Roemer on exploitation (continued)
======================
1. As noted last time, classical Marxism involves the assumption that
all capitalists and no workers are exploiters, while all workers and no
capitalists are exploited. Roemer calls this the 'Class-Exploitation
Correspondence Principle' or CECP. Question: Can it be derived as
a formal theorem from basic and self-evident axioms? Roemer's
procedure is to employ the methods of modern neoclassical
economics to reconstruct Marxism. He starts out from the postulate
of rational self-interested agents who attempt to maximize their utility
given certain constraints (including their initial 'endowments' of various
kinds of assets). On this view, social classes are not 'basic' theoretical
objects; rather the task is to show how rational agents with differing
endowments will choose to enter certain class positions (e.g. to sell
their labor-power, to work on their own account, to hire others).
Marxist propositions that can be supported in this way are regarded
as definitive, while those that cannot be so derived are rejected.
2. In some of his earlier writings Roemer provided formal proofs of
the validity of the CECP -- hence 'confirming' the classical marxist
identification of capitalists as exploiters and workers as exploited --
under various assumptions regarding production functions and
preferences. But in his 1986 article he criticizes his own past work as
reliant on an overly restrictive account of agents' preferences. He then
sets up an example (p. 274 ff.) where the pattern of preferences leads
to a wealth-elastic supply of labor (i.e. the poor don't like to work,
but the rich do), and in this context shows that the flow of surplus
labor may end up going the 'wrong way' (from rich to poor). The
poor man, who is averse to labor and prefers to make a living by
lending out his meager capital, ends up 'exploiting' the workaholic rich
man. Yet we should still want to say it is the poor man, with the
much smaller initial endowment of productive assets, who is subject to
injustice.
3. But if the exploitation of the rich by the poor is theoretically
possible -- and hence the Class-Exploitation Correspondence
Principle breaks down -- this means that the concept of exploitation in
terms of flows of labor time should be abandoned.
4. The example which leads Roemer to this conclusion may be
mathematically correct, but it makes no contact with social reality.
Much more than just an extended notion of preferences is required to
make relevant the putative exploitation of the rich by the poor. Under
current circumstances, for a 'poor' person to make a (meager) living
as a lender to the rich he would need to have a capital of perhaps
$200,000. But having that much money would place our pauper in
something like the richest 10 per cent of the population!
5. Roemer himself seems to recognize that there may be a practical
cost to following through on his theoretical admonition, when he
admits that we still need some index of the unjust income flows which
arise from an unjust distribution of stocks: "In cases where exploitation
does render the correct judgment on the injustice of flows, then
perhaps the degree or rate of exploitation is useful in assessing the
degree of injustice in the flow" (277). Furthermore, such cases are
admitted to be preponderant: "as an empirical statement, surplus value
accounts mirror inequality in ownership of the means of production
pretty well...". (Roemer's candor is to be applauded: not all writers
who have constructed tricky 'counter-examples' to the LTV are so
forthcoming on the empirical status of their constructions.)
6. It would appear, then, that this critique does not really have much
sting. Moreover, when it comes to formulating socialist objectives
Roemer's position has a serious weakness. As Paul Cockshott and I
have argued in our book, Towards a New Socialism, 'ending
exploitation' is a clearly-defined goal. [Note: I would be more bashful
about advertising if we were getting any royalties from this work, but
I'm afraid we're not!] On the other hand, 'achieving a just or equal
distribution of the means of production' (Roemer's preferred
expression) is much less clear. This obviously *cannot* mean, in the
modern context, giving every worker his or her per capita share of the
total stock of means of production. The notion of a 'just distribution
of the means of production' is very problematic. Socialists aim for the
employment of the stock of means of production for the benefit of all
working people and their dependents: it is not helpful to conceive of
this as a 'distribution' of stocks across agents; rather it is a pattern of
democratically-controlled, socially-planned, allocation and use. The
call for a 'fair' distribution of the means of production may be
applicable to the struggle of landless peasants against a landlord class
-- for the redistribution of land -- but it is not applicable to the struggle
of wage-workers against a capitalist class.
Next time I'll begin on my final topic, a fuller defense of the
'specialness' of labor as it relates to the LTV.
==========================
Allin Cottrell
Department of Economics
Wake Forest University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(910) 759-5762
==========================
