BS [prior]:
Consider Lenin's observation that '[i]mperialism...makes it economically possible to bribe the upper strata of the proletariat, and thereby fosters, gives shape to, and strengthens opportunism.'RED:
Lenin talks shite. The extra wealth of richer nations comes from their greater productivity, not through the exploitation of one working class over another. Noweher do workers exploit workers, except on teh behalf of capitalists.
BS [prior]:
Does all the surplus go to capitalists exclusively? If...Pakistan-made shoes were made by workers who received as much, commensurately, as English workers, the English worker would not have as much money left over (after buying shoes) as he or she does when 'exploiting' under-paid workers in other countries.
RED:
No, the surplus does go to the capitalist. Remeber wages are set always at the cost of maintaining the labour power of a workforce (including its willingness to work), thus they can pay third world workers less because they'll accept it and stay alive on less. The capitalist cannot sell the shoes above the market price in the west (and its usually a western corp), and so if teh wages of teh worker were higher, then teh price would be no diffferent for a western worker. Third world wages are lower because it means more surplus for profits.
1. This question has intrigued me, Red. According to you, the middle classes---management, white-collar, and 'upper strata of proletariat'---gain nothing from the intense labor and low wages of workers in 'Third World' countries. Yet when I see an American (say, union-made) hammer at a hardware store, it is $25 while a Chinese-made hammer of similar quality is only $12. I know union wages, and I have heard horror stories about Chinese wages. Am I to believe that purchasing the cheaper hammer (which will make my American wages 'go further' than if I bought the more expensive hammer) in no way involves me in 'imperialistic' gain? You say that the 'surplus does go to the capitalist' yet I feel that some of it has come my way...
2. Note the index categories for 'classes' in the Penguin edition of Capital. 'Capitalist class; Farmers; Peasants; Slavery; Working class.' No mention of a middle class, which is not especially surprising consider that Capital was written in the 19th century. Does Marx's class analysis contain all that is necessary to know about the middle class since automation in the latter half of this century exponentially increased their ranks? Lenin (and many others who may or may not have 'talked shit') felt that the spreading unionization throughout the West in the 1900s called for some revisions in the Marxian class analysis.
3. Marx said that '[t]he labor of exploiting is just as much labor as exploited labor,'(1) but is this really credible when considering the differences between the manager and the worker? Later Marx adds: 'The wage which he [the supervisor] claims and pockets for this labor is exactly equal to the appropriated quantity of another's labor and depends directly upon the rate of exploitation of this labor, in so far as he undertakes the effort required for exploitation...'(2) Nonetheless, Marx is clear that this supervision cost is part of the constant (operating) expenses, not the surplus (profit).(3)
4. I would submit that almost everyone in Western 'service' jobs are part of what Marx called the 'circulation sphere.' Some Marxists maintain that circulation costs---like the supervisory costs of management---are also operating expenses, not surplus. Ernest Mandel, however, conceded that '[p]art of the wages bill of unproductive labor [services & administration workers]...is financed out of currently produced surplus-value.'(4) This, as they say, is the smoking gun...
5. Because constant (and fixed) capital tends to increase in cost (thus reducing profits), according to Marx's theory, (surplus) labor must be continually 'squeezed' to offset the 'tendential fall in the rate of profit.' One way to do this is to move plants to countries with lower standards of living with workers willing do the same work as Western workers, only for less. However, the circulation sphere costs increase as export costs affect more and more products; remember, those 'Third World' workers cannot afford the products they are assembling. Here it seems reasonable that---using Marx's criteria---the increase of the circulation sphere necessitates increased pressures upon labor, which means that as more 'Third World' workers enter the production process and more Western workers leave the production process to work in the circulation sphere, indeed the latter are 'exploiting' the former.
6. According to Paul Fussell, about 80% of Americans consider themselves to be middle class.(5) (As I stated before, middle class is quite relative; a 'proletariat' in Pakistan would find a 'proletariat' in Germany to be very middle class.) In Marxist literature, class interests of working class and middle class people are often glossed over, perhaps for the sake of inclusive agitation. I hope that some of my thoughts have shown you that such unity is, in fact, precarious because the middle class (circulation sphere workers) do materially gain from the intensified labor of the working class (production process workers), and therefore will tend toward ideological justifications of their position (identification with the bourgeoisie).
Notes:
1. Marx, Capital, vol. III, (International, 1967) chapter xxiii, p. 383.
2. Ibid., p. 387.
3. Ibid.
4. Mandel, Introduction to the Penguin Edition of Capital, vol. III, p. 49.
5. Fussell, Class
