here's a message I sent to pen-l on Feb. 29, 1996: I finally found the Joan Robinson quote, using my handy-dandy DICTIONARY OF ECONOMIC QUOTATIONS, 2nd ed, edited by Simon James (Totowa, NJ: Rowan & Allanheld, 1984):
She wrote that "As we see nowadays in South-East Asia or the Caribbean, the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all." In ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY, ch. 2. Chicago: Aldine Publ. Co., p. 45. In recent years, this has been cited a lot (without a specific reference) as a way of understanding capitalist exploitation of labor: because of the misery of being in the reserve army of labor, workers flock to be exploited by capitalists. But in its original context, Robinson is arguing that since misery is not correlated with exploitation (and because of a large number of other points), the word "value," so central to Marx's presentation of his theory of exploitation, is simply a word rather than a useful concept. One person (who shall remain nameless) suggested that it was _Ayn Rand_ who pointed to the relative misery associated with not being exploited. If so, the two women developed their notions without consulting each other. On 6/6/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Mike is right, except that it does show up in one of her books, either her ECONOMIC HERESIES or her ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY. On 6/6/06, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I imagine that most people who read the NY Times op-ed page--a chore if > there ever was one--might not make the connection between the pull-quote > that appears in Nicholas Kristof's 6/06 defense of sweatshops and the > leftwing economist who first articulated it: > > "What's worse than being exploited? Not being exploited." > > We are speaking here of course of Joan Robinson, whose general political > and economic views could not be further apart from Kristof's. Indeed, the > quote does not seem to appear in any of her writings but was something that > she stated in her lectures from time to time. Michael Meerpol, the > economist son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and someone much more in > sympathy with Robinson than Kristof, once wrote the following on PEN-L, a > mailing list for left-of-center economists: > > <startquote> > I don't have a cite but it's not apocryphal. Joan Robinson made that > comment orally a number of times --- both in conversation and in lectures. > The first (and only specific) memory I have of that was in the context of > discussing rural poverty in places like India, etc. --- where she said many > people on the scene told her that the only real solution for massive rural > poverty in overpopulated regions was "capitalist agriculture" --- and then > she went on to state, "the only thing worse than being exploited, is not to > be exploited!" > > If there are written cites, I don't know about them. > > Cheers, Mike -- Mike Meeropol
-- Jim Devine / "The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career." -- Albert Einstein.
