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From: gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Capitalist production
Message-ID: <1292@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Mar-85 04:12:02 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.1292
Posted: Sun Mar 17 04:12:02 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 18-Mar-85 08:12:35 EST
References: <370@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: Blue Mouse Trailer Resort (sp #9), Hellmouth, CA
Lines: 65

> = Richard Carnes

> From JoSH:
> >          .... I make a deal with him:  He can use the machine, and
> > not working as hard as before, take half the money (making more than
> > before); I, on my part, will do absolutely nothing, and collect the
> > other half as profit.  Now: is this exploitation?
> 
> The deal you describe is not capitalist production....

How convenient.  "My definition of capitalism is intrisically icky.
If you have an example that is not icky, it is not capitalism."

>                                                            ...  The
> capitalist doesn't *provide* the machines and factories, he just
> *controls* them.  

Who builds the machines and factories?  More important, who *pays*
for the materials from which they are built, the land on which
they rest?

>                                             ... But a factory doesn't
> need to be owned in order to produce -- it just has to exist and be
> operated by people.  And the people who brought it into existence are
> the workers who built it, the engineers who designed it, the
> inventors who invented the machines -- i.e., the people whose labor
> of various kinds brought the factory into being.  (The capitalist qua
> capitalist is one who *owns* the means of production -- insofar as he
> works (invents, builds, whatever) he's not a capitalist.)

Where did the raw materials come from?  Who pays the engineers to
design, the workers to build?  (And as far as inventors are concerned,
the US Constitution protects their ownership of original ideas
in the form of the patent).

Certainly there is nothing to stop a collection of inventors and
engineers from getting together and building a factory which they
own -- this is how many small computer companies got started --
so if they don't want their creations owned by a capitalist,
they can built it themselves  (they themselves thereby become
capitalists).  Where's the problem?

> To clarify one point:  "Capital" for Marx does not mean the machines,
> etc., per se; they are no more intrinsically capital than gold and
> silver are intrinsically money.  Capital for Marx is a social
> relation in which the means of production are monopolized by one
> class and counterposed to another class which must sell its labor
> power to the other class to live.

If the means of production (collectively speaking) were monopolized,
economic competition would not be possible.  It may not be in the
interest of a single capitalist to have to compete with other
capitalists in a free marketplace, but it is better for the group
as a whole that they do so.  This is why some of us defend the
capitalistic free market system -- not because we are "dupes of
the capitalists", but because we benefit from this system directly.

My employer is exploiting my knowledge and skills to make a profit.
One compensation to me is that I get to have this entertaining
discussion with you, made possible by millions (?billions) of dollars
of computer hardware and software.

"Go ahead -- EXPLOIT ME!"
-- 
Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam