From TERRENCE.MCDONOUGH@UCG.IE Wed Feb 18 07:47:42 1998 Wed, 18 Feb 1998 14:51:49 GMT 18 Feb 1998 14:47:28 +0000 ([gmt]) 18 Feb 1998 14:45:57 +0000 ([gmt]) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 14:42:15 +0000 (GMT) From: Terrence Mc Donough Subject: (Fwd) Job Opening To: matfem@csf.colorado.edu Dear Matfem, Below is a job listing for a new position here in Galway, Ireland. The level is equivalent to an assistant professorship in the U.S. The department is heterodox friendly, but is not a heterodox department. Anyone interested should probably contact me first. Official literature on the post may give you the impression you have to be able to speak Irish. This is NOT the case. There is some opportunity for postgraduate teaching and advising. Don't pay too much attention to the specialisms listed. Terry McDonough Dept. of Economics NUI, Galway Galway Ireland Work 353-91-524411 ext. 3164 Home 353-91-555706 email: terrence.mcdonough@ucg.ie (don't rely entirely on email; its been wonky lately) Job Opening National University of Ireland, Galway Junior Lectureship in Economics The Department of Economics wishes to invite applications for the above post. Although applications are invited from all areas of the discipline, the Department would like to attract candidates, in particular, in the area of Applied Microeconomics, with good quantitative skills and with a research interest in Health Economics, Social Policy or related areas. Applicants should have a postgraduate degree in economics (a Ph.D. is considered desirable), have good communications skills and demonstrated research capacity. Application forms and particulars can be obtained from the office of the registrar, NUI, Galway. Closing date for receipt of applications is April 24, 1998. Further information on the posts and the department of economics can be obtained from Professor Michael Cuddy: Tel.: 353-91-750324; Fax: 353-91-524130; E-mail: michael.cuddy@ucg.ie From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Sat Feb 21 10:20:52 1998 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 10:07:31 -0800 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Anybody home? Hi! Is anybody reading this list anymore? I've finally finished my article on Labor, Nature, and Value and would love to post it here. Nancy From leman@BGNet.bgsu.edu Sat Feb 21 10:42:38 1998 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 12:42:35 -0500 (EST) From: Leman Giresunlu To: MATERIALIST FEMINISM Subject: Re: Anybody home? Sure. LG On Sat, 21 Feb 1998 brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu wrote: > Hi! Is anybody reading this list anymore? I've finally finished my article > on Labor, Nature, and Value and would love to post it here. > > Nancy > > From md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu Sat Feb 21 13:06:53 1998 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 15:05:39 -0500 (EST) From: md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu Subject: Anybody home? To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu hi nancy, you are welcome to post your article. i have not also been hearing from this list for sometime. are we loosing our commitment? or is just a temporary state of affairs? cheers, mine aysen doyran phd candidate dept of pol scie Suny/Albany Albany/New York From ostrow@shani.net Sun Feb 22 05:05:05 1998 Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 14:03:07 +0200 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu From: ostrow@shani.net (Rachel Ostrowitz) Subject: Re: Anybody home? Yes, would love to read your article! I am sure there are others here too who are too busy doing millions of things but always ready to read new stuff, Rachel >Hi! Is anybody reading this list anymore? I've finally finished my article >on Labor, Nature, and Value and would love to post it here. > >Nancy From emerald@lark.cc.ukans.edu Sun Feb 22 19:05:07 1998 id UAA0000020461; Sun, 22 Feb 1998 20:05:01 -0600 (CST) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 20:05:01 -0600 (CST) To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu From: "David N. Smith" Subject: Re: Anybody home? Nancy, Please do post your article on MatFem -- I found your earlier contributions intriguing and would be glad to hear more. Thanks, David Smith >Hi! Is anybody reading this list anymore? I've finally finished my article >on Labor, Nature, and Value and would love to post it here. > >Nancy David N. Smith emerald@lark.cc.ukans.edu Associate Professor voice mail (785) 864-9412 Department of Sociology University of Kansas Lawrence KS 66045 From dbrock@interlog.com Mon Feb 23 08:50:02 1998 Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 23:04:08 -0800 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu From: deborah brock Subject: Re: Anybody home? This list is a great idea, and I would be sad to see it fail, for lack of use. Hope that it is not a reflection of the state of materialist feminism. Materialist feminism (and this list) provides an opportunity to develop an analysis that avoids both rigid structuralism and the indeterminacies of post-modernism. However, we can use some of the insights of postmodernism to enrich our analyses. I know that I should write more on this, but I must move on to other pressing tasks. Perhaps this is the real problem for the matfem list. We are busy women! ooking forward to Nancy's article. At 10:07 AM 2/21/98 -0800, you wrote: >Hi! Is anybody reading this list anymore? I've finally finished my article >on Labor, Nature, and Value and would love to post it here. > >Nancy > > > From md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu Mon Feb 23 16:09:16 1998 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 18:06:16 -0500 (EST) From: md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu Subject: additive remark! To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu deborah wrote: >This list is a great idea, and I would be sad to see it fail, for lack of >use. Hope that it is not a reflection of the state of materialist >feminism. >Materialist feminism (and this list) provides an opportunity to develop >an >analysis that avoids both rigid structuralism and the indeterminacies of >post-modernism. However, we can use some of the insights of >postmodernism >to enrich our analyses. >I know that I should write more on this, but I must move on to other >pressing tasks. Perhaps this is the real problem for the matfem list. >We >are busy women! >ooking forward to Nancy's article. deborah, i agree with you on the surface but i do not personally think that post-modernism can provide useful insights for materialists. let me tell you one thing. the identity concern of post-modernists is hardly directed at describing the material links between identity formation and ideology construction. this is also the reason why they are so obsessed with identity issues without substantiating their material basis. they escape from giving definite answers to identity problem, mystifying the excluded/opressed identites. this mystification pradoxically leads them to idealize (revitalize) the human agency (or collective identity) of the humanist tradition which they are so critical of.... bye now, mine aysen doyran Phd candidate/teach.ass dept of pol scie Suny/Albany From ICKJF@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU Mon Feb 23 16:26:47 1998 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 16:18:01 -0700 (MST) From: Kathleen Ferraro Subject: Re: additive remark! In-reply-to: "23 Feb 1998 18:06:16 -0500 from" <"md7148"@cnsvax.albany.edu> (EST) To: MatFem@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Like everyone else, I don't have time to express myself adequately, but must inject a few words encouraging people to refrain from using "postmodernists" as a label for an imagined homogeneous category of theorists. See Butler's article in Feminist Contentions. The assumption that identity is not fixed, biologically, socially or discursively, is widely shared in feminist thought--people put different emphases on com- ponents of experience, but it is not plausible to argue that "post- modernists" don't care about the material bases of identity--could one really make that criticism of Spivak, for example? ------------------------------------------- Kathleen Ferraro Assoc. Director, Women's Studies ASU, Tempe, AZ. 85287-1801 (602) 965-2375 From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Tue Feb 24 00:38:38 1998 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 00:25:42 -0800 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Labor/Nature/Value Part 1 Thanks to all who expressed an interest. The whole thing is 72K. Sorry it's so long. I'm posting it in 4 parts: 1, 2a, 2b, and 3. I look forward to your response! Yours in the struggle, Nancy _______________________________________________________________ Labor, Nature, and Value Theory by Nancy Brumback Marx's labor theory of value is part of an interlocking set of concepts which make up his materialist perspective on human history. Since the advent of the environmental movement and the women's movement, the theory of value has been criticized by both feminists and environmentalists for failing to adequately represent the contributions to the material wealth of society made both by women in the family, and by nature. In what may appear to be a self-contraction, however, Marx also shows that he appreciates both the worth of the labor of women in the family, and the worth of nature. But the theory of value was never intended to account for "worth." As economist Joan Robinson comments, One of the great metaphysical ideas in economics is expressed by the word "value" . . . It does not mean market prices, which vary from time to time under the influence of casual accidents; nor is it just an historical average of prices. Indeed, it is not simply a price; it is something that will explain how prices come to be what they are. What is it? Where shall we find it? Like all metaphysical concepts, when you try to pin it down it turns out to be just a word.( Joan Robinson, An Essay on Marxian Economics, 2nd Ed., New York, St. Martin's Press, 1977, 20, quoted in Marilyn Waring, Counting for Nothing.) In this essay, I hope to demonstrate that value is indeed, just a word. But I also hope to show that this word, "value," is exactly that word which describes the contents of the bank accounts of economists, politicians and businessmen all over the world. As such, it has meaning above and beyond the metaphysical. The first part of the essay reviews the labor theory of value and the ideas related to it. Through this review, I hope to establish a baseline for the second part of the essay, which discusses how (and why) value theory fails to account for the wealth produced by women, by other unpaid and underpaid laborers, and by nature. Finally, the third part of the essay suggests a definition of value which shows that such wealth is the exactly the wealth which accrues every day in the bank accounts of international capital. 1. A Review of Marx's Labor Theory of Value Society and Nature. The basis of Marx's perspective on the history and development of human society is his view of the dialectic between human beings and non-human nature. To Marx, human beings are a part of nature and connected to it in many ways: Nature is man's inorganic body -- nature, that is, insofar as it is not the human body. Man lives from nature -- meaning that nature is his body, with which he must remain in continuous interchange if he is not to die. That man's physical and spiritual life is linked to nature means simply that nature is linked to itself, for man is part of nature. (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844; Collected Works, Vol. 3:276, London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975.) Inextricably so linked in physical reality, nature and humanity can be separated only by abstraction (Jarvikoski, Timo. 1996. "The Relation of Nature and Society in Marx and Durkheim." Acta Sociologica, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 73-86); it is only in the process of thought that any distinction at all can be made between the two. The conceptual distinctions Marx made between nature and humans incorporate his speculation on the differences between animals and humans: whereas animals behave instinctively, humans act with self-awareness: The animal is immediately one with its life activity. It is not distinct from that activity; it is that activity. Man makes his life activity itself an object of his will and consciousness. He has conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he directly merges. Conscious life activity directly distinguishes man from animal life activity (Economic & Phil ms, part 1, p. 18). (Note: As regards the anthropocentric bias of Marx's views on the relations between animals and humans, I will only observe here that it does exist. Even though an exploration of the import of this bias on Marx's work would be very interesting, it would take us too far afield of the present topic.) According to Marx, this life activity of humans is labor. Marx defined labor as the process by which humans transform natural materials into things to meet human needs. And because labor is a human process, it is a conscious process -- willful and purposeful. To illustrate this point, Marx writes about how the "best" of spiders does not have the finished project in mind when she begins her work, whereas the "worst" of architects does (Capital, Vol. I, Ch. 7, Sec. 1). But consciousness is only one characteristic of labor according to Marx; another characteristic is that beyond the "embryonic animal stage," labor occurs only "within the framework of a definite social form." (Schmidt 1971:176). In a familiar passage from The German Ideology (Moscow: Progress Publishers, l976, p. 49), Marx contrasts natural phenomena and social phenomena, characterizing social phenomena as something that (1) involves the cooperation of several human beings, and (2) corresponds to a particular mode of production: The production of life, both of one's own in labour and of fresh life in procreation, now appears as a two-fold relation: on the one hand as a natural, on the other as a social relation -- social in the sense that it denotes the co-operation of several individuals, no matter under what conditions, in what manner, and to what end. It follows from this that a certain mode of production, or industrial stage, is always combined with a certain mode of co-operation, or social stage, and this mode of co-operation is itself a "productive force." The development of the mode of production is the basis of the evolution of human society -- the famous Marxian "flywheel" of history. When the mode of production changes, so does the mode of co-operation -- the social relations. Within these social relations, humans act upon nature and change their environment; in this way, human society changes itself. Human labor presupposes not only consciousness, therefore; it presupposes as well the evolution of human society. Burkett, 1996, writes that insofar as the ability to labor has "evolved to a greater extent for humans than for other species, this has occurred in and through a process of social evolution and class struggles" (cf. Engles, 1964, Dialectics of Nature, Moscow: Progress Publishers; Marx, 1967 (1977 printing), Capital, Vol. I, New York: International Publishers, 372, fn. 3). It is the peculiar socioevolutionary character of labor which defines it as human (Capital, 1967, International Publishers, I, 71, 80, 104). Capitalism. The mode of production under which we in the modern world live today is the capitalist system of the production and exchange of commodities, first established in Western Europe in the 16th century. Capitalism is also the mode of production studied and analyzed most deeply by Marx. The establishment of capitalism was a historic event, according to Marx, the result of "many economic revolutions, of the extinction of a whole series of older forms of social production" (I, Ch. 6, p. 2). The mode of production which most directly preceded capitalism in Western Europe was the manor system of feudalism. Under feudalism, social relations of personal dependence characterized production as well as the entire ground-work of society.(I, 1, p. 26) The production of all the necessities of life for all of society was carried out by a class of serfs who were "bound to the land" by the feudal relations, as enforced by military power, civil law, and/or the requirements of the Church. This class of serfs was passed down through the generations of their masters, the landed nobility, along with the land upon which they lived and worked. Under the manor system, labor and its products took the form of services in kind and payments in kind. The serfs were required to provide their masters with so much corn, beef, mutton, yarn, linen, and clothing, etc. In return, they were given the right to plant certain areas for their own use, to gather firewood and hunt pigs and rabbits in the forest, to take fish, birds, and herbs from the marshes, and to graze their animals on the village commons, etc. According to Marx, the different kinds of labor they performed -- farming, husbandry, spinning, weaving, and sewing -- were in themselves "direct social functions" based upon the division of labor in the family according to differences in age, sex, etc. (I, 1, p. 26) This class of producers, the serfs of the Middle Ages, was gradually replaced in Western Europe as the manor system was replaced by the capitalist mode of production. In a slow and wrenching (for the poor) process lasting hundreds of years, the traditional socio-economic ties between the serfs and their masters were broken. The serfs became a working class of "free" men and women: no longer were they obliged to provide for the feudal masters. But at the same time, neither were they entitled to produce their own means of subsistence on the traditional feudal lands. Now, instead of working to fulfill their obligations to the masters, they would sell their labor for a wage if they wanted to survive, since they had no other choice. Their masters were no longer the feudal masters, empowered through the feudal bonds of reciprocal dependence, but the capitalist masters, empowered through their ownership of land, tools, and money with which to purchase the labor-power of the workers. This "separation of a considerable number of laborers from all property by means of which they can produce anything for themselves" was the starting point of the process of the development of capitalism, according to Marx. It was the Marxian period of "primitive accumulation": "nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production." (Ibid) Such a period of "primitive accumulation" was necessary because it made possible the fundamental productive dynamic of capitalism, i.e., that situation which arises when two very different classes of people come face to face and into contact, on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence, who are eager to increase the sum of values they posses, by buying other people's labor-power; on the other hand, free laborers, the sellers of their own labor-power, and therefore the sellers of labor (Capital I, Ch. 26). Thus the manor system of social production through mutual dependence and traditional connections to the land was replaced with an economy based on the commodity production and exchange. All of the necessities of human life, which theretofore had been produced on the manor for one's self, one's family, and one's lord in fulfillment of traditional obligations, became commodities to be bought and sold for money at the capitalist marketplace. Similarly, one's labor, whether farming or cloth-making, butchering or sewing, was no longer a reflection of one's social function as a member of a family, because under capitalism labor itself was a commodity to be bought and sold. Production was no longer controlled by the traditional social relations of feudalism. Instead, it was controlled by the capitalists, who owned the means of production and produced whichever items they observed to be most profitable at the market place. Wealth and Value. According to Marx, since labor is a "necessary condition" of human existence, and since humans create wealth whenever they labor, all societies possess wealth. He referred to this wealth as "use-values": useful things created by human labor for the purpose of meeting some human need. On the other hand, value as defined by Marx entered history only with the development of capitalism. This appearance of value per se could come about only when a use-value became a commodity, according to Marx. His definition of the commodity presupposed capitalism: a commodity was a useful thing which was produced for the capitalist marketplace. Why was capitalist production so important to Marx's definition of value? It was because of the transformative effect that he thought that capitalism had upon the nature of the labor that produced the commodity. In the historic epoch of capitalism, he theorized, "the labour spent on the production of a useful article becomes expressed as one of the objective qualities of that article, i.e., as its value" (Capital, I, l, p. 16). To this value, the objective property of commodities, he gave the name, "exchange-value." Marx gives an example of what he means by an objective property: the property of weight, possessed by sugar and iron. But whereas the objective property of weight is "natural," the exchange-value is "social." (I, 1, p. 13 (Section 3a3, the Equivalent form of value). Marx further explains that exchange-value is a property which is not natural but social because it manifests only when use-values are considered "in relation" to one another. For example, in a particular country at a particular time, a pound of sugar might be equivalent in worth to three pounds of iron. Marx would say that putting aside any superficial price fluctuations caused by such conditions as inflation, supply, and demand, etc., the sugar is worth three time what the iron is worth because it required the expenditure of three times as much human labor to (1) convert it from the natural materials from which it is made, and (2) bring it to consumer in the marketplace. He regarded this labor as "crystallized," or "embedded," in all commodities. To Marx, the particular amount of labor which was crystallized in the commodity became an objective property though which all commodities stand in definite relation to one another in the capitalist marketplace. Clearly, each commodity contains a definite amount of labor: maybe more than another commodity, maybe less, or maybe the same amount. This embedded labor, which all commodities possessed and through which they might all