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What's the difference between grain and seed?

If there is no exploitation in capitalist society, what substantive difference is between A and B described?

  • Situation A: Feudal Society We start with a small model of feudal society. A feudal lord owns a tract of land. This area of ​​land is divided in two parts. One part is the land of the lord; the other is occupied by 20 peasant families. Each of the 20 families has a lot of land where they work. Each one gets (discounting the seed for replanting) net cereal unit, which uses full, preparing the bread. The peasants do not own the lots, but have "de facto" and their tools. Lots are legally owned by the lord, so, farmers are forced to pay a tribute to the man (working) and cant leave the land. Properly, are serfs. They work 6 days, 3 on their lots, and 3 in the land of the lord rest on Sundays. In the land of Mr. occur (also discounted the seed for replanting) 20 net units of grain, of course, go to the Lord. The lord and his family eat cereal 7 units (they are better fed than the peasants). The Lord used another 1.5 units of grain to keep an intellectual, who explains to the peasants that the social order derives from the will of God, and there is no point trying to change. It also uses 7.5 units of grain to feed 5 soldiers (soldiers also consume a little more than peasants) who care that the servants do not rebel peasants, and fulfill their obligations. Finally, sell the remaining 4 units of grain to a trader who provides weapons for soldiers, books for intellectuals and luxury goods. How judges: A Marxist will say that farmers do not receive any remuneration for the 3 days per week working in the Lord's land. Mr. appropriates a surplus which has not worked, and living himself, his family, soldiers and the intellectual. So farmers are exploited. A neoclassical economist intellectual surely agree on this. Situation B: wage labor and capitalism The capitalist mode of production has been installed. The Lord has managed to strip -violence through, but this is only a "historical detail" - the peasants of their land plots and their tools. Farmers are no longer servants, and became free workers. Land, work tools and seed are private property of Mr.. But this is no longer "lord", but "venture capitalist". The 20 farmers work all the land (formerly of Mr. and that made up their lots) and produce 40 units net cereal. In return they receive a wage in cash, equivalent to 20 units of cereal. This is enough for a worker family. The employer  take 40 units of grain to the nearest market. The farmers attending the market buy 20 units of cereal with the salary they received. With the money received from the farmers, the employer pays wages to its workers next, that they spent buying back grain, bringing the money back into the hands of the employer, and thus followed. The salary and an allowance is given to farmers to participate in the product that constantly reproduce themselves with their work. But also in each round is left to the employer the equivalent of 20 units of grain, which makes money by selling the product on the market. That surplus is the surplus money. Now, as above, uses the equivalent of 7 units for consumption. You have 13 for taxes and other expenses. Pay taxes in an amount of money equivalent to 9 units of cereal sold. This can be kept 5 soldiers and an intellectual, who are employed by the State. The intellectual, who is now an economist, says that farmers are paid for their work, and that the gain is due to the sacrifices of the capitalist to postpone their consumption, that is, the gain comes from its withdrawal. After eating and paying taxes, the employer is left equivalent to 4 other units. But instead of spending it on luxuries, is now willing to invest that money productively, renting land and hiring more neighboring farmers to work. There will be time to enjoy. It is a step to become a dedicated machine to increase the capital advanced in each production cycle. So the economist is right. Your profit is a reward for his abstinence. Nobody like him sacrificed for the advancement of human progress. How judges: A Marxist say that with respect to the situation A, where we clearly appeared exploitation was only changed the social form, that is, the social relationship. In The farmers produced 20 units of grain consumed directly, and 20 units of grain delivered to the Lord. In B farm workers continue to produce 20 units of grain for consumption. And another 20 units that are not paid. Now, as before, the producers deliver work without receiving anything in return. This is the secret of surplus value or profit of the capitalist. Nor disappeared coercion on peasants. Before the peasants were subject to land and were forced by soldiers to work in the Lord's land. Now they are free, but if they do not work as employees of the employer, are starving. Therefore they are required to be hired as employees. It is seen that the gain does not come from the employer to refrain from eating (anyone testing to stop using their savings to see if it grows by itself?) Very different are the conclusions of modern neoclassical economist. Heir of that old intellectual who theorized about abstinence, say that there's no exploitation whatsoever. Armed with their corresponding utility functions and production, explained that the gains of the entrepreneur is due to "marginal return to land and capital" (the "capital" is the plow and other tools, which seem to "pay" with no human labor). And he will say that the gains of the farmer is equal to the marginal productivity of their work. ¿Exploitation? Class struggle? ¿Social relations of production? Marxist verbiage to confuse and mislead the young science of its proper course. It is however to answer the question: If there is no exploitation in capitalist society, what substantive difference is between A and B the situation described?

