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this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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The whole mechanism behind capitalism is that workers are payed less than they produce, hence they produce surplus value, the graph you provide, I do not see how it is linked to this discussion. Essentialy every worker is having their surplus value stolen
Marx had choice words for those who confuse productive and unproductive labor.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02b.htm
"That worker is productive who performs productive labour, and that labour is productive which directly creates surplus value, i.e. valorises capital.
...
Only the narrow-minded bourgeois, who regards the capitalist form of production as its absolute form, hence as the sole natural form of production, can confuse the question of what are productive labour and productive workers from the standpoint of capital with the question of what productive labour is in general, and can therefore be satisfied with the tautological answer that all that labour is productive which produces, which results in a product, or any kind of use value, which has any result at all.
...
Every productive worker is a wage labourer; but this does not mean that every wage labourer is a productive worker. In all cases where labour is bought in order to be consumed as use value, as a service, and not in order to replace the value of the variable capital as a living factor and to be incorporated into the capitalist production process, this labour is not productive labour, and the wage labourer is not a productive worker. His labour is then consumed on account of its use value, not as positing exchange value, it is consumed unproductively, not productively. The capitalist therefore does not confront labour as a capitalist, as the representative of capital. He exchanges his money for labour as income, not as capital. The consumption of the labour does not constitute M-C-M’, but C-M-C (the last symbol represents the labour, or the service itself). Money functions here only as means of circulation, not as capital.
... This phenomenon, that with the development of capitalist production all services are converted into wage labour, and all those who perform these services are converted into wage labourers hence that they have this characteristic in common with productive workers, gives even more grounds for confusing the two in that it is a phenomenon which characterises, and is created by, capitalist production itself. On the other hand, it gives the apologists [of capitalism] an opportunity to convert the productive worker, because he is a wage labourer, into a worker who merely exchanges his services (i.e. his labour as a use value) for money. This makes it easy to pass over in silence the differentia specifica of this “productive worker”, and of capitalist production — as the production of surplus value, as the process of the self-valorisation of capital, which incorporates living labour as merely its AGENCY. A soldier is a wage labourer, a mercenary, but he is not for that reason a productive worker."
Yes they do, if a service worker was not there, there would be a loss of value, their labor produces value. I can also prove they produce surplus value, as there are service industries, that employ people, and that we rely on, and would consider essential, and yet the companies they work for still make a profit, the profit has to come from somewhere, that somewhere is from the surplus value of the labor, that is stolen from the worker.
I am not going to argue that the most exploited, and therefor the people with the most suplus labor stolen are the workers from the global south, however I do think it is ridiculous to say that no surplus value is created, as if that where the case, no profit could be made. No capitalist is going to hire someone for more than they can exploit them for.
Again none of what I am saying is ment to imply or say that the amount of exploitation or surplus labor being generated by the worker in the global north even compares to the worker in the global south, I would be foolish and, incorrect to try to say they are anywhere near equivalent. I am also not saying that the Global North worker does not benefit from unequal exchange, because again, that would be a grossly untrue statement.
Also I have not read much Walter Rodney, would you mind sending me the theory that says this, it genuinely sounds like an interesting read.
This does not show that service workers don't create surplus value.
What year is that from? That first paragraph is… needing of a lot more explanation than provided here.
All the explanations there for the reason Africa is how it is are obviously true. No one reasonable debates that.
The beginning though… he is saying services are overmanned? Gonna need some stats on that one. Civil servants? Too many of them? Dunno about that one either. (Of course yes to cops, but I consider them not the same things).
I kind of want to read that book, but it seems pretty surface level flawed to assume waiters and such don’t produce value. The burden to convince me of that is so high because it’s very clear that they DO produce value. Restaurant purchases supplies for $10. A cook cooks the meal. The waiter serves it, etc. and whatever. They charge $50 for it. The waiter gets paid like fucking $3/hr (from the employer- a tip is provided outside the transaction), the cook gets whatever the fuck $20/hr (but produces multiple meals). Cleaning staff get shafted at min wage $7/hr. You can break out spreadsheets and all that shit and you’re gonna find in the end that waiter is being exploited. Saying they aren’t because the exploitation done to provide the food to cook or to build the restaurant or whatever else is being untruthful, imo. You can simultaneously say first world workers are exploited less and in less bad ways. Does anyone disagree with that? But also acknowledge exploitation is happening.
I dunno. I get where people are coming from, but you need to be truthful at least. The implication or assertion that service workers aren’t exploited in the US/EU or whatever is silly. It isn’t true, and acting as if it is only further divides an already completely divided world proletarian. I don’t see the logic here unless the end statement is doing the meme of “infinite genocide of the first world.” In which case, ok, shoot me now. But don’t try to convince me a waiter doesn’t produce value.
Also some of that is doing the meme of “socialism is when no nice things.” Like whiskey is a luxury that everyone should have the option of having. I guess if the comparison is “people are starving and others drink poison” ok, fair enough, but that worker drinking whiskey isn’t the problem… it’s the capitalists exploiting him directly and the even higher up capitalists exploiting the people across the globe. The more I think about that piece the more I see the repeated memes in it. Perhaps it’s the age of it showing, I don’t know, but goddamn. Saying service workers don’t produce value and no one should drink whiskey is bold.