Capital & Class. - 1978. - Issue 6

EDITORIAL

This issue marks the completion of the first two years of Capital and Class, in which time the CSE has grown far beyond its origins as an organisation of academic economists to become a much more diffuse organisation that embraces a wide range of intellectual workers and political activists . The CSE is correspondingly less and less a forum for academic discussion, and more and more an arena within which socialists of all political tendencies and of all theoretical persuasions come together to discuss crucial questions of political strategy in a comradely and non-sectarian way . There is some feeling within the CSE that Capita/and Class lags behind this development, partly because of the long gestation period of material that is published in Capital and Class, and partly because of editorial difficulties involved in reconciling demands for theoretical originality and rigour with those of political immediacy and relevance . This year's annual conference provided clear signs that theoretical work within the CSE is beginning to match the development of the organisation . The conference was attended by almost 500 people, including about 100 from overseas . The conference was notable for a number of features . Firstly, it was a participatory conference . A large proportion of those attending were actively involved, directly or through CSE working and local groups, in preparing material for the 100 working sessions . Secondly, discussion took place in small workshops and was, by and large, comradely and constructive despite the existence of a wide range of different points of view . Thirdly, the form of work developed in CSE local and working groups, bringing together those primarily engaged in intellectual work and those who come to CSE through involvement in particular struggles, is finding fruition in an embryonic fusion of theory and practice in work produced within CSE . This fusion was reflected in many of the papers presented to the conference as links were made between theoretical analysis and political strategy in two directions : by those engaged in particular struggles in various sectors theorising their experience, and by those

engaged in theoretical work drawing out the practical political implications of their analyses . The conference was notable not only as an intellectual and political event, but also as a social event . The relaxed atmosphere provided a basis for the renewal of old friendships and the making of new friends, breaking through geographical, political and institutional barriers . Finally the conference was notable in that for the first time a creche was organised that attracted 24 children of all ages and contributed both to the increased participation of women in the conference and to the comradely spirit of the occasion . In the next year it is to be hoped that the CSE can develop in the directions indicated by this year's conference . We need to develop the organisational framework of CSE activities in the CSE working and local groups, and members are encouraged to use the Newsletter to establish contact with existing groups and to form new ones . We also need to increase the participation of those who are not professional intellectuals in the CSE by further breaking down the barriers between intellectual work and political activity . In this the activity of CSE working and local groups, and the work of the Education Committee is vitally important . We can then hope that next year's conference, the theme of which is "Crisis of World Capitalism and Working Class Strategy : The Transition to Socialism", will develop the positive tendencies discernible in this year's gathering, and that the contents of Capital and C/ass will increasingly reflect these developments . If you are not a member of the CSE and would like to get involved in CSE activity you should join by subscribing to Capital and Class now . Details can be found inside the front page . Membership of the CSE not only gives you Capital and Class, the Newsletter and the right to participate in CSE activities, including the conference, but also gives you privileged access to the CSE Book Club that offers books published by the CSE and by commerical publishers at substantial discounts .

TRADE UNIONISM AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION IN SOUTH AFRICA David Henson

The political and industrial organization of the black working class in South Africa has always been central to the struggle against exploitation and racial oppression . This paper examines the relationship between mass strikes, trade unionism, and revolutionary strategy in the liberation struggle . The 'stay at home' strategy of the 1950s has grown in the period of mass resistance to apartheid into mass strikes and insurrectionary action by workers and students. While black trade unionism is not openly revolutionary, trade unions are essential in defence of black workers, in supporting strike action, and in advancing the demands of the workers .

Following the decade of relative quiet and economic growth based on political repression and a massive inflow of foreign capital, South Africa is now caught in the grip of a crisis of accumulation and political authority . The current rate of growth of the national economy has dropped to the lowest level since the Second World War, black unemployment has been estimated at two million, and the rate of inflation continues to increase . The continuing industrial and political resistance following the mass strikes of 1973 and unprecedented resistance to the apartheid state has profoundly affected the possibility of capital regaining control through reforms . These struggles have raised acutely the position of black workers and the character of the struggle for liberation . Given the long history of working class struggles and the importance of the black proletariat which includes over six million workers, the relationship between class struggle as a whole and the position of organised workers is a crucial issue in the development of working class resistance to apartheid . Capitalism in South Africa is relatively advanced and has brought into being a working class possessing industrial skills and political consciousness . What has been the role of the working class (particularly organized black workers) in the struggle for



2

CAPITAL & CLASS

liberation? Have trade unions of black workers been able to survive the intense repression of the 1960s without becoming compromised and subordinate organisations? What has been the response of organised workers to the mass struggles against apartheid, particularly during the Soweto uprising which followed the shooting down of demonstrators on 16 June 1976? Despite the intensity with which strikes by African workers have been suppresscd, the immense problems in organizing African workers, and the extent to which the state has taken action against trade unionists organizing the mass of unorganized workers in South Africa, there is considerable disagreement about the real value of trade unions of African workers in South Africa . The questions arise at two levels : firstly the relationship between class struggle which is fundamental to all capitalist societies and racial oppression which is developed to an unprecedented degree in South Africa . An analysis which concentrates on racial legislation and race rellations is central to the politics of liberalism which has deeply influenced opposition to apartheid both internally and internationally . The liberal analysis denies the objective existence of classes in South Africa in preference for racial categories and sees political life being centred on the relations between races . An analysis of class relations in South Africa poses a deeper problematic and a different political practice and has been incorporated in the socialist movements which have grown in South Africa and increasingly within the national resistance . Secondly questions arise at the level of the relationship between trade union action and political struggle . Different views prevail about the relative importance of working class organization, and the relationship between working class struggles and the seizure of political power . Studies in this area have questioned trade unionism as the form of organization of the working class and have evaluated the practice of trade unions from the perspective of potential revolutionary action . The black working class in South Africa is brutally exploited and oppressed under conditions which differentiate African workers from other workers and heighten divisions even among African workers (e .g . the distinction between urban and contract African workers) . African workers, and to a lesser degree Indian and Coloured workers, are subjected to racial legislation which defines their position in the labour process, to pass-laws which control mobility, and to service contracts which carry severe penalties for breaking contract with employers . African workers are denied family housing in industrial centres except under the most stringent regulations. Legislation is now being introduced which will make unemployment for African workers a crime, which provides for deportation from the urban centres, and forced labour colonies . All these measures are designed to reproduce a high level of exploitation and a particular form of proletarianization : contract migrant labour . Through a long process of class struggle, African workers have fought against this subordination, utilized the contradictions within capital which require a 'committed' urban labour force, and have won limited and tenuous urban rights . While the urban section of the black proletariat constitutes the vanguard of the working class in South Africa, millions of black workers (both



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

3

men and women) who are denied urban rights and forced to maintain households on minute plots in the Bantustans should not be considered 'peasant-workers' . It is undoubtedly true that imperialism in Africa has produced the phenomenon of 'oscillating workers' in an attempt to undermine the political impact of proletarianization, but an uncritical description of African workers as 'continually migrating peasant-workers' (Woddis, 1960, p .46) reproduces the idea of an unstable and only partially developed proletariat . As the struggle of the black working class has sharpened in the urban areas the strategy of the ruling class of providing land grants to separate 'nations' is being accelerated as a response to the crisis of employment and as a means of disorganizing working class resistance . The result of the process is that increasing numbers of African workers are being classified as 'foreign' to the centres of accumulation, urban rights are being undermined, and deportations to the rural areas are intensified . The squatters' movement which has grown in the urban centres is fighting desperately against this trend of policy and consciously rejects any connection to the land .

