On 8/22/06, Gil Skillman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I've downloaded Jim's paper and am part of the way through it, but for the
moment, for the record:
Roemer doesn't have an "exploitation-as-scarcity-rent" theory per se,
He would never say he did, since it would imply that his theory was
derivative from that of Henry George and George Bernard Shaw, among
others (if indeed he read their works), dressed up with fancy math and
jargon.
although that's the main case he treats in his formal models (and arguably
the case that gives the strongest heuristic justification for the normative
sense of "exploitation").
right.
Productive assets, or the wealth advanced to
finance them, must be scarce at the margin in order for surplus value (and
thus exploitation) to arise in equilibrium, but not necessarily "scarce" in
the sense that yields economic rents to capitalists.
I don't get this distinction.
This point especially
holds for his cooperative game-theoretic generalization of the concept of
exploitation in Part III of his 1982 book General Theory of Exploitation
and Class.
I was talking about positive theory (how does exploitation work in
practice?). The game-theoretical stuff seems to be entirely normative
(what's wrong with exploitation?).
As for normative theory, I see "exploitation" as akin to "taxation
without representation" (to use Arjun Makhijani's apt definition).
Instead of being a matter of individual choice -- as in the
game-theoretic approach -- I see exploitation as involving the
negation of collective, democratic, choice:
Exploitation involves the capitalist supremacy over the working class
on societal (macro) level, the capitalist subjection of workers in
production (domination, or in academic language, subsumption), and the
workers' conscious submission to this situation (a major element
that's downplayed in my article). These also play major roles on the
the positive side of the article (which accentuates the positive, as
it were).
The bit in the game-theoretic stuff about exploitation involving
limited choices on the part of the exploited seems obvious at best.
Why would anyone submit to being "exploited" (robbed) by a guy with a
gun if it's possible to escape easily? Maybe one would submit if one
were hypnotized or drugged, but that's not Roemer's theory.
For example, it might be that existing capitalists are worse or
more risk-averse entrepreneurs than existing proletarians would be if they
could only get access to financial wealth (which they can't, say, due to
imperfect credit markets). Then under Roemer's definition, workers are
capitalistically exploited in this scenario because they would be better
off with an egalitarian share of alienable productive assets, even if
existing capitalists don't in fact earn scarcity *rents*.
This proves my point above by making it clear that Roemer presents a
normative definition, i.e., a comparison of (simplified) real-world
phenomena with an ideal world (with perfect credit markets, etc.)
In any case, I wonder if Jim would disagree that Roemer's scenario of
scarce, unequally distributed capital assets is at least *sufficient* for
the existence of capitalist exploitation.
Unfortunately, arguing that something exists in a Walrasian general
equilibrium framework, as Roemer did, is tantamount to arguing that it
doesn't exist at all. He thus undermined his own case by trying to
please and fit in with the economic orthodoxy (of the time -- the
orthodoxy has moved on, as has Roemer). (It's ironic that he rejected
"BS Marxism" by embracing neoclassical BS.)
But the existence of unequally-distributed scarce non-human productive
assets does seem necessary to the existence of exploitation, as I've
said before (including in the paper I uploaded to my website). The
point, therefore, is to explain the reproduction of that social
situation over time once it has been established (by primitive
accumulation, something I don't discuss in my paper).
Anticipatory comment: Marx's definition [and theory -- JD] of "exploitation"
is based
on an extensive measure of labor performed, i.e. labor hours, *given* a certain
degree of labor intensity. I see that in Jim's paper the measure of labor
performed is instead intensive, i.e. based on labor effort per hour.
It's best to choose either one or the other (unless one wants an
excessively complex model). I chose labor effort per hour because it
fits with the empirical reality of today better than the alternative,
just as Marx chose the former because he saw it fitting the empirical
reality of his day better than the alternative. In reality, the world
involves a mixture of both, though we seem to returning to the case
that Marx saw as relevant -- in this brave new neoliberal world of
ours.
This
is an interesting approach, but it should be noted that variations along
the extensive and intensive margins have very different consequences in
labor-value terms. E.g., an increase in aggregate labor hours performed
always increases total commodity values produced while leaving individual
commodity values unchanged, other things (including in particular labor
intensity, constant capital, and the state of technology) constant. In
contrast, for given labor hours performed, technology, and constant
capital, a general increase in labor intensity *reduces* the values of
individual commodities, by reducing the labor hours socially necessary to
produce a given mass of commodities, while leaving *total* commodity value
unchanged.
I don't have time for fruitless discussions of the law of value today,
especially as they are likely to get into the interpretation of texts.
Consequently I wonder if Jim is posing a new definition of
exploitation, one advanced by neither Marx nor Roemer.
no, I think that my model would work just as well using Marx's use of
extensive measure of labor performed. It seems a very small technical
detail.
If that's the case,
I don't see how his paper can possibly establish a relevant basis for
"superceding" Roemer's theory, whatever its other merits.
I think that my paper captures Marx's idea that exploitation under
capitalism is a social relationship that cannot be reduced to simple
economics or the "unequally-distributed scarce non-human productive
assets."
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
