Prove Marx right! Prove Marx wrong! Help me out, to boot!

Great Debates
1

“Now, however, property turns out to be the right, on the part of the capitalist, to appropriate the unpaid labor of others or its product, and the impossibility, on the part of the worker, of appropriating his own product.” (Marx, “Capital”, ch. 24)

Person A: It really does not matter that labor is not fully compensated in a capitalist society as long as a fair exchange has taken place between the worker and the capitalist. After all, even Marx (in the “Manifesto”) argues that with the social ownership of production, society would still appropriate labor.

Person B: The fact that when we work we cannot fully appropriate our product demonstrates that capitalism unjustly denies our freedom to control what we produce. After all, with the modern division of labor we could only gain control over what we produce through common ownership.

Help out a college student! I’m gonna start writing my paper in about 5 minutes, but I’ll check back here occasionally to see if there’s anything I feel I’ve missed. Very simply, who do you think is right and why?

2

I’ll have to go with person B, though I’d question the use of the words “just” or “fair”.
Capitalism does deny us our right to control what we produce, and collective ownership would stop that from happening(assuming that it’s implementation was successful.)

Adding the words “just” and “fair” though just seems to add a level of rhetoric that I find unnecessary.

3

Who’s to say that laborers have the right to control what they produce in the first place? It only sounds fair that if you own the factory and are the one risking everything to make a profit, you have every right to decide what your business will produce.

4

I will be happy to share my thoughts on this with you after you have turned in your paper.

5

Value is not an absolute. It is relative to how much the consumer wants to spend compared to how much profit the seller wants. That’s why gold is so valuable: All sellers want a high price and the buyers are willing to pay. So ‘full compensation’ is really a chimera based upon false notions of value. If the producer and consumer are both satisfied with the deal, they were both fully compensated.

6

Spiritus, I was nice enough to mention that I was writing a paper because I thought it was right to mention what prompted me to bring up the subject. That means that people who wish to avoid answering for that reason can do so silently. Your post implies that it would somehow be wrong of me to solicit the advice of people on this board. How so? Did I not read “Das Kapital” cover to cover? Did I not go to class for a whole semester? Am I not staying up all night to write this paper?

Look, I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I didn’t think it was an interesting topic. Forget that this might help me out and just have fun with the question. Cripes.

I’m taking a dinner break. When I get back, I expect your apology to be posted.

7

Derleth, Marx’s whole point was that the “producer” was not the capitalist but instead the worker, and that HE was decidedly unsatisfied. The question therefore becomes, does the mere act of agreeing to a given wage in exchange labor make THAT exchange valid? The worker necessarily produces more than he is compensated for – is it “right” to deny him control over his own product? More importantly, does it make pragmatic sense (from the worker’s point of view) for the workers’ product to be given to the capitalist and re-invested infinitely?

8

I’m unclear by what you (or Marx) mean by this:
“gain control over what we produce through common ownership”

How does “common ownership” allow anyone to gain control over what he produces? If I am a worker who produces “A”, then I ought to be compensated “A”. Marx points out that I am not compensated “A” but “A minus B” - “B” being the profit the factory owner makes off my labor. Do I understand this correctly?

So we eliminate the factory owner and institue common ownership. Now when I produce “A”, I am still not compensated “A”. I am compensated by a new amount determined as follows:
I produce “A”
You produce “B”
He produces “C”
She produces “D”
The compensation to each of us is “N”. N = (A+B+C+D)/4. Possible results:
N = A: Acceptible.
N < A: I’ve lost control over part of my production, same as I would have in capitalism.
N > A: I’ve gained control of part of someone else’s production, same as I would have if I were a factory owner.

Best strategy in this system: produce less than N. I am not very familiar with Marxist theory, so I would gladly admit my error if I have understood this incorrectly.

9

To “gain control over what we produce” here means, primarily, to decide what to do with the surplus created by capitalist production. A certain amount of work is necessary to reproduce itself (i.e. to pay for the expenses of production). The remaining work that is done creates a surplus. The capitalist chooses to take the surplus and reinvest it (leading to an even greater surplus, which then gets reinvested, leading to more surplus, and so on). Part of this, however, means that the worker is pushed to his physical limits, exploited, etc. With common ownership, according to Marx, the workers can decide what to do with the surplus, and how much surplus to produce in the first place.

Gilligan’s criticism is, I think, a valid practical criticism of socialism in general.

10

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/manifesto.html

11

OK, I’ll argue this from a utilitarian standpoint, as I’ve been arguing in favor of libertarianismon the basis of rights in another thread. First off, Marx was an idiot, but I guess that’s just a personal opinion of mine.

Let’s look at whether or not the system Marx describes will work as well as capitalism. We’ll start with the principle that society is best served if erveyone does the thing he or she can do that produces the greatest benefit to society. Therefore, society should encourage everyone to provide the service to society that best meets society’s needs.

Now lets take an example of the capitalist exploitation that Marx speaks of. I am (for the purposes of this example) the standard capitalist pig exploiter. I have an idea for a great car, maybe some rough sketches or something. How do I go about getting it built?