CLASS AND RACE OPPRESSION AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS The disruption of the social cohesion of the African working class is closely related to the internal structuring of the working class as a whole . Industrial legislation, in particular the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1956, coupled with the repressive labour lesiglation applicable to African workers, maintains and extends the division of the South African working class to the extent that apartheid society has been described as having two labour codes : a legalistic formal guarantee of certain industrial 'rights' to White, Coloured, and Indian workers ; and a repressive labour regime for African workers (Hepple, 1971, p .1) . (1) African workers are restricted in upward and geographical mobility by industrial legislation and the oppressive pass laws, the state is firmly opposed to the uncontrolled unionization of African workers, and strikes are prohibited under heavy penalities . All forms of industrial action by African workers are prohibited under the definition of a strike which includes the refusal or failure to continue work or resume work or accept re-employment or to comply with the terms or conditions of employment applicable to African workers . Shop floor activity such as 'go-slows' is prohibited : "The retardation . . . of the progress of work or the obstruction by them of work" by any combination, agreement, or understanding . Mass resignations are also prohibited if "that refusal, failure, retardation, obstruction, breach or termination" is to induce any person to agree to demands for the changing of conditions of employment or to re-employ any person (2) . The dichotomy between the two labour codes should not be extended too rigorously ; strikes (which are similarly defined for non-African workers) are prohibited for all workers unless exacting legal formalities are undertaken although the penalties for African workers are considerably more severe . The dichotomy should, however, be a warning against automatically assuming the unity of all black (African, Coloured, and Indian) workers on the basis of com-



4

CAPITAL & CLASS

mon racial oppression . Industrial legislation which permits the registration of trade unions having White, Coloured, and Indian workers as members and incorporates these unions in the system of collective bargaining makes the simple division between workers on the basis of colonized and colonizers made by Fisher inadequate (1977 :311) . The complex fracturing of the South African working class leads to the general indifference of most registered trade unions to the struggles of African workers because of the positions occupied by their members in the labour process or through fear of losing their legal status and financial position . The relationship between registered and unregistered trade unions organizing African workers can in many ways be compared to that of craft and industrial unions in the United Kingdom : initial opposition or superiority which becomes transformed by organization of new areas of trade unionism into forms of competition to protect bargaining areas . Through their participation in industrial councils (corporate bodies on which organized workers and employers are represented), registered trade unions are able to consolidate the position of their members, negotiate for wages increases, and extend a wide variety of benefits only for members of the registered trade unions . As the bargaining procedures have become routinized, so over the years the state has made relatively fewer official interventions in the racial allocation of labour ; the enforcement of informal job reservation (which increasingly protects Indian and Coloured workers in secondary industry) is negotiated discretely at meetings of industrial councils (3) . The industrial councils represent a highly developed industrial relations system based on the social partnership of registered trade unions and employers and over one million workers of all races are covered in the most strategic industries . Wages in the less significant industries, excluding African miners and agricultural workers who are totally unorganized, are revised periodically by the state Wage Board . To a large extent the expansion of industrial councils in particular helps to explain the declining militancy of White, Coloured and Indian workers . The advanced nature of the industrial relations system in South Africa poses important questions for trade unionism among black workers . These trade unions are totally excluded from deliberations over job classification, wage rates, hours and overtime, benefits, complaints and grievances and yet their members' jobs, wages, and working conditions are determined by this process . The industrial council agreements are highly technical documents: in a recent court case they were described as subordinate domestic legislation and not a contract between union members and employers (4) . All aspects of wages and conditions in key industries are determined by a complex legalistic procedure which is impenetrable by unregistered trade unions . These agreements provide in minute detail controls over employment : for example, maximum hours in industry are limited to 46 per week, child labour is prohibited, workers are given payslips, overtime rates are laid down . This formal superstructure of control over production processes is an attempt to strengthen bourgeois ideology among all workers, to limit competition among capitals, and to reduce even registered trade unions to the level of benefit funds . The complete exclusion of unregistered trade unions raises the question of their rel-



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

5

ative incorporation in collective bargaining procedures and their ability to strengthen bouregois ideology . There is at the moment an active debate taking place within the ruling class in South Africa on the appropriate form of trade unionism for African workers and the question of 'deracializing' labour relations . The issues have come into prominence because of the crisis of accumulation (there has been no real expansion in the gross domestic product over the past two years), the rising demands of black workers, and the demands of the international trade union movement for trade union rights in South Africa . Capital requires a decisive transformation of the labour process with rapid deskilling and job fragmentation to restore a higher rate of return on investment and make South African products more competitive .

POLITICAL STRUGGLE AND WORKING CLASS ACTION The central question to the reforms being planned is the political consciousness of the black working class . The concessions which may be offered (recognition for official African trade unions under state control, an end to job reservation, etc) are predicated on a belief in the underdevelopment of class consciousness among African workers and a determination to suppress class conscious leadership . The potential and significance of black working class action is seen fundamentally differently by revolutionary and bourgeois theorists . It has been argued that black workers are subjected to the most exacting exploitation and oppression by capital in the form of racial legislation . The intensity of exploitation with a penal labour code and widespread forced labour (particularly prison labour) and the form which the legalized oppression takes (racism) has led to the concept of the superexploitation of African workers arising from the `colonial' nature of apartheid society . The superexploitation of African workers is more than simply the fact of a higher rate of exploitation of the working class than that in advanced capitalist countries. "African workers", it is argued, "are exploited both as a class and as a race . . . national consciousness supercedes class consciousness, but serves the same purpose . National antagonism is a form of class antagonism in South Africa " (Braverman,

1974, p .57) .

