This "labor power question" thread started from what I took to be a reasonable question from Walt: why does Marx insist in V.I. chapter 6 that capitalists purchase (just) labor power, that is, only the capacity to work? Why can't they purchase [what I would call] specific labor services? Or for that matter, I would add, appropriate surplus value by lending money at interest to finance production of new value? My answer is that they can, and often do, and thus Walt's question leads to a legitimate criticism of Marx's account. In response to one of my posts along these lines, Jim writes:
>> > I can't speak for Gil, but "a given act of concrete labor" isn't on >> > the market -- it's not a commodity -- and thus doesn't have a value at >> > all in the Marxian system. It's the labor-power which has a value. To which I said: >> Yeah, Jim, but that assumes some sort of incomplete contracting >> situation >> so that capitalists can't contract for specific labor services. Jim replies: > no, it doesn't assume that at all. It only assumes that if one starts > from the theoretical benchmark of Walrasian-style economics (with > complete contracts, perfect info, etc., etc.) I don't see how this follows. Nothing I've argued depends on "walrasian-style economics" in any coherent sense of the term. I just make this observation: it doesn't *necessarily* follow that the circuit of capital must be implemented on the basis of capitalists purchasing just workers' capacity to work. Nor does it make sense that profit-seeking capitalists would settle for this if they could dictate the labor to be performed by simply contractual means: why go through the trouble and expense of exerting direct supervisory control over the production process if you don't have to? A plausible answer is that capitalists don't use merely contractual means to achieve surplus value because sometimes they can't--i.e., contracting is seriously imperfect. But not always, because in the real, non-ideal world, we do in fact sometimes see capitalists engaging specific labor services, and do sometimes see workers hiring capital, as in the case of worker-owned firms that borrow money to finance production. What we arguably *never* see, in contrast, is the "ideal" case Marx used to motivate his argument in Ch. 6, i.e. commodity exchange at value. More on the comparative idealism of assumptions below. > But we don't have to start that way (and that idealist method). I > think it's reasonable to start with the real (empirical) world as > one's theoretical benchmark, even though that world is at best > incompletely known. You may think that, but that's not what we're discussing, which is Marx's argument in Capital V.I. Part 2. Marx bases his Ch. 6 argument explicitly on the very non-empirical condition of commodity exchange at value. And there are serious problems with this procedure: (1) his theoretical justification for it is illogical. (2) this scenario does not typically occur. (3) The most plausible *ideal* case under which it obtains is one that abstracts from the exact phenomenon under study, i.e., positive surplus value. That's a pretty counterproductive basis for beginning an analysis of how surplus value exists. Now again, no "ideal" contracting assumption is really needed to maintain the relevance and empirical validity of Walt's point, because in fact sometimes capitalists *can and do* accrue surplus value simply on the basis of loans to direct producers, and sometimes they *can and do* engage specific labor services rather than just hiring labor power. When, empirically, have all commodities exchanged at their respective values, per Marx's ideal assumption? In the real world, it is normal if not ubiquitous > for contracts to be incomplete. Imperfect and asymmetric information > are normal, not exceptions to be considered in special articles. Nothing I've said denies that. Just that sometimes they are *sufficiently* complete to allow regular exceptions to Marx's categorical assertion that capitalists purchase [only] labor power. Thus his categorical inference appears to be unjustified. > Given this approach, it's necessary for one to say "assume that > contracts are complete" in order to create with the Debreu-style > utopias that have been so influential in NC-type economics for so > long. No, I don't think so. "Complete contracts" is just a theoretical benchmark for NC economics, just like "commodity exchange at value" is a theoretical benchmark for Marxian economics. But as argued above, contractual completeness may often be closer to empirical relevance than universal commodity exchange at value. And by the way, Debreu-style economies, however hypothetical, are in no sense "utopias." It's a serious problem with the Debreuvian school that they > don't do so, i.e., that they don't make their assumptions explicit > vis-a-vis the real world. I don't think the "Debreuvian school" has anything to do with what I'm arguing here, per my preceding comments. > Gil: > But I >> take Walt's point to be: what if they can, as in the case where firms >> engage outside contractors to perform specific tasks, and pay them if >> and only if those specific tasks are performed? In that case, what >>would be >> the value of the services thus transacted? That said, I agree with you >> it >> isn't the *labor* that's transacted for, even in this case--it's the >> concrete labor service, i.e. the thing *accomplished* by the labor. But >> Walt's question still arises with this amendment. > > In that case, we're not talking about a pure capitalist/proletarian > relationship. But as I understand Walt, to assert this is to beg exactly the question that Marx begs in question 6. What law of society or nature requires that a "pure" [what does this term mean? is it a synonym for "ideal"?]capitalist /proletarian relationship must be based on the purchase of [just] labor power? Or is this simply definitional? And if it's simply definitional, then why does Marx insist that this is an *implication* of his assumption of commodity exchange at value? Especially since it doesn't in fact follow from this premise? Suppose we leave this "pure" world behind and get back to the empirical one. As a matter of both theoretical possibility and empirical fact, capitalists needn't always gain access to value-producing workers by engaging (merely) labor power. They sometimes loan money at interest to workers and get their surplus value that way; they sometimes contract for specific labor services. Instead, we're talking about either simple commodity > production (by independent contractors) or a "gray area" between > capitalist/proletarian employment relations and simple commodity > production, a mixture of these two types of social relationships. I agree we're not talking about "simple commodity production", because the scenario at hand is one where the *only* commodity being provided is the labor services that capitalists would otherwise extract in production if they only hired labor power. And again, calling this a "gray area" begs exactly the same question that Marx is begging in Ch. 6. It *assumes* that purchase of labor power is the relevant norm. But why? It doesn't follow from Marx's argument in Ch. 6. That, to me, is what makes Walt's question apt. I understand that one could argue on empirical grounds that capitalist purchase and subsumption of labor power is the typical (although clearly not universal) basis for the circuit of capital. But exactly because this is an empirical statement, it doesn't support theoretical judgments as to the "purity" of given relationships, and thus can't support the corollary that non-typical relations are "impure" or in a "gray area." > Gray areas are important: the empirical world often deviates from > abstract theory, being instead overdetermined. My point is that Marx has not validly established purchase of labor power as the "pure" case of the modern circuit of capital, in the first place. So to call deviations from this case "gray areas," as if there's something murky about them, is to beg the question at hand. Capitalists can, and often do, appropriate surplus value on the basis of these alternative forms of capital/labor exchange. For example, before > capitalist subjection (a.k.a. domination or subsumption) of labor > applied generally, there was "proto-subsumption," which represented a > mixture of usurer's and merchant's capital on the one hand and > precapitalist methods of subsumption on the other. Agreed, but see above: the methods of surplus value appropriation respectively corresponding to usurer's and merchant's [putting-out] capital persist under the capitalist mode of production, so it is an open question what if anything constitutes the "pure" case of surplus value appropriation. My response to Walt's series of questions is that Marx has not established, in his Ch.6 argument argument, that capitalists must purchase [and subsume]labor power as the "pure" case of surplus value appropriation. > (I deliberately have not read Paul's comment, since I wanted to limit > the information I have to work with in my reply. Sorry if it leads to > redundancy, repetition, or pleonasm.) What's a little redundancy, repetition, or neoplasm (say what?) among friends? Gil > Jim Devine / "Socialist democracy is not a luxury but an absolute, > essential necessity for overthrowing capitalism and building > socialism." -- Ernest Mandel >