First I need to borrow money from fellow members of the oppressive upper class. The people talk with me and then decide whether or not they want to offer me money to accomplish my dream of building this car. Assuming I get the money, the next step is to hire some engineers to draw up the full plans and work out the details and all that. After they are done, I can get some mechanics to assemble the thing.

Now, Marx would indicate that this car, having been built by the mechanics, would belong to them. In terms of the actual labor put in, the mechanics did the most, then the engineers, then me, then the bankers, who only really had to put up with listening to me. In terms of how replaceable each party was, mechanics are everywhere, automotive engineers are extensively trained, and are thus more rare, people with the necessary money to finance the project are few and far between, and I’m one of a kind, baby.

Basically, the car (which, in case I didn’t mention, provides a substantial improvement over every car ever produced) could never have existed without me, but I make out worse than the grease monkey I hired to weld the chassis together, according to Marx. In Marx’s system, I am not encouraged to go into the business of dreaming up great cars, and the engineers are not encouraged to actually pay attention in all those boring engineering classes.

Capitalism provides encouragement for people to provide the services to society for which they are best suited. Smart people with incredible skills at delicate handwork are encouraged to become brain surgeons rather than needlepoint artists, because society places greater value on saving lives than needlepoint artwork. Of course society places an incredibly great value on being able to shoot a rubber ball into a hoop ten feet off the ground for our entertainment, but in general it does things that make more sense.

So, from the perspective of what is best for society, Marx’s system is woefully inferior to a capitalist system. All decisions made with respect to the profits from selling the car I (with a great deal of help) created should remain with me as a reward and encouragement to continue in a line of work that fills a need in society. As this is the position in society that I am best suited for, I am the one who should be encouraged to do so by society.

12

You need to go back to the Labour Theory of Value. If Marx is right to assert that goods have an inherent value which is derived from the labour that is invested in them, then he is also right to assert that a proportion of the worker’s labour is appropriated, unpaid-for, by the capitalist.

If, on the other hand, you reject the LTV, then the worker’s labor is “worth” whatever the capitalist is prepared to pay for it (i.e. what the labour market will bear) and workers are always “fully compensated” for their labour unless there is some market distortion which operates in the employer’s favour.

There is a second strand to Marx’s argument (IIRC, it’s ten years since I read the Grundrisse), which is about self-determination. Although Marx admits that social ownership would also result in labour being expropriated, he argues that this expropriation would be of a different character from the kind that occurs under capitalism. Under capitalism, the workers’ labour is appropriated only for the benefit of the capitalist, hence the alienation of labour (I think he talks somewhere (?the Manifesto) about the character of labout losing its “charm” under capitalism.

waterj2,

In your example, the capitalists would be the people providing the money for the project, not the person who designed the car.

13

Wrong. The value of a thing is an absolute. It is the cost of the socially necessary labor it takes to produce it. If there is no consumer demand, it will not be produced as it will have to be sold below its value, i.e., at a loss. Gold is valuable because of the amount of socially necessary labor required to extract it, not because it is rare. Same with diamonds. This is Marx’s labor theory of value which bourgeios economists move mountains to avoid discussing because it leads directly to an exposé of the exploitive nature of capitalism. Therefore, they have concocted the totally false utilitarian theory of value, wherein consumers subjectively determine value.

Watch how this works. Suppose the cost of the socially necessary labor to produce a TV in the US is $100. Suppose it costs $10 in Mexico. The selling price, say $300, will be the same in each case, but the value of the tv made in the US is $100 vs. $10 in Mexico. The capitalist will make profit if he can sell the product for more than its value, in this case, $200 for the tv made in the US vs. $290 for the tv made in Mexico. You can see why the capitalist will claim each tv has equal value, but his insurance company would pay less for the loss of tvs destroyed in a fire in Mexico as opposed to a fire in the US, wouldn’t it? That’s because of the difference in value.

So the bottom line is that things are not normally sold at their value, but above their value.

14

Errrrr . . . no. First of all, the idea that prices, etc. gravitate toward their natural price – which is determined by the cost of labor, machinery/tools, and rent – is the cornerstone of classic political economy as espoused by Adam Smith. Economists hardly shy away from it. Marx’s criticism of this in “Capital” is based on his assertion that this fails to explain capitalist accumulation. Now the hard part. . .

Diamonds and gold are not valuable because of the cost of mining them. After all, iron is at least as hard to mine. There are massive stockpiles of diamonds (which aren’t really THAT rare) that are kept out of circulation to keep the price artificially high. It does work. But diamonds and, more specifically gold, are money. Let me explain.

