-we-need-a-universal-basic-income/45041/8Isn't it time to dedicate a pamphlet that explains the con that is taking place, rather than expect visitors to this forum or our website to search for the scattered critique of the Citizen's Wage.It needn't be a print pamphlet but an online collation of our articles re-formatted and re-edited for better reading.

 Indeed,  Alan,  The SP should be churning out several pamphets a year along these lines.  As a format it is so obviously convenient when you have to refer people to the socialist position on a particular subject matter.  I dont know why the Party does not do it

[robbo203]

Hud955 wrote:

Thanks for the useful examples, Robin.  I get that. The problem I have however, is that writers like Zac Cope use this fact to feed into their superprofits argument.    And in this part of his argument perhaps he is correct.   Producers in the global north can use market, and particularly labour, arbitrage to trade with "third world" producers on very unfavourable terms.    Marx dealt with that and outlined the mechanism clearly.  And these days monopolistic practices also have an effect. 

 Richard,  I recommend  you read Charlie Post on this subject of superprofits and the supposedly "bribed" labour aristocracy in the so called First WorldAs far as capitalists based in the First World are concerned, the proportion of total capital invested abroad – and even more so, in the Third World – is actually remarkably small by comparison with what is invested at "home".  According to Post:Imperialist investment, particularly in the global South, represents a tiny portion of global capitalist investment. Foreign direct investment makes up only 5% of total world investment – that is to say, 95% of total capitalist investment takes place within the boundaries of each industrialized country.  Of that five percent of total global investment that is foreign direct investment, nearly three-quarters flow from one industrialized country – one part of the global North – to another. Thus only 1.25% of total world investment flows from the global North to the global South. It is not surprising that the global South accounts for only 20% of global manufacturing output, mostly in labor-intensive industries such as clothing, shoes, auto parts and simple electronics. ("The Labor Aristocracy Myth" , International Viewpoint Online magazine : IV381 – September 2006  These figures are a little dated and describe the situation  prior to 2000; they dont fully take into account the rapid growth, since then, of transnational corporate investment in China, in particular.  However, even if we update the figures, the overall picture still remains essentially the same: only a tiny fraction of global investment flows takes – or ever took –  the form of Direct Foreign Investment (FDI) by the global North in the global South  Even if we allow that the rate of profit in theThird World was significantly higher, on average than what  was obtained in the First World at the time Lenin was writing (and despite capitalisms tendency for profits rates to equalise) – thereby justifying use of the term, "superprofits" –   the total mass of profit accruing from FDIs in the Third World would still have been, and continues to be, comparatively small – at least compared to the total return on investments domestically or even elsewhere in the First World itself.  (This is to say nothing of capital flows in the other direction – from the Third world to First).  The evidence suggests that around that time – in the period leading up to the First World War – in the case of Britain (then the world's leading capitalist power), not only was  total FDI a small fraction of total domestic investment, but would also tend to vary in proportion to the latter.  In other words,  FDI would be high when domestic investment was high and low when the latter was low  (Lance E Davis and Robert A Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, Cambridge 1986, p.39).    If the "superprofits" thesis was correct we would not have expected this to happen:  the level of FDI would have remained high, or even have risen,  irrespective of whether domestic investment was high or low – if only because the returns of FDI according to theory of superprofits would have been greater than in the case of domestic investment.  So a lower return on domestic investment would have encouraged capitalists to divert more of their capital abroad, or at least maintain the same level of investment there,  but that is not what seemingly happened. Moreover, if the  "booty" of imperialism that Lenin had talked about was comparatively small (judging by the extent of FDI, and the small proportion of this FDI going to the Third World itself) , then that portion of this booty which, he surmised, was diverted to the labour aristoracy in the form of bribes,  must therefore have been, correspondingly, absolutely minuscule.  Post  remarks that  "Foreign profits as a percentage of total U.S. wages rose above 5% only in 1997, 2000 and 2002, and rose slightly over 6% in 2003" (ibid).  Bearing in mind that a sizeable chunk of these "foreign profits" derives from investment in other industrialised countries,  one has to ask what proportion of the remaining foreign profits made in the Third World itself would it take to make a discernable difference – to buy off the labour aristocracy  through offering a bribe and thereby ensure their loyalty and class collaboration? On the face of it , it would hardly seem worth the effort from the standpoint of the "imperialist powers" themselves. The "crumbs" falling from the "imperialists' banquet table" would have been  barely noticeable if they existed at all.  Certainly there is no way the alleged bribes that the Lenin's labour aristocacy was supposedly  in receipt  of could account for wage differentials within the working class.  Other factors have to be invoked to account  for that and which fundamentally call into question the very claim that the labour aristocracy is literally bribed.   Also as mentioned earlier, countries in Europe that lacked colonies and engaged in little in the way of FDI tended to have more marked wage differentials compared with countries like Britain and France – as Tony Ciff noted.  This is the exact opposite of what we would expect to be the case if Lenins Labour arisocracy myth held any water 

[robbo203]

Hud955 wrote:

I've also been asked this.  "if it holds true that there is no difference between the exploitation of the first world and the third aside from their relative development and productivity, what is it that causes work that is of equal quality and technology in both locations to be valued so differently?"I can make a couple of guesses of what is happening, but I have no evidence to back them up.  