be quantitatively ranked, to Marx constituted the social property exchange-value, or value itself. Marx further discussed what he thought was the nature of the labor embedded in commodities. This was "abstract labor," he thought. By abstract, he meant that when the various commodities were ranked in relation to one another, this relation was based on the quantity of labor only. The different qualities or types of labor (whether carpentry or baking, for example), dropped out of consideration in this mathematical expression which depends only the length of the duration of time of labor. (Vol. 1, Ch. 1. p. 3) So, to Marx, exchange-value is the generalized representation of labor -- it is "abstract social labor time" embodied in commodities [Capital, New York: International Publishers, 1967, Vol. I, pp. 43, 177 (quoted in Burkett, p. 64)]. And the presence in commodities of the common abstract element of labor, varying in quantity but not in quality, is the basis upon which exchange takes place, i.e., the basis of value. (I, Ch. 1, p. 3). But this idea that value is the manifestation of abstract labor is only the "how" of value. For the "why" of value, for the "value-forming character" of production under capitalism, we must turn to the particular productive dynamic which evolves when the major part of human needs satisfaction occurs through the buying and selling of commodities created for the capitalist marketplace. Then, the economy as a whole hinges on the market dynamic. As Marx observed, commodities enter the market after they have been created by the labor of private individuals or groups of individuals who work independently of one another. These producers do not necessarily come into direct social contact with one another; each form of labor, producing each kind of commodity, is carried out independently of one another. But, according to Marx, each society must integrate all its labor into a coherent whole: it must allocate its labor "among productive activities to reproduce itself." [Marx to Kugelmann, July 11, 1868, in Marx and Engels, 1975, Notes on Wagner. pp. 179-219 in Texts on Method, T. Carver, ed. Oxford: Blackwell (quoted in Burkett, p. 337)] Such a social integration of all the individual bits and pieces of private labor occurs in the capitalist market place, according to Marx. The validation of labor as socially necessary, or integration of each portion of total social labor, is decided in the market place, by the exchange-values the commodities have assumed in relation to one another. Through the property of value, all labor is integrated into the "whole system of material reproduction." As Marx put it: In other words, the labour of the individual asserts itself as a part of the labour of society, only by means of the relations which the act of exchange establishes directly between the products, and indirectly, through them, between the producers (I, l, p. 23, section 4). The value of labor. As we have seen, upon the development of capitalism, labor-power, which is one of the inputs needed for commodity production, itself became a commodity to be bought and sold at the market, along with all the other necessities of life. It follows that as a commodity, labor-power would assumes an exchange-value in relation to the exchange-values all other commodities. The value of this commodity, according to Marx, was to be reckoned in the same way as all other commodities: The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article. So far as it has value, it represents no more than a definite quantity of the average labour of society incorporated in it. Given the individual the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer. (Emphasis added.)(I, Ch. 6, p. 2-3). What were these "means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the laborer"? Marx defined them as "the necessaries required to produce, develop, maintain, and perpetuate the laboring power." (K. Marx, Value, Price, and Profit (Part VII) Emphasis added.) In other words, "to maintain in him this capacity for work, and to replace him at his departure, by reason of age, sickness, or death, with another laborer -- that is to say, to propagate the working class in required numbers." (Engels, 1891 introduction to Wage-Labor and Capital, K. Marx, 1989.) These required necessaries, according to Marx, were "natural wants" -- food, clothing, fuel, and housing -- which would vary according to the physical conditions of life, such as climate, and according to the "degree of civilization of a country," e.g., the "habits and degree of comfort in which the class of free laborers has been formed." (Ibid) The monetary cost of these items would change, Marx said, "according to time and circumstances" for "a given condition of society, in a given locality, and in a given branch of production." (Wages, Prices, and Profit, p. 46; also Wage Labor and Capital.) But regardless of all these fluctuations, thought Marx, the capitalist class must pay at least a certain minimum cost for labor-power, and that would be "the value of the commodities, without the daily supply of which the labourer cannot renew his vital energy, consequently by the value of those means of subsistence that are physically indispensable." (I, 6, p. 4, emphasis added) Marx was speaking, of course, not about one laborer only, but about the working class as a whole. Surplus value. Given the definitions of capitalism, value, and the value of labor, we are now in a position to understand the Marxian definition of surplus value, or capital. Capital is that monetary reality which the capitalist uses to buy labor and other inputs to produce and sell commodities for the purpose of acquiring more surplus value. When the products of labor are sold, if they are sold at a price greater than the cost of making them, and the capitalist keeps the difference. This situation occurs, thought Marx, because of the unique use-value of labor. Marx said that like no other commodity, labor-power is capable of providing more value than it possesses itself. It is this difference between the value of labor, on the one hand, and the value produced by that labor, on the other, that the capitalist has in mind when he purchases the labor power (I, Ch. 7, p. 4). The capitalist pays the wage; this is the paid portion of the worker's labor-power. The remainder is the unpaid portion: the portion of the value produced by labor-power which the capitalist keeps for himself -- surplus value. Surplus value is the unpaid value of labor-power, and the unpaid value of labor-power is surplus value. This unpaid value of labor, or surplus value is capital, that history monetary phenomena after which Marx named his most important work. Capital creates surplus value when it is used to purchase labor-power and other inputs to produce commodities for the market. "Through capital surplus-value is made, and from surplus-value more capital." (I, 26, p. 1) Capital assumes its earth-changing character when it is used to consume more labor and more natural materials to create more commodities for the market, and thenceforth, more capital. Add to this the fact that because of the competitive and individualistic nature of capitalism, each capitalist must make more money than each other just to keep up. Thus capitalist exploitation and accumulation of wealth begins to snowball, as time goes on, and the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen. From Jane.Haslett@ualberta.ca Tue Feb 24 07:44:18 1998 Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 07:39:07 -0700 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu, MATERIALIST FEMINISM From: Jane Haslett Subject: Re: Labor/Nature/Value Part 1 Nancy Thank you so much for taking the time to post your article, which looks most interesting. I shall read it with pleasure! Jane Jane Haslett Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada From dbrock@interlog.com Tue Feb 24 09:06:52 1998 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 23:04:38 -0800 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu From: deborah brock Subject: Re: additive remark! Hi mine: you are absolutely right in pointing out that post-modernists have alot to learn from materialist feminists! And how is it that the directions being charted by materialist feminism, for example, exploring how multiple determinations of social locations and identities (like race, class and gender) were ignored or determined insufficient by those pursuing post modernism? As I commented earlier, materialist feminism does attempt to avoid the rigid and simple determinism of much structuralist thought, while making the sources of political, cultural and economic power visible. I attribute the current ascendency of po/mo thought largely to a combination of a decline in socialist politics, and trendiness. Yet I think that there must be lessons there for us too. For example, why has po/mo analysis become the backbone of queer theory? What explanatory abilities does it offer to lesbian, gay, bi, and transgendered people who begin with the assumption of not only multiple identities, but assert that some of those identities (gender, sexuality) are fluid? I have been focusing on identities here, which of course is only one small component of materialist feminist analysis. But it is important to note that the exploration of identity did not begin with postmodernism. (Remember 'the personal is political' and 'organize around your own oppression'?) And it is important for us to explore the appeal of postmodernism to so many, because I think that there are things that we can learn from it, which will ultimately enrich materialist feminist analysis. Time to feed the cats. Debi Brock At 06:06 PM 2/23/98 -0500, you wrote: > >deborah wrote: > >>This list is a great idea, and I would be sad to see it fail, for lack of >>use. Hope that it is not a reflection of the state of materialist >>feminism. >>Materialist feminism (and this list) provides an opportunity to develop >>an >>analysis that avoids both rigid structuralism and the indeterminacies of >>post-modernism. However, we can use some of the insights of >>postmodernism >>to enrich our analyses. >>I know that I should write more on this, but I must move on to other >>pressing tasks. Perhaps this is the real problem for the matfem list. >>We >>are busy women! > >>ooking forward to Nancy's article. > >deborah, i agree with you on the surface but i do not personally think >that post-modernism can provide useful insights for materialists. let me >tell you one thing. the identity concern of post-modernists is hardly >directed at describing the material links between identity formation and >ideology construction. this is also the reason why they are so obsessed >with identity issues without substantiating their material basis. they >escape from giving definite answers to identity problem, mystifying the >excluded/opressed identites. this mystification pradoxically leads them to >idealize (revitalize) the human agency (or collective identity) of the >humanist tradition which they are so critical of.... > >bye now, >mine aysen doyran >Phd candidate/teach.ass >dept of pol scie >Suny/Albany > > > From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Tue Feb 24 11:47:44 1998 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:34:51 -0800 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Labor/Nature/Value Part 2a Part 2. Critiques of the Theory