Michal Polak CLASS, SURPLUS, AND THE DIVISION OF LABOUR A. Post-Marxian Exploration London School of Economics A thesis submitted to the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, October 2008 l UMI Number: U615B06 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615B06 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 f WL I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work, other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of the author. I warrant that this authorization does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. 2. ABSTRACT The thesis attempts to account for an apparently wide array of class-like entities in present-day capitalist formation, while remaining true to the spirit of Marxian theory, in which the relationship of exploitation implies a polarised, two-class society. It is argued that the efforts to solve this puzzle usually involve notions of class based on the division of labour. The fundamental concepts of the original theory, such as reproduction, subsistence, exploitation and class are then re­ examined and reconstructed. The idea of profit as based on surplus labour is defended, securing the basis for the Marxian understanding of class. The Transformation Problem of moving from labour values to prices of production is discussed and while the force of the Sraffian critique is admitted, a new interpretation of the problem is suggested, making it possible to see the Sraffian schema as a generalisation of the Marxian one. Labour Theory of Value is analysed as a ‘dual theory of exploitation and price’ and it is argued that only the latter part is vulnerable to the criticisms advanced. The Sraffian schema is interpreted as a clear explication of the concept of exploitation, throwing into sharp relief the disjunction between exploitation-based and division-of-labour- based views of class. An integration of the two concepts is attempted by proposing a new, generalised notion termed ‘complexploitation’ (complex exploitation) flowing from what is claimed to be the essential idea behind the concept of exploitation: that one group of agents is more oppressed by the constraints of the so-called ‘Sphere of Necessity’, just so that another group may enjoy more of the fruits of the ‘Sphere of Freedom’. Finally it is suggested that the concept of complexploitation makes possible a more fine-grained class map of society than the original two-class model. 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgments Chapter I Introduction: The Legacy and The Crisis PART I - ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS Chapter II It’s Not What You Have, It’s What You Do: Return of the Division-of-Labour View of Class Chapter III Exploitation Is Not a Game: A Critique of John Roemer PART II - RECONSTRUCTING THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS Chapter IV Back to Basics: Reproduction, Subsistence, Exploitation, Class PART III - A DUAL THEORY OF EXPLOITATION AND PRICE Chapter V If Profit is the Answer, What Should Be the Question? Income from Capital and the Labour Theory of Value Chapter VI What Price Value? The Transformation Problem and the Sraffian Critique Chapter VII Beyond the Transformation Problem: The Sraffian Framework As a Basis for Class Theory PART IV - INTEGRATING TH E TWO CONCEPTS OF CLASS Chapter VIII A Beast of Many Faces: Complex Exploitation, the Sphere of Necessity and the Sphere of Freedom Chapter IX Conclusion: To Build Anew on Old Foundations Bibliography Acknowledgments First of all I would like to thank my friend Daniel Soukup, who all those years ago had sat at my kitchen table, sipping tea and listening to me hold forth on the brilliance of Marxian class accounts of the Middle Ages, and then asked innocendy, c<Well yes, but what good is that theory for today’s society?” Equally I need to thank Michael Albert, whose writings sustained my enthusiasm for radical change during a very unpromising period of time and whose forthright views I found both inspiring and frustrating enough to make me try and work out what exactiy is my own position — and whose influence on this thesis, while completely unbeknownst to him, goes far beyond the explicit references to his works. I am very grateful to Erik Olin Wright for his generous and friendly response to my request that he might have a look at one of the chapters of the thesis — his reading was very thorough and provided me with a large number of enormously valuable comments. I would like to thank Geoff Harcourt for his encouragement, for commenting on some earlier work related to the topics of the thesis, and for the fascinating time I was privileged to spend with him on an afternoon in Cambridge. Another person to whom I am grateful for his help is my friend Joe Grim Feinberg, who took time away from his own research in anthropology to read earlier versions of some of the chapters very thoroughly and provided many penetrating comments. Many thanks are due to Pat Devine, not just for reading and commenting on a chapter, but also for the amount of time he was willing to spend discussing difficult economic topics with me — and to forgive me when the exchanges got much more heated than I had any right to engage in — as well as for the life and the outlook on life which I find ever inspiring. 5 I would very much like to thank my supervisor, Richard Bradley, not only for the many engaging discussion on my topic (as well as many other topics!) and for the comments that he gave on my written drafts, but also for his understanding and the willingness to grant me much more freedom than I had any right to expect; I am sure that the thesis is all the better for it. I appreciate gready the help given by all these distinguished scholars; the remaining mistakes and flaws — many of which I am only too aware of — are all mine. From the personal point of view, I would like to thank Naomi Fisher and Barbora Cernusakova, who had both provided me with care and support at different periods of my life. I owe many thanks to my activist friends of stripe red, green, and all other colours of the rainbow, in my home country of Slovakia and elsewhere, in whose company I always feel anew that another world is indeed possible. I would like to thank my former colleagues at the Slovak Section of the BBC World Service, who made my life while writing much more bearable, and also my superiors there, who showed much understanding for the rival demands of my academic life and provided me with an opportunity to earn my living nevertheless. Thanks are due also to my friends and colleagues at the LSE, both from a personal point of view and for providing an intellectually stimulating environment in the time that I spent there. Finally I would like to thank my long-ago Mathematics teacher, Mrs. Brigita Kamenska, who paid me far more than just the required level of attention and cultivated in me both the confidence and the powers of logical reasoning that eventually allowed me to arrive to this point. Lastly, I would like to thank my parents, Gabriela Rothmayerova and Emil Polak, for being there for me when needed, including through a particularly difficult period of my life; as well as for instilling in me the sense of empathy with those who are less fortunate, solidarity with those who demand justice, and most of all, for teaching me to appreciate the value of those lives spent under the burden of necessity. 6 I very gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the form of Overseas Research Award, and I am grateful indeed also for the financial assistance provided over many years by the London School of Economics, in the form of scholarships and studentships too numerous to mention individually. 7 Chapter I Introduction The Legacy and the Crisis There are many ways in which a society can be split into classes. We could divide people into categories on the basis of income and wealth, power and status in a hierarchy, the kind of work they do, their level of education, their cultural characteristics such as tastes and accents, etc. The classic Marxian conception of classes is often characterised as being based on the relation to the means of production. The relation in question is one of ownership: society is divided into classes depending on who owns which productive resources. However, this is only half of the Marxian story. Although private property looms large in this picture of the world, it should be always borne in mind that it is not significant in itself.