 Perhaps the simple arithmetic of the supply and demand for labour has a lot to do with this.  There are a lot more workers chasing fewer jobs in the so called Third World and levels of underemployment are signficantly higher too.   The erosion of peasant subsistence agriculture is fuelling massive rural urban migration and the urban economy simply cannot generate enough jobs to accomodate this influx. Also, many of these countries are still going through the demographic transition. Birth rates are starting to decline as one might expect but death rates have dropped faster, so rapid population growth is also an aggravating factor in the short term.  In China, for example, export oriented  industrialisation was initially fuelled by cheap abundant labour and the rise of China as an economic power house has been accompanied by a swtich from extensive to intensive growth based on increased mechanisation and rising labour productivity as wages increased and population growth diminished following the implementation of the one child policy in 1979.  In the race to the bottom corporations are looking elsewhere for abundant supplies of cheap labour – places like Vietnam for example.

[robbo203]

The idea  that only the workers as a whole "can determine what socialism will be" means of course that those of us who consider ourselves to be socialists now should really fall silent on the question of what it is and never put forward any conception of socialism whatseoever for other workers to consider  since that would be …"elitist" … and "pre-deciding" the issue for them, the workers as a whole – even though the workers as a whole are quite free to to decide they dont want what we, still unfortunately a small minority, call socialism. So if the workers as a whole eventually decided that "socialism" meant "national socialism", we should fall in line with this defintion of socialism and embrace it as good "democratic communists".  Meaning if a majority of workers accepted Nazi ideology we should follow suit since that's "socialism", right? Of course, the fact that we are just workers ourselves putting forward our distinctive concepton of socialism as a non market stateless alternative to capitalism, never seems to enter the heads of those who come up with this batty argument.  Apparently, it seems, no discussion is permitted on what is the nature of socialism , according to this argument, until  a majority have decided they want."socialism". The gaping hole in this argument should be pretty obvious to all.

[robbo203]

Marcos wrote:

 The workers in the unproductive sectors of the economy are also producing surplus value, and exploitation does not take place at the point of sale. 

 I wouldn't put it quite like that Marcos because technically unproductive workers  dont produce commodities for sale  and so dont produce value and hence surplus value.  However, they are indispenable to the production of value and surplus value since  capitalism could not function without such unproductive workers (For example how could capitalism function without a state and hence state employees? Or bank workers or salespeople  etc etc).  The workers who perform this work, although they do not directly produce surplus value, are nevertheless part of the exploited class in capitalist society and enable the realisation of surplus value even if it is other workers who directly produce it.  There would be no point in just producing surplus value if it cannot be realised through market sale. Marx's labour theory of value is applicable at the level of the economy as a whole and it is at the macro level that the process of expoitation truly reveals itself

[robbo203]

Hud955 wrote:

https://anti-imperialism.org/2014/01/05/gauging-the-contribution-of-third-world-labor-to-imperialist-economies/Can I throw this in the arena? I've been grappling with this issue of super-exploitation and getting confused.   The claim made by the author of the article and by various other "third world" Marxist (=Leninist) theorists  is that the "first world" imports 350 million worker years of labour time (value) from the "third world" every year whereas the the productive labour of "first world" workers in the same time represents only 180 million worker-years.  The conclusion reached is that the share of value (labour time) that "first world" workers consume is greater than the share they produce.  The article then calculates that most workers in the "first world" are not exploited at all.  This is obviously an absurd conclusion, as is the apparent claim that superexploitation takes place at the point of consumption not of production. This analysis raises many more issues.  There is, first, the accuracy of the highly generalised figures it bases its calculations on.  But there are more theoretical issues.  What is the definition of a productive worker?  What proportion of "first and third world" labour time is embodied in commodities consumed by "first world" workers (as opposed to luxury and capital goods)?  And how much of what is produced by "first world" labour time is exported to  the "third world"? The author also seems to ignore the labour of unproductive workers in the "first world" when it comes to consumption of the products of "third world" labour time.   I can think of any number of specific objections I would want to make, but they are fragmentary and I'm concerned that  I may be missing something essential. Is anyone with a better knowledge of Marx's LTV than I possess able to get to the root of the problems with this article and summarise them  more coherently and succinctly that I can? 