This statement equates nationalist ideology with socialism as a form of `proletarian nationalism' and makes the development of classconsciousness unproblematic . While the idea that 'nations' may be exploited must always remain problematic in Marxist theory (witness the debate about underdevelopment and unequal exchange), this statement is a definite attempt to link class struggle to the popular consciousness of the oppressed masses in South Africa . Black workers, from this analysis, suffer a two-fold oppression ; economic and national oppression . "The two are so interwoven that the worker has to play a dual role ; he has to fight for his economic rights and simultaneously for his national rights"

(Sechaba,

November 1969,

p .15) . In this context African workers develop, through their struggles, not 'pure' class consciousness but revolutionary nationalism, which arises as



6

CAPITAL & CLASS

the antithesis of national oppression . Class interests from this analysis tend to become reduced to economic interests, and political practice is not based on a working class strategy . The concept of national oppression which implies an absolute control over the lives of African workers by the apartheid state provides a complete fusion of political (national) and economic (class) struggles. Concretely, all forms of social action by black workers are seen as being fundamentally political and potentially revolutionary, and industrial strikes then automatically become political actions . "Because of the setup in South Africa strikes organized by Africans grow from economic struggle into a political struggle immediately the workers withdraw their labour from any particular industry because they are illegal . Also in terms of the pass laws they are immediately open to arrest because they have broken their contracts by withdrawing their labour"

(Sechaba,

November 1969, p .15) . The politics of African working class action is immediately related to the totality of state repression and racial legislation . From the perspective of double exploitation (both as Africans and as workers) and national oppression every strike can be compared to a revolt of the oppressed, outright defiance of the racist state, and virtually an insurrectionary act . "The working class movement, because of the essential peculiarities of the African situation under semi-colonial and capitalist exploitation, can only have one tendency - to develop into a desperate

all-out

struggle, a struggle for complete victory over the forces of

white oppression and exploitation" (Magubane, 1975, p .24) . The possibility of reforms confusing working class action or of trade union practice becoming economistic is immediately negated by the revolutionary potential of African working class action . Bourgeois theorists of industrial relations and social change, to the contrary, present the black working class in South Africa as disorganized and incapable of determined political action . One of the few thorough studies of industrial relations in South Africa concludes that black workers are not fighting militantly for higher wages and better conditions and that South African has "a remarkably low incidence of industrial strife" (Clack, 1963, p .94) . Clack distinguishes between industrial strikes, which he describes as of limited size and short duration, and large-scale work stoppages which are "only incidently strikes, having been political demonstrations against general rather than industrial disabilities" (Clack, 1963, p .101) . As other bourgeois theorists of industrial relations he insists on dividing industrial from political action and avoids any discussion of the nature of exploitation in apartheid society . It has also been argued that strike action is a 'blunt weapon' in the struggle against apartheid, and that industrial action cannot easily be turned into an insurrection . The black working class is presented as incapable of disciplined national collective action : "at present, the black labour force in South Africa is politically too isolated, too heterogeneous in character, too poorly organized and occupationally too unstable ." Strike action, argues Gann (1973, p .154) can always be neutralized by the "great reserve army of migrant labour" from the former British High Commission Territories, the countries along the northern border, and the Bantustans with the country's own borders . Working class action is presented



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

7

as grossly economistic and easily diverted from political resistance. "The Durban strikes of 1973 were representative of the determination of Africans and others to attain increased wages and economic benefits . Although Africans, much as workers elsewhere, are engaged in a continual quest for money, the additional amount desired is not at any time very great . Such demands as those articulated during the course of the Durban strikes (98 per cent for higher wages) were easily manageable and were in fact quickly dealt with in the various industries by the White industrial management" (Petryozak, 1976, p .542) . Bourgeois theorists devalue working class action and present the black proletariat as capable of only sporadic action and presenting demands which can easily be met by employers or effortlessly destroyed by the state . They are determined to remove the revolutionary content from working class action . TRADE UNIONISM AND WORKING CLASS ACTION The political significance of trade unionism among black workers has been questioned from a number of perspectives . The most advanced black trade unions have been described as inherently economistic, and doubt has been thrown on the idea that working class militancy necessarily develops revolutionary consciousness . In an article in the African Communist Davis is critical of all educational institutions and trade union organisations within the country as at best militantly economistic, or at worst operating to displace SACTU (the South African Congress or Trade Unions) as the international representative of the South African working class (Davis, 1976) . At a deeper theoretical level is has been argued within the movement that trade unions as such are not productive of a socialist consciousness and retard the fulfilment of the primary conditions of revolution . As a form of working class organization trade unionism is limited and counter-productive to revolutionary action . Even in the context of a capitalist crisis, trade unionism does not necessarily develop revolutionary consciousness, crucial to which is the pre-existence of the revolutionary party and the relative strength of the hold of bourgeois ideology over the proletariat . Bourgeois ideology, it has been argued, is strengthened by trade unionism and in this way trade unionism retards the development of the party . From another perspective there is scepticism about open working class organization which stems from a view that the apartheid state is allpowerful and that the only form of struggle appropriate to the strength of the state apparatus is armed struggle . Class-conscious workers, it is argued, should abandon the struggle to establish trade unions and acknowledge the primacy of political struggle by leaving the country to get professional military training . The issue of working class rights thus can only be solved through military struggle ; in a national democratic state trade union rights will be granted to workers . This interpretation of the weakness of potential working class organization and action within the country given the massive repression leads to an understanding that the apartheid state will not tolerate any effective challenge to its rule and that any surviving organization of black workers is necessarily suspect. From this



8

CAPITAL & CLASS

point of view the geo-political developments in southern Africa, the liberation of Angola and Mozambique in particular, are creating the bases for military struggle which makes all other forms of struggle irrelevant or even obsolete . In this article the development of the labour movement among black workers will be related to the growing number of strikes, uprisings in the townships and mines, and the general level of activity of the black working class . What were the conditions which have transformed South Africa from a relatively strike-free country to one in which workers are increasing the level of their organizations and increasingly taking industrial and political action? To what extent have trade unions dampened or advanced revolutionary consciousness among black workers? Is any effective black working class organization possible within the present repressive economic and political structure, or are the only alternatives faced by working class organization to be accommodated within these structures or be destroyed? Is it true, as a working party of the Ruskin Students Association have argued, that trade union organization within the country must be practically impotent until the present apartheid system is crushed? (Ruskin Students Association, 1975, p .5) . What has been the relationship between the trade unions and the uprisings after Soweto? More generally, to what extent is class action by black workers political and a challenge to the apartheid state? It will be argued that trade unionism among black workers is not revolutionary by nature, but only in relation to the development of working class struggle, and by creating bases for decisive action by black workers . Operating, as they are forced to do, outside the system of collective bargaining or functioning unionism, trade unions of black workers are forced through their weakness and lack of disciplinary powers to relate to the fundamental questions raised by the working class or be destroyed . Their ability to advance working class consciousness is depenent on their response to the working class movement which is deepened by the growth of an underground revolutionary party . It will be argued that trade unions, as open and legal organizations, are not the vanguard of resistance, for resistance must be spearheaded underground during the intense repression now experienced by the black working class .

