Lou writes:
>3. PRECAPITALIST SOUTH AFRICA?
>As Leys correctly notes, the availability or otherwise of 'free' labour is
>key for Brenner. Without free labor, there is no capitalism. Unfortunately,
>this fails to adequately deconstruct the relation between freedom and
>labor. The capitalist, above all, seeks labor to exploit. Freedom, no
>matter what the ideologists preach, is entirely secondary.
Lou conflates individual members of the ruling class with a mode of
production called capitalism. Capitalism, as a mode of production,
_cannot_ exist without free labor, but individual members of the
ruling class, motivated by their desire to hold onto class power, may
very well prefer slavery & other forms of forced labor to free labor,
not just when the former is more profitable than the latter but even
_after_ the former becomes less profitable than the latter. Hence
chattel slavery was tenacious. Hence the necessity of the Civil War
in the USA to abolish it.
>The entire history of South Africa has been about how to force the
>indigenous population to be successfully exploited by the white capitalist
>class, when all sorts of obstacles presented themselves, starting with the
>abolition of slavery in 1834 in keeping with laws already enacted in the
>rest of the British Empire.(8)
Why does Lou think slavery was _abolished_??? Because of moral
agitation of white abolitionists? Eric Williams didn't think so.
>Nor is capitalism about "freedom". It is about producing surplus
>value. If a work force is not available to work for a wage, then the
>capitalist state will pass laws ensuring that various forms of unfree labor
>keep the system going.
***** Labor-power was not always a commodity (merchandise). Labor
was not always wage-labor, i.e., free labor. The slave did not sell
his labor-power to the slave-owner, any more than the ox sells his
labor to the farmer. The slave, together with his labor-power, was
sold to his owner once for all. He is a commodity that can pass from
the hand of one owner to that of another. He himself is a commodity,
but his labor-power is not his commodity. The serf sells only a
portion of his labor-power. It is not he who receives wages from the
owner of the land; it is rather the owner of the land who receives a
tribute from him. The serf belongs to the soil, and to the lord of
the soil he brings its fruit. The free laborer, on the other hand,
sells his very self, and that by fractions. He auctions off eight,
10, 12, 15 hours of his life, one day like the next, to the highest
bidder, to the owner of raw materials, tools, and the means of life
-- i.e., to the capitalist. The laborer belongs neither to an owner
nor to the soil, but eight, 10, 12, 15 hours of his daily life belong
to whomsoever buys them. The worker leaves the capitalist, to whom he
has sold himself, as often as he chooses, and the capitalist
discharges him as often as he sees fit, as soon as he no longer gets
any use, or not the required use, out of him. But the worker, whose
only source of income is the sale of his labor-power, cannot leave
the whole class of buyers, i.e., the capitalist class , unless he
gives up his own existence. He does not belong to this or that
capitalist, but to the capitalist class ; and it is for him to find
his man -- i.e., to find a buyer in this capitalist class.
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1840/wage-lab/ch02.htm>
*****
Why does Marx seek to clarify differences between the free laborer,
the slave, & the serf? Because without free labor, labor-power
doesn't become a commodity. The fact that labor-power became a
commodity gave rise to the laws of motion peculiar to capitalism,
most importantly:
***** For a given working-day, surplus-labour can be increased only
by reducing the necessary labour; this can, in turn, be obtained -
apart from lowering wages below value - only by reducing the value of
labour, that is, by reducing the price of the necessary means of
subsistence. (Pp.291-93 [312-15]) This, in turn, is to be attained
only by increasing the productive power of labour, by revolutionizing
the mode of production itself.
The surplus-value produced by lenthening the working-day is absolute;
that produced by shortening the necessary labour-time, is relative
surplus-value. (P.295 [315])
In order to lower the value of labour, the increase in productive
power must seize upon those branches of industry whose products
determine the value of labour-power - ordinary means of subsistence,
substitutes for the same, and their raw materials, etc. Proof of how
competition makes the increased productive power manifest in a lower
commodity price. (Pp.296-99 [316-19])
The value of commodities is in inverse ratio to the productivity of
labour - as is also the value of labour-power - because it depends on
the price of commodities. Relative surplus-value, on the contrary, is
directly proportional to the productivity of labour. (P.299 [319])
The capitalists is not interested in the absolute value of
commodities, but only in the surplus-value incorporated in them.
Realization of surplus-value implies refunding of the value advanced.
Since, according to p.299 [320], the same process of increasing
productive power lowers the value of commodities and increases the
surplus-value contained in them, it is clear why the capitalist,
whose sole concern is the production of exchange-value, continually
strives to depress the exchange-value of commodities. (Cf. Quesnay,
p.300 [320])
Hence, in capitalist production, economizing labour through
developing productive power by no means aims at shortening the
working-day - the latter may even be lengthened. We may read,
therefore, in economists of the stamp of McCulloch, Ure, Senior, and
tutti quanti, on one page that the labourer owes a debt of gratitude
to capital for developing the productive forces, and on the next page
that he must prove his gratitude by working in future for 15 hours
instead of 10. The object of this development of productive forces is
only to shorten the necessary labour and to lengthen the labour for
the capitalist.
<http://csf.colorado.edu/mirrors/marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/1868-syn/ch04.htm>
*****
If you think "capitalism is not about freedom [= free labor]," you
might as well let go of the concept of "surplus _value_" and simply
think in terms of surplus.
Yoshie
