MIM Vs. RCP and Redstar

[repost by mim]

A March of 1000 li to understand Marx:
Ongoing discussion on productive vs. unproductive labor

The following is from an RCPer at awip.proboards23.com
<a href="../crypto.html">To see our whole list of criticisms of
the RCP=U$A, click this link.</a>
<P>
The idea that working people (in imperialist
countries) are "parasitic" is deeply unscientific
and unmaterialist.

And it has involved a factually mistaken argument
that workers in the U.S. (and similar countries)
no longer produce surplus value etc.

And it involves a mistaken notion about the role
of surplus value. Under modern capitalism,
significant sections of the working class are
involved in the "realization" of surplus value,
rather than its creation. (I.e. transportation,
warehousing, distribution etc.) But the fact that
a waitress doesn't "create surplus value" in the
most narrow scientific sense, hardly makes her a
parasite.

This is connected to our earlier discussion: in
which Redstar falsely equated "proletariat" only
with those who produce surplus value. Our class is
the class that produces most value (including
surplus value) -- but many of us are exploited and
oppressed in other ways (including in the ways we
are denied employment or places in the legal
economy etc.)

The idea that workers are "parasitic" invents a
new moralistic concept that is rather contrary to
MLM -- and to a historical materialist
understanding of class society.

[End of quote from RCPer.]
*********************************************

mim3 for the Maoist Internationalist Movement:

As usual, the above contains no facts, only narrow theory.

Redstar2000 and most social-democrats think that
all workers produce surplus-value. They are too
inclined to parliamentary democracy to say anything
critical about the majority in any country. That's
why social-democrats historically supported WWI.

Redstar2000 is taking RCP=u$A's
side in the struggle over whether the majority of
the u.$. population is exploiter or not. The RCP=U$A
pretends it has some distance from Redstar2000's
position, but in principle they are both ignoring
exploitation and choosing to advocate the interests
of the labor aristocracy.

Lenin said he would rather be on the side of the
IWW in Amerika in his day than the right-opportunists
and centrists. Likewise today, Amerika is even more parasitic
and MIM is working with the Sakai-supporting anarchists
to defeat the social-democratic line, as Lenin would have
wanted.

RCP=U$A is making a back-handed admission on the
question of productive versus unproductive labor.
To be clear, "unproductive labor" is not a synonym
for "parasite." For Marx, "unproductive labor"
generally contains all the meanings of "parasite,"
but also adds many more meanings of scientific
value, and it is those scientific observations on
interconnection which Marx is really known for:
"Productive labour is only a concise term for the
whole relationship and the form and manner in
which labour-power figures in the capitalist
production process. <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/add1.htm"
target="generalprod">The distinction from other
kinds of labour is however of the greatest
importance, since this distinction expresses
precisely the specific form of the labour on which
the whole capitalist mode of production and
capital itself is based."</a>


The term "unproductive labor" does not refer to lazy labor or inefficient labor.
However, what the social-democrats and RCP=u$A both do
is rob Marxism of its interconnections and theory of crisis.
They castrate Marxism to fit their populist agendas.

"Unproductive" in Marx's language has the meaning
of not producing surplus-value. MIM has already
argued that the 3 or 4 to 1 ratio of unproductive
laborers to productive sector laborers in the
majority-exploiter countries is factually
impossible without most surplus-value in those
countries coming from the Third World. That is not
a "moral" argument. You either toss Marx's theory
of surplus-value or you explain the pattern of
facts. There is no third option.

The facts are that the unproductive sector grew relative to the
u.$. productive sector. That is impossible as Marx explained
(unless we use the MIM explanation): <a
href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/th
eories-surplus-value/add1.htm" target="diminish">my power to
employ productive labourers by no means grows in
the same proportion as I employ unproductive
labourers, but on the contrary diminishes in the
same proportion." </a> There is also a
relationship between the productive and
unproductive sector ratios at an aggregate level
in Marxism.