WORKING CLASS STRATEGY The key issues in working class strategy in relation to practice in South Africa are those of the growth of mass working class resistance and strike action and the development of underground working class organization . These issues will be developed before moving on to an evaluation of South African experience of working class struggles . Despite their importance as a weapon in the armoury of mass struggle, political strikes have not been considered inherently revolutionary . Despite providing a coherence to working class action the question of the purpose of mass political strike action remains: are they to be the basis for demanding political reforms, for deepening the working class movement, or creating the preconditions for an insurrection?



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

9

In revolutionary theory mass strikes are necessary in creating the preconditions for seizure of power, but the numerous mass political strikes which have taken place in Europe (particularly Italy) and in Latin American countries (until recently) have not necessarily led to conditions for the seizure of power . In part this has been because of the failure of mass political strikes to achieve the disorganization of the state which was anticipated, but in many cases there was no conception of transforming general strike action into insurrection . A strong current of socialist theory has transformed the Marxist theory of revolution into an ideology of integration . German Social Democrats and trade unionists were, for example, hostile to the 'anarchistic' advocacy of general strikes as opposed to the "painstaking day-to-day work of strengthening the organization of the workers" . Party leaders such as Bernstein conceived of the general strike as a means of accomplishing the proletarian revolution . These views of the incorporation of the working class through political strikes were vigorously opposed by Rosa Luxemburg who argued that mass strikes were the "method of motion of the proletarian mass" brought about through revolutionary struggle (Luxemburg, 1925, pp .44, 49) . She argues against parliamentary fixation, the subordination of all political and mass action to parliamentary politics, and in particular against "practical politicians" who couple the mass strike with the issue of universal franchise : "it follows that they can believe two things - first, that the mass strike is of a purely defensive character, and second, that the mass strike is even subordinate to parliamentarism, that is, has been turned into a mere appendage of parliamentarism" (p .20) . Despite evoking the spontaneity of the working class, she does argue for the most responsive interaction between mass strikes and the party which is called upon to take up the political leadership of the strike movement to bring about a revolutionary moment . Basic to Luxemburg's conception of the mass strike is the productive relation between political and economic struggles, even to the extent of turning the more conventional idea of economic strikes being transformed into political strikes upside down : "the purely political demonstration strike plays quite a subordinate role" . Both forms of struggle are necessary to each other : "Each great political mass action, after it has attained its political highest point, breaks up into a mass of economic strikes" Between political and economic demands there is "the most complete reciprocal action ." (p .46-47) . While mass strikes are led by the more conscious workers, the crucial aspect of this form of struggle is the recruitment of the widest possible proletarian layers for the struggle, such as unorganised workers (pp .58, 67) . Through mass strikes there is a definite advance in class consciousness, in the material position of the workers, and even in attaining elementary trade union demands previously denied (pp .36, 59) . Far from being destroyed by participating in the mass upsurge, Luxemburg argues that it is only by seizing the moment to advance industrial and political demands that the trade unions could be transformed from collective bargaining agencies into mass proletarian organisations .



10

CAPITAL & CLASS

The subordination of mass proletarian activity to parliamentary strategy was also firmly opposed by Lenin who was more concerned with transforming the strike movement into a political and revolutionary struggle which faces the task of insurrection and the seizure of power . In this context he theorizes the proletariat producing leadership through organization and action, containing its own reserves of energy in less advanced workers, and having interacting groups of workers within itself . Contrary to Luxemburg he argues that organization is central to mass strikes : the leading workers are the most organized and it is this vanguard which develops the political slogans and the longest fighting strikes . In a crucial article which combines his theory of the working class vanguard with statistical analysis, Strike statistics in Russia (1910), Lenin develops the concept of an active working class putting forward demands and develops strike committees and distinguished between different levels of consciousness in the working class . The advanced workers draw in the 'average' and 'backward' workers and provide the political leadership in the struggle . (CW 16, pp .393-421) . From an analysis of the 1905 revolution he distinguished three phases in revolutionary strike action : • The bold political demands of the vanguard at the inception of mass strikes • Support provided for this leadership by economic strikes • As the vanguard finds its position weakening, support for its political demands comes from 'average' workers who encourage the vanguard to maintain its stand The advanced workers, made up particularly of metal workers, were the best organized in the largest industrial plants and were the first and most persistent in striking for purely political objectives . They had a crucial role in mobilizing the mass of workers to action through advanced slogans and audacious strike demands which spurred on the backward sections into the more modest, and often economic, demands . The wave of largely economic strikes in turn sustained and gave force to the emphatically political strikes of the advanced sections . Each forward move encouraged new, unorganized sections of the proletariat to seize the chance to improve their conditions, and these claims were generalized and radicalized in the demands of advanced workers . The 'average' workers can then make the transition to political demands as outlying areas of the country and unorganized sections of the class are drawn into battle . This theory of revolutionary waves of mass strikes depands on the closest connection between political and economic demands as the most unorganized sections can be aroused only by "the most extraordinary accentuation of the movement" and by economic demands . "The interdependence between the economic and political strike is thus quite obvious : no really broad, no really mass movement is possible without a close connection between the two ; the concrete expression of this connection consists, on the one hand, in the fact that at the beginning of the movement, and when new sections are just entering it, the purely economic strike is the prevalent norm, and on the other, in the fact that the political strike rouses and stirs the