Essentially, the environmentalist and feminist criticisms of the theory of value are the same: both hold that if surplus value consists entirely of the unpaid value of abstract labor, accounting is made for the neither the wealth contributed to society by the labor of women in the family, i.e., domestic labor, nor that contributed by nature. In other words, just as Marx regards women and nature as external to commodity production, he also regards them as external to surplus value and capital. I will address both the feminist and the environmentalist critiques, and will add a third source of wealth production which is similarly unrepresented in surplus value: the wealth produced by unpaid and underpaid workers all over the world. Women and value. The feminist movement of the 1960's and 1970's has inspired a vast body of literature on the relation of the labor of women in the family to the labor of workers in the capitalist factories, etc. Here, I will not attempt to review that so-called "domestic labor debate," but will note Benton's observation that agreement has been reached on at least one point: according to Marx, domestic labor occurs outside the sphere of capitalist production, but is nevertheless presupposed when workers with labor-power enter the productive process. (p. 72, Ted Benton, 1989.) As Maria Dalla Costa has pointed out, the labor of women in the family produces the labor which produces commodities for the world capitalist system, i.e., it produces the human beings themselves. (M. Dalla Costa and S. James, The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1972), pp. 10-11.) Obviously, domestic labor is useful, wealth-producing labor. But to Marx, domestic labor is not value-producing labor because it occurs in the private domain of the family, and not in the public domain of production for the capitalist market place. As we have seen, Marx thought that useful labor becomes abstract labor only "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." (Martha Gimenez, 8/28/1997, in comments Re: Marx on value and nature, MatFem@csf.colorado.edu.) By this reasoning, domestic labor does not possess the same social character as abstract labor: it does not, through the dynamic of the market, assume a generalized form when commodities take their places in relationship to one another. Similarly, because domestic labor is uninvolved in the marketplace, it fails to become integrated into the whole of social production; it fails to become validated as part of the total labor-power of society. And, since domestic labor is not abstract labor, neither does it form any part of surplus value, or capital So let us look again at how Marx defined the value of labor-power, which in the productive process winds up as abstract labor and eventually surplus value. We see the broad outlines of what he includes and, more importantly, doesn't include the value of labor-power, i.e., "the value of the necessaries required to produce, develop, maintain, and perpetuate the labouring power." He includes the cost of the food, clothing, shelter, etc., required to sustain the laborers throughout their laboring lives. But he does not include the contributions that are made to those lives by food preparing, cleaning up after, laundering, house cleaning, diaper changing, and socializing these laborers as they grow up -- or the care they need when they get sick and/or old -- i.e., domestic labor, which for the most part in the Western world, is performed for no pay by women in the family. In the case of extended families and tribes, domestic labor is shared by a number of individuals: women, men, and children; old and young. But by Marx's analysis, if one of these individuals should become a laborer of any kind in capitalist production, no part of the labor that helped make it possible for that individual to live and work would become surplus value, because all of such labor would be seen as taking place in the sphere of private, not public, production. Was this non-inclusion of domestic labor in the "whole system of material reproduction" an oversight on Marx's part when he was developing his labor theory of value? Or was it an inevitable outcome of a perspective which excludes the family as a socio-economic phenomenon? In her book, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale, Maria Mies argues that a "historical materialist conception of women" cannot be forthcoming from Marxist theory. [M. Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale (London: Zed Books Ltd., 1986), pp. 49 - 52. She cites the work of Anke Wolf-Graaf, Fraunarbeit im Absseits (Frauenoffensive, Munchen, 1981).] Mies' major point is that while Marx and Engles consider the "development of the means of production and labor" as processes which are "social" and therefore "historical," they incorrectly classify processes related to "the production of human beings or procreation" as "natural" and "ahistorical." (p. 51) Here, in summarizing one aspect of her argument, I will examine the material leading to our earlier quote from The German Ideology (p. 50) which dealt with the difference between "social" and "natural" (quoted again for the reader's reference): The production of life, both of one's own in labour and of fresh life in procreation, now appears as a two-fold relation: on the one hand as a natural, on the other as a social relation -- social in the sense that it denotes the co-operation of several individuals, no matter under what conditions, in what manner, and to what end. It follows from this that a certain mode of production, or industrial stage, is always combined with a certain mode of co-operation, or social stage, and this mode of co-operation is itself a "productive force." A little prior to the beginning of this passage, Marx explains the "three moments" which constitute human life: (1) that humans must produce the means of satisfying human needs; (2) that the satisfaction of needs leads to the production of new needs; and (3) that humans must propagate their own kind (German Ideology, p. 48-49). But as Mies points out, Marx and Engels "quickly exclude or drop the 'third moment'": The third circumstance which, from the very outset, enters into historical development, is that men, who daily remake their own life, begin to make other men, to propagate their kind: the relation between man and woman, parents and children, the family (emphasis in original). The family, which to begin with is the only social relationship, becomes later, when increased needs create new social relations and the increased population new needs, a subordinate one ...(emphasis added) (German Ideology, p. 49) Mies points out that Marx intends that this "third moment," the family, be now considered lesser in importance to "labor," the subject of the first and second moments, which satisfies human needs and creates new needs. As we have already considered, the remainder of the passage goes on to explain that by "social" is meant the "the mode of cooperation," which is a "productive force" constituting the "nature of society" and the "history of humanity." A close reading of the remainder of the passage only reinforces what is stated at the beginning: that Marx regards the family as a natural phenomenon, and labor as a social phenomenon. Mies cites other ideas of Marx and Engles which also point to this conclusion. One such notion is Marx's idea that the division of labor, which was "originally nothing but the division of labour in the sexual act," (p. 51) becomes "truly" a division of labor only "from the moment when a division of material and mental labour appears," (Ibid.) i.e., when the priest classes arise. He is speaking about the rise of the agricultural states in 3,000 BCE, and therefore asserting that the previous 27,000 years of Homo Sapiens culture human cultures had no "true" division of labor, only a sheep-like, "herd consciousness," (p. 53) and therefore no true social activity. Apparently, to Marx, some very important products of human labor, among them the use of fire, the wheel, agriculture, and animal domestication, not to mention numerous important economic and cultural achievements as pottery, weaving, medical knowledge, art, story-telling, and food collecting, preparation, and preservation -- all accomplished through the techniques of empirical science -- were not true social labor. According to Marx, it was only when the "division of material and mental labor" occurred that true consciousness appeared and therefore, true social labor. But since the social relations of patriarchy were well established by then, these "mental" laborers were mostly men. But whether they were men or not, we can be sure that by "division of labor," Marx is not including the labor of women in the family as that which is being divided. Mies concludes that to Marx, .... the cooperation of man and woman in the sexual act and the work of women in the family rearing and nursing of children obviously do not belong to the realm of 'productive forces,' 'industry and exchange' but to 'nature' (p. 51-52). For a moment, let us ponder this definition of "natural" as it applies to birth and the propagation of the species. No materialist would deny that the birth event itself is "natural" and evolutionary, i.e., biological. But birth is also a social event; both the decision to have a child and the process of raising a child are conscious and social phenomena. The education and training of a child to be a contributor in the world is most definitely a conscious, social, and productive process which determines the course of history just as much as Marx's "social production." But Marx appears to lump together everything related to the birthing and raising of children. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that regards the labor of women in the family as the dialectical opposite of social labor, and therefore as not conscious, not co-operative, not productive, and not determinate in human history. And just as our assumption is supported in the Marxist theory, so it is supported in the application of that theory to the women's "liberation" programs of four countries which have undergone a revolution or national liberation struggle: the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and Tanzania. According to the theories of Marx and Engels, women in these countries are seen as housewives and therefore involved only in domestic production. Great efforts have been made to bring them into social production, i.e., collective agricultural production. It was expected that through such collectivization, women would become wage-earners, and thus would become liberated "from the patriarchal control of the male head of the household." (All of this material is from Maria Mies, quoting Elisabeth Croll (1979), p. 179-194) What actually happened in all four countries, however, was that despite the addition of the collectivized farms, the privately-owned gardens and farms upon which most women had always produced food for their families were maintained (or abolished and then re-established, in the case of China). (An exception, according to Croll, was Northern China, where there were no rice fields.) So today, women not only participate in the collectivized sector, but also constitute the primary labor force in the private sector. In the former Soviet Union, the result of this "revolution" has been that women's burden of work has doubled or tripled. In protest, Soviet women initiated a birth strike which alarmed the government so much that they had to offer women financial incentives to bear children. In China, women were encouraged to enter social production in both agriculture and industry, but to do so they had to neglect their domestic responsibilities. Later, household domestic services were collectivized, but then rolled back because the private domestic labor of women was cheaper. Today, the increasing emphasis on modernization continues to push women back into the sphere of the private household. Lands that were collectivized in the earlier days of the revolution are being privatized under the control of males, with women responsible for household and subsistence agricultural production. The cheapest means of reproducing labor power and producing consumer commodities remains the patriarchal sexual division of labor. The new Chinese government is so concerned about modernization that they are afraid that if families have more than one child each, so many resources will be consumed that there will not be enough left to bring about the desired industrialization. The ominous results of China's population policy have been reported in the media: the exposure of female newborns and, where fetal sex-determination techniques are available, the abortion of female infants on a wide enough scale to cause a demographically detectable preponderance of males in the younger segments of the population (cite). Unpaid labor. The wealth contributed to society by domestic labor is only one form of labor-generated wealth which is unaccounted for in Marx's definition of surplus value. Many such forms of labor characterize the past and present of capitalism. To see how these forms of labor are related to each other and to domestic labor, we must briefly review some relevant principles of the world-system theory of Braudel, Thompson, Wallerstein and others. According to world-system theory, when capitalism is viewed as a global rather than a local economic system, social production takes place in one of three economic zones: the "core," the "periphery," and the "semi-periphery." These zones are characterized by the particular type of production which is carried out in each. Each of the three zones tends to be found in particular geographic areas. For most of the modern era, the periphery of the world system has been in located in Central and South America, Africa, and Asia (T. R. Shannon, An Introduction to the World-System Perspective, Westview Press: 1989, p. 24-25). The core has been located in Europe and North America, and more recently, Japan. The "core" is that part of the global economy which dominates the whole, where technology is relatively more advanced and production less "labor intensive," concentrated on the manufacture of consumer goods. Here, labor is relatively highly paid, and per capita consumption of is high. This part of the world is sometimes referred to as the developed or industrialized countries, the 1st World, and/or the North. At the other end of the scale is the periphery, where technology is less advanced and production is more "labor intensive," concentrated on the extraction and export of natural materials and agricultural products. Here, labor is poorly paid, or not paid at all in the case of sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and such. This part of the world is referred to as the underdeveloped or nonindustrialized countries, the 3rd World, and/or the South. Semi-peripheral countries are those which carry out some of the activities of each of the other two. The core, periphery, and semi-periphery are all related to one another in the global system of capitalism: Peripheral societies specialize in the production and export of labor-intensive, low-technology goods desired by the core and the semi-periphery. In return, the core produces capital intensive, high-technology goods, some of which it exports to the periphery and the semi-periphery. The semi-periphery exports peripheral-like goods to the core and core-like goods to the periphery. In return, it receives goods produced with labor-intensive, high-technology methods from the core (Shannon, p. 28-29). This international division of production means, of course, that there is also an international division of labor. To maintain the labor force, each productive zone employs its own system of labor control, or means of extracting labor from workers. Labor throughout the global capitalist system is and always has been extracted from workers using various forms of coercion (p. 33). Slavery is the most extreme form of coerced labor. Other forms which are less extreme but nevertheless backed by an imposed external force would be serfdom, sharecropping, tenant farmers, and plantation systems. Workers laboring under these forms of coercion are not paid enough for their labor to live; they and/or other members of their households have to take up subsistence labor such as part-time farming, or other additional ways of earning money such as cottage industry or selling tourist goods. These workers are "semi-proletarians" -- not "full proletarians" in the Marxian sense of the word, because they are not entirely separated from some means of creating their means of subsistence other than their own wage labor. Semi-proletarian workers predominate in the peripheral countries. If one end of the continuum of coercion is imposed external force, the other end is economic coercion. Economically coerced laborers, historically called "free" by Marx because they had been released from their feudal bonds to the land of the masters, predominate in the core zones. Indeed, these workers are free to sell their labor to any employer they choose. But since "free" workers have no access to the means of production, they have no choice other than to work for whoever will hire them, hopefully at a high enough wage to live on. They are "full proletarians" in the Marxian sense, because with the wages they earn through their labor producing commodities, they purchase commodities upon which to subsist (Shannon, p. 33-34). The world labor force of capitalism in about 1560, when the cleavage between capital and labor became decisive, has been described by Wallerstein: There were slaves who worked on sugar plantations and in ... mining .... There were "serfs" who worked on large domains where grain was cultivated and wood harvested. There were "tenant" farmers on various kinds of cash-crop operations (including grain), and wage laborers in some agricultural production. This accounted for 90-95% of the population in the European world-economy. There was a new class of "yeoman" farmers. In addition, there was a small layer of intermediate personnel -- supervisors of laborers, independent artisans, a few skilled workmen -- and a thin layer of ruling classes .... (Wallerstein, p. 86.) These occupational and social categories were distributed in the following geographic pattern: slaves of African origins in the Western hemisphere; a large class of "serfs" in Eastern Europe and a smaller one of American Indians in the Western Hemisphere; "tenants" in Western and Southern Europe; and "wage workers" in Western Europe; yeoman farmers in Northwest Europe; intermediate classes distributed throughout the arena; and pan-European ruling classes, disproportionately from Western Europe. In the 16th century, slave labor and forced native labor in the periphery was extracted first by armed invaders. Later, the armed colonial systems of labor control became established to uphold these and other forced labor arrangements such as sharecropping and plantation systems. Today, the labor relations of the 3rd World are enforced through neo-colonial political and economic structures -- international capitalist monetary formations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in collaboration with the privileged elite of the 3rd World, and the dominant politicians and policy-makers of the 1st World. Thus, in the 16th century, as today, there are/were two types of labor: "free" labor and labor enforced through an external authority. The core is characterized by forms of "free" labor, e.g., wage labor and self-employment. (Wallerstein, p. 87.) The periphery is characterized by forms of labor coerced through an external authoritarian structure: slavery, feudalism, tenant farming, sharecropping, etc. Here, in further characterizing the difference between "free" labor and labor coerced through an external authoritarian structure, we might say that the former is paid labor, compensated with a wage or some sort of more or less adequate income, and the latter is unpaid or underpaid labor. Because even though the capitalist class does not pay for the additional labors that the semi-proletarians must perform in order to sustain themselves, they nevertheless benefit from it: the laborers are thus kept alive so they can go on to work and be exploited another day. In the peripheral zones of the world capitalist economy, much labor is coerced and therefore unpaid. How does this all of this relate to the labor theory of value? As we have seen, according to Marx the phenomenon of value simply does not exist until a particular historical situation develops, i.e., until a class of "free laborers," possessors and sellers of their own labor power, come "face to face" with a class of capitalists, possessors of capital and the means of production. If the capitalists desire to turn their capital and other means of production into more surplus value and capital, they must use their capital to purchase labor-power to produce commodities. Only then does abstract labor, the basis of value, come into play. Thus, as we have seen, the creation of surplus value and capital presupposes the presence of "free laborers," i.e., Free laborers, in the double sense that neither they themselves form part and parcel of the means of production, as in the case of slaves, bondsmen, & etc., nor do the means of production belong to them, as in the case of peasant-proprietors; they are therefore, free from, unencumbered by, any means of production of their own (I, Ch. 26, p. 1). Again, only with this polarization of the market for commodities do the fundamental conditions of capitalist production occur (Capital I, 26, p. 1). Thus, it appears that Marx had to postulate the idea of "primitive accumulation" to explain how capital could be created before these conditions were met. This "historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production," as we have seen, to Marx was "nothing else" than "primitive accumulation." >From Marx's definition of value and surplus value, then, it would seem that all of the wealth-producing labor performed by anyone other than a full proletarian -- slaves, indentured servants, forced native labor, serfs, and tenant farmers, etc., in peripheral zones -- since the beginning of capitalism in 1560, added absolutely nothing to the accumulation of surplus value by the capitalist class! Today, most of the laborers of the 3rd World remain not fully proletarianized. Therefore, according to Marx, their labor continues to add nothing to the wealth accounted for by surplus value. Similarly, the natural materials extracted and exported by semi-proletarians are also regarded by Marx as having no value, as we shall see in the next section. To sum up so far, then, we may say that unpaid and underpaid labor is labor which produces