Max has been outstanding in his blog essays on Marx. They are both practical and deeply insightful. My only quibble is his drive-by against the late Michael Harrington. Harrington's first major work on Marx and socialism, entitled "Socialism", and his book a few years later, "The Twilight of Capitalism", both published during the 1970s, explain Max's correct understanding of the labor theory of value. In Harrington's posthumously published book, "Socialism: Past and Future", in 1989, there is only one reference to the labor theory of value. It is at page 36. Harrington wrote:
"A good number of them were artisans. They could become cooperators in part because they had confidence in their own skill and the value of their work. They, like most of the early socialists, believed in some variant of the labor theory of value — that honest work is the source of wealth, and therefore it is the honest worker who should be the recipient of that wealth. This view coincided with their own personal experience. And they were often political radicals who believed in a 'republican' ideology in which no citizen should ever have to bow down to any other citizen. America, which seethed with Utopian experiments during the nineteenth century, had the same tendencies. We know that the Left — republican — wing of the revolution in this country was, more often than not, supported by artisans."
In that passage, Harrington is, in fact, lightly critiquing pre-Marxian socialists for having what he may too kindly have called a "variant" view of "the" labor theory of value. He is not saying he agrees with that "variant." Interesting to me, at least, those artisans were with Lincoln who, in several major speeches just before and then during his presidency, would speak of labor as the source of all wealth, but, when drilling down further, believed both factory owners and workers constituted "labor." And bought into the assumption Max properly derides.
Harrington, from his previous books, knows better--though maybe his chemotherapy cancer treatments got in the way of his clarity in what would be a posthumously published book. What I mean to say is Harrington is certainly not denying the reality of exploitation against the capitalist's usual bromide of an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.
Capital goods -- plant and equipment -- are the product of previous or 'dead' labor. So capital itself in this respect as the fruit of labor is (dead) labor.
Max has been outstanding in his blog essays on Marx. They are both practical and deeply insightful. My only quibble is his drive-by against the late Michael Harrington. Harrington's first major work on Marx and socialism, entitled "Socialism", and his book a few years later, "The Twilight of Capitalism", both published during the 1970s, explain Max's correct understanding of the labor theory of value. In Harrington's posthumously published book, "Socialism: Past and Future", in 1989, there is only one reference to the labor theory of value. It is at page 36. Harrington wrote:
"A good number of them were artisans. They could become cooperators in part because they had confidence in their own skill and the value of their work. They, like most of the early socialists, believed in some variant of the labor theory of value — that honest work is the source of wealth, and therefore it is the honest worker who should be the recipient of that wealth. This view coincided with their own personal experience. And they were often political radicals who believed in a 'republican' ideology in which no citizen should ever have to bow down to any other citizen. America, which seethed with Utopian experiments during the nineteenth century, had the same tendencies. We know that the Left — republican — wing of the revolution in this country was, more often than not, supported by artisans."
In that passage, Harrington is, in fact, lightly critiquing pre-Marxian socialists for having what he may too kindly have called a "variant" view of "the" labor theory of value. He is not saying he agrees with that "variant." Interesting to me, at least, those artisans were with Lincoln who, in several major speeches just before and then during his presidency, would speak of labor as the source of all wealth, but, when drilling down further, believed both factory owners and workers constituted "labor." And bought into the assumption Max properly derides.
Harrington, from his previous books, knows better--though maybe his chemotherapy cancer treatments got in the way of his clarity in what would be a posthumously published book. What I mean to say is Harrington is certainly not denying the reality of exploitation against the capitalist's usual bromide of an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.
Thanks. That's all well-taken. I have banged on Harrington before, and I hope to do it again, on much more extensive grounds. https://sawicky.substack.com/p/harrington-dsa-north-star-and-me?utm_source=publication-search
Thanks, Max, this is a useful approach. Question though: I don't understand what you mean by "dead labor."
Capital goods -- plant and equipment -- are the product of previous or 'dead' labor. So capital itself in this respect as the fruit of labor is (dead) labor.
Very sound platform
Must add since about 1967
I've found
Continuing enlightenment
in the old moors opus
Historical materialism
Inspires the infantry
of the class struggle
Dialectical materialism
The flying saucers