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

11

backward sections, generalises and extends the movement, and raises it to a higher level ." (CW 16, p .414) Lenin argues, in short, that the political demands can only be sustained when backed by economic strikes, and that the movement as a whole can only be developed by drawing in the most unorganised workers through economic demands. It is this constant interaction and transformation of demands and strikes which makes possible the telescoping of evolutionary socio-political development into revolutionary advance . The upsurge of mass strike action may not have been precipitated by the immediate commands of reolutionary organization, but the fact of mass working class action creates the basis for wider organization of the working class . The new leadership, new militant groups, new tactics, which are created at the moment of mass action draw upon the revolutionary experience of previous resistance ; the history and experience of working class struggles which bring forward coherent working class demands . As Lenin has argued, there are degrees of 'spontaneity' and political maturity in the working class . During an upsurge in class action the secret and underground organization of workers takes decisions on the timing of strikes, formulation of demands, and action against informers . (5) It is this activity which creates the bases and reserves both for the legal trade union movement and for the revolutionary party . It is during mass action that the concrete connections are made between organized revoltionaries and this underground : the hundreds of revolutionaries are turned into thousands of leaders of mass proletarian action . This concept of a working class movement relies on a developed network of social relations which form the basis for working class solidarity within the docks, factories, plantations, offices, and other working places . As the working class advances through struggle and develops class aspirations which are first manifest in demands for control over production, capital responds with more refined forms of bourgeois ideology which attempt to win over the organic (unofficial and unelected) leadership of the work groups in production . The organizational strength of the working class depends, therefore, on the links of the revolutionary movement with the organic leadership of workers in production and the overall development of revolutionary ideology . In most capitalist countries these developments lead to an open trade union movement within a socialist movement . In highly repressive states such as South Africa the immense pressure of class and racial oppression has virtually eliminated organized workers as a group during crucial phases of accumulation . While a party constructed on the principles of 'democratic centralism' in the Leninist mould may find it possible to survive under severe repression as a highly integrated, secret group organized on the basis of independent cells linked horizontally to other cells, a trade union is difficult to continue as an effective mass organization . The effectiveness of trade union organization is closely related to the mass movement of workers and to the growth of broad and popular organization . The problems of an 'underground' trade union are immense . Nevertheless they have been conceptualized as illegal trade unions following a section in What is to be done? in



12

CAPITAL & CLASS

which Lenin argues that a small compact, propaganda group could perform the functions of a trade union organization . A small, compact core of the most reliable, experienced and hardened workers, with responsible representatives in the principal districts and connected by all the rules of strict secrecy with the organzation of revolutionaries, can, with the widest support of the masses and without any formal organization, perform all the functions of a trade union organization, and perform them, moreover, in a manner desirable to Social Democracy . (Lenin, 1902, p .459) During the intense repression of working class action in the 1930s this point was taken up in the socialist movement in response to those who argued that illegal trade unions were impossible to organize . The argument centred around the purpose of organizing ; either to win the right to open existence as a trade union, or to develop the level of action by the working class which would make illegal organizations possible . The issues which confronted revolutionaries at the time were whether the illegal trade unions would be reduced to 'narrow sectarian groups' out of touch with the mass of workers or would be able to continue as a means of developing the links between revolutionary organization and the workers . The strategy evolved by the theorists of the illegal unions was that of a secret leadership operating through factory and residential associations directing the mass struggle on the basis of economic and political demands and particularly of the right to organize . The illegal unions were to be founded in the strike committees and associated with party nuclei, they would not have membership cards or subscriptions, and would struggle to be as open and influential as possible (in distinction to the underground party) . There existed two concepts of illegality in trade union organization : functioning openly despite state orders and not submitting to any attempts to close down organization, or accepting that fundamentally new conditions existed and moving on to a consciously underground basis (Wojtkiewicz, 1930 ; Santo, 1930) . Through mass organization and militant action the whole structure of repression would be broken down and the illegal unions emerge into the open from the factories, sustained by a network of factory committees and the full use of ancilliary organizations . The discussion of illegal trade unionism has a direct relevance for trade union organization in South Africa in which the most extreme measures of repression have alternated with a highly legalistic approach to the problems of organization . The question of illegal trade unions is reflected in the concept of the underground in South Africa ; permanent centres of resistance within the country and the articulation of working class demands . In South Africa the mass party (the African National Congress) which organizes African people on a territorial basis advanced its relationship to working class demands through the adoption of the Freedom Charter which calls for the nationalization of monopoly capital, mines, and banks . This relationship has been developed systematically through the adoption by SACTU (South African Congress of Trade



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

13

Unions) of the Freedom Charter and through its participation in the Congress Alliance which organized resistance to apartheid during the phase of legal extra-parliamentary opposition in South Africa . In this sense the movement of national resistance came to relate to organized workers both programatically and organizationally through the trade unions which made up SACTU . By the late 1950s the formulated relationship was that the African National Congress was the 'spear' of the African people while SACTU was the 'shield' . Members of each organization were encouraged to become members of trade unions and the political organizations which made up the Congress Alliance . On its prohibition in 1960 the links between the industrial and political organizations became cemented underground .

TRADE UNIONS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY This history of the working class in South Africa includes the history of continual struggle to expand trade unions among African workers . At no time since 1919 (the year in which the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union was established) has there been a period in which trade unionism has been completely suppressed among African workers . But there have been widely fluctuating cycles of growth, disorganization, repression, and revival related in a complex manner to phases of capital accumulation and the force of state repression . Mass unionism flourished in the 1920s with the expansion of the Industrial and Commercial Union into a political movement . The first major phase of industrial trade unionism came during the Second World War which was marked by a massive upsurge in strike action . Organization and strike action stimulated a prolonged debate within the ruling class over the advisability of recognising or registering trade unions of African workers . The temporizing of the African petty bouregoisie in the Native Representative Council and the debate about incorporation of African workers into collective bargaining were brought to an abrupt halt by the mass strike of African mine workers in 1946 (O'Meara, 1975) . New forms of struggle were evolved which combined working class action and national political campaigns . A study of these developments is crucial to an understanding of the strategy of resistance as it was the formative period in the development of the political program and mass organizations of oppressed people in South Africa . The assimilation of the mass strike into the experience of the black working class arose out of the struggle against the suppression of communism and socialist ideas in South Africa . The Communist Party of South Africa and the African National Congress called a national strike on 1 May 1950 which was 80 per cent successful in the industrial Witwatersrand . Police action resulted in 18 blacks killed, more than 30 wounded and widespread victimization of participants, particularly by municipalities . (Guardian, 4 May 1950) In response the black political movements called workers to repeat the strike on a national basis on 26 June, in remembrance of the dead and wounded . This form of protest was particularly successful in Durban, Cape Town, and Port Elizabeth, (the Witwatersrand was



