[OPE-L:2816] Re: Re: relabeling comodities and money

From: Patrick L. Mason (pmason@garnet.acns.fsu.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 11 2000 - 12:46:05 EDT

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> No, that's not what I meant. What I meant, rather, is that your
> definitions of commodity and value are not specific to the capitalist
> mode of production. Thus, from your perspective (I gather), if a product
> was produced in order to be sold and has a use-value and an
> exchange-value, it therefore has value. I insist, rather, that for a
> product to have value, and therefore be counted as being a commodity in
> the fullest and most meaningful sense of the term, there must exist a
> class relation between wage-labour and capital. I.e. value is not merely
> production of products with the intention of sale but expressive of a
> particular social and class relationship specific to capitalism.

A commodity is thing that has both use-value and exchange value. However,
it is a thing that is produced primarily (exclusively?) for it's exchange
value. It is an item that is produced for the market, that is, it is
produced for sell -- not for use. Now, since it is produced for sell (and
not for use) the commodity owner is necessarily concerned with costs.
Further, the sole purpose of the commodity seller is to accumulate wealth.
(I am not here making the neoclassical argument regarding profit
maximization, rather I am only arguing that commodity owners engage in
wealth-increasing or wealth-accumulating behavior).

All of the above remains true regardless of whether:
1) the commodity owner is also the sole direct producer;
2) the commodity owner is no way involved in direct production, but merely
hires managers and direct producers (non-managerial employees);
3) the commodity owner is no way involved in direct production, but
managers and uses the power of the state to deprive direct
   producers of political freedom, human rights, etc.

Marx's standard assumption that workers are "free" to offer to sell their
laboring capacity to any available commodity producer is a device for
demonstrating the hypocrisy of so-called free markets. He wants to that
exploitation exists even under capitalism's most idealized circumstances.

Hence, it is a strange logic that asserts that if the most idealized (and I
might add, apologetic) expression of textbook capitalism does not exist,
then an economic is not capitalist.

Actually existing capitalist economies are capable of a multitude of
capital and labor market institutions. During 1939-1945 Germany, Japan, US,
UK, Spain, and Italy were all capitalist states. Yet, they differed from
each other in the specific set of capital and labor market institutions.
Moreover, each of these states has different institutional frameworks today
than they had in 50 years ago. Many have argued that a fascist state is
simply the ultimate rationalization of a capitalist economy, especially
during periods of deeply crisis. Is there perfect mobility of labor in a
fascist state? Is there "freedom" in a fascist state? Is there 100%
competitive privately owned commodity production in a fascist state? I'd
answer no to all questions. Is capitalism consistent with capitalism? Yes,
it is.

Finally, I would point out that slave importation to America stopped in
1807. So, from 1807 to 1865 the enslaved population had to receive a
consumption bundle that was capable of supporting a family, albeit a family
where all except the most youngest and most elder members were required to
work long hours. Hence, it the consumption bundle of the enslaved was a
strong basis of attraction for the money wage received by free white
workers in the South.

American slavery had little similarity with Roman slavery, African slavery,
other Russian serfdom. To be sure, plantation owners saw the English
nobility as cousins in class domination. But the whole history of land
speculation in Florida, which became an American territory in 1821 and an
American state in 1845, amply indicates that the economy of the antebellum
American south is best characterized as slave capitalism.

By the way, if slavery was so much more inefficient than the textbook
capitalism then why did Florida ever become a slave state? Prior to
Florida's conquest by the Great Racist, Andrew Jackson, there was a
substantial population of Africans and Indigeneous people who were not
enslaved. During the period of 1821-1845 the state enacted an increasingly
stringent legal code to institutionalize slavery. Why do this in a society
where land values were escalating, all major production activities were
market oriented, and many workers were free? Isn't textbook capitalism
supposedly more efficient than slave capitalism?

What's at stake in this discussion? An inability to understand the nature
of slave-capitalism leads inexorbaly to an incorrect understanding the
nature and causes of racial and ethnic conflicts in today's capitalist
economies. Neither American nor European workers (or for that matter,
managers, professionals, and owners of capital) in today's capitalist
economies maybe accurately understood solely in terms of their class
identity. Race matters, precisely because today's Western capitalist
economies are racialized-capitalist states.

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