Ian Hunt Dear Charles, From your quote, property relations are not synonymous with relations of production but their legal expression. Marx also says that 'value' is a social relation of production. I suggest that the best understanding of social relations of production is that they are relations of control over production that determine the distribution of the burdens and benefits of social cooperation. As you say, they should be distinguished from 'technical relations of production' which should be included among the productive forces of society. Marx notes in "Capital" though that these technical relations have their form determined by the social relations of production: capitalist firms organize labour in ways that facilitate their exploitation. This is one possible way that they could fetter the productive forces since they could exclude more productive ways of organizing labour. of course, the ideologists of capitalism in the OECD insist that capitalist shaped methods of work organization are the last word in efficiency, Cheers, Ian
^^^^^^ CB: Good to hear from you , Ian . I'm pretty much in agreement with the above. I'd say "relations of control over production" and "relations of obedience in production". One side of the relation controls ( the capitalists) and the other side obeys ( the working class). These are the class or property relations in production in capitalism. This that you say - " capitalist firms organize labour in ways that facilitate their exploitation " - is very important. The capitalists have used the computer and chip scientific and technological revolution to facilitate their exploitation. They have done this by using the consequent revolution in communication and transportation to scatter the points of production from their previously , relatively territorially concentrated points of industrial production. This reorganization or restructuring of production has given them great advantage in the class struggle with the industrial proletariat of the U.S., so it is facilitating their exploitation. Look at the current demand to reduce Delphi autoparts workers' pay by 2/3 ! That is because the bourgeoisie have been able to arrange auto production so as to have auto workers all around the world competiting against each other to _lower_ wages. This is organizing production to facilitate exploitation, as you put it. Rather than fettering the development of the productive forces, this is propelling the development of the productive forces, and using the result to reinforce the current property regime, the bourgeois private property regime. They are developing the productive forces in a way that does not come into conflict with the existing property relations ; or,as you have it, what is the actual existence of the same thing , the relations of production ; the computer rev is not being developed in a way that comes into conflict with the existing bourgeois control in relations of production. Repeat: THE COMPUTER REV IS NOT BEING DEVELOPED IN A WAY THAT COMES INTO CONFLICT WITH THE EXISTING BOURGEOIS CONTROL IN RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION. IT IS BEING DEVELOPED IN A WAY THAT IS IN HARMONY WITH AND ENHANCES BOURGEOIS CONTROL IN RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION IN THE USA. We see that the ruling class is using the computer rev to enhance its rule over and exploitation the working class in other ways as well. For example, it is used to enhance the spying and police represssive apparatus of the state. The pertinence to the current thread is that the CAD/CAM-containerization-truck-plane-justintime,etc complex created in this particular development of the productive forces is helping to preserve, rather than otherthrow, the bourgeois control of production. It is preserving bourgeois property relations, not leading to their overthrow, up to this point. So in terms of the famous quote often discussed "At a certain stage of their development, the >material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing >relations of production, or - what is but a legal expression for the same >thing - with the property relations within which they have been at work >hitherto.") The computer development of the material productive forces has _not_ yet come into conflict with the existing relations of production so as to cause a revolution in the legal expression of the relations of production. It has not changed the laws controlling relations of production, which is to say the state power is still backing up bourgeois relations of production or bourgeois private property relations. In fact, the computer rev has been to enhance bourgeois control, rather than diminish it. Comradely, CB _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