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    Some say that any relationship between the po...

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You've done a very good job of setting up the standard Marxian argument for exploitation under capitalism.  If there is a difference between the two situations, it is not that there is exploitation in case A and no exploitation in case B.  But the form of exploitation is somewhat different in the two cases.  The source of exploitation in case A is lack of freedom: the lord is able to compel the serf to stay on the manorial lands.   The source of exploitation in case B is lack of ownership of the means of production: the worker must hire himself out because he lacks the means to produce goods otherwise. For greater detail I would refer readers to two chapters by John Roemer in his edited collection, Analytical Marxism (Cambridge University Press, 1985).  In the first he delineates the differences between feudal and capitalist exploitation.  In the second he argues that the unequal initial endowment of resources, not exploitation per se, is what is morally objectionable in capitalism. Alternately, one could refer to his summary volume, Free to Lose, a mostly non-technical introduction to Roemer's reconstruction of Marxian economics.

Michael McIntyre

From my limited experience debating exploitation in Capitalism versus Feudalism I have encountered three points: As explains, people have freedom to choose which capitalist they get exploited by, if you are lucky you get to choose before all the less exploitative ones are taken or you have a skill that the system promotes above all other (often more valuable) skills; and Because labour can choose capitalists theoretically have to compete for that labour so they cannot get completely out of hand (unless, of course, exploitation becomes the standard and instead of things getting better capitalist compete to see who can exploit more) Also, there is more social mobility in Capitalism than in Feudalism. It appears easier for someone to fall from the elite and easier for someone to rise into the elite than in Feudalism. In the latter your fortunes are tied to the ruler, if he is defeated your position is in jeopardy. If you can tie yourself to a rising leader you can rise with him (it typically was a male). In Capitalism theoretically if you sacrifice food and shelter for yourself and your family, if you put off living until you're dead, if you are willing to manipulate and exploit and do whatever it takes to get ahead then you might have a chance to raise yourself. Likewise if you are already on top and are not willing to continue to exploit and take advantage of others you might lose your position and your wealth to people who are less scrupulous. We are all slaves to these systems, they don't care who is the elite as long as someone is always exploiting others. One wonders if we will ever escape from this bondage. To these points (obviously expressed with extreme bias against Capitalism), I'll add this critical difference: Capitalism is much more devious in tricking people into supporting the system. Actually this point may be just perception because I can imagine people (even serfs and slaves) in their time thinking feudalism and slavery just as fair and balanced as we today think Capitalism is. The ancestors of the lords fought for the king, they deserve privilege. The ancestors of the wealthy elite built a financial empire, they deserve privilege. We are easily manipulated folks.

Bryce Johannes

The neoclassical analysis would have that, in the case of waged labour, there is a contract that permits agency to labour. That is to say, in the neoclassical analysis, the difference is that the capitalist must set labour rates such that labour will wish to work for a given rate - irrespective of the surplus to the capitalist, or else he would find himself with no labour and no profit because labour would not enter into such a contract with him - it would be in the interest of other capitalist to set labour rates more favourably in order to capture the labour market. In the feudal case, labour would have no choice. Therefore under the neoclassical economic view, there are two solutions to this paradox - either, the rates of suprlus/wage in the example are unsustainable and therefore labour would not enter into such a contract, and would, instead, enter into a contract with another capitalist. Or else, if this is indeed the market rate for labour, that is the socially just outcome due to the nature of the market and the costs of factors of production. Such an approach does not refute the Marxist analysis - the Marxist approach would hold that, if these rates are in fact the market outcome, then the structure of the system that has produced such a market is faulty, and identifies the fault in ownership of the means of production.

Anton Troynikov

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