This criticism MIM made regarding the proportions
of productive and unproductive sector workers in
majority-exploiter countries does not bother
Redstar2000 at all, because Redstar2000 does not
uphold a labor theory of value or Marxism's theory
of economic crisis. Likewise, RCP=u$A is not at
all concerned with the ratio of unproductive to
productive sector workers, essentially because the
RCP=U$A bought <a href="text.php?mimfile=rcpproductiveforces.txt"> the theory of productive forces</a> and
robbed Marxism of its theory of capitalist crisis.

Ironically, the RCP=U$A accuses us of "pessimism,"
but it is the RCP=u$A saying that surplus-value
extracted per Amerikan worker can expand
infinitely and support ever larger numbers of
"workers" or petty-bourgeoisie, which of course is
absurd on the face of it and unsupported by close
examination of data on production. It is MIM
pointing out that the buying off of the
unproductive sector workers only occurs at the
expense of exploitation elsewhere that makes the
imperialists vulnerable where that exploitation
and super-exploitation is occurring.

According to Marx, when the capitalists lay-off
the productive sector workers, they dialectically
cut their own throats as a class. With declining
productive sector workers, total profits in the
economy also decline and recession or depression
becomes inevitable. Likewise, when the capitalists
pay unproductive sector workers they speed up the
inevitable economic crisis and, in fact, Marx
believed that even individual capitalists had a
disincentive to hire unproductive sector workers--
because wages for unproductive workers come out of
revenue and are thus entirely visible without
scientific observation even to the capitalist. The fact
that unproductive sector workers have become the
vast majority in Amerika does prove that surplus-
value comes from outside Amerika to support them.

[repost mim]

In addition, we can judge whether the waitress is
a parasite by simple terms. His/her wages are
beyond the cost of the reproduction of his/her
labor-power. <a href="../../../bookstore/books/capital/cox.html">MIM has already provided the
statistics on luxury consumption of even the
lowest sector of Amerikan society elsewhere.</a>
Hence, that question can be settled there. We have
also pointed out that the necessities of life are
cheap thanks to surplus-value extracted in the
Third World. Such a point is not necessary to consider
when considering the exploited as a whole, but is
necessary when arguing specifically about the
relationship between imperialism and the Third World.

The argument that Amerikan workers are so
productive is a chauvinist dream more akin to
business pulp writing than Marxism. It's not true
that magically appearing technology appears and
saves the Amerikan economy from crisis.

*******************************

mim3 for the Maoist Internationalist Movement:
Here I'm just going to quote Marx at length to
clear up some confusions spread by social-
democrats and revisionists on unproductive sector labor.
This will probably take a period of years. We will
hopefully remember to tack all related discussion
on this document.

Something we have to realize with Karl Marx maybe
more than anyone is that he's interested in a lot
of different things. One of the reasons he has
endured is that he connected together so many
social phenomena. Typically what RCP=U$A does is
fail to realize all the power of the labor theory
of value and its interconnections and it takes one
statement of Marx's from one context and repeats
it in all contexts ad nauseum, thereby totally
changing Marx's meaning.

When Marx said his distinction between
productive and unproductive labor was not a moral
condemnation, his point was to connect to theories
of economic crisis and accumulation. However, it
did not mean that Marx did not ALSO have an
ideological position on unproductive labor.
RCP=U$A simply misread Marx's interests, what he's
trying to prove in one context or another. Of
course, Marx's greatest contributions were his
scientific contributions. He's very concerned his
readers understand matters scientifically, because
prior to him, there had already been a class
struggle and people of course had ideology for
that class struggle before him as well.
Nonetheless, Marx had an overall orientation
toward unproductive sector labor unlike RCP=U$A's.

Here is a very clear example that Marx was the
first MIMist: "The great mass of so-called 'higher
grade' workers—such as state officials, military
people, artists, doctors, priests, judges,
lawyers, etc.—-some of whom are not only not
productive but in essence destructive, but who
know how to appropriate to themselves a very great
part of the 'material' wealth partly through the
sale of their 'immaterial' commodities and partly
by forcibly imposing the latter on other
people-—found it not at all pleasant to be
relegated economically to the same class as clowns
and menial servants and to appear merely as people
partaking in the consumption, parasites on the
actual producers (or rather agents of production).
This was a peculiar profanation precisely of those
functions which had hitherto been surrounded with
a halo and had enjoyed superstitious veneration."
(<a href="www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch04.htm#s5" target="defendsmith">"Vulgarisation of Bourgeois Political Economy
in the Definition of Productive Labor" </a>)

[repost mim]

Next Marx describes how the bourgeoisie started
revolutionary and went backwards once it
established itself firmly in power, an excellent
bit of foreshadowing Lenin's theory of
imperialism, BTW: "Bourgeois society reproduces in
its own form everything against which it had
fought in feudal or absolutist form. In the first
place therefore it becomes a principal task for
the sycophants of this society, and especially of
the upper classes, to restore in theoretical terms
even the purely parasitic section of these
'unproductive labourers,' or to justify the
exaggerated claims of the section which is
indispensable. The dependence of the ideological,
etc., classes on the capitalists was in fact
proclaimed." This latter quote shows that Marx
united with the bourgeois revolutionaries on the overall
ideological orientation toward unproductive labor.

Next, Marx describes the war among the hired hacks
of the old ruling classes and the segments of the
bourgeois classes. As the capitalists saw this
discussion unfold in horror, they finally united
on the following basis, of course: "Both the do-
nothings and their parasites had to be found a
place in this best possible order of things."
This is directly foreshadowing Lenin who spoke
alternately of an "alliance," "alignment" or even
"amalgamation" of the labor aristocracy and the
imperialists.

Next, Marx noted that popular writers like RCP=U$A tried to
come up with excuses for every sector of the
economy and how it contributed to modern
industrial production: "they honoured everyone by
making him a 'productive labourer' in the
'primary' sense, namely, a labourer who labours in
the service of capital, is useful in one way or
another to the enrichment of the capitalist, etc."

Finally, Marx noted with ultra-sarcasm that
Malthus was better on this point than these
scribblers, because at least Malthus did not try
to say the parasites were making contributions to
manufacturing: "In this matter even such people as
Malthus are to be preferred, who directly defend
the necessity and usefulness of 'unproductive
labourers' and pure parasites."

That is describing one chapter in Marx's work on
surplus-value. There is more, including for example
his denunciation of Say for thinking nothing of
leaving open the possibility that unproductive sector
labor could expand indefinitely. <a href="www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch04.htm#s13" target="say">
For Marx, it was obvious that such a notion was idiotic.</a>

Further foreshadowing of Lenin on how the bourgeoisie
loses its revolutionary character over time after
conquering feudalism is here: "When on
the other hand the bourgeoisie has won the battle,
and has partly itself taken over the State, partly
made a compromise with its former possessors; and
has likewise given recognition to the ideological
professions as flesh of its flesh and everywhere
transformed them into its functionaries, of like
nature to itself; when it itself no longer
confronts these as the representative of
productive labour, but when the real productive
labourers rise against it and moreover tell it
that it lives on other people’s industry; when it
is enlightened enough not to be entirely absorbed
in production, but to want also to consume 'in an
enlightened way'; when the spiritual labours
themselves are more and more performed in its
service and enter into the service of capitalist
production—then things take a new turn, and the
bourgeoisie tries to justify 'economically,' from
its own standpoint, what at an earlier stage it
had criticised and fought against. Its spokesmen
and conscience-salvers in this line are the
Garniers, etc. In addition to this, these
economists, who themselves are priests,
professors, etc., <a href="www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch04.htm#s20">are eager to prove their
'productive' usefulness, to justify their wages
'economically.'"</a>


This last sentence refers exactly to the RCP=U$A
seeking to justify the pay of the unproductive
sector of u.$. imperialism and <a href="../../../classics/classics.html#O">
just as Lenin warned philistines would on behalf of
the labor aristocracy.</a>

*******************************************

[full links]

full doc at:

www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/wim/wyl/crypto/unproductivelabor.txt

more docs about rcp/crypto-trots:

www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/wim/wyl/crypto.html

[redstar2000]

This will have to be something of a preliminary reply to the appropriately entitled "A March of 1000 li to understand Marx" (it suggests that MIM still has a long way to go).

mim wrote: Redstar2000 and most social-democrats think that all workers produce surplus-value.

I can't recall saying that...and I rather doubt that contemporary social democrats talk about surplus-value at all.

My definition: if you sell your labor-power to an employer and that labor-power is used to produce a product or service (commodity) that is sold in the marketplace...the profit that your employer makes on your labor-power can only originate from surplus value...assuming the labor theory of value is accurate.

There are people who know a good deal more than I do about Marxist economics who admit that the labor theory of value "has problems"...so I think the sensible response is to consider it once more a hypothesis rather than a scientific fact.

It may yet be proven true...but not by the efforts made thus far.

Nor do the problems of the labor theory of value mean that workers are "not exploited"...there is still the yawning gulf between the value of what workers produce and what they are actually paid for their labor.

Likewise, even were the labor theory of value to "crash and burn", that does not mean that capitalism will avoid crises, wars, and revolutions.

One of the "oddest" historical events of the last century was the May 1968 General Strike in France...something that happened "out of the blue". There was no economic crisis, no imperialist or colonial war taking place, nothing happening in any nearby countries to provoke it...and no one predicted it.

I don't think anyone has ever offered a coherent explanation of why it happened.

Perhaps there are "hidden" difficulties with capitalism that we are not yet aware of but that will play a huge role in future proletarian revolutions.

mim wrote: Redstar2000 is taking RCP=U$A's side in the struggle over whether the majority of the U.$. population is exploiter or not. The RCP=U$A pretends it has some distance from Redstar2000's position, but in principle they are both ignoring exploitation and choosing to advocate the interests of the labor aristocracy.

That's quite an "alliance". My position is that there's no such thing as a "labor aristocracy"--except for the small number of craftsmen who move randomly between wage-labor and petty-bourgeois independent contracting.

But yes, the RCP and I do agree that MIM's thesis of "a nation of labor aristocrats" (or "parasites") is absurd.

It's occurred to me that MIM's problem on this issue is that you folks can't tell the difference between the petty bourgeoisie and the mythical "labor aristocracy".

The petty bourgeoisie is, after all, a significant class in the U.S. and other imperialist countries...and they have all the "bad ideas" (and are quite vocal in expressing them) that everyone on the left condemns.

In addition, there are a large and growing number of unproductive workers in late monopoly capitalism...whole armies of functionaries, cops, prison guards, private security guards, prosecutors and judges and lawyers, financial "advisors" and "deal makers", landlords/real estate speculators, businesses launched to cater to the whims of the wealthy, etc. And their ideas reflect their role in capitalism...reactionary to the core.

(One hypothesis for future capitalist crises suggests that the unproductive sectors will increase to the point of imposing an intolerable burden on the capitalist economy as a whole.)

A superficial look at American society taken from the bourgeois media and official statistics would serve to convince the hasty that "America is parasitic"...because what is emphasized in such sources is the petty-bourgeoisie and the large sector of unproductive workers--how they live, what they think about things, etc.

The real working class and the large "reserve army of the unemployed" are virtually ignored...how they live and what they think is "not important".

mim wrote: This criticism MIM made regarding the proportions of productive and unproductive sector workers in majority-exploiter countries does not bother Redstar2000 at all, because Redstar2000 does not uphold a labor theory of value or Marxism's theory of economic crisis.

Actually, it hasn't bothered me because I was unaware of your suggested ratio: 3 to 1? 4 to 1?

I will look into the matter.

[gangoffour]

redstar2000 said:

This will have to be something of a preliminary reply to the appropriately entitled "A March of 1000 li to understand Marx" (it suggests that MIM still has a long way to go).

mim wrote: Redstar2000 and most social-democrats think that all workers produce surplus-value.

I can't recall saying that...and I rather doubt that contemporary social democrats talk about surplus-value at all.

My definition: if you sell your labor-power to an employer and that labor-power is used to produce a product or service (commodity) that is sold in the marketplace...the profit that your employer makes on your labor-power can only originate from surplus value...assuming the labor theory of value is accurate.

There are people who know a good deal more than I do about Marxist economics who admit that the labor theory of value "has problems"...so I think the sensible response is to consider it once more a hypothesis rather than a scientific fact.

Your statement above proves what MIM is saying.
From the Marxist point of view, you are unconcerned,
because you count "service" as something the capitalist obtains surplus-value (s-v) from and hence profit. Marx did not agree. In effect you take the social-d/RCP/Trot line that 90% of Amerikans are exploited, because they produce s-v--a view which kills off the potential for profit crises Marx described.

At bottom, the real issue is not Redstar anyway: it's the Avakian fans saying they are "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" while tossing the labor theory of value. Redstar2000, you are so far removed from an accountable "Marxist" practice, MIM has to flush out the implications of your views from a Marxist point of view. The fact remains you are united with the Avakian fans on the labor aristocracy question and it's much easier to pin down them, precisely because of what they call themselves.

BTW, it's called "labor theory of value," because it was a hypothesis confirmed by a deluge of facts in history.

[redstar2000]

gangoffour wrote: ...you count "service" as something the capitalist obtains surplus-value (s-v) from and hence profit. Marx did not agree.

Perhaps because the "service industry" was "too small to notice" in his time.

Using England as an example (where Marx did most of his research), millions of people were employed as private servants to the wealthy and even the upper middle class. In fact, Marx's wife had a servant (a personal retainer that came along with her from her family when she and Marx married).

These people labored but did not produce any commodities...and thus no surplus value.

There are still a small number of servants now; but, for the most part, all the services that were once produced outside the sphere of commodity circulation are now produced inside that sphere.

I frankly don't see how MIM can deny this obvious fact.

If you obstinately maintain that some unknown proportion of the proletariat does not produce surplus value even though they produce commodities (services) for sale in the marketplace, then as far as I am concerned, the credibility of your "3 to 1" or "4 to 1" ratio of "unproductive workers (or "parasites") to "real workers" is already questionable.

I gather that your view limits "commodity production" to physical entities...corn and iron, in Marx's example.

But you should really know better than that. Are railroad workers "real proletarians"? After all, they don't produce "anything"...they just move stuff around.

ganfoffour wrote: In effect you take the social-d/RCP/Trot line that 90% of Amerikans are exploited, because they produce s-v--a view which kills off the potential for profit crises Marx described.

Why does that position "kill off the potential for profit crises"? If the labor theory of value turns out to be true after all, then the tendency of the rate of profit to fall over time remains in force...regardless of the composition of the proletariat.

And I can't help but notice your reference to a "grand alliance" -- that is, the RCP, the social democrats, the Trotskyists, and me all "agree" that "90% of Americans are exploited".

How is it that people who disagree on so much else "agree" about that?

I would note that the bourgeoisie gather and publish statistics for their own purposes, not ours. The assumptions that are "built in" to their numbers make it...awkward to use them for our purposes.

I sense that you folks have been less than cautious in making use of those numbers.

ganfoffour wrote: Redstar2000, you are so far removed from an accountable "Marxist" practice, MIM has to flush out the implications of your views from a Marxist point of view.

What does that mean? That I'm not "accountable" to you? Should I "run my posts" past you for vetting before I actually post them?

In your dreams!

gangoffour wrote: At bottom, the real issue is not Redstar anyway: it's the Avakian fans saying they are "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" while tossing the labor theory of value.

Oh, I see. But why then drag me into your "trademark squabble" with the RCP? I lay no claim to being either a Leninist or a Maoist...though I am pretty sure that for all my shortcomings, I am a much better Marxist than you guys.

I mean, I still think that proletarian revolution will take place first in the imperialist countries...a perspective that you guys abandoned long ago.

Leaving you with nothing more to do than cheerlead bourgeois revolutions in the "third world".

[JC]

Redstar2000 , i agree with you on all your points but one. You say cheer on bourgoise reveloutions third world , BUT , there is no bourgoise in the "Third" world . the bourgiose in under developed countries are small or even totaly evaporated !

Since 1950 only a third of the US capitial was invested in countries that classify as "Third" World , disperesed . However , becuase capitial accumulates imperialist capitial quikly gains the upper hand in the natinol markets ! So there fore , the only reveloutionary class in society is the Prolatariat ! This is why in the last century we have seen one democratic reveloution ( I am talking about iran , and even there were elements of dual power there AND even though the bourgoise truimphed , there is now bonaparitism AND during the reveloution there were elements of dual power ! )

This is refected by lenin in two tactics of social democracy in the democratic reveloution . While the proletarian reveloution in russia did accomplish the bourgoises tasks and did modernize the country , buracracy only took place in the onset !

More later

[redstar2000]

JC wrote: You say cheer on bourgeois revolutions [in the] third world, BUT there is no bourgeoisie in the "Third" world. The bourgeoisie in under developed countries are small or even totally evaporated!

I owe a bit of explanation here, I see.

The practice of modern imperialism involves "hiring" a local ruling class to administer local affairs in the "neo-colony" -- these can be merchants, technocrats trained in the "mother country", or even parts of the old landed aristocracy. Their job is to "keep things under control" for the imperialist exploitation to proceed peacefully; their reward is a share (small) of the plunder and the all-important appearance of sovereignty.

As time passes, the neo-colony develops the material conditions for a bourgeois revolution and the emergence of a modern capitalist economy...but there is no true bourgeois class (or if there is one, it is small, weak, and indecisive).

The real genius of Mao was to understand that the peasantry could function as a genuinely revolutionary class...could both expel the imperialists and disperse their "native servants".

He (understandably) at the time thought this would lead to socialism and communism, bypassing the capitalist epoch of production.

But, as we know, material reality prevails. The revolutionary party that succeeds in the third world and develops the economy, creates both a modern and vigorous native bourgeoisie within the party itself and also calls into existence a modern proletariat.

Beneath all the red flags and "Marxist" rhetoric is exactly the same process that Marx observed in England 150 years ago...the old order (pre-feudal, feudal, and primitive capitalist) is replaced by a modern capitalist economy complete with an imperialist state apparatus of its own.

I've seen some modern Chinese political rhetoric that, allowing for cultural differences, could have been written in the United States around 1900 -- talk of building a "great and powerful nation", etc.

It's a new capitalist ruling class, ready to step into a "leading role" on the "world stage".

And it makes all the older imperialist countries very nervous. New ruling classes are "unpredictable" -- Germany and Japan being the outstanding examples from the last century.

As to the proletariat, it hasn't been a significant factor in Maoist revolutions up to now; though it apparently did play a role in the overthrow of the Shah of Iran.

There seem to be a number of countries which lie between modern capitalism and the real hellholes of imperialist dominion; Iran is certainly one of those countries -- others might include India, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, South Africa, Turkey, etc.

These countries certainly have at least the rudiments of a modern bourgeoisie and a modern proletariat...combined with a large number of peasants; they resemble rather strongly the Russia of 1900 in many ways.

These are countries where the "classical" Leninist strategy (reliance on the working class to make the revolution rather than the peasantry) might work...though any successful revolution there would still result in the emergence of modern capitalism.

See, I just don't think there's any way to get "around" the capitalist epoch...you have to suffer "through" that in order to create a class conscious proletariat that is capable of communist revolution.

I know that sounds "harsh" to some (and "Menshevik" to others).

But it seems to me (and Marx) to be just the way things are.

[marxist]

"RCP" says:
"The idea that working people (in imperialist
countries) are "parasitic" is deeply unscientific
and unmaterialist.
. . .
The idea that workers are "parasitic" invents a
new moralistic concept that is rather contrary to
MLM -- and to a historical materialist
understanding of class society."

When is the "RCP" going to retract the above obvious LIE about Marx's position on unproductive labor when it's in black-and-white that Marx did say unproductive labor constituted parasitism?

There is nothing new to the MIM argument, only the facts of 2004. The facts are that the majority of imperialist country populations have gone white-collar and are not proletarian. All the rest of the "RCP" criticisms of MIM are aimed at Marx, Lenin and Mao.