[Just to clarify...]
Where I wrote
Yes, but from the standpoint of surplus value creation, they are
isomorphic [i.e., having similar appearance but having different origins].
That is, whatever the systemic conditions that make possible
"unequal exchange" in this scenario also make it possible for capitalists
to extract more labor from wage workers than is embodied in their wage
bundles. Let's take it a step further: given no contracting failures
(which is the assumption that motivated this thread),
Jim replied:
if "no contracting failures" is what motivated the thread, how did
this thread continue so long? the assumption of "no contracting
failures" is absurd.
OK, let me back up and state that aside more carefully. Specifically what
motivated this thread was Walt's question re Marx's argument in Capital V.
I Ch 6: why is it necessarily the case that capitalists purchase (merely)
labor power, the capacity to work, rather than contracting for specific
labor services? My response was that this was a legitimate question,
especially given the empirical reality that capitalists *do* often contract
for specific labor services, going back to the putting-out system. And, to
take the point a step further, they also appropriate surplus value by
providing loans at interest to, e.g., worker-owned firms [a case Marx
acknowledges in his treatment of "cooperative factories" in V. III].
So if capitalists *can* sometimes contract directly for the labor services
they seek, why do they typically not do this, opting instead for the more
indirect and costly route of purchasing simply labor power, and then
overseeing its exercise in the context of capitalist production? I
suggested that in those cases contractual incompleteness was a sufficient
hindrance to preclude using simple contractual means to attain the desired
labor outcomes. A corollary of this observation is that, hypothetically,
if there were no contracting difficulties, purchasing labor power and
subsuming it in capitalist-controlled production would be
unnecessary. However, obviously, it's not necessary assume that there are
no contracting frictions in the empirical cases where capitalists do
contract for labor services or make loans at interest to value producers.
In other words, "no contracting failures" is just a theoretical benchmark,
used as a tool for distinguishing what causes what in economic terms (as in
my response to Walt when I noted that there were two economically distinct
aspects to Marx's distinction between labor and labor power, one having to
do with the *form* of capital/labor exchange and the other having to do
with the systemic basis for surplus value). And as I've suggested in my
previous post, as such it is no more "absurd" than theoretical benchmarks
posited in Marxian analysis, and to the contrary it is arguably more often
relevant to real-world phenomena. More about that in a moment.
Making that kind of assumption must reflect a
total ignorance of contract law. I'm pretty ignorant of that law, but
I know that perfect contracts cannot exist (in the real world, that
is, not in the imaginary world of Walras or Debreu or Roemer).
I'm no expert in contract law either, but I know a little about the
differences between employment law and the law governing commercial
contracts, and these speak to a narrower sense of contractual
imperfections: that is, imperfections with specific *economic* consequences
such as "authority relations" and firm-level structures of supervision,
governance, and ownership.
In other words, it's apparently the case that "sufficiently perfect"
contracts governing capital/labor transactions can exist, even if "perfect
contracts" in the more general sense cannot.
Note that one could with at least equal justice make statements parallel to
Jim's re certain theoretical benchmarks that Marx invokes. In V. I, Marx
posits the scenario of commodity exchange at value. Given variations in
organic compositions of capital and competitive conditions across
industries, to say nothing of the absence of commodity money, exchange at
value surely never occurs in real capitalist economies. In his V. III
analysis of the "transformation of commodity values into prices of
production," Marx posits equalized profit rates across sectors. It is
even more clear that this is empirically "absurd"-- such equalization of
profit rates demonstrably has never occurred. So either Marx is absurd,
per Jim's standard, or there can be legitimate theoretical reasons for
positing scenarios that are never in fact realized.
the previous cases
are also isomorphic to a scenario in which the workers in question,
instead of being hired by capital, instead "hire capital", i.e. borrow
money to finance production of new value, and yield surplus value to
capital in the form of the interest paid on the loan. *Given* perfect
contracting, the existence and magnitude of surplus value in all three
cases is explained by the same systemic conditions....
This refers to the Samuelson-Roemer theory (currently discredited),
Specifically, I'm referring to Roemer's isomorphism theorem. I'm curious:
who exactly has "discredited" it, and on what grounds?
Please give references if you can. Even if issues have been raised with
respect to other aspects of his theory, it doesn't follow that the result I
cite is invalid.
in
which workers being hired by the owners of capital goods is the same
as workers borrowing those capital goods from its owners. Given the
destruction of that theory, there's no point in going on.
Again, who exactly "destroyed" Roemer's isomorphism theorem, and on what basis?
As an entirely separate question, whom do you think has "destroyed"
Roemer's theory of exploitation writ large, as opposed to merely noting
qualifications to Roemer's conclusions?
Note: all of my comments above should be read as if prefaced by "On the
basis of the theoretical framework I'm working within" or something like
that. I think that framework is internally coherent and arguably
relevant, but its validity may be in the eye of the beholder.
It's not merely a subjective ("eye of the beholder") matter.
...which is why I threw in the points about internal coherence and
defensible relevance.
Gil
--
Jim Devine / "Socialist democracy is not a luxury but an absolute,
essential necessity for overthrowing capitalism and building
socialism." -- Ernest Mandel
