tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (01/01/70)
> A person is exploited if her unequal relationship to someone > else forces her to make decisions which leave her worse off > than if she and that someone else were on an equal footing. (tony wuersch - me) > > Okay. We have several problems right off the bat. First of all, > how do I tell when a person is ``forced to make a decision''? > . . . Also, what is ``equal footing''? . . . > The final problem is ``who decides when se is worse off''? I still > don't know how to tell whether she has made her decision because she > was exploited or because our tastes differ. > (laura creighton) I'm afraid that my initial definition (given at the beginning of that article) was a colloquial form (i.e. the way I usually remember it) of what I alluded to near the end of that article: > In the context of socialism, people are exploited by capital if > they would be better off (would choose to live a different and > more satisfied life) in a situation where capital differentials > were (more or less) eliminated, i.e. in socialism. What I'm alluding to here is a general definition of exploitation that depends on comparing life in one system with life in another. Tastes are assumed to be the same in both systems. The first system is a system where people substantially differ in their holdings (a better word than endowments) of some important resource. The second system is a system where each person has the average per capita amount of that important resource in the first system. The total amount of the resource is the same between the two systems, but its distribution is unequal in the first and equal in the second. Exploitation (for that resource) is happening in the first system if those who live in the first system and have less of the resource would be happier (and better off, I would say, by external standards too -- I don't think that tastes are everything [adults can get just as sick on candy as children] -- however, I don't expect Laura to agree with me on this) if they withdrew from the first system with their per capita average of that resource and started their own second system. Those people who would be happier and better off by withdrawing are exploited people. This definition should motivate the first colloquial definition I gave, if one has a strong imagination about what the second system would look like. If I'd be happier in the second system, then I'd likely be making decisions I'd be constrained from making while I'm stuck in the first system. I'd be forced in the first system to make decisions I'd not have to make in the second one. Perhaps I'd be worse off because I'd have to make less ambitious decisions. One misunderstanding might be resolved by my pointing out that there is no such thing as exploitation in general. There is only exploitation as regards a set of one or more resources. Having said this, Laura has, I think, three questions remaining: 1. Property. Why do socialists care more about property than many people do? Why do they think that having property is more despicable than having any other thing one's tastes incline one to acquire? 2. Tastes. How can one say that anyone is exploited if people's tastes vary so much? 3. Better off. How can one say that people in one system are better off than people in another? Question 1 is not related to questions about exploitation, so I'll put it off till last. The taste question is easy to answer. First, if one needs to take account of tastes, one should ask people what their tastes are. Second, although it is true that for some categories of goods, tastes vary widely, for other categories, tastes don't vary so much. The resources for which exploitation can be determined have to be resources where it's reasonable to speak of more or less, and where it's reasonable to say that people's satisfaction with said resources roughly correspond to how much (or how little) of that resource they have. There's a tremendous amount of collected data and analysis of two resources which fit the above criteria: occupational prestige and income. The data and research come under the rubric of stratification studies. At least in the U.S. (I doubt Canada is so different) and most of Western Europe, the results indicate a wide agreement on what are good jobs and what are bad jobs, and a high correlation (with some exceptions, such as university professors) between the status associated with a job and its income. Most people have no problem saying that job a is better than job b, or that income a is better than income b if income a is greater than income b. And they agree on what is better and what is worse, to a high degree. I assume that the results on property would be similar to those on income. There may be wide disagreement as to whether people want to see the Grateful Dead or not, but the disagreement as to whether people want more or less property is nowhere near as wide. As to the second question, how we know that people are better off in the second system than in the first, we need to carry out a thought experiment, grounded by what we already know about the first system and similar second systems. Just as planning improves with experience, so do thought experiments improve with discussion and care. Again, it isn't a problem of tastes in the second system, since they should be similar to tastes in the first system, and we can find out those tastes by asking and surveying. In the thought experiment, we imagine ourselves as people in the first system, based on the data we have, and ask our imagined selves if we'd feel better in the second system. If so, than a subjective assessment says they would be better off. If we need more support, than we can ask these people to make the same assessment we made on their behalf, and find out if our assessment disagrees with theirs. It needs to be emphasized that as a second system comes nearer in real life, it's more likely that those others whom we include in thought experiments will make decisions for themselves about whether they'd be better off. Objective assessments (physical health, for instance) don't need thought experiments to confirm their plausibility, but they are also part of a judgment of whether person x would be better off in system 1 or 2. Laura's first question, put off until now, is why socialists should care so much about property while libertarians like herself don't necessarily care much about property at all (I hope I'm not mischaracterizing it by putting it this way). The answer is that property is not properly conceived of as a satisfier of a taste for property. It should be conceived of as a satisfier of a taste for property or anything else for which property might be exchanged. Since property can be exchanged for almost any thing (material, sensual, educational, spiritual [time in a retreat, for instance]), and since capitalism as a system strives to bring more and more desired things under the law of exchangeability for property, property is a satisfier for almost any taste. If Laura had more property, she wouldn't have to worry about disk packs if she didn't want to (I venture the thought experiment that Laura doesn't enjoy working with disk packs). So the distribution of property in a society has an important relation to the question of whether some people are happier and better off than others. And discussing societies where people might be better off and happier than in this one is what socialists and libertarians both do. It's also supposed to be the purpose of political philosophy (to discuss . . .), and is likely the motivation of net.politics.theory. Tony Wuersch {amd,amdcad}!cad780!ubvax!tonyw
carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (02/06/85)
[IQ test for readers of net.politics: Prove that your IQ is at least 45 by posting followups to this article to net.politics.theory, where discussions on the nature of socialism belong.] Libertarians have claimed that "socialism" implies sacrificing the individual for the sake of the collectivity, again illustrating their disinclination to study socialist theory and learn something about what they are talking about. Having learned all about socialism from Ayn Rand, they need not bother reading socialist writings. I have news for JoSH and others: the ideals of democratic socialism, and of Marx and Engels, do not include trampling on the individual for the sake of society. If I thought that was the case, I would repudiate socialism. As a sample of socialist writing I have appended a passage by Henry Pachter below to save you the trouble of looking it up. I have no illusions that this article will do much good: arguing with libertarians is an exercise in futility, like arguing with children. I have so far counted exactly two libertarians out of the many on net.politics who show a capacity for rational thought: D. K. Mc Kiernan and Laura Creighton; the rest retreat to dogmatism. From Pachter: "Socialism strives to abolish exploitation and inequality. It seeks a society where merit and character are the only marks of distinction; where economic resources are controlled by public agencies, themselves under public scrutiny; where production is geared to the human needs of all and the product is distributed equitably; a society, finally, where man is no longer utilized as a means for purposes alien to him. "In practice, however, socialism has usually come to be identified with "collectivism," and two of its best known features are public ownership of the means of production and a comprehensive "plan" of production and distribution. "These are indeed characteristic of states that now call themselves "socialist," but a moment's reflection will show that they are inadequate to define socialism. Nationalization is not socialization, and a plan must have a purpose: it may be designed to enhance the development of man's potentialities or it may be the instrument of national ambitions. The Inca state and Egypt of the Pharaohs featured both public ownership and a plan, but paired with servitude and exploitation. Spartan communism subjected all citizens to equal political repression. Bismarck nationalized the railroads and the health service; Hitler's war machine was powered by a planned "command economy." Some modern states have adopted a rapid industrialization plan which -- though praiseworthy in its intention -- ruthlessly subordinates the desires of the citizens to the needs of the state. Others have abolished the market for political reasons without, however, freeing the production units from the tyranny of profit calculations that continue to keep the workers under the yoke of exploitation. "To call this "socialism" is to misuse a good word. Socialism is not a technocratic scheme designed to run the capitalist economy more efficiently, nor is it an economy that has merely been rid of capitalistic parasites. Socialists hope to emancipate people from serving goals that have been imposed on them either by arbitrary masters or by abstract laws of economic development. They aim to make people responsible for their own destiny and to give everybody a chance to fulfill his or her aspirations as a person. This dream has been expressed in the socialist literature of all times. I shall cite one source that, because it may not be guessed easily, is especially significant: In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. "In most anthologies this sentence is the conclusion of the *Communist Manifesto* for it is indeed the end of its theoretical exposition. It must be assumed that Marx and Engels worded this ending with special care, and it is therefore noteworthy that they said "association" instead of "state," and that they did not consider the development of the whole a condition for the development of each, but on the contrary "THE DEVELOPMENT OF EACH THE CONDITION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ALL." "I do not consider Marx and Engels oracles, but it is significant that these alleged "collectivists" placed the individual ahead of the collective. True, they proposed to abolish "private property," but not to put state property in its place. Their "association" was supposed to abolish the relationship of property between capital and worker, between dead and living labor; it was to substitute a direct, human relationship of cooperation for the mediated, material relationship of property and profitability. "Socialism has inherited this emancipatory dream from a long tradition of democratic revolutionary thinkers; as is well known, their revolutions were side-tracked and ended in capitalism -- with individualism frozen in the property relationship and opportunity confined to the class of owners. Socialism continues the movement of emancipation that was started in the eighteenth century, and it wants to spread individualism to all, removing the fetters that capitalism has clasped on the fulfillment of many human aspirations. Freedom is not a luxury to be enjoyed only by the members of a ruling elite, but a basic human aspiration that was brought to flower only in the unique development of Western civilization, and it is still waiting for full and generalized realization. Civil rights and human rights are still expanding, and their wider scope is on the agenda of socialism. FAR FROM SUBDUING THE INDIVIDUAL, SOCIALISM IS THE HIGHEST STAGE OF INDIVIDUALISM -- ITS FRUITION FOR ALL. "As an association of people, the socialist society certainly must reflect the democratic structure and behavior of its origin -- the socialist movement. Readers interested in political theory may have noticed that in the passage I cited Marx and Engels fell into the language of Rousseau, although on other occasions they were highly critical of theories that attribute the founding of the state to a "contract"; but when they wrote the *Manifesto* they still saw the socialist revolution as the direct outgrowth of the democratic spirit of that revolution, they saw "the association" as the means to mediate between the demands of society and the rights of the individual. They could not conceive of a society (much less a state) that would set itself goals other than those that the citizens themselves had made their own. "But socialism begins with the insight that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The association can envisage goals that unassociated individuals might not even be able to conceive. This is an opportunity as well as a danger. In the following pages I shall discuss problems that have arisen for socialism out of the conflict between the will of the whole and the will of the parts: how much freedom may smaller associations (the shop, the region, the profession, the ethnic or religious fraternity) reserve vis-a-vis the big association (the nation, an international authority)? How much discipline or obedience can the larger community expect from the smaller and from the individual? When does the public ethos prevail over the private conscience?" [Henry Pachter] And if you want to know Pachter's answers you will have to read the rest of his article, in *Beyond the Welfare State*, ed. I. Howe. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) (02/07/85)
This is in some sense a reply to Carnes' article on net.politics; I'm trying to move the discussion here as he suggested. Quick summary (please tell me if there is any major misrepresentation): "Socialism is not the same as collectivism. Socialism is a humane doctrine which does partake of the all-powerful State. It can be distinguished from other forms of individualism by its dislike of property. However it dislikes State-owned property as much as privately-owned property." Let me make two points. The first is procedural. I cannot accept the term "Socialist" as properly differentiating Mr. Carnes' ideas from Nazism and totalitarian Communism. As I mentioned before, too many people like to parade under that banner. (The same is true of the term "liberal", and as a result its original meaning must be referred to by the unlovely neologism "libertarian".) Thus I suggest the terms of a truce: Both Carnes and I should refrain from using the term "socialist", and use more exact terms. When I mean "totalitarian collectivism" I shall say so, and if what Carnes is referring to is "anarcho-communism" let him use that or other nomenclature of his choice. Point Two. I do not understand how a society without private property can function (in the economic sense) except by political control. It is not obvious how a society *with* private property can function without political control, but I believe that it can (and will explain it at boring length if given half a chance). I ask Mr. Carnes to explain his thoughts on this matter. I am perfectly capable of unheated discussion, and only too happy to leave the flaming to net.politics and Mr. Sevener. En Garde! --JoSH
jlg@lanl.ARPA (02/08/85)
Unfortunately, I don't have the time to respond to this article at very great length, but here goes. > [...] the ideals of democratic socialism, and of Marx and Engels, do not > include trampling on the individual for the sake of society. Actually, Marx thought that socialism could not work without a totalitarian form of government. I will look for the exact reference, but I returned all the Marx writings I ever read to libraries long ago. > [...] where production is geared to the human needs of all and > the product is distributed equitably; What's 'equitably'? Who decides? If at least one component of 'equitably' doesn't reward additional productivity, intelligence, or achievement with additional 'product', then it just won't work. What's the incentive to put in extra effort if your reward is the same as with normal effort? The result is a general malaise where noone works harder than necessary to appear 'about average' - and soon the average level of output slows to whatever level the workers think they can get away with. > [...] a society, finally, where man is no > longer utilized as a means for purposes alien to him. If a person has a job he considers 'alien' or unpleasant in any way, he should quit and get another one. He may have to keep it up for a while until he acquires skills suitable for the other work he's interested in, but sooner or later he should leave. Or is this allowable in a socialist system? > "Socialism has inherited this emancipatory dream from a long tradition of > democratic revolutionary thinkers; as is well known, their revolutions were > side-tracked and ended in capitalism -- with individualism frozen in the > property relationship and opportunity confined to the class of owners. I disagree entirely. I a capitalist system, opportunity is available to anyone who can work or who has capital to invest. This doesn't include everyone to be sure. But that is why the US Constitution starts with a line which includes 'to promote the general welfare.' It is the responsibility of any fair society to support those that cannot support themselves. In our society, we have shoved this responsibility onto the government - fair enough. It is folly for ANY society to support those who can support themselves, but just don't wish to. In a socialist system, opportunity is available only to those who sit on the 'select committee to decide who does what, where, and when.' Even if these people are freely elected, there are bound to be people who don't get a fair shake. (it only takes a large minority to elect people you know. 'Prefect' democracies are a logical impossibility.) If you don't have such a committee, then all the people can do whatever work best pleases them - including no work at all. I think a lot of people would choose this last alternative. But then, who is it that produces the goods and services to support all these folks? > [...] and > that they did not consider the development of the whole a condition for the > development of each, but on the contrary "THE DEVELOPMENT OF EACH THE > CONDITION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ALL." ... > "But socialism begins with the insight that the whole is more than the sum of > its parts. Which of the above is it? Either the parts are more important then the whole or the other way around. You can't have both. ------- Well the main two things wrong with Pachter's preface (aside from too many run-on sentences) are the lack of personal incentive and the requirement that someone other than the individual makes the 'plan' into which the individual must fit. The first point is simple. If you provide incentive (extra food, fuel, privilages, etc.) then pretty soon those who get this extra wealth will be trading it for goods and services from his coworkers. A little underground capitalist economy will emerge. Worse than that of course is that incentives in the workplace will cause competition between coworkers, at a higher level, incentives for plant managers will cause competition between production plants, etc.. Here it is, one of socialism's most hated words - competition. This is one of the reasons that Marx came to the conclusion that socialism must be totalitarian; it lapses into capitalism otherwise. The second part is more subtile. As I pointed out, if there is NO external force on an individual which directs his choice of employment of residence, then you will have chaos and, soon, economic collapse. In a capitalist society the external force is apparent - the individual must take employment that is sufficiently profitable to support his lifestyle and that he is qualified to do. He can take any such job that best pleases him, but he must take one such job (or more). If a person has the same choice in a socialist society (to take any job he is qualified for, all jobs are paid 'equitably' so profitibility is not an issue), he will opt for the job with the best working conditions in the best part of the country. It will then be very hard to find people to take the unpleasant but necessary jobs which exist in any large economy. A capitalist system would react by offering more money for such unpleasant tasks, but that wouldn't be 'equitable' for a socialist society to do. The result is that someone (or some group) in the socialist society must decide which employment is appropriate for each person (another reason Marx decided that socialism had to be totalitarian). I don't see how this is really a big blow in the cause of individual freedom. The above points (and others) have been debated for a hundred years now and are not any nearer to resolution than they were then. Socialism has some (very few) good points to it. But a pure socialist society is not desireable or even of much interest outside the lecture hall. Note: The above statements about the opinions of Marx are not exactly as he would have stated them. Although his conclusion that totalitarian rule was necessary was quite unambiguous, I don't think he ever actually used the word itself. And his reasoning was much less straightforward. Marx was a fairly convincing writer and was careful to state his conclusions and arguements in the least inflamatory language he could. As I say, I will try to find the reference, but it's been years. End or note. J. Giles P.S. I'm not a libertarian either (as examination of my previous notes on taxation will demonstrate). Libertarians have SOME good ideas too, but a Libertarian society (whatever that is) would seem a bit too chaotic to be stable.
myers@uwmacc.UUCP (Jeff Myers) (02/08/85)
> > Actually, Marx thought that socialism could not work without a totalitarian > form of government. I will look for the exact reference, but I returned > all the Marx writings I ever read to libraries long ago. > Hm. No doubt you're thinking of the *Critique of the Gotha Programme*, which is the text that makes the distinction between socialism and communism. For Marx and Engels, EVERY state (government, loosely) is an agent for the dominance of classes by a dominant class. In the transition from the capitalist state to the absence of a repressive state under communism, there would be a period of transition in which the state would need to act as an agent of the working class, as long as class antagonisms remained. Note that Marx felt that this state would be LESS (not more) dictatorial and MORE (not less) democratic than the state under capitalism, in the sense that people would have more control over their individual and collective lives, including more control over government policies. It is also important to point out that the absence of a "State" under communism does not mean that there are no planning nor distribution apparatuses, but that the government no longer plays the role of agent of class oppression. Lenin coined the term "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in describing the state in post-capitalist revolutionary societies. This term has come to have bad connotations. -- Jeff Myers The views above may or may not University of Wisconsin-Madison reflect the views of any other Madison Academic Computing Center person or group at UW-Madison. ARPA: uwmacc!myers@wisc-rsch.arpa uucp: ..!{ucbvax,allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!myers
mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (02/09/85)
In article <325@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >[IQ test for readers of net.politics: Prove that your IQ is at least 45 by >posting followups to this article to net.politics.theory, where discussions >on the nature of socialism belong.] [Second IQ test: when posting articles to net.politics & net.politics.theory that you want followed-up in net.politics.theory, edit the header so that the "Followup-To:" field says "net.politics.theory." :-] >[Attack on libertarians, with comments that this is from the writings of >[Henry Pachter, deleted.] >"Socialism strives to abolish exploitation and inequality. It seeks a >society where merit and character are the only marks of distinction; where >economic resources are controlled by public agencies, themselves under >public scrutiny; where production is geared to the human needs of all and >the product is distributed equitably; a society, finally, where man is no >longer utilized as a means for purposes alien to him. Sounds good. Also, there is nothing in this statement that is directly contradictory to libertarianism (at least the leftist version I peddle, which has been called "communitarianism"). Pachter leaves control of the most important property (your body) where it belongs, and doesn't say *anything* about the second important property ("the fruits of your labor"). All other "rights" (property and otherwise) are details, and we can work them out later :-). It still leaves my question on socialism unanswered: How do I recognize a socialist state from outside? The answers I get from socialist sound like the answers I get from christians when I ask "How can I tell if someone is a true christian?". The answers I get from non-socialists make socialists mad. Pachter provides an answer in the first class, dealing with the "goals" of the society. Actual goals aren't visible from the outside; you can only see stated goals. Care to try and provide an answer, Richard? <mike
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (02/12/85)
<mike wants Rich Carnes to come up with a non-Utopian criteria for a socialist state. The implication is that Carnes doesn't think any of the states now calling themselves socialist are socialist. I don't think Carnes ever said that; I hope he didn't. My own criteria (which I think would have been Marx's) come from the best book on Marx of the last ten years or so -- G.H. Cohen's "Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense" (Princeton University Press, 1978). [Frankly, I must agree with comments about Carnes' quotes on Pachter that we've heard that all before]. Cohen's book (and subsequent microeconomic elaborations of it, such as John Roemer's "A General Theory of Exploitation and Class" [Harvard University Press, 1983] -- a book which even neoclassical welfare economists like Amartya Sen recommend -- but it's SO TOUGH...]) says that Marx held to a "stages of historical development" theory that says that economic systems are overthrown when alternative economic systems can provide as good or better outcomes with less structural exploitation. In the context of capitalism vs socialism, this means overthrowing a system (capitalism) where exploitation is based on property and status differentials in order to establish a system where exploitation is based only on status differentials (socialism). Lots of socialist countries, that is those which underwent a capitalist phase, meet this criterion of overcoming systems based on more axes of exploitation and then establishing systems based on fewer axes of exploitation. I would place the USSR and Eastern Europe from Hungary northwards in this category, at the least. Cuba would also apply, some other countries too, perhaps. Any country which was substantially penetrated by capitalist market enterprise before its shift to socialist systems should be called, by my criterion, socialist. So I would define it by history as well as by current conditions (apartness from capitalism and state management of the economy). Tony Wuersch
carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (02/12/85)
J. Giles writes: >> Actually, Marx thought that socialism could not work without a totalitarian >> form of government. I will look for the exact reference, but I returned >> all the Marx writings I ever read to libraries long ago. I agree with Jeff Myers' response to this, except that it was actually Marx who first used the term "dictatorship of the proletariat," in a letter written in 1852. However, Marx never explained exactly what he meant by it, and he only used it a few times in his writings. Most likely he was thinking of the dictatorship in the Roman Republic, a constitutional office held for a limited time. One can get an idea of what he had in mind from his pamphlet *The Civil War in France* on the Paris Commune of 1871; in fact Engels later claimed that the Commune was an example of the DotP. The significance of the Paris Commune for Marx was that, in contrast to all previous revolutions, it had begun to dismantle the state apparatus and given power to the people. Marx saw it as an attempt to give power to the working class and to create a regime as close to DIRECT DEMOCRACY as possible. Thus, by the "DotP" Marx meant not only a form of REGIME, in which the working class would have the power hitherto possessed by the bourgeoisie, but also a form of GOVERNMENT, with the working class actually governing and taking over some of the functions hitherto performed by the state. Lenin adopted this concept in *State and Revolution*, but he did not address the question of the role of the party -- clearly, there is a big difference between the "DotP" and the "DotP under the guidance of the Party." Lenin also interpreted the DotP to mean the ruthless suppression by the proletariat of its enemies: "The revolutionary DotP is power won and maintained by the violence of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, power that is unrestricted by any laws." Thus Marx's fundamentally democratic concept of the DotP came to be employed by the followers of Lenin as a rationale for state repression. Small wonder the concept has acquired a bad name, even in many communist parties. I am anxiously awaiting J. Giles' quotation showing that Marx believed that totalitarianism was necessary for socialism, since I thought I had a better understanding of Marx's political thought than this would imply. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
faustus@ucbcad.UUCP (02/15/85)
> In the context of capitalism vs socialism, this means overthrowing > a system (capitalism) where exploitation is based on property and status > differentials in order to establish a system where exploitation is based > only on status differentials (socialism). > > Lots of socialist countries, that is those which underwent a capitalist > phase, meet this criterion of overcoming systems based on more axes of > exploitation and then establishing systems based on fewer axes of > exploitation. I would place the USSR and Eastern Europe from Hungary > northwards in this category, at the least. Cuba would also apply, > some other countries too, perhaps. Any country which was substantially > penetrated by capitalist market enterprise before its shift to socialist > systems should be called, by my criterion, socialist. So I would > define it by history as well as by current conditions (apartness from > capitalism and state management of the economy). You mean to say that if there is only one criterion that a person must meet to become a member of the ruling class, instead of two, that the country is better off? This sounds pretty silly to me. The reason that countries like the USSR are much worse off than the US is that the people in control have so much more power than they would in the US. The fact that they don't have to be rich seems totally irrelevant. Wayne
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (02/15/85)
In response to Rich Carnes, I can't see how dictatorship of the proletariat could ever be a "fundamentally democratic concept", unless one means democracy as it is interpreted in the socialist world, as rule by the working class, so that dictatorship of the proletariat and democracy are the same by definition. Power to the working class, esp. in the context of DotP, means democracy for the working class and dictatorship for everybody else. The reason the Paris Commune could be a democracy was because it only existed in Paris. If DotP were extended to the French countryside, one might really have discovered what it meant. Marx always recognized the existence of substantial classes other than the proletariat; I think he meant the DotP to extend over the interregnum after a revolution when the new government based on the proletariat has to consolidate its authority against counterrevolutionaries. If the revolution was violent (and Marx expected it would be), then that violence would take some time to cool down. Hence the DotP, an explicitly transitional, and hopefully short, phase. The Russian Revolution was followed by civil war and War Communism, which would correspond to a DotP period. That was followed by the New Economic Policy, a retreat back to partial capitalism, which could be said to correspond to a post-DotP period. What I wonder is if Marx meant the end of the DotP to mean the dissolution of the Communists as a party organization. Somehow I doubt it, but he wrote so little about post-revolutionary life that it's nearly pointless to speculate. Tony Wuersch allegra!amdcad!cae780!ubvax!tonyw
mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (02/17/85)
In article <190@ubvax.UUCP> tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) writes: ><mike wants Rich Carnes to come up with a non-Utopian >criteria for a socialist state. The implication is that Carnes >doesn't think any of the states now calling themselves socialist >are socialist. I don't think Carnes ever said that; I hope he didn't. I did no such thing. I asked for a way of recognizing a socialist state from outside. I did *not* use the word Utopia. I don't think a socialist or communist state could be a Utopia. [And ask what I mean by a Utopia before flaming at me, please.] By the criterion I currently use ("Do they call themselves either socialist or communist?"), all states now calling themselves socialist are socialist. So was Germany under the National Socialists. This seems to upset socialists, so I asked for a better definition. >My own criteria [Commentary and source references deleted - mwm]: >Any country which was substantially penetrated by capitalist market >enterprise before its shift to socialist systems should be called >socialist. Ok, I accept that I can apply that from outside. Now, can I define "socialist system" to mean "the government controls industry, in one way or another", or do you want to give me another definition of "socialist system" (again, that can be recognized from the outside)? <mike P.S. On your argument about eliminating an axes of exploitation, it would seem that most countries merely made the property and status axis coincide. Is that what you had in mind?
carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (02/19/85)
<mike writes: >By the criterion I currently use ("Do they call >themselves either socialist or communist?"), all states now calling >themselves socialist are socialist. So was Germany under the National >Socialists. This seems to upset socialists, so I asked for a better >definition. There is no one true definition of socialism. The term has been applied to a great variety of real and hypothetical social arrangements, unified only by a vague set of "family resemblances" and by the desire of Bismarck and Hitler to adopt an attractive-sounding label for their policies. Marx, Mitterand, Chernenko, Deng, and Nyrere would not be able to agree on a definition. I do not mind if you call Nazi Germany and the USSR socialist societies, SO LONG AS you do not imply that democratic socialists advocate the principles espoused by the leaders of those societies. A while back I posted a Marxian conception or "definition" of socialism. To Marx, the term "socialism" simply meant a negation of capitalism, the product of the laws of development of capitalism, which would eventually develop into communism. In other words, to a Marxist, "socialism" is defined by its dynamics: a socialist society is one which is on its way from capitalism to communism. Opinions differ as to whether Soviet-type societies are on this road (I think not). Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (02/19/85)
>> In the context of capitalism vs socialism, this means overthrowing >> a system (capitalism) where exploitation is based on property and status >> differentials in order to establish a system where exploitation is based >> only on status differentials (socialism). >You mean to say that if there is only one criterion that a person must >meet to become a member of the ruling class, instead of two, that the >country is better off? This sounds pretty silly to me. >Wayne When what I said is transformed this way, it sounds silly to me too. I don't think the above is a valid transformation, however. The question isn't how people become members of the ruling class. The question is whether those who aren't in the ruling class are better or worse off. As socialist arguments go, exploitation based on property exists on top of exploitation based on status, so that elimination of one means some reduction of the total. On the other hand, the two kinds of exploitation don't have to be mutually reinforcing; they could be mutually compensatory, one balancing the other. [I used the metaphor of "axes" of exploitation to make fun of the idea that two dimensions of exploitation have to be worse than one.] So ... To the degree that exploitation on the basis of property and exploitation on the basis of status reinforce each other, those who aren't in the ruling class should be better off under socialism than under capitalism. On the other hand, to the degree that exploitation ... balance each other and reduce the chance for depredations by either half of the ruling class, then those who aren't in the ruling class should be better off under capitalism than socialism. For a given political economy, it's certainly possible that capitalism could be better for the working class than socialism. Having said that, I don't I think most capitalist countries have two ruling classes. Maybe some social democratic states in Europe do; I doubt that too. Certainly there aren't two ruling classes here in the U.S.. Tony
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (02/19/85)
>Now, can I define "socialist system" to mean "the government controls >industry, in one way or another", or do you want to give me another >definition of "socialist system" (again, that can be recognized from the >outside)? ><mike Also, the government puts restrictions on the accumulation, use and disposal of private property. Also, the government gives explicit rights and protections to workers, especially the right to employment. >P.S. On your argument about eliminating an axes of exploitation, it would >seem that most countries merely made the property and status axis coincide. >Is that what you had in mind? I interpret this as suggesting that most currently socialist countries have just substituted status for property exploitation, without reducing the total (or even increasing it from what was before). I don't think that's so. Most socialist countries have extensive health care, improved education, decent old age programs, and a shortage of labor that guarantees full employment. These are achievements possible in part because of the elimination of exploitation by means of property. Exploitation by status implys a reciprocal relationship between ruler and ruled in terms of rights and guarantees (a firmer contract between classes). Exploitation by property implys no such relation. Compare Eastern Europe to Latin America, and it looks pretty good. Given their per capita GNPs, socialist states serve their people much better than capitalist states at similar GNP levels. I would judge that the level of economic exploitation is much less in most socialist states than in capitalist ones. Of course, exploitation is only one of many important criteria to judge states by. There's also democracy, economic growth, innovation, culture, and other things. Here the current socialist states have serious problems, and I don't think the judgment is yet out on whether they will solve these problems or not. (I didn't interpret my last comment about <mike as a flame at all. Sorry if it was interpreted that way.) Tony
josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) (02/21/85)
I'm still waiting for Mr. Carnes to tell us how a collectively organized society can operate without the formation of a small group who effectively "own" everything. A couple of clarifications, please: (a) do you support the idea of a benevolent dictatorship, ie a small group in charge is fine so long they do what (you think) is right? (b) is the idea of democracy more important than following the "socialist plan" (let's just assume for sake of argument that it is absolutely fair, and indeed possible in the real world)? (c) do you believe that what a majority of the people decides is right by definition? A majority of duly elected representatives? A single "dictator" (in the Roman sense) duly elected by duly elected representatives? --JoSH
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (02/23/85)
Another practical question. How do you tell when people are exploited? In particular, how can you distinguish this from the case where there are people who are chosing to live in ways you would find abhorrant, and from the case where there aer people who are a product of adverse cirmcumstances that are a result of chance rather than exploitation? Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (02/26/85)
>In particular, how can you distinguish this from the case where there >are people who are chosing to live in ways you would find abhorrant, and >from the case where there aer people who are a product of adverse >cirmcumstances that are a result of chance rather than exploitation? > >Laura Creighton A person is exploited if her unequal relationship to someone else forces her to make decisions which leave her worse off than if she and that someone else were on an equal footing. "Decisions" are like choices in a game where both of the unequal participants compete. In the case of property differences, if a person lacks property and has to make hard life choices that she wouldn't have to worry about if she and someone else had equal property holdings, then she's exploited. If people are choosing to live in ways I'd find abhorrant, then they would (I presume) still choose to lead their abhorrant lives if they and I were on an equal footing. Then they aren't exploited. People who are unlucky are not exploited if they could have been just as unlucky in a fair game. Of course, the comparison between chances in one game and chances in another can only be done when more than one case is involved (distributions and all that). In the real world, where most competitive situations involve risk and chance, one can't say in a particular case that exploitation is going on. But one can say that exploitation is going on if many cases are compared and the differences between group outcomes correspond to inequalities in important resources. Once a finding of exploitation has been made, the inference can then be made that each member of the exploited group is exploited as an individual. In the context of socialism, people are exploited by capital if they would be better off (would choose to live a different and more satisfied life) in a situation where capital differentials were (more or less) eliminated, i.e. in socialism. Whether they would be better off is a pragmatic, historical question, a question of what the alternative socialist system would look like in a given period of history and political-economic development. The power of Marx's vision was that he saw a time when the capitalist economy would be so advanced and there would be so much potential opportunity for all that the exploited would clearly see that it was in their interest to throw off the shackles of capital for a society where those shackles would no longer exist. At that point, the non-exploited and exploiting classes would present an obstacle to change that perhaps only revolutions would be able to overcome. Tony Wuersch (amd!amdcad!cae780!ubvax!tonyw)
carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (02/26/85)
Tony Wuersch writes: >In response to Rich Carnes, I can't see how dictatorship of the proletariat >could ever be a "fundamentally democratic concept", unless one means >democracy as it is interpreted in the socialist world, as rule by the >working class, so that dictatorship of the proletariat and democracy >are the same by definition. > >Power to the working class, esp. in the context of DotP, means democracy >for the working class and dictatorship for everybody else. The basic point to be made here is that by "dictatorship" Marx was *not* speaking of a monopoly of political power, whether of an individual, a party, or a class. In using the word "dictatorship," he was referring to the *class domination* that characterizes, in Marx's view, both bourgeois society and the society that will immediately succeed it. This means that the property relations (property rights) in both types of society systematically favor one class. This has nothing to do with any suspension of civil or political liberties. Marx would have considered the contemporary US a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie." Obviously this does not mean that only capitalists possess political power. It means that the structure of American society systematically favors the capitalist class at the expense of other classes. It means that for the majority of citizens, other people "dictate" the main conditions of their lives. This is not contradicted by the fact that the US is a political democracy with extensive suffrage and constitutional guarantees of civil liberties. Thus I see no reason to believe that by "dictatorship of the proletariat" Marx meant anything less democratic and civil libertarian than the US and the England of his day. The Paris Commune, which Marx and Engels considered an example of the DotP, was characterized by universal suffrage, immediate recallability of all public officials by the same voters, and the same wages for both working class and public officials. This hardly sounds like a model for the Soviet Union. It is a great misunderstanding of Marx, in my opinion, to think that he advocated a political dictatorship, oligarchy, or tyranny in any shape or form. The closest he came to it, which was not very close, was during the years 1848-50, after which he reverted to being a staunch democrat. I believe that the evidence is compelling that, for Marx, democracy was not a frill but of the very essence of socialism, and that this was recognized even by Lenin himself. >Marx always recognized the existence of substantial classes other than the >proletariat; I think he meant the DotP to extend over the interregnum after >a revolution when the new government based on the proletariat has to >consolidate its authority against counterrevolutionaries. If the >revolution was violent (and Marx expected it would be), then that violence >would take some time to cool down. Hence the DotP, an explicitly >transitional, and hopefully short, phase. Marx increasingly came to believe in the possibility of a peaceful, democratic revolution. He detested the idea of a "revolution from above," in which a small cadre of socialists would seize power by coup d'etat. Marx was considerably more politically moderate than a great many radicals of the 19th century. Let me repeat for emphasis that by "DotP" Marx was not referring to dictatorship in the political sense, i.e., in any sense in which the term is commonly used. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
al@ames.UUCP (Al Globus) (03/01/85)
> Lenin adopted this concept (Dictatorship of the Proletariate) > in *State and Revolution*, but he did not address > the question of the role of the party -- clearly, there is a big difference > between the "DotP" and the "DotP under the guidance of the Party." Lenin > also interpreted the DotP to mean the ruthless suppression by the > proletariat of its enemies... I used to have a quotation of Lenin's on my refrigirator. I don't remember the exact wording, but the general idea was: Dictatorship of the proletariate means nothing more or less than the state imposing it's will unfettered by any law or custom and supporting itself directly by force.
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/01/85)
Tony Wuersch has attempted to put forward a definition of exploitation. Unfortunately, I think that it has holes. What I want to be able to do is to tell when a person is being exploited, as oppposed to being foolish, or a victim of adverse circumstances, or merely having different tastes than I have. Here are the problems that I think that I have found. A person is exploited if her unequal relationship to someone else forces her to make decisions which leave her worse off than if she and that someone else were on an equal footing. Okay. We have several problems right off the bat. First of all, how do I tell when a person is ``forced to make a decision''? Socialists in general do not accept the libertarian idea of coercion, so I can't use that. Also, what is ``equal footing''? How do you know when people are on ``equal footing''? The final problem is ``who decides when se is worse off''? I still don't know how to tell whether she has made her decision because she was exploited or because our tastes differ. Is my taste for the music of the Grateful Dead somethng which places me on an unequal footing with those who do not appreciate it and therefore make the decisons to not go to Dead concerts? This is not what I would call exploitation -- but your definition does not seem to exclude it. I do not mean this as a facetious example -- the problem is that if I can do something like this with your definition then you can use it to call anything that you do not like exploitation. This is what I want a precise definition to avoid. "Decisions" are like choices in a game where both of the unequal participants compete. Compete for *what*? In the case of property differences, if a person lacks property and has to make hard life choices that she wouldn't have to worry about if she and someone else had equal property holdings, then she's exploited. Why are you considering property so important? People have varying notions about property. [Listen up, Richard Carnes, 'cause not every libertarian you will meet is interested in amassing property. I'm not.] For instance, what I value is not property, but time. Property is a hassle to take care of and, if you get a lot of it, you end up worrying about it. All of these hassles I have decided that I don't want. So -- I work on contract. When the contract is over, I collect the cash, and spend it on books and food and wine -- and I don't work until the money starts to run out which tells me I have to go work again. This gives me lots of time to think in, and write and meditate in, and hack code for fun, and read usenet, and post -- which is what I want. *But*, if I had as much propery as (say) my grandfather the farmer did -- then I wouldn't have to make some of the choices I have had to make. I have lived on peanut butter and kraft dinner a lot -- but this does not make me feel exploited with respect to my grandfather the farmer. He had the hassle of being a farmer, which I don't want. People who are interested (obsessed?) with amassing property will find my attitude towards posessing it abhorrant. Tastes vary. I think that it would take a gross distorting of the meaning of the word to make me ``exploited''. Now, if someone forced me to work more, or to posess more property in order to make me ``equal'' with someone else, *that* I would call exploitation. Would you? If people are choosing to live in ways I'd find abhorrant, then they would (I presume) still choose to lead their abhorrant lives if they and I were on an equal footing. Then they aren't exploited. Aha! But the question *was*, how do you tell? People who are unlucky are not exploited if they could have been just as unlucky in a fair game. Of course, the comparison between chances in one game and chances in another can only be done when more than one case is involved (distributions and all that). My problem is figuring out whether the game was fair in the first place. I infer that socialists have difficulty among themselves over this one. In the real world, where most competitive situations involve risk and chance, one can't say in a particular case that exploitation is going on. But one can say that exploitation is going on if many cases are compared and the differences between group outcomes correspond to inequalities in important resources. Once a finding of exploitation has been made, the inference can then be made that each member of the exploited group is exploited as an individual. This is where I think things get sticky. I never want to make that generalisation from the group to the individual -- I think that such generalisation must go the other way. You have not defined ``important resource'' which is a problem -- who decided what is important? Also, you have left out the possibility that groups may have different standards and values as to what is important. If most of society values dilligence, and some ethnic group values giving up and trying tomorrow, then, in a society where dilligence is rewarded in cash the members of that ethnic gorup will have less cash. It would be easy to say that they are exploited -- but perhaps they merely consider the val;ues held by most of society to be foolish. Would it be better to force them to adopt the beliefs of the majority in order to get an equal footing? Or to make the rest of society pay them more as they are in correspodence with their beliefs? In the context of socialism, people are exploited by capital if they would be better off (would choose to live a different and more satisfied life) in a situation where capital differentials were (more or less) eliminated, i.e. in socialism. Whether Same problem. Who gets to say whether their lives would be more satisfying? How can one tell? they would be better off is a pragmatic, historical question, a question of what the alternative socialist system would look like in a given period of history and political-economic development. But the value-judgement -- this has to be done by real individuals -- whose tastes vary. The power of Marx's vision was that he saw a time when the capitalist economy would be so advanced and there would be so much potential opportunity for all that the exploited would clearly see that it was in their interest to throw off the shackles of capital for a society where those shackles would no longer exist. At that point, the non-exploited and exploiting classes would present an obstacle to change that perhaps only revolutions would be able to overcome. Until we can come up with a way to tell who is exploiting and who is exploited there is no way to try to avoid this. I am interested in ``the shackles of capital''. What do you propose to replace it with? Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (03/01/85)
Laura Creighton asks for a clear and useful definition of exploitation. But let me first address a remark she made in passing. > Listen up, Richard Carnes, 'cause not >every libertarian you will meet is interested in amassing property. I know. In fact I recently wrote an article ("Libertarianism as ideology") to make the point that libertarians in general are NOT motivated by the desire to amass property. Now as to the meaning of "exploitation," I submit the following: "the control by one section of the population of a surplus produced by another section of the population." Let me exploit the publishers of *A Dictionary of Marxist Thought* by reproducing excerpts from Susan Himmelweit's article on exploitation. Economist types like Mc Kiernan who are disinformed about Marxist theory are requested to please pay attention. I think this article is quite helpful in explaining some basic ideas of Marxism. _________________ EXPLOITATION. Used by Marx in two senses, the first being the more general one of making use of an object for its potential benefits.... It has another more precise meaning which makes it a central concept of historical materialism. In any society in which the forces of production have developed beyond the minimum needed for the survival of the population, and which therefore has the potential to grow, to change and to survive the vicissitudes of nature, the production of a surplus makes possible exploitation, the foundation of class society. Exploitation occurs when one section of the population produces a surplus whose use is controlled by another section. Classes in Marxist theory exist only in relation to each other and that relation turns upon the form of exploitation occurring in a given mode of production. It is exploitation which gives rise to class conflict. Thus different types of society, the classes within them, and the class conflict which provides the dynamic of any society can all be characterized by the specific way in which exploitation occurs. Under capitalism, exploitation takes the form of the extraction of surplus value by the class of industrial capitalists from the working class, but other exploiting classes or class fractions share in the distribution of surplus value. Under capitalism, access to the surplus depends upon the ownership of property, and thus the exploited class of capitalism, the proletariat, sell their labor power to live; though they too are divided into fractions by the specific character of the labor power which they own and sell. Capitalism differs from non-capitalist modes of production in that exploitation normally takes place without the direct intervention of force or non-economic processes. The surplus in the capitalist mode arises from the specific character of its production process and, especially, the manner in which it is linked to the process of exchange. Capitalist production generates a surplus because capitalists buy workers' labor-power at a wage equal to its value but, being in control of production, extract labor greater than the equivalent of that wage. [Note: This is a model, i.e., a deliberate simplification of the real world. -- RC] Marx differed from the classical political economists, who saw exploitation as arising from the unequal exchange of labor for the wage. For Marx, the distinction between labor and labor power allowed the latter to be sold at its value while the former created the surplus. Thus exploitation occurs in the capitalist mode of production behind the backs of the participants, hidden by the facade of free and equal exchange. The sphere of circulation or commodity exchange, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labor-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. It is the exclusive realm of Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham. Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, let us say of labor-power, are determined only by their own free will....Equality, because each enters into relation with the other as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because each looks only to his own advantage. [But if we] ... in company with the owner of money and the owner of labor-power, leave this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in full view of everyone, and follow them into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there hangs the notice "No admittance except on business," here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is itself produced. The secret of profit-making must at last be laid bare! (*Capital* I, ch. 6). But "profit-making" is just capitalist exploitation. Its secret gave rise to the study of political economy; and since Marx disclosed it orthodox economics has been devoted to covering it up again. No previous mode of production required such intellectual labor to unearth, display, and re-bury its method of exploitation, for in previous societies the forms of exploitation were transparent: so many days of labor given, or so much corn claimed by representatives of the ruling class. Capitalism is unique in hiding its method of exploitation behind the process of exchange, thus making the study of the economic process of society a requirement for its transcendence. Exploitation is obscured too by the way of measuring the surplus used in and appropriate to the capitalist mode of production. For the rate of profit [s/(c+v)] measures surplus value as a ratio of the total capital advanced, constant and variable [variable capital refers to that paid out in the form of wages, constant capital is all other -- RC], the measure of interest to individual capitals, for it is according to the quantity of total capital advanced that shares of surplus value are appropriated. But as capital expands the rate of profit may fall, concealing a simultaneous rise in the rate of exploitation defined as the ratio of surplus to necessary labor, the rate of surplus value, s/v. [Necessary labor is that required for the reproduction of labor, surplus labor is the additional labor performed. -- RC] --Susan Himmelweit __________________ Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/02/85)
I am going to try to distill a somewhat shorter definition of exploitation from Himmelweit's article. Then I am going to take a closer look at it. When you reach a point in history where it is possible to produce more than one consumes, there is a surplus. At this point in time you arbitrarily divide the people who have property from the people who do not. You recognise the work done by the latter and call it labour. From this inequality you conclude that those who labour are exploited by those who have property -- but this amounts to a description of the fact that not everybody has property. Hmmm. I sell labour for money and use the money to buy food. I think I am back to being exploited again. Any definition which produces the conclusion that I am exploited I think needs to be reformulated, because it must not take into consideration something. The only consideration I can use to get me out of the ``exploited'' class is to not consider what I am doing as labour. Contract Computer Programming is interesting that way. I do a fair amount of typing (but negligable compared to the typing of a good secretary, say) but most of the effort I put in and am paid for is thinking, and being creative. This is a far cry removed from ditch-digging. Getting paid for thinking is what attracted me to the field in the first place -- as soon as I discovered that I could make money programming, I quit my 2 jobs and concentrated on programming.. Now, if you do not consider thinkig as labour, then you can say that I eat despite not labouring, and, considering that the food I eat is property, calss me as an exploiter. (if you don't consider the food I eat property, who do you classify me?) But the usefulness of such a definition is questionable. I think that my thinking is valuable, indeed more valuable than ditch-digging. The definition seems to leave thinking as a no-op. Surely it should be worth something in a socialist society -- but I don't see the definition accommodating it. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (03/02/85)
Exploitation as a word seems to have taken on a bad connotation, and now
Tony Wuersch and Laura Creighton are getting into an argument about
who is exploited, and how to define exploitation. What they are really
arguing about seems to be something different.
I sure HOPE that I am being exploited in my job. I would feel pretty
useless if all I do was being left unused and unwanted. I exploit
my alleged brain for the benefit of my body, and my employers exploit
it for whatever they want. Exploitation is bad only when the one being
exploited doesn't get a suitable quid pro quo. It's not the exploitation
that is bad, but the bargain, and possibly the circumstances under which
the bargain was made. Tony emphasizes the equality between the parties
to the bargain, and Laura points out that it is hard to determine when
equality exists, as well as when a bargain is bad for the (presumably)
weaker party. The points are not mutually inconsistent, provided they
are separated from attempts to overdefine "exploit".
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt
{uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmtlaura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/03/85)
I think that it is necessary to get a definition of ``exploit'' though. Otherwise it is going to be difficult to come up with a definition of ``class''. And if there is no such thing as a ``class'' then we have already got a classless society. Now go walk in a ghetto. Ooops, there is something wrong with that conclusion as well... Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) (03/04/85)
> Carnes: > > Now as to the meaning of "exploitation," I submit the following: "the > control by one section of the population of a surplus produced by > another section of the population." Let me remind Mr Carnes that the Capitalists rake in about 5% of the gross take as profit, while the government (all levels) gets about 40%. Furthermore, the Capitalists have provided that without which the production would have been impossible: namely Capital. Have you, Carnes, or any of you other love-a-tree-and-seize-the-means-of-production types out there ever tried to make so simple an object as a gear, without the proper machines? I have--it takes a couple of days of hard work with a file, and you still get a damn crummy gear. If the Capitalist wants 5% for letting me use a machine where I can make a gear in 2 minutes, he deserves it. > Under capitalism, exploitation takes the form of the extraction of > surplus value by the class of industrial capitalists from the working > class, but other exploiting classes or class fractions share in the > distribution of surplus value. Under capitalism, access to the > surplus depends upon the ownership of property, and thus the > exploited class of capitalism, the proletariat, sell their labor > power to live; though they too are divided into fractions by the > specific character of the labor power which they own and sell. Under Communism, exploitation takes the form of selling grain abroad to improve your balance of payments, while tens of millions starve at home (Russia); of killing tens of millions of "citizens" because they don't fit into your idea of a non-exploitative society (China); of killing off a third of your country's population because --well, because it's there (Cambodia); or of using starvation as a weapon to bring unruly regions into line (Ethiopia). > Capitalism differs from non-capitalist modes of production in that > exploitation normally takes place without the direct intervention of > force or non-economic processes. Capitalism differs from non-capitalistic modes of production in that someone who makes a deal that allows you to make hundreds of time as much as you could before, is seen as exploiting you because he asks--in advance--for a 5% share in the proceeds. > The surplus in the capitalist mode > arises from the specific character of its production process and, > especially, the manner in which it is linked to the process of > exchange. This is pure bullshit. Surplus in any industrial economy, planned or free, is due mostly to the capital (meaning here machines and knowhow) that allow the same people to make more of the same resources than they did before. It doesn't matter a whit what they do with it afterwards. > > But "profit-making" is just capitalist exploitation. But "taxation" is just theft... Haven't we heard all this before? > Its secret gave > rise to the study of political economy; and since Marx disclosed it > orthodox economics has been devoted to covering it up again. Funny; Adam Smith thought that the secret he had discovered was that the great productivity he saw was due to division of labor-- a process which, if I understand correctly, was anathema to Marx. > No > previous mode of production required such intellectual labor to > unearth, display, and re-bury its method of exploitation, for in > previous societies the forms of exploitation were transparent: so > many days of labor given, or so much corn claimed by representatives > of the ruling class. This is still apparent to everyone except Socialists. > >... rate of profit [s/(c+v)] measures surplus value as a ratio of the > total capital advanced, constant and variable [variable capital > refers to that paid out in the form of wages, constant capital is all > other -- RC], the measure of interest to individual capitals, for it > is according to the quantity of total capital advanced that shares of > ... I really had the strongest feeling of deja vu when reading this-- and then I realized what it was. One of my physics profs once showed me his "nut file"--letters sent in by people claiming to have a whole complete new theory that explained all phenomena and disproved the theory of relativity (one guy even went so far at to disprove Newton...) --JoSH
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (03/06/85)
>I think that it is necessary to get a definition of ``exploit'' though. >Otherwise it is going to be difficult to come up with a definition of >``class''. And if there is no such thing as a ``class'' then we have >already got a classless society. Now go walk in a ghetto. Ooops, there >is something wrong with that conclusion as well... > >Laura Creighton exploit: to turn to practical advantage (OED and Random House dictionaries, slightly shortened). In a second meaning, the advantage is for selfish ends, but nowhere does a definition suggest that exploitation is to anyone's DISadvantage. Why are you so hung up on word definitions? I guess it makes things easier to discuss if everyone uses the words similarly, but we are never going to achieve mathematical agreement on all nuances (even the mathematicians redefine their foundations a couple of times per century). It would perhaps be better to try to get across what we mean, rather than assert what appear to be syllogisms that turn out to depend on shifting word definitions and porous assumptions. Your "joke" article quoted above is hardly a parody, since it matches so well so many of the articles on this net. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt
carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (03/07/85)
JoSH writes: > ...the Capitalists have provided that without which the > production would have been impossible: namely Capital. Have you, > Carnes, or any of you other love-a-tree-and-seize-the-means-of-production > types out there ever tried to make so simple an object as a gear, > without the proper machines? So it was the capitalists who invented and built the machines! But someone who designs or builds things, as long as he does so, is a worker. A capitalist, as capitalist, receives income solely by virtue of his *ownership* of machines and factories. To say that the capitalists "provide" the means of production is like saying that someone who has stolen your car "provides" you with a car by selling or leasing it back to you. > Under Communism, exploitation takes the form of selling grain > abroad to improve your balance of payments, while tens of millions > starve at home (Russia); [etc.] Yes, these societies are exploitative. I'm not a Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyite, Maoist, or Pol Pot-head, nor do I see how the above paragraph demonstrates that capitalism is not exploitative. > Capitalism differs from non-capitalistic modes of production in that > someone who makes a deal that allows you to make hundreds of times > as much as you could before, is seen as exploiting you because he > asks--in advance--for a 5% share in the proceeds. No, that's not what I (or rather Himmelweit) said. She said that capitalism is exploitative because the capitalist class appropriates wealth that another class produced. The deal described above has nothing to do with the capitalist production process. For instance, it doesn't include wage labor. >> The surplus in the capitalist mode >> arises from the specific character of its production process and, >> especially, the manner in which it is linked to the process of >> exchange. > > This is pure bullshit. Surplus in any industrial economy, planned > or free, is due mostly to the capital (meaning