We start off trading commodities in exchange for commodities (C - C), a barter system. This is inconvenient because the commodities have inherent use-values and are worth different amounts to different people. Money, let’s say gold, is introduced because it has no use value in and of itself, and is sufficiently rare. Therefore, C - C is replaced by C - M - C. All commodities are given a value in M, and this value, theoretically, gravitates towards the natural price in most cases. The capitalist (this is Marx now), instead of using C - M - C in order to attain commodiies, attempt to do M - C - M (using money to buy commodities, then selling the commodities for money). Since money has no use value, remember, this is completely irrational unless the capitalist can sell C for more money than he bought it for: M - C - M’. This is the start of accumulation, but it get much (much much) more complex (the book is 900 some pages long).

The point is that Marx actually posits the classical economic theories of Adam Smith for many of his arguments (I won’t even begin to go into when he rejects classical economic thoery. Jesus.) The other point is that Marx’s Labor theory of capital is a bit more complex than you implied, and that the fundamentals of it predate Marx. Besides, what economists avoid discussing it? Marxism is hardly taboo anymore.

15

To make a further relavent point, Marx says that M - C - M’ only works when C is a particular commidity. As I said before, positing Adam Smith’s theory of natural price, Marx assumes (for the sake of his discussion) that C WILL gravitate toward natural price, making it almost impossible to turn a consistent profit (profit meaning surplus, i.e. more than you need to stay in business and provide for yourself). The only commodity that will produce more than you pay for it is labor. Therefore you have money, you “buy” (with wages) labor, and the labor produces more value in M than you pay for it. The part of the worker’s labor that exceeds the value of his wage is surplus value, unpaid labor, and exploitation.

Now, if you look at the OP, you see that part of the debate is whether or not “exploitation” is possible if the worker agrees to the conditions of his employment. After all he has the option to sell his labor to someone else, or not to sell it at all. Therefore, no matter how much of his labor is ultimately appropriated by the capitalist, he is still in control of his labor.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

16

I would comment on waterj2’s remarks a bit:

In his agrument, I think a better word for ‘society’ would be ‘market’ or even ‘corporate influence’.

What society thinks is valuable does not necessarily affect the street value of products or labor.

This is even more true in an advanced capitalist society, like the good ol’ US. At various stages in its development, monopolies and trusts have swung prices back and forth at will, and still do. Such entities are still subject to the whims of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, but they are players nevertheless.

Then again one could reason that these ‘players’ are the society. That’s an oligarchy, though.

Another reasoning is representative: that as society permits them to exist and wield power, their decisions have the weight of society’s judgment. Problem: they’re not elected representatives, unless business success is an election.

I tend towards the last view. The market runs our current system, firing and hiring new leaders according to their ability to survive within it. It’s admiringly self-regulating in a way Marx’s ideas aren’t.

17

Derleth is correct here…

The price of a good or service is determined by a general agreement among buyers and sellers - and by nothing else.

Take for example, the rubble from the Berlin Wall (or the Great Proleterian Anti-Fascist Defense of Paradise Partition). Prior to 1989, it had no value even though obtaining pieces would require a large amount of compensation for the risk involved.

When the wall fell, the walls pieces became a saleable commodity despite the ease of picking up pieces (and despite the introduction of spray-painted concrete rubble from everywhere on earth.)

Now with the novelty wearing thin, Berlin and other east block rubble is what it is, rubble. (Just like Marxist ideology.)

18

VarlosZ:

Or explicitly, as I chose to do. Your response indicates that you knew beforehand that your request might be considered ethically unsound by some posters. Is it your general position that people who disagree with on a matter of ethics are only allowed to do so silently?

Why would you expect me to apologize for explicitly demurring from the opportunity to help you write a college paper?

19

Just empiracally speaking, price appears to be whatever the market will bear, but the market usually (many exceptions) tends bear a price that covers costs and provides a reasonable profit. I wouldn’t dismiss Smith (and Marx) quite so completely.

The paper is finished, and I’ve taken my beef w/ Spiritus to e-mail. To those of you who just responded to help me out: thank you. Those who are interested in this: me too. I think it’s a cool thread, paper or no paper. I’ll be around. . .

20

A couple of things occurred to me as I thought about my analysis. I used the term “best strategy”; this could be misleading. I didn’t mean “best” as a value judgement, only as “maximum personal return on personal investment.” Not everyone thinks this is the best way to evaluate their participation in society; some people are altruistic, and I failed to consider their strategy. Let me compare a selfish strategy vs. an altruistic one, in both systems.
Capitalism:
Selfish best strategy – produce more, so I have more for myself
Altruistic best strategy – produce more, so I have more excess to share with others
Marxism:
Selfish best strategy – produce less than the average, so I gain at others’ expense
Altruistic best strategy – produce more than average, thus raising the average for everyone

This is not as bad, but still, the altruistic strategy is the same in each system, but the selfish one isn’t. This to me a built-in incentive to be selfish under Marxism. Of course this incentive could be countered with artificial dis-incentives to being selfish, such as punishment of low-producing workers.

  • Galen - on the absolute value of things, I am unsure of something. You say a TV produced by Mexican workers has an absolute value of $10, and one produced by Americans has an absolute value of $100. Fine. I’ve examined these two TV’s and they are identical. How am I supposed to tell which one is worth $10 and which is worth $100? The workers are not here to tell me.