Richard, Here’s my take on the article you linked to and the conclusion it reaches viz “that the share of value (labour time) that "first world" workers consume is greater than the share they produce.  The article then calculates that most workers in the "first world" are not exploited at all”. This is just plain wrong.   Never mind that the article uses a quite ridiculous definition of the working class whereby “only 65% of those who receive incomes in the First World are actually workers”, the facts of the matter speak otherwise.  I can cite tons of evidence to support the contention that workers in the so called First World are indeed exploited like their fellow workers in the so Third World.  For instance, Bonnie Kavoussi, writing in the Huffington Post, points out that while the average hourly cost of employing factory worker was $23.32, these same workers produced on average an hourly output of $73.45   In other words, your average American factory worker produced over three times as much wealth as she received back in the form of wages. (Bonnie Kavoussi, Mar 8, 2012,“Average Cost Of A Factory Worker In The U.S., China And Germany”,Huffington Post) Another proxy indicator of the rate of exploitation is the gap between wage growth and productivity growth   Over the past few decades wage growth in the US has been noticeably sluggish, though still on an upward trend, while productivity has soared.  According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 1979 and 2009 U.S. productivity increased by 80 percent, while the hourly wage of the median American worker went up by only 10.1 percent.  ("The Sad But True Story of Wages in America", Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz, Economic Policy Institute, Issue Brief no.297, March 14, 2011).  Relatedly, in an article for the New York Times in 2013, Steven Greenhouse notes: "Wages have fallen to a record low as a share of America’s gross domestic product. Until 1975, wages nearly always accounted for more than 50 percent of the nation’s G.D.P., but last year wages fell to a record low of 43.5 percent. Since 2001, when the wage share was 49 percent, there has been a steep slide" (Steven Greenhouse, "Our Economic Pickle", New York Times, Sunday Review, January 12, 2013). The main beneficiaries of all this productivity growth have been the top 1% of the population in terms of wealth ownership –essentially the capitalist class – in what is becoming increasingly unequal society.  The imperialism.org article you linked to seems to base its whole argument on the premiss that while some workers in the First World are clearly exploited, as the example above shows, most workers in this part of the world are not productive – that is to say, they do not produce surplus value in the sense that they do not produce commodities that are sold on a market with a view to profit.  Rather they are financed out of surplus value.  For example, workers employed in some government department or a teacher in a state school.  But this is a completely non Marxist way of looking at the matter.  Just because a worker is employed in the non-productive sector of the economy does NOT mean that this worker is not exploited. Rather, the process of exploitation is an economy-wide phenomenon in the sense that fruits of exploitation – surplus value  – is something that is, as it were, pooled and redistributed to ensure an average rate of profit across the (global) economy as a whole (and the very fact that there is tendency for profit rates to average out argues against the notion of any kind of fixed or localised phenomenon of “super exploitation”)  The non-productive worker may not directly produce surplus value but he or she is just as essential to the process by which surplus value is generated and extracted as the productive worker.  That teacher in that state school is involved in a process of equipping pupils with a skill set that they will later sell to employer in exchange for a wage perhaps earned working in a factory or a some McJob somewhere. Then we have the absurd claim by imperialism.org, “that a majority of workers in imperialist centers have been “bought off” using super-profits generated from Third World labor, and thus they have a material class interest in maintaining the order of capitalist-imperialism”.  This demonstrates very well the utterly reactionary character of these Leninists who seem to have an overriding mission to sow divisions among the global working class which, naturally, can only work to the benefit of the global capitalist class If there was any semblance of truth in this nonsensical Leninist idea that first world workers are “bribed” by the metropolitan capitalists in the “imperialist nations” (actually, all nations are technically imperialistic, latently or manifestly, since all nations, even the little ones, are capitalist and therefore subject to capital’s self-expanding thrust) then we are entitled to ask – where is this mythical bribe that Lenin went on about?   Does it come in a little brown envelope furtively handed over to the “labour aristocracy” of the First Word by their capitalist employers?  No, of course not.  If such a bribe exists it would surely be incorporated into the wages received by these workers. But that then begs the question – why when these workers ask for a wage rise would their employers so ferociously resist this?  Why is there this constant downward pressure on workers’ wages in the First World as in the Third World?  Why have wages in the First world stagnated while productivity has soared? The Leninists have no answer to these questions   Their whole reactionary way of looking at this matter is to provide a pretext for support for petty bourgeois third world nationalism. That is their agenda.  Leninism is the ideology of the frustrated comprador bourgeoisie of the so called Third World looking to expand their sphere in influence and market share.  The guy who has done most to demolish the Leninist inspired   of Third Worldists like Zac Cope and others is Charlie Post .  Here is a link to some of the stuff he has written http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/128   

[Author]

Posts