this is further to some recent posts on surplus-value and transfer value. A bit dry. Sorry, folks.
Jim Devine explained (see, full post of 08nov03 below) that there are: (1) “standard” Marxian surplus-value (2) the surplus-product of exploited direct producers in other modes of production such as slavery and serfdom (3) pure transfer: looting of the periphery . . . There is no increase in the global pool of surplus-value. [end of excerpt from JD]
This reasoning implies the rejection of notions of unequal exchange and periphery-to-center transfer value (a la Emmanuel or Amin) and rejection of a “second form of surplus value” (a la Mandel).
Let’s leave aside the debate about periphery-to-center-of-the-world transfer value and look at a different dimension - namely, gender.
To my mind, there is a transfer value from women to men. As Jim Levine calls looting of the periphery “pure transfer”, the transfer I have in mind here would have to be an impure transfer. Never mind. The female to male transfer of value occurs within an existing pool of value and surplus-value. A micro-level example is, as follows:
Given: (g1) One business, one entrepreneur, one product produced, 20 workers (10 men, 10 women) (g2) all workers produce the same product, using the same materials and machinery, and having the same skills (g3) the market value of the product is 50 dollars per item (g4) 1000 items are produced per day, using all available labour in an 8-hour day (g5) the female wage is $7 per hour, the male wage is $10 per hour (It is assumed that this wage difference is due to “institutional factors” - i.e., embedded male chauvinism, and not due to differences in skills and personal productivity.) (g6) materials are 20 dollars per item
Calculation: (c1) total receipts of one day’s production = 1000 * 50 dollars = 50,000 dollars (c2) total wages paid for one day = 1,360 dollars (namely, 10 males * 8 hours * 10 dollars = 800 dollars, plus, 10 females * 8 hours * 7 dollars = 560 dollars) (c3) total materials = 1000 * 20 dollars = 20,000 dollars (c4) surplus value for one day SV = c1-c2-c3 = 28,640 dollars
Gender Components: (c5) 10 females produced 500 items, leading to sales of 25,000 dollars (500 * 50) (c6) 10 males produced 500 items, leading to sales of 25,000 dollars (500*50), same as females (c7) SV produced by females SVF = 14,440 dollars (sales less materials less wages = 25,000 - 10,000 - 560) (c8) SV produced by males SVM = 14,200 dollars (sales less materials less wages = 25,000 - 10,000 - 800)
Conclusion; Since the women produced more SV (14,440) than the men (14,200), the women subsidized the male wages and there was a transfer of value from women to men. The amount of the transfer value was one half of the difference, namely, transfer value female to male T = ½ * (14,440-14,200) = 110 dollars. Thus, within the pool of surplus-value a transfer of value took place from women to men.
While 110 dollars may seem trivial in relation to the total product of 50,000 dollars per day, it is not trivial in relation to male and female wages for the day. (c9) the fair wages for each gender group for the day would have been c2 / 2 = 1360 / 2 = 680 dollars (c10) due to the transfer value, the male group gained 110/680 = 16.2 percent over fair wages (c11) due to the transfer value, the female group lost 110/680 = 16.2 percent from fair wages
If one changed the existing wages to the level of fair wages by adjusting for transfer value, then (c12) the male group would lose 110/800 = 13.75 percent in wages , and (c13) the female group would gain 110/560 = 19.6 percent in wages.
Summa: my point is that (1) transfer value is not a trivial concept and (2) transfer of value takes place within a standard Marxist model of a modern economy, even without imperialist looting and without islands of non-modern modes of production
Gernot Köhler
Full text of Jim Devine post: Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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by Devine, James
08 November 2003It seems to me that there are _three_ forms of surplus-value being discussed.
(1) "standard" Marxian surplus-value, i.e., the excess labor done beyond that needed to cover the costs of hiring proletarians under the capitalist mode of production.
(2) the surplus-product of exploited direct producers in other modes of production such as slavery and serfdom, which can be translated into surplus-value. Back in 1850, for example, a slave in the US South produced a surplus-product which added to the pool of surplus-value of the global capitalist social formation.
(3) pure transfer: looting of the periphery, which adds to the value appropriated by the center and depletes value received by the periphery at the same time and by the same amount. There is no increase in the global pool of surplus-value.
Obviously, these three are often hard to separate in the real (empirical) world, but these abstract concepts help us understand that world.
As Doug notes, the question of how the surplus-value is utilized is crucial. Paul Baran also asked this question. Because the three types of surplus get mixed up, it's hard to come to a hard-and-fast conclusion, but as a first approximation I'd say that
(1) the first type mostly goes to capitalist luxury spending and to accumulate more fixed capital in the center, allowing the center to grow in power relative to the periphery and the capitalists to grow in power relative to the center proletariat.
(2) in the example of Southern US slave mode of production, the part of the second type of surplus-value that wasn't transfered to the center (and to the capitalist mode of production) went to slaveowner luxuries and to the accumulation of slaves and land. It doesn't go to the kind of technologically progressive industry that (1) goes to. This "progressive" is defined in capitalist terms, so that eventually the slave mode of production would have lost out to the capitalist mode of production in the competition within the capitalist social formation. In the meantime, the slave mode is dominated by the capitalist one within the social formation.
(3) the third type helps the center at the expense of the peripherty, reinforcing the internally-generated accumulation process of (1).
Jim Devine
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