social wealth but is not represented in surplus value. Within the perspective of world systems theory, it becomes clear that semi-proletarian and slave labor are forms of unpaid and underpaid labor. Within the proletarian class, however, there is yet an additional form of unpaid labor. In both the 3rd World and the 1st World, racism, sexism, and heterosexism, ageism, etc., permit the capitalists to pay a lower wage to all workers who do not fit the mold of the able-bodied, male, heterosexual worker of a particular age and the dominant race of the country in question. Such discrimination not only perpetuates the economic disadvantagement of the poor, but also depresses the wages of the dominant-race males of the favored age, who can always be replaced by a woman, an old person, a heterosexual or a person of a subordinated race willing to take the job at a lower wage. Thus, part of the value of the "free" labor of any proletarian who doesn't fit the proper social mold is paid, and part of it is unpaid. The paid portion is the portion for which the lowered wage is given, and the unpaid portion is the portion which is coerced through the discriminatory practices institutionalized under capitalism. As regards sexism, this form of discrimination is also the means by which the unpaid labor of women in the family is coerced. Throughout the world economy of capitalist patriarchy, in every country and in every class, women constitute a kind of "internal colony." [Note: This is not to suggest that women of the upper classes are equally exploited with women of the lower classes; as always, wealth affords privileges to whomever possesses it.] Business makes money by consolidating its resources and externalizing its costs (Vandana Shiva). Just as the costs of environmental degradation, the removal of wildlife habitat (since all of this habitat in the 1st World is gone), and labor-intensive production are externalized to the periphery of world capitalism, so the costs of reproducing and maintaining the workforce are externalized to the family. Just as the coercion of the labor of semi-proletarians in the 3rd World is carried out by the state, so the coercion of domestic labor throughout the world is upheld throughout all the institutions and traditions of capitalism by male supremacist values and practices which reinforce the idea that it is the natural and proper place of women to perform the duties of wife and mother, a sacred calling for which no other compensation than self-fulfillment is necessary. In the tradition of many feminist writers, I shall refer to the labor of women in the family as "reproductive labor," so-named because it reproduces all the labor which produces commodities for the world capitalist system, i.e., it produces the human beings themselves. (M. Dalla Costa and S. James, The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1972), pp. 10-11.) Reproductive labor includes not only the "birthing labor" of bringing the next generation into the world: it includes as well the daily care, feeding, cleaning up after, education, training, and socialization of the entire human population, along with the maintenance of all of their households. Since the labor of teachers, medical care workers, and social workers, etc., also contributes to the reproduction and maintenance of the working class, we could say that this labor also falls into the category of reproductive labor. Such labor creates wealth from which the capitalists benefit, but for which they do not pay: it is paid for by the family or the taxpayers -- not the capitalists. It would seem, then, that there is a great deal of wealth in the world which benefits the capitalists, but for which they do not pay. But according to Marx, none of this unpaid labor, adds one penny to the bank accounts of world capital. If Marx is right, how is the increasing division of wealth between the overdeveloped countries and the developing countries to be explained? Perhaps the problem is as de Janvry has commented: that the "labor theory of value requires concepts of abstract labor that are theoretically coherent only within a fully capitalist economy," which does not exist [(1981:79) quoted in Stephen G. Bunker, Underdeveloping the Amazon, University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 34]. From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Tue Feb 24 11:47:46 1998 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:35:08 -0800 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Labor/Nature/Value Part 2b Nature and value. Paul Burkett (Value, Capital and Nature: Some Ecological Implications of Marx's Critique of Political Economy, Science and Society, Vol. 60, No. 3, Fall 1996a) succinctly summarizes a criticism of Marx's labor theory of value made by some ecologists: The commodity (like all use values) is a product of both labor and Nature; yet the substance of capitalism's specific form of wealth is simply the social labor time objectified in commodities. Quantitatively, capitalism only ascribes value to Nature insofar as its appropriation requires human labor, even though nature's contribution to production is not materially reducible to this labor of appropriation (p. 333). To examine Marx's reasoning on this non-inclusion of Nature as a value-producing component of the productive process, we must again review his theory of value as it relates to the difference between wealth and value. Marx did not deny that Nature contributes to the wealth of society; as we have seen, his materialist perspective on history begins with the premise that human beings are part of Nature and dependent upon it for their very existence. Moreover, Nature imparts physical and chemical properties to useful things, and it is these properties which make these things useful, or "use-values" according to Marx. For example, the natural properties of wool and cotton, respectively, cause garments made of wool to be warm, suitable for winter use, and garments made of cotton to be cool, suitable for summer use. If a thing fulfills some particular human need, according to Marx, then it is a use-value. Use-values are described by Marx as comprised of both "matter" and "labor": The use-values, coat, linen, & etc., i.e., the bodies of commodities, 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. As William Petty puts it, labour is its father and the earth its mother. [Note: Marx uses the sexual metaphor here to illustrate the differences in the roles of labor and Nature in the production of wealth: while the former is "active," the latter is "passive." We might suspect that such a metaphor suggests another layer of meaning in Marx's conceptions of women and Nature. As such a discussion would take us too far afield in the present essay, it will not be pursued here.] To Marx, then, Nature is the "substrate" of use-value. Marx also referred to Nature as the "subject" of labor: The soil (and this, economically speaking, includes water) in the virgin state in which it supplies man with necessaries or the means of subsistence ready to hand, exists independently of him, and is the universal subject of human labour. All those things which labour merely separates from immediate connextion with their environment, are subjects of labour spontaneously provided by Nature. Such are fish which we catch and take from their element, water, timber which we fell in the virgin forest, and ores which we extract from their veins (I, 7, p. 2). To Marx, Nature's only involvement in the creation of value is as this role as subject or substrate of labor. But in this role, the natural properties of materials, those qualities which make things useful in human life, drop out of the value equation. As we have seen, the basis of the property of value is abstract labor -- that labor which produces commodities for the capitalist market. When, through the dynamic of the capitalist market, commodities are ranked according to the quantity of abstract labor embedded within them, as measured in time, the qualities or properties of any natural materials incorporated in production are transcended. As Burkett explains, the phenomenon of value is an abstraction from the natural basis and substance of wealth (Ibid, p. 340, quoting from 1988, "Economic and Philosophic Manuscript of 1861-63, Third Chapter." Pp. 9-346 in Collected Works, Marx and Engels, Vol. 34. New York: International Publishers.] And as Marx concludes, "Value as such has no other 'substance' than labor itself" [Marx to Engels, April 2, 1858, in Marx and Engels, 1975, 98, "Notes on Wagner," pp. 179-219 in Texts on Method, T. Carver, ed. Oxford: Blackwell. (quoted in Burkett 1996, footnote on p. 340.)] Burkett believes that Marx's method of abstraction enables us to employ value theory to reveal insight into the anti-ecological essence of capitalism. Burkett states that the abstracted value form reveals the "social root" of capitalism's tendency to despoil its natural environment, i.e., .... the value form qualitatively and quantitatively abstracts from the fact that wealth involves a need-satisfying people-Nature metabolism, even though value is a particular social form of this material process (p. 333). Burkett explains that such an abstraction from Nature establishes the difference between wealth and value, or between use-value and exchange-value, and encapsulates the contradiction between the specific form of wealth under capitalism and its "natural basis and substance." Thus, to Burkett, Marx's value theory shows how capitalism assigns value to Nature according to "the social labor time necessary for its appropriation and utilization," and not according to the natural properties through which it satisfies human needs (Ibid, p. 341). Environmental crisis, according to Burkett, may be seen in essence of capitalism as revealed by value theory, i.e., capitalism's "in-built drive for quantitative growth and the qualitatively anti-ecological characteristics of value" (ibid, p. 346) which he further details. Burkett further illustrates how value theory explains the anti-ecological effects of capitalism. For example, he believes that value theory reveals why capitalist producers are alienated from the ecological setting in which production takes place. To follow Burkett's argument on this point, we must recall back to how, according to value theory, abstract labor exists only when the producers are separated from "any natural conditions that might allow them to reproduce themselves outside the wage-labor relation." Thus, when production is based on the accumulation of surplus-value rather than on the fulfillment of human needs, the social ties of the producers to the natural conditions of production are broken. It is then but a small step to the violation of nature's "first demand . . . that man shall give back to the land what he receives from it" (Burkett, p. 349, quoting Capital, 1977 printing, I, 505, New York: International Publishers.) Burkett gives other important examples of how value theory reveals why capitalism is incompatible with sound ecological practice. Burkett goes on to address those critics who see Marx's value theory as excluding or downgrading the role of Nature in the capitalist economy. These critics are mistaken, he says, because Marx was the "first to analyze this contradiction," which is a shortcoming of capitalism, and not a shortcoming of value theory ["On Some Common Misconceptions About