14

CAPITAL & CLASS

apparently less responsive), and 26 June became an annual occasion for campaigns and political strikes . The inception of mass strikes on a national level raises the obvious questions of the objective of the struggle, the relationship between trade unions and the political party, and the ideology of resistance . The political campaigns and national strikes were aimed at a defence of existing democratic rights and a struggle against new forms of racist legislation . The crucial features of the period were the use of the 'stay-at-home' as a technique of mass resistance, the holding of the Congress of the People which adopted the Freedom Charter, the formation of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), the legal prohibition of the African National Congress (ANC), and the formation of the armed underground . These developments were compressed in the years between 1950 and 1961, a time of increasing repression and resistance culminating in the massacre at Sharpeville and the legal suppression of the African nationalist movements . The idea of a national strike of black people to deal a decisive blow against the white government was not altogether new, and is a syndicalist current running through the ideology of African nationalism (similar in a sense to the Irish 'rising in the night') . In African nationalism the strategy is based on the argument that the African people was the only productive class . Prior to 1950 the idea was used in a rhetorical way by Kadalie, leader of the Industrial and Commerical Workers' Union, as a means of demanding political reforms . In practice Kadalie renounced the strike weapon and ignored the struggle of ICU members in the coal mines, diamond fields, and docks, and his method of posing the problem of articulating the power of the black working class never reached the level of organizing national political strikes . The political strikes of the 1950s were well advanced in the conception of collective resistance, in the slogans which were advanced, and in their organization . The problems of depth of support, the relationship between political and economic demands, the synthesis of struggle in the townships and in the factories, and the isolation of mining and agricultural workers remained as crucial weaknesses . The stay-at-homes were not intended to become prolonged strike action (the Unity Movement from a syndicalist position felt they should be indefinite to be sincere), on the contrary they took a deliberately limited form (in any year never more than three days) so as not to exhaust the political capacity of the workers . In this form the stay-at-homes (in a similar manner to the May Day strikes in Europe) were political demonstration strikes designed to put forward the political demands of black people to the state rather than mass strikes which combined the struggles in the townships with those in the factories and directed workers attention to the centres of political control . In some literature sympathetic to the political resistance they were described as political demonstrations in a manner similar to other campaigns of defiance against unjust laws and against Bantu Education . The perspective of the debate around the combination of political and economic demands, the relation of advanced workers to unorganized workers, political demonstrations to mass strikes, and the transformation



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

15

of mass strikes into revolutionary action provide a basis for an analysis of political strikes in South Africa . Following the political strikes in opposition to the implementation of the Suppression of Communism Act, the African National Congress with other mass organizations advocated a widespread campaign of defiance of unjust laws in 1952 . This call was supported by the trade unions of African workers, and large numbers of workers were involved in political action similar to that organized by blacks in the United States which led to imprisonment . The greatest advance in the ideology of resistance was made at the Congress of the People, the most representative assembly of the South African people, held in 1955 . The political goals of the popular movement were enshrined in the Freedom Charter drawn up at this assembly which called for universal franchise, a division of the land, and the nationalization of monopoly industry, banks, and mines . The South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) formed in the same year adopted the Freedom Charter as its own program . From its inception on 5 March 1955 SACTU recognised that the industrial struggles of workers were "linked inextricably with their struggle for political rights and liberation from all oppressive laws" (Levy, 1961, p .36) . SACTU joined the National Consultative Committee which coordinated the activities of the black political movements in joint campaigns and political strikes . The 'stay-at homes', called by the Congress Alliance in support of the demands of the Freedom Charter and specific campaigns, became the principal form of struggle in the late 1950s . The turn towards mass action by the black working class on the part of the African National Congress occurred because of the rising level of working class action in the factories, but even more dramatically in bus boycotts and resistance to the stricter implementation of the pass laws . The term 'stay-at home' reflects some of the ambiguities of mass action during this period . The focus for action was in the townships rather than the factories, and the form of action carried implications of being less than militant political action . The fact that the political strikes were carried out in support of national political slogans did not immediately link the struggle in the townships and in the factories nor lead to the formation of industrial strike committees to press the demands at the point of production . The problem remained of transforming the political strike action (which, in Luxemburg's langauge, took the form of a demonstration strike) into a mass strike which fused the political and economic not only in slogans but which also focused demands on employers and in the urban political centres . Given the conditions of urban segregation in which black townships are deliberately sited away from the industrial areas and centres of state power, the 'stay-at-homes' tended to direct political attention away from the point of production and the central organs of the state . The success of the stay-at-homes in 1957 on the Witwatersrand, in 1958 nationally, and the massive strikes in 1960 and 1961 were more dependent on the development of an element of popular power in the black townships through street organization, roadblocks, and general control by pickets of the outlets to the industrial areas than on a high degree of industrial organization . The comparative advantages of community organization (usually supported



16

CAPITAL & CLASS

on the streets by the lumpenproletariat) has to be set against the fact that these townships have been precisely designed for external control by the police and army . Through an overwhelming presence, cordons and searches, the state forces can match popular local power and then come to dominate the area through physical presence or gunfire . The other problem of the concept of popular power in townships is that it can degenerate into demands for self-government on the basis of segregated areas (a tendency encouraged by the black petty bourgeoisie) rather than leading to a confrontation with state power . Ironically the most decisive moments of political struggle in the 1950s occurred when black workers marched into the city centres in Cape Town and Durban in 1960 and the state was

forced into making temporary concession on the primary issue of struggle : the pass laws . The police's role was then completely reversed : from forcing black people out to work, to guarding the outlets to stop any marches on the centres of political control . The acceptance of conditions of urban segregation in a strategy of resistance implied by the 'stay-at-home' in these cases became transformed into potentially insurrectionary action : 'March on the city!' Despite these objective problems with the stay-at-home as a form of political strike based in the township, the support given to the strike movement by SACTU through its component unions widened and deepened the support given by workers to the political strikes . While statistics of the stay-at-homes were generally given by area rather than industry, it is significant that industries even only partially organized by SACTU had a significantly higher level of participation . This point confirms the Leninist argument that an organized vanguard is crucial in providing leadership to the less advanced workers . As the SACTU unions were concentrated in light manufacturing and services (e .g . textiles, dry-cleaning, food and canning, etc) support by heavy industry, power, communications, and transport was more problematic . In mining and agriculture insulated from the political centres, support for political strikes was impossible (the difficulties were made even greater by the fact that black workers in these difficult sectors were predominantly housed in compounds under the direct control of their employers and the police and were relatively or absolutely isolated from trade union or political organization) . These considerations demonstrate how difficult it was for mass political action to penetrate key productive sectors and the limits on the stay-at-home as a method of disrupting production and disorganizing the state . An important problem in disrupting communications, railways, and the core of the metal industry has always been the existence of white workers who are prepared to act as strike breakers and emergency workers . The growth of political strikes in the late 1950s was largely due to the

increase in working class action reflected in the '£1 a day' campaign of SACTU which aimed to mobilize the mass of black workers into trade unions . It was this slogan which developed the momentum of the 1957

stay-at-home which was successful on the Witwatersrand and which led to the Workers' Conference in 1958 which called for mass strike action in

support of demands to abolish the pass laws and to secure a living wage . The Conference's call for mass strike action caused a split in the leadership



