As will be clear, I'm not so sure about the criticism of my argument that Charles advances here, but I was very interested in the perspective represented in Sahlins's treatment of "hunter-gatherer" societies, which I think raises some fundamental issues of descriptive accuracy and historical dynamics.
To begin--
Where I say: >Thus, to withdraw a portion of the "total labor of society" away from some line of production in order to devote it to another is deny some form of "needs" being met. Labor allocation matters because labor is economically scarce, and couldn't possibly matter if labor weren't ultimately scarce in this way.<
Charles writes:
: I'm thinking the fallacy in this is that it seems to assume that humans could produce an infinite amount of things, use-values. The notion that all labor allocated to one line of production _could_ be allocated to some other line of production implies actualized infinite production is possible. It also implies that people have infinite wants/needs ( see quote from Sahlins below).
I don't see the basis for this criticism. In the specific context of the passage I cite from Marx, the relevant level of production is that which could be attained for a given "total labor of society," which of course is not infinite. And I don't see how the premise that labor can be reallocated from one line of production to another implies that "actualized infinite production is possible." To the contrary, I think it's pretty clear that no such implication follows. Nor does it imply anything about the potential extent of people's wants and needs.
If labor is allocated to productions A, B and C and is sufficient to produce all that owners A, B and C aim to produce, to say that labor _could_ have been allocated to D or E....Z ,AA, BB, ... Is to render it "scarce" through imagining an impossibly infinite production world and infinite wants/needs.
Sorry, I still don't see it. For example, in the passage I cited Marx wasn't talking about applying existing labor to *potential* or *imaginary* lines of production, but just reallocating labor across existing lines of production. But even if he did the former, it wouldn't, it couldn't, then imply infinite production, since in any case the "total labor of society" is in any case finite.
In a world of finite needs, it is possible to have unscarce labor and unscarce products, no ?
Yes. And if a product that requires labor to produce is nevertheless unscarce--that is, it is not demanded--then according to Marx it doesn't have a value, even if labor were expended on it. That's the point I was trying to make.
^^^^^^ The Original Affluent Society Marshall Sahlins Hunter-gatherers consume less energy per capita per year than any other group of human beings. Yet when you come to examine it the original affluent society was none other than the hunter's - in which all the people's material wants were easily satisfied. To accept that hunters are affluent is therefore to recognise that the present human condition of man slaving to bridge the gap between his unlimited wants and his insufficient means is a tragedy of modern times. There are two possible courses to affluence. Wants may be "easily satisfied" either by producing much or desiring little. The familiar conception, the Galbraithean way- based on the concept of market economies- states that man's wants are great, not to say infinite, whereas his means are limited, although they can be improved. Thus, the gap between means and ends can be narrowed by industrial productivity, at least to the point that "urgent goods" become plentiful. But there is also a Zen road to affluence, which states that human material wants are finite and few, and technical means unchanging but on the whole adequate. Adopting the Zen strategy, a people can enjoy an unparalleled material plenty - with a low standard of living. That, I think, describes the hunters. And it helps explain some of their more curious economic behaviour: their "prodigality" for example- the inclination to consume at once all stocks on hand, as if they had it made. Free from market obsessions of scarcity, hunters' economic propensities may be more consistently predicated on abundance than our own.
[clip] Intriguing, but this characterization raises two questions in my mind. First, one of anthropological accuracy: is it really true that hunter-gatherers were generally comfortable? I've read several "contemporary" [between the 17th century and now] European accounts of encounters with hunter-gatherer societies, particularly in non-tropical zones, where it was found that the hunter-gatherers regularly endured severe privations like near-starvation-- which they did not appreciate in Zen-like terms--in cold months or during droughts. But second, suppose Sahlins's assessment is generally true. Then what do you suppose was the impetus for agriculture, mining, metalworking, and other early productive developments, if all needs and wants were routinely met in these societies? Pure (albeit counterproductive) curiosity or cussedness? Gil
