On 28 Oct 00, at 1:42, Rob Schaap wrote:
> Could even be that's the direction in which we're going ... I know quite a
> few people whose lives as employees are behind them. Now they're
> 'subcontractors' or 'small-business people'. Good news for a couple of 'em
> - but just like being an employee, only poorer and more insecure, for most
> ... the proletarianisation of the west might now be taking a new turn - as
> capitalists' drives to cut on-costs and retard unionism produce a capitalism
> which draws competitive and alienating veils between desperate workers.
>
Rob raises an interesting question. If, due to subcontracting
labour, wage labour becomes a minority of workers in developed
"capitalist" countries, does that mean they are no longer capitalist?
(Which is the implication of accepting Jim's position on slavery.)
This is not an idle speculation. In Canada, wage labour was a
*minority of the labour force* until after the 2nd WW. (Because of
the large size of the agricultural sector primarily.) Does that mean
that Canada was not capitalist before then? Indeed, early capital
accumulation (I argue until after the 1st WW) was from unequal
exchange between the commercial/transportation sector which
used its monopoly power to extract surplus from the primary
producer, not from appropropriated surplus value from waged
workers.
Therefore, I'm with Mat and Charles on this one, not Jim.
Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba