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

17

of the national movement as it raised the question of the leadership of the mass resistance to apartheid : was it to come from the trade unions and workers in the political movements, or directly from the political party as the supreme authority? As posed by the Africanists ('purified' African nationalists) the question was whether the African national movement could be dictated to by non-Africans (trade unionists and Marxists) . Following a series of discussions in the Congress Alliance it was decided that the stay-at-home should proceed but that it should coincide with the date of the national election and should centre around the slogan 'Nats must go!' (Afrikaner nationalists must be voted out of government) . These rearrangements, plus the hostility of the Africanists and the intense force of police repression, disorganized the strike movement . There were deeper problems in the subordination of proletarian action to parliamentarism (by the mass strike supporting indirectly the white opposition parties), which tended to widen rather than narrow the separation between political and economic demands . Since a significant section of capitalists in manufacturing and commerce supported these opposition parties the division between the struggle against the state and the struggle against employers was widened . A writer sympathetic to the national movement wrote that black workers tended to tell employers they had been 'intimidated' into staying away from work . "It was an easy excuse to give your employer - you passed the buck on to some force greater than yourself" (Drum, Agust 1957, p .21) . Strategems such as these tended to vitiate the political significance of strike action . The 1958 stay-at-home was conceded as a failure after the first day by the organ of the Congress Alliance . (New Age, 17 April 1958) . While it was true that the national strike was not a success, the combination of political and economic demands did bring about important industrial strikes (in both cases with workers housed in compounds) in the Durban docks and in a glass factory (to name two examples quoted in the press), which showed that the political strikes could detonate industrial strikes around the demands of the political movement and provide a base for further political action . The inability to develop a sustained mass character and base for political demands through economic strikes limited both industrial and political struggles to manageable proportions for the state . The stay-at-homes, from the viewpoint of the ruling class, could be controlled through raids and arrests of the political movements and trade unions and by occupying townships on the days of action, and industrial strikes isolated and broken by baton charges and arrests . The apparent contradiction between a high level of political activity by the black working class and the relatively low strike rate in industry was a result of the difficulty in establishing recriprocal integration between mass political campaigns and industrial action . Despite a mass organizational drive by SACTU and the popular slogan of f1 a day, the number of strikers increased only slightly in 1955-60 above the figures for the early 1950s . This slow expansion of strike action in the factories can be explained partly by the accent on political struggles, the low rates of growth in manufacturing industry, the stricter application of pass laws, and by poli-



18

CAPITAL & CLASS

tical and industrial repression . The campaign for higher wages and boycott of buses caused employer associations to phase in wage increases gradually through increasing productivity and thus increase the differentiation among black workers . In the crucial manufacturing sector employment of African workers grew slowly ; only some 5,397 new jobs for African workers became available between 1955-56 and 1959-60 (6) . During this period control over the movement of African workers was drastically increased and extended to women workers . Through the extension of labour bureaux the state intensified pressure on 'redundant' workers within the urban areas and between 1956 and 1963 there were almost half a million deportations from the urban areas . The high level of organizational support provided by SACTU unions to strikers led to a strong repressive policy by the state against work stoppages of all kinds . In describing black trade union organization during this period, Levy writes that strikes resembled "small-scale civil wars" . Strikes by black workers met with "lorry loads of police armed with batons, sten guns and tear-gas bombs, great pick-up vans arrive and all the strikers are arrested" (Levy, 1961, p .39) . All attempts to get higher wages and better conditions, for the smallest advance in factory conditions or reinstatement of unjustly dismissed fellow-workers were immediately met by the full force of the state . While the overwhelming number of strikes took place on the initiative of the workers themselves (many strikes took place in unorganized factories), the resources of the SACTU unions and the Congress Alliance (in some notable struggles in the textile and tobacco industry) were thrown behind the workers . Between 1955 and 1960 when organizational support was provided by SACTU, 421 strikes took place involving 34,854 black workers . Of these strikers 3177 were arrested and charged by the police (many more were arrested and then released), some 11 per cent of the total number of strikers (7) . These official statistics reflect only the surface of repression, employers themselves took decisive action to smash industrial and political strikes . Often these counter-measures were the result of close collaboration between employers, the police, and government departments . Strikes by migrant workers (the most vulnerable section of the African working class) were met with mass dismissals and deportations from the urban areas . Migrant workers on strike, for example, in the stevedoring industry in Durban in 1959 were summarily deported from the urban area . (Hemson, 1976) . Despite the tremendous handicap of intensified suppression of political and industrial organization in 1960 when mass political movements in South Africa were prohibited, the trade unions associated with SACTU put up a determined struggle for survival . Finally the full force of the Suppression of Communism Act ; arrests, detention, and bannings, was used against all working class organization . Between 1960 and 1966 over 160 SACTU office holders were banned from taking part in SACTU or any other trade union activity . (SACTU, 1976a, p .21) Throughout the 1960s the level of strike action undertaken by black workers fell considerably below that of the 1950s undoubtedly because of the intense repression of the time, despite a rapidly expanding economy . While there were few



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

19

major strikes over the decade 1960-1970, strike activity persisted, particularly among migrant workers (especially the Durban stevedoring workers) and in the expanding and low-wage textile industry . The small number of strikers (there were only 1,708 black workers on strike in 1969) led some writers to conclude that strike action was falling irresistably (Gervasi,1970, p .32) . These years were a period of setback for the political resistance, marked by drawn-out political trials and long prison sentences for the leadership . Many working class militants left the country and joined the military wing of the African National Congress, and intense repression drove the SACTU unions underground . These developments were accompanied by a hesitant organizational program by reformist trade unions which met with state opposition and was finally suspended in 1969 . These years were also marked by the state policy of Bantustans : the consolidation of reserves into regional political units on an ethnic basis, designed to divide the African people by offering some advantages to the African petty bourgeoisie and consolidating controls over the African working class . A new phase in resistance to apartheid was marked by the development of black consciousness, an ideology of black awareness and psychological liberation from the categories of racism, and the opening of armed struggles by ANC guerillas in Zimbabwe .

MASS STRIKES While agitation on issues such as poverty wages in 1972 helped to crystallize working class action, the conditions for mass action were ripening in terms of crippling price increases which rapidly lowered the real wages of black workers . These price rises were a reflection both of the growth of inflation among all capitalist countries and the crisis of accumulation in South Africa, marked particularly by the inability of South African manufactured commodities to compete on international markets . The increases were particularly steep in the cost of essential items such as food, clothing, and transport . Calculations of the poverty datum line made over a number of years give an idea of the escalation of price increases affecting black workers . Mean poverty datum line index, Durban, 1958-1973 (8) Mean PDL (R) Index 1971=100 Year 41 .05 60.5 1958 67 .87 100 .0 1971 74 .66 110.0 1972 95 .26 140 .4 1973 The data show that it took 13 years for basic prices to rise 40 per cent up



