From DISTEFANO@iwm.univie.ac.at Tue Aug 5 09:45:38 1997 Tue, 5 Aug 1997 08:29:35 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 08:29:35 -0700 (PDT) From: "G. Garofalo" Reply-To: "G. Garofalo" To: Christine Di Stefano Subject: SIGNS Special Issue: Institutions, Regulation, and Social Control , Call for Papers Call for Papers Signs Special Issue: Institutions, Regulation, and Social Control Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society seeks submissions for a special issue on "Institutions, Regulation, and Social Control," slated for publication in summer 1999. At every historical moment, contemporary life is shaped by multiple, intersecting systems and processes of social, psychological, cultural, and political regulation. How is lived experience influenced by social, political, economic institutions, by the diverse discourses whereby social impulses are created, shaped, narrowed, regulated? How do processes and experiences of regulation differ by genders, races, ethnicities, classes, sexualities, nationalities? How do artistic and cultural representations produce and/or respond to regulation, broadly conceived? What regulatory work is performed by artistic and critical traditions, forms, and conventions? Are there processes and experiences of regulation that transcend difference, in the context of power inequalities? What can we learn about the shifting meanings of feminisms by exploring processes of regulation? This special issue will address concerns such as the organization and enactment of particular social institutions, including militaries, prisons, schools, religious institutions, and families; the regulation of physical bodies through codes of sexuality and technologies that limit physical freedoms; political and cultural regulations through the rise to power of conservative forces such as the religious right; conflicts and complicities between state regulatory practices and situated ethnic nationalisms and allegiances; institutional processes of social control; transnational systems of regulation of populations and their migrations; influences of this multitude of systems of regulation on daily lived experiences. This special issue will also address not only resistances to this regulation and social control but also new and more complicated and nuanced thinking about resistance itself. We encourage multidisciplinary analyses that explore the dynamics of interaction between everyday actors and communities on the one hand and regulatory systems on the other. And, importantly, this issue will address intersections among systems of regulation and social control, as they reinforce, undermine, and contradict each other. The editors welcome submissions that are based on either collaborative or independent scholarship. They also welcome submissions from a wide variety of theoretical perspectives, disciplines, and approaches to this complex and multifaceted topic. The special issue editors will include Professors Christine Di Stefano (Department of Political Science, University of Washington), Priscilla Wald (Department of English, University of Washington), and Judith Weisenfeld (Department of Religion, Barnard College). Please submit articles (five copies), in English, no later than October 31, 1997, to Signs, Institutions, Regulation, and Social Control, Box 354345, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-4345. Please observe the guidelines in the "Notice to Contributors" printed in the most recent issue of the journal. From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Wed Aug 13 19:43:19 1997 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 18:09:03 -0700 To: MATFEM@csf.colorado.edu Would somebody please check out my reasoning here? 1. According to Wallerstein, the capitalist world-economy divides labor into two categories: in the periphery, forms of coerced labor: slavery and "feudalism"; and in the core, forms of "free" labor: wage labor and self-employment. 2. The labor of women in the family is a form of coerced labor: if not forcibly and violently (which it is in many cases), then through politics, ideology, institutions, and socialization. It is this labor which "reproduces" the working class, and therefore is called "reproductive labor" by Maria Dalla Costa and many others. Also, as Vandana Shiva has said, women in all classes and in all countries constitute a kind of "internalized" colony, in that their unpaid labor helps capital to consolidate its resources and externalize its costs. 3. Capital creates two kinds of value: paid value, and unpaid value. Re: capital, paid value is the value that is exchanged with the worker in the form of the wage, and unpaid value is surplus value. 4. Anybody see where I'm going with this? The paid form of value is the value exchanged with the laborer in the form of the wage. The unpaid form of value, i.e., surplus value, is the value of reproductive labor and other forms of coerced labor! 5. Re: exchange value, according to Marx, the only value present in a commodity is the value of the stored labor required to create it. Therefore, according to Marx, the natural materials used in manufacture have contributed no value. And therefore, according to Marx, the value of natural materials is also unpaid value, or surplus value. From susanp@uidaho.edu Thu Aug 14 13:18:34 1997 Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 12:18:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Susan Palmer Reply-To: Susan Palmer To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Surplus Value Reply Well, you have reshaped my understanding of surplus value. Useful labor is unpaid labor, and abstract labor is paid labor. Both produce surplus value, but surplus value is what is appropriated by the capitalist as opposed to the producer of that value, the laborer. As for natural resources, Marx viewed them as relatively "fixed" in value at any given historical moment--constant capital. Whereas labor is variable depending on numerous factors--variable capital. Constant capital cannot create surplus value, only variable capital. And variable capital determines the magnitude of the surplus. (And conventionally, variable capital is PAID labor.) So, I suppose you lost me when you said "unpaid value is surplus value." You've merged concepts. Unpaid labor produces use values (although contributes to exchange value), and surplus value is the value that the capitalist usurps from the worker. It's paid, alright, but not to the ones who EARNED it. Do you follow my reasoning? *-------------------------------------------------------* Susan Palmer Phone: 208-885-6616 Education Programming Coordinator FAX: 208-885-6285 Women's Center susanp@uidaho.edu [Lecturer, Sociology Dept.] University of Idaho Moscow, Idaho 83844-1064 "People convinced against their will, hold the same opinion still." *-------------------------------------------------------* From lennox@german.umass.edu Thu Aug 14 16:22:42 1997 MatFem@csf.colorado.edu; Thu, 14 Aug 1997 18:22:40 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 18:21:49 -0400 From: lennox@german.umass.edu (Sara Lennox) Subject: Re: Surplus Value Reply To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu I don't think that's quite right about useful labor. Useful labor and abstract labor are just two different ways of thinking about labor. Useful labor is concrete, specific, and produces specific things that have concrete uses, i.e. use value. Abstract labor is a way of thinking about labor that abstracts away from everything that is specific about it and measures it solely in terms of time spent in the expenditure of labor power--and this is what produces exchange value. BUT Marx says every commodity has to have a use value, or nobody would buy it. So useful labor and use value are mirror images of each other, as are abstract labor and exchange value--useful labor may or may not be paid, and something with use value may or may not be a commodity--but all commodities are produced BOTH by useful labor and abstract labor and embody both use value and exchange value. (See Capital, Chapter one, Section 2.) Surplus value: the value of the commodity labor power, like all other commodities, is determined by the labor time necessary for its production and reproduction--thus food, sustenance, housing, child rearing, education for future workers, training of worker him/herself. The capitalist (theoretically) pays the worker the value of his/her labor power. BUT the use value of the commodity labor power is that it produces exchange value. SO: the worker works long enough to produce enough new value (which is --see above--created by the abstract labor power expended over time) to pay his/her wage--and then he/she CONTINUES working and produces value over and beyond what is necessary for the wage. AND within the framework of capitalism that is completely fair, since the capitalist bought the commodity labor power for a certain period of time and has the right to do with it--and its products-- whatever he/she wants. (That's why capital can't create value--because value is only created through the process of working.) Anyway, this is what MARX says--I'm not an economist, so if there are neo-Marxist amendations to this theory, I apologize for my intervention! Best, Sara Lennox At 12:18 PM 8/14/97, Susan Palmer wrote: >Well, you have reshaped my understanding of surplus value. Useful labor is >unpaid labor, and abstract labor is paid labor. Both produce surplus >value, but surplus value is what is appropriated by the capitalist as >opposed to the producer of that value, the laborer. > >As for natural resources, Marx viewed them as relatively "fixed" in value >at any given historical moment--constant capital. Whereas labor is >variable depending on numerous factors--variable capital. Constant capital >cannot create surplus value, only variable capital. And variable capital >determines the magnitude of the surplus. (And conventionally, variable >capital is PAID labor.) > >So, I suppose you lost me when you said "unpaid value is surplus value." >You've merged concepts. Unpaid labor produces use values (although >contributes to exchange value), and surplus value is the value that the >capitalist usurps from the worker. It's paid, alright, but not to the >ones who EARNED it. > >Do you follow my reasoning? > >*-------------------------------------------------------* > Susan Palmer Phone: 208-885-6616 > Education Programming Coordinator FAX: 208-885-6285 > Women's Center susanp@uidaho.edu > [Lecturer, Sociology Dept.] > University of Idaho > Moscow, Idaho 83844-1064 > "People convinced against their will, > hold the same opinion still." >*-------------------------------------------------------* From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Thu Aug 14 23:15:16 1997 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 22:15:31 -0700 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Surplus Value Reply > > >Well, you have reshaped my understanding of surplus value. Useful labor is >unpaid labor, and abstract labor is paid labor. Both produce surplus >value, but surplus value is what is appropriated by the capitalist as >opposed to the producer of that value, the laborer. > >As for natural resources, Marx viewed them as relatively "fixed" in value >at any given historical moment--constant capital. Whereas labor is >variable depending on numerous factors--variable capital. Constant capital >cannot create surplus value, only variable capital. And variable capital >determines the magnitude of the surplus. (And conventionally, variable >capital is PAID labor.) > >So, I suppose you lost me when you said "unpaid value is surplus value." >You've merged concepts. Unpaid labor produces use values (although >contributes to exchange value), and surplus value is the value that the >capitalist usurps from the worker. It's paid, alright, but not to the >ones who EARNED it. > >Do you follow my reasoning? > >*-------------------------------------------------------* > Susan Palmer Phone: 208-885-6616 > Education Programming Coordinator FAX: 208-885-6285 > Women's Center susanp@uidaho.edu > [Lecturer, Sociology Dept.] > University of Idaho > Moscow, Idaho 83844-1064 > "People convinced against their will, > hold the same opinion still." >*-------------------------------------------------------* Yes, and thank you! Sorry for the confusion. Let's start over re: surplus value. As you said, "surplus value is what is appropriated by the capitalist as opposed to the producer of that value, the laborer." In other words, Marx defines surplus value thus: after the costs of all the inputs required to create a commodity (subsistence wage plus what Marx called constant capital: raw materials, wear and tear on tools, rents and utilities required for maintaining the place of manufacture, etc.) are subtracted from the price at which the commodity is sold, the remainder is "surplus value": that portion of the value of the labor power input from which the capitalist benefited, but for which he did not pay. Again in other words, the value of a commodity consists of two parts: paid value, and unpaid value. The value that is paid is the value of the subsistence wage added to the constant capital, and the value that is unpaid is surplus value! Then, re: two forms of labor, "free" labor and "coerced" labor, "free" labor is the labor that corresponds to paid value, and "coerced" labor is the labor that corresponds to unpaid value (i.e., surplus value). What this means is that surplus value consists of all of the unpaid value of the labor of slaves, serfs, tenant farmers, underpaid workers, and women in the family. Re: the value of natural resources, I think there is a quote in Marx somewhere that says that all value created in the world is created by labor. It is from there that I derive the idea that in Marx's political economy, natural resources are regarded as having no value other than the value of the labor required to extract them from nature and bring them to the market or convert them into commodities to then be brought to the market. So, the conclusion that Marx did not define natural resources as having value. But as we know, they do, and so it must be that the value of natural resources used heretofore in production must have been turned into surplus value, i.e., unpaid value. Therefore, surplus value consists of the unpaid value of labor added to the unpaid value of natural resources. Am I going crazy here? > > > > From susanp@uidaho.edu Fri Aug 15 00:46:11 1997 Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 23:46:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Susan Palmer Reply-To: Susan Palmer To: MATERIALIST FEMINISM Subject: Re: Surplus Value Reply In-Reply-To: Sara, Your points and clarification are well taken. I oversimplified my original response. On Thu, 14 Aug 1997, Sara Lennox wrote: > useful labor may or may not be paid, and something with use > value may or may not be a commodity--but all commodities are produced BOTH > by useful labor and abstract labor and embody both use value and exchange > value. (See Capital, Chapter one, Section 2.) This is exactly as I interpret it (although I misrepresented it in the earlier post). > Surplus value: the value of the commodity labor power, like all other > commodities, is determined by the labor time necessary for its production > and reproduction--thus food, sustenance, housing, child rearing, education > for future workers, training of worker him/herself. The capitalist > (theoretically) pays the worker the value of his/her labor power. BUT the > use value of the commodity labor power is that it produces exchange value. > SO: the worker works long enough to produce enough new value (which is > --see above--created by the abstract labor power expended over time) to pay > his/her wage--and then he/she CONTINUES working and produces value over and > beyond what is necessary for the wage. AND within the framework of > capitalism that is completely fair, since the capitalist bought the > commodity labor power for a certain period of time and has the right to do > with it--and its products-- whatever he/she wants. (That's why capital > can't create value--because value is only created through the process of > working.) Well stated. From susanp@uidaho.edu Fri Aug 15 01:03:28 1997 Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 00:03:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Susan Palmer To: MATERIALIST FEMINISM Subject: Re: Surplus Value Reply In-Reply-To: <199708150515.WAA03167@ncgate.newcollege.edu> On Thu, 14 Aug 1997 brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu wrote: > Then, re: two forms of labor, "free" labor and "coerced" labor, "free" labor > is the labor that corresponds to paid value, and "coerced" labor is the > labor that corresponds to unpaid value (i.e., surplus value). > > What this means is that surplus value consists of all of the unpaid value of > the labor of slaves, serfs, tenant farmers, underpaid workers, and women in > the family. This is more clearly articulated than previously. > Re: the value of natural resources, I think there is a quote in Marx > somewhere that says that all value created in the world is created by labor. > It is from there that I derive the idea that in Marx's political economy, > natural resources are regarded as having no value other than the value of > the labor required to extract them from nature and bring them to the market > or convert them into commodities to then be brought to the market. So, the > conclusion that Marx did not define natural resources as having value. My interpretation is that he did appreciate the value of natural resources (e.g. the rain forest and its supply of oxygen providing a use value), but that it was merely not a "commodity" because it was not produced or transformed (at least before its destruction) by human labor. > as we know, they do, and so it must be that the value of natural resources > used heretofore in production must have been turned into surplus value, > i.e., unpaid value. Once natural resources are "used...in production" they become commodities, just as labor power does. As I see it there are use values, of which some are commodities (produced/transformed by human labor), and all commodities are the product of labor, some of which are the product of abstract labor. > Therefore, surplus value consists of the unpaid value of labor added to the > unpaid value of natural resources. How do you define, more specifically, the "unpaid value of natural resources"? Perhaps you could try using the rain forest example (if it's a reasonable one) as your illustration. > Am I going crazy here? No, it's an interesting thread. Susan From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Fri Aug 15 21:19:14 1997 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 20:19:45 -0700 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Surplus Value Reply >How do you define, more specifically, the "unpaid value of natural >resources"? Perhaps you could try using the rain forest example (if it's a >reasonable one) as your illustration. > We have to go back to the assumption (which I believe is Marx's, though I can't remember where I read the quote) that all of exchange value is the value of labor. I know that John Locke did believe that nature had no intrinsic value, and that it was only when "man" applied his labor to nature that it began to have value. Again, all value is the value of labor. I will quote Judi Bari here, but she doesn't give her source: "Marx makes the distinction between use value, which he says comes from nature and labor, and exchange value, which he says comes from labor alone." (Wild California, Spring 1997, "Don't Mourn, Organize," The Legacy of Judi Bari.) So, if all of exchange value is the value of labor, none of it is the value of the natural materials that are extracted from the earth and incorporated into consumer goods! I maintain that the capitalists, too, do not assign any value to natural materials. They believe that if they can afford to go down to the Amazon and turn the rain forest into pastures for cows for MacDonald's, then they have the right to do that. Even if all they pay is 50 cents an acre or whatever. Whatever they pay, unless they can parlay their investment to the extent that the initial outlay becomes insignificant by comparison, they're not going to bother with it. So whatever they pay, they don't pay nearly what the rain forest is worth to the people of Brazil and the rest of the world, who are the true owners of the rain forest. So, the profit they make from the rain forest would be what is left over after subtracting their (1) labor costs, (2) constant capital (rents, utilities, wear and tear on machinery, etc.), and (3) whatever miniscule amount that they did actually pay for the rain forest acreage itself. Since they did not pay the full value of the rain forest, the remainder would be unpaid value, and would wind up as surplus value, or profit. Just as under capitalism, the capitalist collects for himself part of the value of labor, he also collects part of the value of natural materials. The part of the value of labor he collects is the unpaid value of labor. The part of the value of natural materials he collects is the unpaid value of nature. The end result is that the irreplacable rain forest has been used up, we have eaten our hamburger only to start getting hungry again in a few hours, and unpaid value has been added to the ever-accumulating bank accounts of the international corporations. Thank you for your kind comments. From susanp@uidaho.edu Sat Aug 16 23:14:40 1997 Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 22:14:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Susan Palmer To: MATERIALIST FEMINISM Subject: Re: Surplus Value Reply In-Reply-To: <199708160319.UAA07391@ncgate.newcollege.edu> Thanks for painstakingly answering my questions, and clarifying earlier points. I went back and re-read your first post, which now makes perfect sense to me. Your points are very similar to Lisa Vogel's in *Marxism and the Oppression of Women*. (I think that is the title...it's not at hand.) Although I don't recall that she addressed natural resources the way you are doing. Have you read it? *-------------------------------------------------------* Susan Palmer Phone: 208-885-6616 Education Programming Coordinator FAX: 208-885-6285 Women's Center susanp@uidaho.edu [Lecturer, Sociology Dept.] University of Idaho Moscow, Idaho 83844-1064 "People convinced against their will, hold the same opinion still." *-------------------------------------------------------* From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Sun Aug 17 09:55:41 1997 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Sun, 17 Aug 1997 08:56:39 -0700 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Surplus Value Reply >Thanks for painstakingly answering my questions, and clarifying earlier >points. I went back and re-read your first post, which now makes perfect >sense to me. Your points are very similar to Lisa Vogel's in *Marxism and >the Oppression of Women*. (I think that is the title...it's not at hand.) >Although I don't recall that she addressed natural resources the way >you are doing. Have you read it? > > >*-------------------------------------------------------* > Susan Palmer Phone: 208-885-6616 > Education Programming Coordinator FAX: 208-885-6285 > Women's Center susanp@uidaho.edu > [Lecturer, Sociology Dept.] > University of Idaho > Moscow, Idaho 83844-1064 > "People convinced against their will, > hold the same opinion still." >*-------------------------------------------------------* > Thank you for your reply and for the cite. No I haven't read Lisa Vogel, but I will. As you can see, I am trying to define value in a way that accounts for the exploitation of women and the exploitation of nature. If you know of any other material that might help me, I'd be grateful. Thanks again, and best wishes. Nancy Brumback Core Faculty New College of California 741 Valencia St. San Francisco, CA 94110 From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Mon Aug 18 10:16:38 1997 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 09:17:54 -0700 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: matfem archives Help! I just joined the list, and don't know how to access its archives. Can anyone help? From ingrac@Sage.EDU Tue Aug 19 08:25:00 1997 Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 10:18:22 -0400 (EDT) From: Chrys Ingraham To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Book announcement In-Reply-To: <199708181617.JAA03924@ncgate.newcollege.edu> To all! At long last.... Announcing the publication of: Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives Edited by Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham Routledge, August 1997 ISBN: 0-415-91634-8 pbk $24.95 This reader speaks out against the retreat to identity politics. Instead, the contributors argue in favor of making visible again the material links among the explosion of meaning-making practices in highly industrialized social sectors, the appropriation of women's bodies, and the exploitation of women's labor, all of which are undergirded by the scramble for profits and state power in multinational capitalism. Contributors: Michele Barrett, Margaret Benston, Rose Brewer, Charlotte Bunch, Hazel Carby, Norma Chinchilla, Cynthia Comacchio, Mariarosa Dall costa, Christine Delphy, Barbara Ehrenreich, Leslie Feinberg, Nicola Field, Lindsey German, Martha Gimenez, Frigga Haug, Rosemary Hennessy, Chrys Ingraham, Selma James, Gloria Joseph, Gwyn Kirk, Annette Kihn, Maria Mies, Swasti Mitter, Rajeswari Mohan, Meera Nanda, Lillian Robinson, Kathryn Russell, Barbara Smith, Carol Stabile, Victoria Tillotson, Lise Vogel, Mary Alice Waters, Ann Marie Wolpe, Nellie Wong, Iris Marion Young. Thanks to all for your support. From dbrock@interlog.com Wed Aug 20 16:03:52 1997 Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 16:39:17 -0700 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu From: deborah brock Subject: Re: The 'domestic labour debate' preoccupied numerous socialist feminists in the late 1970's/early 1980's. See, for example, Bonnie Fox (ed.) Hidden in the Household (Toronto: Women's Press, 1980). There were some convincing critiques of this focus which helped to bring it out of fashion, although I would have to dig to find them at this point. This may be stuff you already know about, although it is history now and I can't assume that younger people know about it. At 06:09 PM 8/13/97 -0700, you wrote: >Would somebody please check out my reasoning here? > >1. According to Wallerstein, the capitalist world-economy divides labor >into two categories: in the periphery, forms of coerced labor: slavery and >"feudalism"; and in the core, forms of "free" labor: wage labor and >self-employment. > >2. The labor of women in the family is a form of coerced labor: if not >forcibly and violently (which it is in many cases), then through politics, >ideology, institutions, and socialization. It is this labor which >"reproduces" the working class, and therefore is called "reproductive labor" >by Maria Dalla Costa and many others. Also, as Vandana Shiva has said, women >in all classes and in all countries constitute a kind of "internalized" >colony, in that their unpaid labor helps capital to consolidate its >resources and externalize its costs. > >3. Capital creates two kinds of value: paid value, and unpaid value. >Re: capital, paid value is the value that is exchanged with the worker in >the form of the wage, and unpaid value is surplus value. > >4. Anybody see where I'm going with this? The paid form of value is the >value exchanged with the laborer in the form of the wage. The unpaid form of >value, i.e., surplus value, is the value of reproductive labor and other >forms of coerced labor! > >5. Re: exchange value, according to Marx, the only value present in a >commodity is the value of the stored labor required to create it. Therefore, >according to Marx, the natural materials used in manufacture have >contributed no value. And therefore, according to Marx, the value of natural >materials is also unpaid value, or surplus value. > > > From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Wed Aug 20 19:41:16 1997 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 18:43:05 -0700 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Surplus value > >The 'domestic labour debate' preoccupied numerous socialist feminists in >the late 1970's/early 1980's. See, for example, Bonnie Fox (ed.) Hidden in >the Household (Toronto: Women's Press, 1980). There were some convincing >critiques of this focus which helped to bring it out of fashion, although I >would have to dig to find them at this point. > >This may be stuff you already know about, although it is history now and I >can't assume that younger people know about it. > > I am aware of the domestic labor debate, but I don't recall seeing any critique which brought it out of fashion, unless that critique involved a total rejection of anything Marxist, which of course has been popular for quite a while in some circles. The problem, in my opinion, is that Marx failed to address either the value of the labor of women in the family or the value of nature. From Mary-Jo_POVISIL@umail.umd.edu Thu Aug 21 13:25:28 1997 for matfem@csf.colorado.edu; Thu, 21 Aug 1997 15:25:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 14:54:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Mary-Jo Povisil To: mp57@umail.umd.edu X-: Priority: NORMAL X-: X-Authentication: none X-: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII ----------- Begin Forwarded Message ------------ From: Mary-Jo Povisil To: mp57@umail.umd.edu Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 14:54:33 -0400 (EDT) OUR SUMMER ISSUE IS IN THE MAIL!!! You may send for your copy of Volume 23, no. 2 now. See below for ordering information. FEMINIST STUDIES continues its 25th anniversary celebration by publishing a SPECIAL ISSUE devoted exclusively to "Feminists and Fetuses." Why "Feminists and Fetuses?" Fetuses currently occupy a complicated and contradictory place in the cultural and political life of the United States. Feminist scholars, in this issue, ask how diverse pregnant women see and respond to the various social constructions that are composed on their own changing physical bodies. What are the contexts in which fetuses are discussed or not discussed in other societies? Can feminist theory translate these experiential differences both across and within cultures and into feminist practices? How can an analysis of these social constructions be useful to feminist theory and practice? How do researchers who attempt to create understandings about these positions frame their work? We are certain the Summer 1997 issue will be a "classic," with articles on the new reproductive technologies; pregnant American women's dietary habits; the politics of "fetal personhood"; feminism and the narratives of pregnancy loss; among other equally stimulating essays, reviews, art, and poetry. In the fall, we bring our 25th anniversary celebration to a close with an issue whose articles center around the themes of "Nation and Race, Sex and Work" and "Gender and Sexual Identity in the Public Sphere." These articles include examinations of the significance of gender in Mexico's export processing industry, the international women's movement in the early 20th-century, the configuration of gender and race forged in 19th-century British Columbia, the rhetoric of risk and control in the production of knowledge about breast cancer, and a review essay on the myth of the rich gay community, and, of course, poetry and art. Stop by our website for the complete tables of content for both issues. (www.inform.umd.edu/FemStud). For 25 years, FEMINIST STUDIES has played a pioneering role in publishing significant work in feminist theory, political analysis, research in literature, history, and the social sciences, and creative writing. Our publishing plans for the immediate future promise to continue these lively, stimulating, and vigorous exchanges by providing a forum for both new and established feminist scholars, writers, and artists who are exploring new lines of inquiry, creating new forms, and expanding women's perceptions of the world. Join our intellectual celebration and subscribe now! Subscriptions per volume year are $30.00 for individuals and $75.00 for institutions. We also offer a student rate of $20.00 per year (a photocopy of a dated proof of student status is required in order to receive this rate.) Single issues are $12.00 each. You can e-mail your order to femstud@umail.umd.edu. (Be sure to include your credit card type, number, and expiration date.) You can also order via snail mail with either a credit card or a check. Send the appropriate information to Feminist Studies, c/o Women's Studies Department, Woods Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742. Or visit our website and print the subscription form. ---------------------- Mary-Jo Povisil mp57@umail.umd.edu ------------ End Forwarded Message ------------- From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Mon Aug 25 09:36:59 1997 Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 09:36:57 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez Reply-To: Martha Gimenez To: matfem@csf.Colorado.EDU Subject: Marx on value and nature I have just read the exchange on the topic. Rather than quote extensively from previous messages, I will list some of the assertions I found problematic: "capitalists appropriate the unpaid value of nature" "exchange value is the value of labor" "exchange value comes from labor alone" "nature has value when man applies labor" "all value is the value of labor" "Marx failed to address the value of women's work and the value of nature." What follows are some points of clarification which are unavoidably cryptic, given the complexity of the issues and my lack of time to write a lengthier and well organized statement. Marx (CAPITAL, ch. 1, Commodities) argues that it is necessary to differentiate between use values, the products of concrete useful labor, and exchange values, which are produced by abstract labor. Under specific historical conditions, use values become the material depositories of exchange value. Commodities can be exchanged because they all have a social property in common in varying proportions: value or congealed abstract labor power. This is why I understand value not as "the value of labor," but as that property of commodities which stems from their being, regardless of their different use values, the product of abstract human labor and human labor becomes abstract labor only under very specific historical conditions. Women's domestic labor is not abstract labor and, as such -- while valuable in a real or material economic sense, for it creates an enormous amount of use values for private consumption -- it does not produce value in the technical sense outlined above. The conclusion that domestic labor does not produce value has been interpreted as if Marx had "failed" to acknowledge the significance of domestic labor. In my view, this is not an indication of "failure" but a consequence of the the focus of Marx's theoretical analysis: capitalism and commodity production. Domestic labor does not produce commodities unless domestic workers produce for the market, as they do when they engage in petty commodity production when wages decline or disappear (I wrote about these issues in a book I co-edited with Jane Collins: WORK WITHOUT WAGES: Domestic Labor and Self-Employment under Capitalism, Suny U. Press, 1990; my chapter is entitled "The dialectics of waged and unwaged work: waged work, domestic labor and household survival in the United States"). There is a dialectical relation between commodity production and the production of use values which Marx did not explore in his work. Whether this is viewed as a failure or whether we understand this situation in light of the main objectives of his work and the political conditions of the time is up to us and depends on our own theoretical and political allegiances. Exchange value is not "the value of labor" and it does not "come from labor alone;" it is the quantity of value at which commodities are exchanged in a given time; it is only through process of exchange that the common substance shared by commodities reveals itself, namely value. Value and exchange value are relational properties of commodities; they are not inherent in the use values produced by useful labor or in nature (e.g., diamonds are not naturally valuable); all commodities are use values but not all use values are commodities even though they are the product of human labor, but not of abstract labor. This is why the use values we produce at home have no value, in the sense that they have not been produced under conditions ruled by commodity relations. This does not mean that Marx "devalues" (in the sense of considering worthless) what domestic workers do; it simply means that it is impossible to determine the value of domestically produced use values because value and exchange value emerge in the process of exchange; the value of a commodity is determined by the socially necessary labor time required to produce it. Each household worker, on the other hand, has hers or his own standards of productivity and it would be impossible to establish the value of what each household produces unless those use values are brought outside, to enter in relations with other products in the market. In this sense, nature does not have value and, consecuently, exchange value, if considered it itself, in isolation from historically specific relations of production. This does not mean that in Marx's eyes nature is worthless; on the contrary, in the CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAMME (a program put forth by the German Worker's Party) Marx forcefully argues that it is crucial to keep in mind the contribution of nature to the creation of use values. Gotha Programme: "Labour is the source of all wealth and all culture ...." This is Marx's critique: "Labor is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use value (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as is labor, which itself is only the manifestation of a natural force, human labor power..... The bourgeois have very good reasons for fancifully ascribing supernatural creative power to labor, since it follows precisely from the fact that labor depends on nature, that the man who possesses no other property than his labor power must, in all conditions of society and culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labor (i.e., nature - my note). He can only work with their permission, and hence only live with their permission." (CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAMME, N.York, International Publishers, 1970, p. 3.). In light of Marx's analysis, capitalists do not appropriate the "unpaid value of nature" because nature, in a technical sense, has no value; they appropriate (legally or by force) the material conditions of production, be it rain forests, mines, agricultural land or whatever and in the process of employing workers to transform those material conditions into a variety of products, they appropriate the surplus value produced by those workers when those commodities are sold. It follows that "nature has value only when man applies labor" is somewhat appropriate only under capitalist conditions (I would say that nature is a source of value); before the universalization of commodity production and outside its boundaries today, nature was and is a source of use values. I hope you find these remarks helpful. In solidarity, Martha E. Gimenez Department of Sociology Campus Box 327 University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder, Colorado 80309 Voice: 303-492-7080 Fax: 303-492-5105 From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Mon Aug 25 23:01:58 1997 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 22:05:16 -0700 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Marx on value and nature Thank you very much for your response to my ideas re: value, women, nature, etc. Your cites and reflections are very much appreciated. I said: >"capitalists appropriate the unpaid value of nature" >"exchange value is the value of labor" >"exchange value comes from labor alone" >"nature has value when man applies labor" >"all value is the value of labor" >"Marx failed to address the value of women's work and the value of >nature." > Excerpts of what you said: >Under specific historical conditions, use values become the >material depositories of exchange value. Commodities can be exchanged >because they all have a >social property in common in varying proportions: value or congealed >abstract labor power. This is why I understand value not as "the value of >labor," but as that property of commodities which stems from their being, >regardless of their different use values, the product of abstract human >labor and human labor becomes abstract labor only under very specific >historical conditions.> I see (or I think I see)what you are saying. (All of this is very abstract! :))How about "exchange value comes from that property of commodities which stems from their being the product of abstract labor alone"? >Women's domestic labor is not abstract labor...it does not produce value in the technical sense outlined above.>> Yes, but shouldn't it be regarded as abstract labor in the Marxian sense? Since it produces a commodity--the commodity of labor power? Or, is the commodity of labor the only commodity that does not contain abstract labor power? If so, why? Also, if someone pays a housekeeper to raise a family, would the housekeeper's labor become abstract labor since it would then have exchange value? >The conclusion that domestic labor >does not produce value has been interpreted as if Marx had "failed" to >acknowledge the significance of domestic labor.>> I admit this is not a fair statement. Thank you for pointing it out. How about "Marxist theory does not speficially state that the domestic labor which takes place within a family contributes to the value of labor, or to surplus value, or to profit." >(I wrote about these issues in a book I >co-edited with Jane Collins: WORK WITHOUT WAGES: Domestic Labor and >Self-Employment under Capitalism, Suny U. Press, 1990; my chapter is >entitled "The dialectics of waged and unwaged work: waged work, domestic >labor and household survival in the United States").>> Thanks especially for this! I will get the book and read it. >Exchange value is not "the value of labor" and it does not "come from >labor alone;" it is the quantity of value at which commodities are >exchanged in a given time; it is only through process of exchange that >the common substance shared by commodities reveals itself, namely value.>> Error acknowledged. Thank you for the correction. >Value and exchange value are relational properties of commodities; they >are not inherent in the use values produced by useful labor or in nature >(e.g., diamonds are not naturally valuable); all commodities are use >values but not all use values are commodities even though they are the >product of human labor, but not of abstract labor. This is why the use >values we produce at home have no value, in the sense that they have not >been produced under conditions ruled by commodity relations. This does >not mean that Marx "devalues" (in the sense of considering worthless) what >domestic workers do; it simply means that it is impossible to determine >the value of domestically produced use values because value and exchange >value emerge in the process of exchange; the value of a commodity is >determined by the socially necessary labor time required to produce it.>> Understood. So how about the domestic worker who does get paid, i.e., has entered the commodity market? >Each household worker, on the other hand, has hers or his own standards of >productivity and it would be impossible to establish the value of what >each household produces unless those use values are brought outside, to >enter in relations with other products in the market.>> For the household worker who does get paid, how is this situation different from the worker who produces cars or computers? Don't all workers have their own standards of productivity which they may or may not have to adapt to an objective standard? >In this sense, nature does not have value and, consecuently, exchange >value, if considered it itself, in isolation from historically specific >relations of production. This does not mean that in Marx's eyes nature is >worthless; on the contrary, in the CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAMME (a >program put forth by the German Worker's Party) Marx forcefully argues >that it is crucial to keep in mind the contribution of nature to the >creation of use values. > >Gotha Programme: "Labour is the source of all wealth and all culture ...." > >This is Marx's critique: > >"Labor is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source >of use value (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as >is labor, which itself is only the manifestation of a natural force, >human labor power..... The bourgeois have very good reasons for fancifully >ascribing supernatural creative power to labor, since it follows precisely >from the fact that labor depends on nature, that the man who possesses no >other property than his labor power must, in all conditions of society and >culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of >the material conditions of labor (i.e., nature - my note). He can only >work with their permission, and hence only live with their permission." >(CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAMME, N.York, International Publishers, >1970, p. 3.). Thank you also for this cite. I have seen or heard of the Gotha program before, but couldn't remember where I saw it. Marx also said, "A thing can be a use-value, without having value. This is the case whenever its utility to man is not due to labour. Such are air, virgin soil, natural meadows,etc." (Capital, Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Section 1)I interpret this as meaning that use-value is not value unless human labor has been applied to it. This would mean that whatever remaining nooks and crannies of the earth that have not yet been exploited by capital are use-values, but do not have value. It would also mean that use-value has value only when labor is applied to it. (As you said, below.) He also said, "The use-values . . . are combinations of two elements--matter and labour. If we take away the useful labour expended upon them, a material substratum is always left, which is furnished by Nature without the help of man. . . We see, then, that labour is not the only source of material wealth, of use-values produced by labour. . . labour is its father and the earth its mother." (Ibid, Section 2) To me, the use of these particular sexual metaphors, by someone from the 19th century, implies that an active/passive relationship between man and nature is meant by the writer, especially in view of other comments which suggest the same relationship. > >In light of Marx's analysis, capitalists do not appropriate the "unpaid >value of nature" because nature, in a technical sense, has no value;>> I see your argument, and that you for pointing out the error. But here is just the problem that I see. Having no value and no agency in history, nature cannot be figured into a materialist analysis of human history. Similarly, without being specified as part of the process of creating surplus value, the labor of women in the family cannot specifically enter into a materialist analysis, and therefore, neither can a historical materialist appreciation of women themselves. >appropriate (legally or by force) the material conditions of production, >be it rain forests, mines, agricultural land or whatever and in the >process of employing workers to transform those material conditions into a >variety of products, they appropriate the surplus value produced by those >workers when those commodities are sold. Okay. But doesn't the profit gained by the capitalists include the value of the appropriated natural materials? If this value isn't included in surplus value, how do we account for it? >I hope you find these remarks helpful.> Absolutely! And I hope I haven't gone on and on too much here to be burdensome... From ferguson@philos.umass.edu Tue Aug 26 07:28:27 1997 Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:28:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:28:18 -0400 (EDT) From: Ann Ferguson Subject: Re: Exploitation of Women's Work In-reply-to: <199708240402.WAA03657@csf.Colorado.EDU> from <"MatFem@csf.colorado.edu"@Aug> To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu 8/26 Re women's unpaid domestic work as exploitative, you might be interested to read my arguments in "Women as a New Revolutionary Class in the US", an article that appeared in various forms over the years: first, in a South End Press book edited by Pat Walker called , then in my two books, , 1989, Pandora/Unwin Hyman, and , 1989, Oxford University. Basically I agree with Christine Delphy and Maria Dalla Costa that women's domestic work is exploited since it is unpaid and reproduces the labor power of the working class from which surplus value is extracted; however I argue that this work is also a part of another system of production, which I call "sex/affective production", which socially constructs and produces sexuality, nurturance and affection, neglected (by Marxism)but necessary material needs, and that patriarchal modes of sex/affective production create an unequal and unreciprocated exchange of work and goods between men and women which men exploit, and which forms the basis of male domination. Although in earlier forms of capitalism, this parallel system of production was centered largely in the family and kin networks, its center now has shifted to the state and economy, with patriarchal state policy like welfare reform and corporate downsizing, the revival of cottage industry that women do in the home, etc. I agree with Heidi Hartmann that sex/gender systems in which men control women's labor and sexuality are the base of male dominance, and that there has been an unhappy marriage of capitalism and patriarchy that has to be continually reorganized and shored up (as in the historical accord in the 19th c., now breaking down, where male unionists won a "family wage" to allow them to exclude married women from wage labor and use their wages to support the family, thus allowing them to continue for a time to control women's unpaid domestic and sex/affective services. Of course, that historical bargain between capitalists and male workers has broken down in the 20th c with the necessity of the two waged nuclear family, but other forms of exploitation of sex/affective labor persist (e.g. the second shift for women, etc. The tension between capitalist and patriarchl ideology and the conflicting demands of these two interlocking systems of production to meet material needs is one explanation of the historic rise of women's movements in advanced capitalist countries, and the development of the capitalist global economy is the material base causing similar tensions through the world that spark women's movements, although since these are in different social formations which often involve feudalism, state dictatorships and military terrorism, these women's movements may often be more imbedded in other left liberation movement formations than they presently are in advanced capitalist societies. Best, Ann Ferguson Professor of Women's Studies and PHilosophy UMass/Amherst From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Tue Aug 26 22:29:09 1997 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 21:32:41 -0700 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Exploitation of Women's Work Dear Ann and matfem, Thanks to Ann for responding to my comments about Marx, nature, women and value etc. Imagine my pleasure at receiving an email from THE Ann Ferguson! Thanks especially to Ann for her bibliographic info on her books and articles. Ann, your views on the "parallel" realm of production, i.e., "sex/affective production" remind me of Carolyn Merchant's sphere of reproduction in her system of the three spheres which are active in human evolution: production, reproduction, and consciousness. She discusses this in her book -Earthcare- in case you are not familiar but interested. Also you mentioned the "historical accord of the 19th c., where male unionists won a "family wage" to allow them to exclude married women from wage labor and use their wages to support the family, thus allowing them to continue for a time to control women's unpaid domestic and sex/affective services." I wondered if it wouldn't be too much trouble for you to give me the cite for this event. It is fascinating! Thanks again for your interest and response, and thanks to MATFEM for making it possible! Nancy Brumback Core Faculty New College of California 741 Valencia St. San Francisco, CA 94110 From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu Aug 28 09:49:48 1997 Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 09:49:46 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez Reply-To: Martha Gimenez To: matfem@csf.Colorado.EDU Subject: Re: Marx on value and nature I will reply to Nancy's comments and questions deleting as much as possible of the old messages without endangering the meaning of my reply. On Mon, 25 Aug 1997 brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu wrote: > Excerpts of what you said: > > >Under specific historical conditions, use values become the >material > depositories of exchange value. Commodities can be exchanged >because they > all have a > >social property in common in varying proportions: value or congealed > >abstract labor power. This is why I understand value not as "the value of > >labor," but as that property of commodities which stems from their being, > >regardless of their different use values, the product of abstract human > >labor and human labor becomes abstract labor only under very specific > >historical conditions.> > > I see (or I think I see)what you are saying. (All of this is very abstract! > :))How about "exchange value comes from that property of commodities which > stems from their being the product of abstract labor alone"? Yes, you could say that about exchange value, but it is important to remember the relational nature of the concept. I know, these are very abstract concepts and I would advise you, if you want to get a solid grasp of Marx's argument, to spend a few months reading Capital Vol. I where all these ideas are fully developed. > >Women's domestic labor is not abstract labor...it does not produce value in > the technical sense outlined above.>> > > Yes, but shouldn't it be regarded as abstract labor in the Marxian sense? > Since it produces a commodity--the commodity of labor power? Or, is the > commodity of labor the only commodity that does not contain abstract labor > power? If so, why? Also, if someone pays a housekeeper to raise a family, > would the housekeeper's labor become abstract labor since it would then have > exchange value? Useful labor becomes abstract labor when it enters as a "factor of production," as a given quantity of labor time in combination with the means of production under capitalist conditions of production. Workers can produce things for sale without their labor becoming abstract labor when they engage, for example, in petty commodity production It is debatable whether women's domestic labor reproduces the commodity labor power their husbands sell in the market or whether, instead, their labor produces the goods and services that contribute to the physical (meals, clothing, cleaning) and social (sex, affection, companionship etc., what Ann calls "sex-affective production" reproduction of the laborer. It is important to differentiate between the processes that enter in the reproduction of laborers, the bearers and owners of labor power, and the processes and social relations that enter in the reproduction of labor power as such. They are not the same, though they might overlap. The processes that reproduce the physical and psychological energies of workers are not the same as those that produce their manual and intellectual skills. Women reproduce the former, not the latter, though their work contributes sometimes to pay for the formal training their male companions acquire. Depending n the kind of labor power under consideration, its production may be mostly dependent on the physical and emotional labor of women (in the case of low skilled workers) or dependent on the abstract labor of paid workers such as teachers, office or factory trainers, professors, etc. The higher the quality of labor power, the more likely it will be produced under labor intensive conditions relatively independent from the leveling and deadening power of the market and from domestic labor's inputs. > >Value and exchange value are relational properties of commodities; they > >are not inherent in the use values produced by useful labor or in nature > >(e.g., diamonds are not naturally valuable); all commodities are use > >values but not all use values are commodities even though they are the > >product of human labor, but not of abstract labor. This is why the use > >values we produce at home have no value, in the sense that they have not > >been produced under conditions ruled by commodity relations. This does > >not mean that Marx "devalues" (in the sense of considering worthless) what > >domestic workers do; it simply means that it is impossible to determine > >the value of domestically produced use values because value and exchange > >value emerge in the process of exchange; the value of a commodity is > >determined by the socially necessary labor time required to produce it.>> > > Understood. So how about the domestic worker who does get paid, i.e., has > entered the commodity market? It depends; when individuals hire a housekeeper, they pay what they can get away with, depending on the personal characteristics of both the housekeeper herself and her employer. There are no market standards of productivity and different persons will ask their housekeepers to do different things in different ways. On the other hand, when households contract with firms who hire out the labor of housekeepers, they pay a flat fee to the firm which, in turn, pays the housekeepers wages. Under those conditions, domestic workers are indeed waged workers, their labor becomes abstract labor and they are supposed to service a certain number of homes during their working day. This means that the standards are set not through negotiation between them and the person whose house they clean, but by the firm who employs them. > >Each household worker, on the other hand, has hers or his own standards of > >productivity and it would be impossible to establish the value of what > >each household produces unless those use values are brought outside, to > >enter in relations with other products in the market.>> > > For the household worker who does get paid, how is this situation different > from the worker who produces cars or computers? Don't all workers have their > own standards of productivity which they may or may not have to adapt to an > objective standard? Workers in factories or offices work collectively under strict controls over what they do, how they do it, in what time etc. Household workers who are self-employed negotiate some compromise between the standard of the employers and what they are willing to do. Some are excellent - others are not. Housekeepers who work for a firm do whatever they do in the amount of time the firm allots them for each home. True, all workers try to do their best to customize their work processes but the extent to which they can do it varies with the kind of work they do and the degree to which they are controlled. Often the control is built in the technology they use. > Marx also said, "A thing can be a use-value, without having value. This is > the case whenever its utility to man is not due to labour. Such are air, > virgin soil, natural meadows,etc." (Capital, Vol. 1, Ch. 1, Section 1)I > interpret this as meaning that use-value is not value unless human labor has > been applied to it. This would mean that whatever remaining nooks and > crannies of the earth that