Nature and Marx's Critique of Political Economy," CNS 7 (3), September, 1996b, p. 64]. He encourages these critics to "redirect" their criticism "toward capitalism itself" (1996a, 333). But this turn of phrase reveals that Burkett has confused capitalism itself with Marx's analysis of it. Capitalism's nonvaluation of Nature is indeed echoed in Marx's theory, but this does not in itself guarantee that the phenomenon of value is correctly analyzed; it does not rule out the possibility that the numerical figures on the bank statements of international capital represent some material reality other than abstract labor-power. Marx has shown us what value is not, but has he shown us what value is? We can answer this question in this way: If Marx has shown us what value is, it is because of pure coincidence, because his theory of value is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Defined as the basis of value, abstract labor is the only reality on the planet that has value. How could it be otherwise? If A is the basis of B, then B is a representative of A. Value theory is a therefore a tautology, a logical closed circuit which gives us information about nothing. Value is a "word," "a metaphysical belief" which "cannot be wrong, and this is the sign that there is nothing to be learned from it." [Marilyn Waring, p. 19, quoting Joan Robinson, Economic Philosophy (London: Watts, 1962), 39.] The multi-layered logic of value theory is not needed to reveal the essence of capitalism's anti-ecological tendencies. All that is needed is to observe, as Marx did, that under capitalism, production has the goal of profit, and not the goal of satisfying human needs. As Maria Mies remarks, The exclusive concern of people as producers is maximizing the money output of their production and they will therefore continue to produce poisonous substances, nuclear power, weapons, more and more cars. But as consumers they want clean air, unpolluted food, and a safe place for their waste, far away from their home. Through value theory, however, Marx has at least confirmed for us what we knew all along: that capitalism does not value the contributions to social wealth made by Nature. He has demonstrated how, under capitalism, the contributions to social wealth made by Nature are "not-paid-for," i.e., wealth has been appropriated, but no equivalent has been exchanged. The "not-paid-for-ness" of Nature is addressed by Stephen G. Bunker in his book, Underdeveloping the Amazon: Extraction, Unequal Exchange, and the Failure of the Modern State (1988). Looking at the integral role of the Amazon River region of Brazil in the world economy for the past 350 years, he concludes that the industries of the Amazon, which are based on the "extraction of value of Nature rather than on the creation of value by labor," cannot be adequately understood by using economic models based on the Western experience of industrial production. He explores a theory of value based on "measures of energy and matter and their conversion," measures which would address both contributions to social value: labor and Nature. From brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Tue Feb 24 11:48:01 1998 From: brumback@ncgate.newcollege.edu Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:35:17 -0800 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Labor/Nature/Value Part 3 3. A Theory of Unpaid Value as Surplus Value Indeed, as Bunker has illustrated, to criticize value theory without offering an alternative is to leave the problem of the labor theory of value unresolved. In this section, I will attempt to show that all labor and all nature -- not just labor that creates commodities for the capitalist market -- possesses the social property of value. To achieve this goal, I must draw on various elements of the argument thus far elaborated. Begging your indulgence for any distracting redundancies, I will revisit the concepts of (1) paid labor and unpaid labor, which I have already defined as labor which is economically coerced (i.e., "free"), and labor which is coerced through an externally imposed force; (2) the value of labor-power, which Marx has defined as the value of the "necessaries" required to produce the laboring power, and (3) the Marxian idea that labor-power is unique among commodities, because it produces more value than it possesses. In the light of the ecological knowledge gained since Marx lived and wrote, this last idea that labor produces more value than it possesses should make us suspicious. Ecological systems, of which human society is one, produce no surpluses. Instead, they cycle and recycle all the components of the system again and again. If anything, according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics discovered in the late 19th century (check date), energy is lost when all of these transformations occur. As Carolyn Merchant as noted, ecology has taught us that in nature, "there is no free lunch." But if labor power does not produce more value than it possesses, we are then unable to define surplus value, because surplus value according to Marx was the value which the capitalist realized from the labor of the worker, but which he kept for himself. It was the value over and above the amount that was paid for the labor-power. According to Marx, part of the value of the labor of the worker was paid and part was unpaid. The paid part of abstract labor -- the labor that produces commodities for the capitalist market -- was the wage, and the unpaid part was surplus value. I will agree with Marx on this point, that the unpaid value of labor indeed constitutes surplus value (though I will contend that the unpaid value of labor is not the sole constituent of surplus value, as we will soon see). But since I have already disputed Marx on the issue of whether the labor commodity produces more value than it is worth, I must also dispute his analysis that only the unpaid value of abstract labor constitutes surplus value. To pin down the issue of whether and how much of the value of abstract labor constitutes surplus value, I will define the value of abstract labor simply as that amount of cash which, under prevailing market conditions such as supply, demand, and local inflation, the capitalist must pay for the labor of heterosexual, able-bodied males of a certain age and the dominant race of the country in question. Thus, all of the value of the abstract labor performed by these workers is paid, and no part of it constitutes surplus value. If, on the other hand, the workers in question are too old, too young, too queer, not able-bodied enough, or of or the wrong race or sex, only part of the value of their abstract labor will be paid. The difference between the market cost of their abstract labor and the abstract labor of the able-bodied male of the correct age and race, etc., will represent an amount of cash which is not paid to the worker, but kept by the capitalist. Unpaid value derived by the capitalist class in this way, i.e., through racism, sexism, and other discriminatory hiring practices, is a constituent of surplus value. It is value which the capitalists acquire by capitalizing on the discriminatory teachings and practices of the institutions of modern society: schools, churches, political parties, unions, and the family. And as sexism supports discriminatory hiring practices against women, so it supports the capitalist practice of paying absolutely nothing for domestic labor which produces each generation of workers. Thus, all of the value of the labor of women in the family is unpaid, and all of it contributes to surplus value. In fact, as we have seen, besides domestic laborers, other reproductive laborers contribute to the care and maintenance of the entire global work force. These teachers, medical care workers, social workers, etc., are paid for their labor, but they are paid by the family or the taxpayers -- not by the capitalist class. The value of their labor, therefore, is unpaid relative to the capitalist class, and is thus a constituent of surplus value. And in the same way that the unpaid value of the labor of women in the family constitutes a portion of surplus value, so does the unpaid value of the labor of slaves, which capitalism still exploits today in some parts of the world (cite). In the case of serfs, sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and all other semi-proletarians, i.e., those workers who only partially support themselves on their wages, part of the value of their labor is paid, and part is unpaid. The amount of cash that they receive in wages represents the paid portion of their labor. Because the remainder of the value of their labor is unpaid, it is a constituent of surplus value. And finally, in this listing of the constituents of surplus value, I will add the value of the natural materials consumed in production which the capitalist realizes when commodities are sold, but for which nothing is returned in exchange. Part of this value of natural materials might be paid value, as in when one buys a piece of land. Again, the unpaid value would be the difference between the amount of cash that was given as a purchase price, and the amount that was realized when commodities produced from the land were sold, e.g., all the lumber and minerals that were on the land to begin with, in addition to anything that might be grown on the land. So now, we have looked separately at each constituent of surplus value. It remains only to look at surplus value as a whole, of which all the constituents are part. You might be asking, to what are you attaching value if not to time expended in abstract labor? The answer is in Marxian thought itself, i.e., in the idea that labor is socially integrated only through the market dynamic: though the ranking of commodities by their value, and therefore the prices for which they are sold. But whereas when Marx talked about the "social integration of labor," and meant only abstract labor, I of course will mean every kind of value-producing labor that was expended in the production of the commodity. I will add the value contributed by all the natural materials consumed in the process, or at least, any part of the value for which nothing was given in exchange. Surplus value, then, is the total amount of value received for the commodity after subtracting the paid portion of the abstract labor and natural materials which are used to create it. Every other part of surplus value is unpaid value, whether the unpaid value of labor, or the unpaid value of nature. To sum up my definition of value and surplus value: Nature and labor possess value; and surplus value is the value of labor and nature that the capitalists appropriate through (1) capitalizing on the discriminatory teachings and practices of the institutions of modern society -- schools, churches, the family, and the state; and (2) externalizing the real costs of production to the families, the environment, and the poor people of the world. To determine what percent of the total of surplus value is contributed by nature, what percent by women, what percent by people of color, etc., we must look at the social and ecological characteristics of each locality in which commodities are produced. Commodities produced in the 3rd World, for example, will have a higher percentage of value derived from nature, unpaid workers and underpaid workers than commodities produced in the 1st World. Commodities