Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 02:10:46 +0000
Subject: Re: M-G: Re: planning please


>
Mark, sorry I did not get back to you on this earlier.  
Some thoughts on your post of 16 January:

 Mark wrote:
> The state is necessary to the capitalist class because capitalism cannot 
> secure the conditions of its own reproduction unaided. In particular, it 
> cannot secure the reproduction of labour-power. 
> It would like to, but it cannot. Much as capitalists dislike the state
> and  think constantly about privatising its functions and eliminating it or
> anyway  slimming it down, they cannot. This is fundamental: "labour-power", 
> the  commodity specific to capitalism in the sense that its existence is the 
> "unique historical condition for the existence of the capitalist mode of 
> production", cannot be reproduced as a capitalist commodity. 

The state here is acting as a surrogate for domestic labour is it not? 
If domestic production, or state production,  of labour power did not 
exist, labour-power would be reproduced as a commodity at its 
true capitalist value i.e. the socially necessary labour-time required to produce it.
But given domestic labour which is privatised, and not SNLT, because 
it is not abstract labour; or given state production which draws its 
wages from variable capital, but does not contribute SNLT since the 
law of value does not redistribute profits  to state monopolies like 
health or education services;  then labour-power is reproduced as a commodity 
with an exchange value that is heavily subsidised by domestic and state workers. 

> And if it could -- then capitalist production would cease by definition
> to  be commodity production, would cease to exist. For if it produced
> labour- power it would neither need nor be able to purchase labour-power. It 
> would thereby lose the basis of value-production, which depends upon an 
> exchange between capital and labour, an exchange which takes place both 
> within the labour process and within the realm of circulation, when a 
> capitalist agrees to buy and a worker to sell his/her labour power. 

There is no reason theoretically why labour-power cannot be produced 
totally capitalistically i.e. its exchange-value reflecting only 
SNLT.  Why would this then lead to the end of commodity production? 
The only reason could be that the commodity labour power would no 
longer have a use-value for the capitalists. That is,  it could not be worked for 
longer than necessary labour time, or for surplus labour time. But if 
domestic/state concrete labour no longer subsidises the SNLT of 
labour-power, would than mean that it would lose all its use-value to the 
capitalist? No why should it?  Capitalists presumably would compete 
on an equal footing.  There would be a stronger drive to increase 
productivity to  cheapen the value of labour-power, and hence to 
compensate for the loss of subsidised labour-power. But surplus-value 
would still be possible because labour-power is the only commodity 
which can produce more value than its own value. Its value remains 
set by the SNLT required to produce it.  If this were not the case 
Marx would have had to include the family and the state in his 
abstract analysis in Capital. Therefore there is nothing inherent in the 
commodity labour power that requires domestic/state 
production. This form of production happens to be a gift to capital 
>from outside the law of value. The significance of the state cannot 
be derived from this economic function. The capitalist state in 
theory is not necessary to reproduce capitalist production, its 
essensce is that of reproducing classes, though its form results from 
the fetishised exchange relations of the market. 
This is why the state cannot overcome crises of overproduction, 
nor prevent such crises from ultimately becoming crises of reproduction.

> Capitalism is a transient social order because in the process of 
> revolutionising its own material basis it constantly struggles against
> this  inherent barrier: it cannot produce the commodity which its own
> existence  is predicated upon. It struggles (a) to eliminate live labour from
> production  (b) to reduce the value of labour-power by for example the coercive 
> actions of the state (c) to deconstruct (disassemble) labour-power by 
> means which have included deskilling and the reduction of the
> subjectivity  of labour to objective, quantifiable and reproducible elements 
> by means of  science and technology. (d) latterly, to deconstruct the labourer
> him/herself  (a process now assuming dramatic and rapid proportions, 
> as technologies  as diverse as ex-vitro embryology, genetic engineering, 
> brain-computer  interfacing, and many others, prepare the grounds for a 
> quite different  human race, or no human race).

I agree that the basic contradiction of capitalism is the inability 
to reconcile the use-value and the exchange-value of the commodity 
labour power.  But the barrier to accumulation is not the inability 
of capitalism to produce labour-power capitalistically, since this is 
possible, though capitalists would have no interest in doing 
so because  it would have the effect of reducing, while not stopping, 
capital accumulation.  The contradiction expresses itself in the 
expulsion of living labour as labour-power becomes more an more 
productive in order to have an exchange-value. The exchange-value of 
labour power (and other commodities)  determined by capitalist social relations, 
is at the expense of the the destruction of use-values or the forces of production. 
The trend which you envisage of the replacement of labour-power by 
machines is already well advanced, but before this happens, the 
accumulated crises of overproduction, and the `final' crisis of 
underconsumption,  will surely create the conditions for a social 
revolution while the working class is  still able to stop production, 
put it under workers control, and institute socialist planning.   

We agree that capitalism is a transient society, and the necessity 
for revolution. I still think your analysis is very abstract, and 
does not present the contradictions of capitalism in terms of class 
struggle, and of mobilising a revolutionary vanguard around a 
revolutionary programme.

Dave.


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