have not yet been exploited by capital are > use-values, but do not have value. It would also mean that use-value has > value only when labor is applied to it. (As you said, below.) The application of labor to natural use values or to raw materials and intermediate products to produce use values for consumption does not entail the creation of value except when those products enter in relationship with other commodities in the market. One of Marx's important contributions is to show the social, the historically specific nature of value. If I bake a cake and share with friends, my cake is valueless, though delicious :) If I try to sell my cake in the market, I have to sell it at a price others are willing to pay and this price is out of my control; if people are used to paying 10 dollars for a cake in the nearest Safeways, they will not pay more than 10 no matter how high my opportunity cost may be and how labor intensive and wonderful my cake may be. No matter how much labor and money I put into my cake, its value is determined by the market and this is reflected in its exchange value. > He also said, "The use-values . . . are combinations of two elements--matter > and labour. If we take away the useful labour expended upon them, a material > substratum is always left, which is furnished by Nature without the help of > man. . . We see, then, that labour is not the only source of material > wealth, of use-values produced by labour. . . labour is its father and the > earth its mother." (Ibid, Section 2) To me, the use of these particular > sexual metaphors, by someone from the 19th century, implies that an > active/passive relationship between man and nature is meant by the writer, > especially in view of other comments which suggest the same relationship. I know a big deal is made these days of the analysis of such metaphors. I do not find this kind of analysis illuminating; on the contrary, it distracts from the substance of the arguments Marx (or any other theorist whose works are subjected to the same treatment) makes. Current fashion in academic writing "privileges" agency. Well, we can talk about "agency" in reference to humans but not to nature (meaning animals, plants, minerals, etc.). I know, I am being humancentric :) or something like that. So be it. Not even the volcano that is covering Monserrat with ashes is for me an example of the "agency" of nature. The volcano is just being a volcano. This is why Marx, in the chapter on labor (Capital, Vol. I), "privileged" the worst of architects over the bees, because the architect had agency and envisioned the project from the very beginning. Bees are just being bees. So yes, human agency acts upon nature in the only way the species is called to act; by transforming nature (in ways we may consider constructive or destructive) and in the process transforming itself, for we are also part of nature and if nature has agency it is us. On the other hand, we are indeed constrained by nature; we need food and oxygen to survive, for example. So I do not reduce nature to our thought about it or our "social construction;" nature has material effects on us whatever we might think about it. Nature both enables and constraints not through agency but simply by being what it is, working through the various ways in which we, as part of nature, are. >In light of Marx's analysis, capitalists do not appropriate the "unpaid > >value of nature" because nature, in a technical sense, has no value;>> > > I see your argument, and that you for pointing out the error. But here is > just the problem that I see. Having no value and no agency in history, > nature cannot be figured into a materialist analysis of human history. I do not understand the logic of your argument; Marx's metatheory and philosophical anthropology as presented in the early manuscripts as well as his analysis of capitalism rests upon the analysis of the dialectical relation between humans and nature. To say that nature is the source of wealth while labor is the source of value does not entail to demean the contribution of Nature or to exclude it from human history; Marxists are materialists because they stress over and over the importance of nature as the condition for production an, consequently, the pivotal effects of ownership and/or control and possession of the means of production (which are forms taken by the transformation of nature) and the social forms in which the means of production are combined with labor as the sources of the dynamics of human history and the delineation of modes of production. I think it is important to differentiate between material wealth (e.g., land, natural resources, finished consumer goods etc) and the social forms wealth acquires under capitalism. While the exploitation (and often the destruction) of natural resources contributes to the accumulation of capital, nature becomes "capital," a repository of "value" only when transformed by human labor and sold in the market; because it is only then that has "value" in the capitalist sense. > Similarly, without being specified as part of the process of creating > surplus value, the labor of women in the family cannot specifically enter > into a materialist analysis, and therefore, neither can a historical > materialist appreciation of women themselves. Again, I fail to see the premises underlying your conclusions. Many feminists have written materialist analyses of the labor of women, beginning with Isabel Larguia and Jose Dumoulin, and Margaret Benson in 1969. I myself have written about it - in fact historical materialism gives you the theoretical tools to unravel the connections between commodity and non-commodity production under capitalist conditions. > >appropriate (legally or by force) the material conditions of production, > >be it rain forests, mines, agricultural land or whatever and in the > >process of employing workers to transform those material conditions into a > >variety of products, they appropriate the surplus value produced by those > >workers when those commodities are sold. > > Okay. But doesn't the profit gained by the capitalists include the value of > the appropriated natural materials? If this value isn't included in surplus > value, how do we account for it? This is very complicated and my answer cannot possibly give you all the steps leading to it. Marx's argument rests on the labor theory of value, according to which the value of the capital invested in production is eventually transferred into the commodities; surplus value comes from the input of labor alone. Of course, those who do not agree with the labor theory of value say that it is nonsense. And then, there is the question whether or not the labor theory of value would apply under conditions of monopoly capitalism. Perhaps the economists in MATFEM could intervene at this point to clarify the issue for you. Hope this is helpful - don't know whether I will be able to respond to more questions in detail because of work demands. cordially, Martha ********************** Martha E. Gimenez Department of Sociology Campus Box 327 University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder, Colorado 80309 Voice: 303-492-7080 Fax: 303-492-5105 From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Sat Aug 30 08:54:49 1997 Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 08:54:47 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez To: matfem@csf.Colorado.EDU, marxism-feminism@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: Searching for Conference Info (fwd) I am forwarding this request for information on behalf of Kris Gilmore, from the Department of Sociology at CU. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 14:33:31 -0600 (MDT) From: Kris Gilmore To: gimenez@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Searching for Conference Info Dear Martha, I am trying to locate information on any interesting conferences / workshops / trainings occurring in 1998 for a woman in Sri Lanka - who already has funding to come to the US. She works primarily with people who have been political prisoners, and especially with women and issues of sexual assault and other forms of violence. I am looking for conferences and other gatherings which may include any of the following areas of focus: 1) political prisoners or prisoner rights, 2) women and sexual assault, 3) women, children and family intervention, 4) "third world" organizing, 5) women and development, or 6) issues of recovery and healing. As you can tell this is quite a broad list and I would appreciate any information that people could forward to me. Thanks for your help. Kris Gilmore (my email address is gilmore@sobek.colorado.edu)