produced in the 1st World will have a higher percentage of value derived from the unpaid portion of the labor of women, other reproductive labor, and people of subordinated races. In general, since in the 1st World most of the natural resources of been used up, most of the surplus value which is derived from nature originates in the 3rd World. And since the workers of the 1st World are much more highly paid than the workers of the 3rd World, most of the surplus value which is derived from labor originates in the 3rd World. The 1st World performs an important function in the global economy, however, for workers there provide the consumer market for 80% of production, and thus keep world capital in circulation. But an analysis of society as a historical phenomenon must take into account more than economic issues only. Marx said that the economic relations of society in each stage of its development give rise to corresponding social relations, which structure the relations of the people as they carry out their daily production. He said, further, that these social relations create the particular ideology of that society. The purpose of the ideology is to justify, rationalize, and perpetuate the social relations and the economic relations. As Marx wrote in __________ (?), "The ruling ideas of society are the ideas of the ruling class." Marx has been criticized for his "economic determinism," i.e., the idea that economic relations of society are determinant over all other relations, and that to change the social relations and/or the ideology of society, one must first change the economic relations. But many scholars have shown that ideology has a powerful impact on social change. Carolyn Merchant, for example, has shown in her book, The Death of Nature, how the rise of modern science in early modern Europe strengthened the newly emerging capitalist system by defining Nature into a subordinate position relative to man. Renaissance humanism played in this subordination of nature as well, with its "Man is the measure of all things." Other writers have shown how the Protestant Reformation played a similar role in regard to women, the family, and nature. The work of Merchant and others shows that as a organic and living phenomenon, society has many dimensions and layers -- ecological, technological, economic, social, ideological, and spiritual, etc. -- all of which are connected and interconnected. When any one of the dimensions of society is changed, other dimensions will be changed as well. Thus we see that the theory that value is based on both nature and labor is congruent with a multi-dimensional analysis of society. Women are oppressed under capitalism not only because of the contributions they make to surplus value, but also because the unequal division of power between men and women in the family upholds the unequal division of power between capitalists and the working class. In the family, people learn at an early age to respect the authorities and do as they are told. This willingness of the working class to submit to an external authority is essential to the capitalists, because they need to be able to do whatever is necessary to make a profit. The oppression of gay people serves to uphold the oppression of women because same sex relationships challenge the validity of the sex roles. Thus, even when workers are paid the value of their labor, they are exploited nonetheless because they lack the power to make decisions about what is produced and how it is produced. Thus, they might find themselves producing weapons for wars against working and poor people, women and children, of other countries; or pesticides, etc., to pollute the air, ground, and water of their own countries; or products requiring the generation of toxic wastes that will give their children and grandchildren cancer. There are unending tragic examples of the problems and disasters that have been caused by this basic contradiction of capitalism, i.e., that the capitalist class controls production for the purpose of acquiring surplus value, and not for the purpose of meeting human needs. Thus, contrary to the infamous "workerism" of so many Marxists in the US today, we see that the interests of the working class are identical with the interests of women, the poor, gay people, people of color, the aged, etc., and that it is in the interests of the working class, women, and the poor of all countries to stop the devastation of the global environment. As to which interests are the most important, I think that will depend on the political tenor in a particular country at a particular time. Work on issues which have attracted public interest and support may be the most fruitful to revolutionists, because people who are willing to act on these issues are often willing to listen to political ideas. The purpose of revolutionary work should not be to recruit new people for the "worker's revolution," however, but to work on the issues themselves -- to win victories for women, gays, the elderly, the disabled, etc., as well as for the environment. Such victories are important in and of themselves. And winning will show people that we can, after all, get what we want by working together. But while working for such victories, socialist revolutionists can, at the same, expose people to the idea that all of the exploitative practices of capitalism are related, and that it is the capitalist system itself which must be transformed. copyright 1998 by Nancy Brumback, San Francisco, CA From md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu Wed Feb 25 14:12:08 1998 Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 16:11:45 -0500 (EST) From: md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu Subject: CFP: Perceiving and Performing Gender (fwd) To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 14:35:20 -0500 From: "Heather Munro Prescott, H-Women Editor" Reply-To: H-NET List for Women's History To: H-WOMEN@H-NET.MSU.EDU Subject: CFP: Perceiving and Performing Gender Perceiving and Performing Gender 4th Symposium on Gender Research at Kiel University, Germany November 12 - 14, 1998 The conference focuses on the central question: How do=20 perceptions - alongside the behaviour of individuals - contribute=20 to the construction of gender? - How do we interpret and assess women and men? - Which properties and modes of behaviour do we ascribe to=20 - each gender? - Are gender differences the result of a gendered behaviour,=20 - or do they base themselves on gender-stereotyped expectations? This symposium opens the possibility of discussing these and other=20 questions in a cross-disciplinary and international perspective. Keynote speakers Prof. Dr. Jutta Allmendinger, Institut f=FCr Soziologie,=20 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen, Germany Prof. Dr. Mahzarin R. Banaji, Department of Psychology,=20 Yale University Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Bronfen, Englisches Seminar,=20 Universitaet Zuerich, Switzerland Prof. Dr. J. Richard Hackman, Department of Psychology,=20 Harvard University Prof. Dr. Thomas W. Laqueur, Department of History,=20 University of California, Berkeley Prof. Dr. Donald G. MacKay, Department of Psychology,=20 University of California, Los Angeles Prof. Dr. Anthony Mulac, Department of Communication,=20 University of California, Santa Barbara Prof. Dr. Rosanne Stone, Advanced Communication Technologies=20 Laboratory, Department of Radio-TV-Film,=20 University of Texas, Austin Call for papers In addition to the presentations by the keynote speakers,=20 we are accepting papers on further topics. Interested researchers=20 should send us a brief abstract of their proposed presentation. =20 This abstract should be written in either English or German=20 and be no longer than one typewritten page. Of those papers accepted to the symposium, several will be=20 chosen for publication in a collection of highlights from the=20 conference. Language The symposium will be conducted in both English and German. =20 Presentations and comments can be formulated and contributed=20 in either language. Deadlines Proposal abstracts must be received by ZiF no later than 30 April 1998. Registration deadline for the symposium is 1 October 1998. Fees Registration costs DM 120. This price is reduced to DM 30=20 for students and umemployed academics. For registration and further information please contact: Susanne Oelkers, M.A. ZiF - Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Women and Gender Christian Albrecht University Tel.: (German code) (0) 431 57949 51 Olshausenstr. 40 FAX: (German code) (0) 57949 50 D-24098 Kiel email: Germany Feel free to visit ZIF at our home page http://www.uni-kiel.de:8080/zif/ From njh1@cornell.edu Wed Feb 25 15:09:31 1998 Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 17:12:42 -0500 To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu From: "Nancy J. Hirschmann" Subject: Women and Politics y.edu> Glad to see action on the list again. The journal _Women and Politics_ has published a special issue on "Politics and Feminist Standpoint Theories" in honor of the 15th anniversary (roughly) of Nancy Hartsock's _Money, Sex, and Power: Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism_. It is volume 18, no. 3 (technically fall 1997, but it just came out a few weeks ago), and includes 6 articles on the contemporary state of standpoint theory, including an article by Hartsock, "Standpoint Theories in the Next Century." Special note for those who recently brought up the issue of postmodernism vis-a-vis materialist feminism, though I feel a little funny about mentioning it: I have an article in the journal entitled "Feminist Standpoint as Postmodern Strategy?" where I try to argue that there are some ways in which the fundamental opposition between materialist feminism and postmodern feminism may be somewhat reconcilable within the terms of Hartsock's feminist standpoint. Nancy H. From LAVERNEG@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU Thu Feb 26 15:08:23 1998 Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 14:08:20 -0800 (PST) From: Faye La Verne Gagehabib Subject: Re: Anybody home? To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu Hi, Do you have a new e-mail address? I have missed this group very much. From md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu Thu Feb 26 15:42:55 1998 Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 17:42:26 -0500 (EST) From: md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu Subject: Anybody home? To: MatFem@csf.colorado.edu hi faye, it is stil the same address (MatFem@csf.colorado.edu). honestly, i look forward to new contributions.. best regards, mine aysen doyran >Hi, >Do you have a new e-mail address? I have missed this group very much. From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu Feb 26 17:35:30 1998 Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 17:35:28 -0700 (MST) From: Martha Gimenez Reply-To: Martha Gimenez To: matfem@csf.Colorado.EDU Subject: Anybody Home? Just a note to remind you that Nancy Brumback has sent us her paper on Labor, Nature and Value Theory in 4 parts - so perhaps it would seem "nobody is home" right now because we are all busy reading her paper. I look forward to your comments on Nancy's work and I would like to thank her at this time for sharing her work with us. Best, 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