I think it's right that Marx never used the word
"superexploitation." But in CAPITAL vol. 1, ch. 15, s. 8(b), he
writes that "The exploitation of cheap and immature labor-power
is carried out in a more shameless manor in modern manufacture
[i.e., handwork that has to compete with machine-based work] than
in the [machine-using] factory proper... In the so-called
domestic industries [i.e., domestic commodity production] this
exploitation is still more shameless than in modern manufacture,
because the workers' power of resistance decines with their
dispersal... [a long list of other reasons follows, all of which
are relevant today]" (p. 591 of Penguin edition.)
The word "superexploitation" has been floating around the Marxian
literature for a long time; it is often not defined and thus gets
its meaning entirely from context.
If forced to choose a meaning, I would see "superexploitation" in
terms of labor-power market structures such as those seen under
apartheid and the like. These non-market impediments -- barriers
to the mobility of labor-power -- keep the rate of surplus-value
from becoming equalized between various sectors and countries. In
neoclassical lingo, these are barriers to the working-out of the
theory of "compensating (or equalizing) wage differentials" -- a
theory that Marx used as the basis for his vol. III assumption of
equalized rates of surplus-value (see the first footnote in ch. 8
of vol. III).
These impediments may be temporary, but it's the long-term ones
that are most important. These impediments include the use of
non-market force, i.e., coercion beyond the normal structural
coercion on workers that's inherent in the reserve army of
labor's presence.
I think one sign of the superexploitation of workers in the
poorer countries is that workers from Mexico risk life and limb
to try to get into the U.S., while few U.S. workers think it
worth trying to get jobs in Mexico (though impediments do exist).
Similar experiences can probably be seen in many other
relationships between "center" and "periphery" countries.
Does this view of superexploitation mean that there are workers
who are miniexploited ("*UNDER*(sub, mini) exploited"), as Jerry
Levy suggests? Yes it does. There are some people who have better
jobs than others. But that doesn't mean that they're not
exploited at all; they're only "underexploited" from a capitalist
viewpoint. They share a class relationship with those who are
superexploited (i.e., they are both proletarians) -- but there
are also differences and conflicts within the exploited class.
BTW, the entire Gary Webb story on the CIA/Contra/crack
connection was reprinted in one of the free weeklies published in
Los Angeles (which I think is called the "New Times," but I'm not
sure since it's the result of a corporate takeover/consolidation
of the old L.A. READER and another free weekly).
in pen-l solidarity,
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<74267,[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ.
7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA
310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
"Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way
and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