here machines and > knowhow) that allow the same people to make more of the same resources > than they did before. Himmelweit is talking about where the surplus originates in capitalist production and how this process works, not about the causes of the increased productivity of labor. >> But "profit-making" is just capitalist exploitation. > > But "taxation" is just theft... Haven't we heard all this before? But this is just quotation out of context. The article is trying to explain what Marx meant by "capitalist exploitation." > Funny; Adam Smith thought that the secret he had discovered was > that the great productivity he saw was due to division of labor-- > a process which, if I understand correctly, was anathema to Marx. No, it wasn't anathema to Marx. Marx greatly admired Smith and adopted and further developed Smith's insights on the division of labor. If you don't understand Marx's position on this subject, let's talk about something else. >>... rate of profit [s/(c+v)] measures surplus value as a ratio of the >> total capital advanced, constant and variable [variable capital >> refers to that paid out in the form of wages, constant capital is all >> other -- RC], the measure of interest to individual capitals, for it >> is according to the quantity of total capital advanced that shares of >> ... > > I really had the strongest feeling of deja vu when reading this-- > and then I realized what it was. One of my physics profs once showed > me his "nut file"--letters sent in by people claiming to have a whole > complete new theory that explained all phenomena and disproved the > theory of relativity (one guy even went so far at to disprove Newton...) It is hard to respond to something which is apparently not an argument but just a form of name-calling. The strongest feeling I get from reading JoSH's response is that at this point he is not interested in making an honest effort to understand Marxian and socialist thought. If he wishes to persuade skeptics like me that libertarians are thoughtful and well-informed people, this is not the way to do it. A common denominator of libertarians on the net, even the economically sophisticated ones, is that they have absolutely no notion of what Marx said and thought. Either they're interested in learning or they're not, but we can only have a meaningful discussion when the participants on various sides genuinely try to understand the others' points of view. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) (03/09/85)
Carnes: > JoSH writes: > > production would have been impossible: namely Capital. Have you > > ... ever tried to make so simple an object as a gear, > > without the proper machines? > > So it was the capitalists who invented and built the machines! But > someone who designs or builds things, as long as he does so, is a > worker. A capitalist, as capitalist, receives income solely by > virtue of his *ownership* of machines and factories. Here's where you make the basic break that I don't: I think that someone should be able to devote time now, to work without pay, to scrimp and save, to *invest*, with assurance that the just reward will come later. Without this assurance, no one will create the capital in the first place. > To say that the > capitalists "provide" the means of production is like saying that > someone who has stolen your car "provides" you with a car by selling > or leasing it back to you. Let's not confuse the issue by talking about someone who has stolen something--you'll find that I'm at least as opposed to theft as you are! Let's get down to the nitty gritty, the case that tests the ultimate point: we can worry about where to draw lines later. Case: My neighbor makes gears by hand, one every two days. He makes enough for a decent living and some of the amenities (beer, tv?). I do the same but only 3 days a week--I barely make enough to survive. The other days I spend on the gear-making machine I'm building. It's purely my choice--I could live as well as my neighbor if I liked. Finally the machine is finished. With it, I, or my neighbor, alone, can make ten times the gears that both of us could make before. I make a deal with him: He can use the machine, and not working as hard as before, take half the money (making more than before); I, on my part, will do absolutely nothing, and collect the other half as profit. Now: is this exploitation? It's the acid test: no stealing, no inherited wealth, just the crux of your definition: I'm making money from another man's labor, because of something I own. > > > Capitalism differs from non-capitalistic modes of production in that > > someone who makes a deal that allows you to make hundreds of times > > as much as you could before, is seen as exploiting you because he > > asks--in advance--for a 5% share in the proceeds. > > No, that's not what I (or rather Himmelweit) said. She said that > capitalism is exploitative because the capitalist class appropriates > wealth that another class produced. The deal described above has > nothing to do with the capitalist production process. For instance, > it doesn't include wage labor. > It was very much the laborers, and not the capitalists, who were in favor of the general shift from piecework to wage labor. I, for one, can certainly see why. > >> The surplus in the capitalist mode > >> arises from the specific character of its production process and, > >> especially, the manner in which it is linked to the process of > >> exchange. > > ... > Himmelweit is talking about where the surplus originates in > capitalist production and how this process works, not about the causes > of the increased productivity of labor. But they are one and the same! *Capital* is precisely that which creates the increased productivity of labor, and which makes possible the "profit" the capitalist makes. *Capital* is the factor separating the man who farms an acre with a stick, and the one who froms a square mile with a combine. *Capital* is the difference between a man who digs ten feet of ditch with a shovel, and one who digs 10,000 feet with a backhoe. A capitalist is one who has made possible the explosion of wealth of the modern industrial world; and justly deserves any profit he has gotten therefrom. > > that the great productivity he saw was due to division of labor-- > > a process which, if I understand correctly, was anathema to Marx. > > No, it wasn't anathema to Marx. Marx greatly admired Smith and > adopted and further developed Smith's insights on the division of > labor. If you don't understand Marx's position on this subject, > let's talk about something else. I was thinking about Marx's ideas on alienation, and how the assembly- line worker never sees the whole thing which he had a part of making. However, if you want to explain at more length, please do. I'm perfectly content to hear about Marxism from a Marxist. I do reserve the right to point out the holes as I see them... > > complete new theory that explained all phenomena and disproved the > > theory of relativity (one guy even went so far at to disprove Newton...) > > It is hard to respond to something which is apparently not an > argument but just a form of name-calling. The strongest feeling I > get from reading JoSH's response is that at this point he is not > interested in making an honest effort to understand Marxian and > socialist thought. If he wishes to persuade skeptics like me that > libertarians are thoughtful and well-informed people, this is not the > way to do it. A common denominator of libertarians on the net, even > the economically sophisticated ones, is that they have absolutely no > notion of what Marx said and thought. Either they're interested in > learning or they're not, but we can only have a meaningful discussion > when the participants on various sides genuinely try to understand > the others' points of view. > > Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes To be more precise, the Marxist theory seemed to put too much significance on what seems to me to be the class structure of Victorian England, and to present these (primarily social) frictions as economic theory pertinent to (comparatively classless) America today seems silly. Thus to some degree, Richard is right, in that I'm only interested in Marxist thought from a historical point of view. Further, to be quite honest about it, I'm not so interested in convincing him of the merits of libertarian thought (if he wants convincing, try Rothbard, For a New Liberty, Collier Books, New York, 1978) but to "exploit" his position as a counterpoint to my own arguments-- which are as much for my own benefit as anyone else's. It is intellectually stimulating to encounter the thoughts of a well-read socialist after the gabbledy-gook one normally hears. So keep it up, Richard, I disagree with every word you say, but I will defend to my moderate discomfort your right to say it. --JoSH