20

CAPITAL & CLASS

to 1971, but the same rise in basic prices took only two years thereafter . The price rises between 1972-73 (some 30 per cent) were extraordinary in the experience of the black working class . The rising level of working class activity which accompanied these price increases accelerated into a series of mass strikes unparalleled in South African history . It is estimated that some 100,000 African workers were involved in strikes in 1973 which originated in Durban and spread during the year throughout the country . In the Durban industrial areas is concentrated the largest number of African industrial workers in the country, even more than in Johannesburg : 165,000 and 159,000 African factory workers respectively . (9) The industrial workers in Durban tended to be concentrated in larger factories (both in the textile and metal industry) and the strike movement swept rapidly from one industrial area to another . The mass strikes in the Natal province demonstrated the unity of the black working class across the divisions between migrant and urban workers, between different industries, and even between industrial and agricultural workers. Contrary to bourgeois theorists the strike movement provided a direct challenge to employers and the state by demanding a doubling in wages which could only be met by threats of mass dismissal backed by police action . Police were flown in from Pretoria to patrol the townships and industrial areas . The organization and development of the strike movement has to be related to the historic experience of the black working class in the stay-athomes, although as a

sustained

form of proletarian action independent of

explicit centralized organization the strikes indicate a growing maturity of working class consciousness . There appears to have been some debate among the workers whether there should be a boycott of the train services (which raised fares early in the year) or strikes against employers. The widespread rumour of a bus boycott caused the state to intervene massively in the townships to crush any picketers . The mass strikes at the point of production certainly disorganized the state's response and created a gap through which the strike movement could spread . Initially the police were reduced to dashing from the townships to one strike, and then to other strikes in different industrial areas . Surveys of the mass strikes (Douwes Dekker, 1975 and Boulanger, 1974) argue that the strength of the strike action lay in the low-wage, largescale factories characterized by oppressive management, frequent dismissals, and victimization of potential spokesmen . The textile industry (which is highly concentrated in the Durban area in particularly large factories) produced some of the most prolonged struggles of the time, although the metal industry experienced a higher number of strikes (IIE, 1974, p .29) . Striking workers called on neighbouring factories to support their demands, mass pickets gathered outside the factories to stop any scabs . Virtually without exception the strikers refused to put forward representatives, aware that there were massive powers of victimization available to the management and police and wary of the compromised leadership of the employer's favourites . The 'negotiations' took the form of workers shouting demands for between R20-R30 and refusing to elect leaders or return to work . Employers and the police responded by threat-



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

21

ening mass dismissals and prosecution and eventually offering some minor wage increases . The workers then shouted down the offer, but were forced through necessity eventually to return to work . As one factory returned to work, another came out on strike ; for a number of days there were 20,000 workers on strike from a number of industries and services, reaching a peak of 50,000 strikers at a single moment . The momentum of the strike wave was ultimately broken through the growing presence of the police in army uniforms flown in from other centres, and the lack of strike funds . Street demonstrations by workers which threatened to draw all the strikers together, call out non-striking factories, and make the strike general were attacked and dispersed by the police . Despite the relatively small wage increases (between R1 and R2,50 per week) the consciousness of the workers had advanced considerably beyond the relative caution of the period of repression before the strikes . The overwhelming number of strikes had been successful (in the sense that wage increases had been won and strikers not dismissed) because the strikes were able to take on a mass form . In the period from January to the end of March 1973 there had been more than 160 strikes involving 61,410 workers (10) . The mass strikes were an explosion of working class energy ; in these three months more black workers were involved in strike action than in the previous twelve years after Sharpeville . Faced with this unprecendented upsurge and the defiance of apartheid legislation prohibiting strikes and maintaining black workers in subordination, the ruling class was placed in a quandry . Was it possible to make mass arrests of strikers? Would not this inflame the workers to new heights to class activity and deepen the political content of the strikes? Given the mass character of the strike movement the police were reduced to dispersing marches through the centre of Durban and using teargas on strikers in Hammarsdale and Richards Bay . In the face of united mass action the police were reduced to saying : "The police have nothing whatsoever against people demanding higher wages provided they do not break the law", a statement which amounted to a surrender to proletarian action (IIE, 1974, p .20) Black workers were losing the fear of police retaliation in acting illegally . Of the 98,029 black strikers in the whole of 1973 relatively few were prosecuted for striking : 207 or 0 .2 per cent of the total . These figures can be compared to the 822 out of 3,462 workers prosecuted for striking in 1959, 24 per cent of the total . Partly this can be explained by the impotence of the police when faced with mass proletarian action centring on the factories, and by the changes which had taken place in the composition of capital in the 1960s towards more capital intensive industry in which wages formed a smaller component of total costs . A more capital-intensive industry in conditions of reasonable protitability could afford to increase wages and not be as dependent on police repression as labour-intensive industry, for instance, the stevedoring industry . Wages could be raised immediately within certain limits, the total wage bill could be held constant by insisting on higher productivity and firing less productive workers . The strikes brought forward the political as well as the economic demands of the black working class . The level of wages demanded by the



22

CAPITAL & CLASS

workers could only be brought about by a transformation of apartheid society . The discipline and united action of the workers raised a fundamental demand for the right to associate and organize freely . The mass defiance of legal subordination and control showed a complete rejection of the idea of a passive working class accepting employment as a privilege and unsure of its own potential . Within the resistance to apartheid the mass strikes demonstrated the leading position of the black working class in the struggle against apartheid : the "largely illiterate and semi-literate" in the words of a black consciousness writer . The state was well aware of these issues and responded with apparent 'liberalism' to draw African workers more firmly into the state system of labour representation . The Bantu Labour Relations Regulation Act (No 70 of 1973) brought African workers into line with White, Coloured, and Indian workers in respect of the legality of strike action even though the penalties for striking were more severe for African workers . All workers in South Africa are prohibited from striking during the currency of an industrial agreement, when employed in essential services, or in other specified industries . Despite the amended legislation, legal strike action for African workers is only possible after the completion of a highly legalistic procedure involving a series of compulsory delays . (Horner, 1976a, pp.1 7-18) Even granted these procedures, legislation such as the Riotous Assemblies Act and other security legislation also makes strikes by African workers illegal . The other important feature of the revised 'Bantu labour relations system' is the provision for liaison and works committees on a more defined statutory basis . The liaison committee, made up of equal representation by workers and management, is particularly appropriate for the extension of a human relations ideology in industry which has been important throughout capitalist economies for dampening class conflict . The legislative reforms, worked out in close collaboration with employer associations, marked an important anticipation of the changes in management of labour which would be needed in a period of increasing working class action . In the words of the SACTU Secretary General, John Gaetsewe : "The net effect of these new measures . . . is not to strengthen the hand of African workers, but to strengthen the power of government bureaucrats" (Ruskin Students Association, 1975, p.20) .

TRADE UNION ORGANIZATION The mass strikes in Natal, involving a successful defiance of repressive leglislation, created a new mood of confidence in the black working class and an eagerness to build working class organization . The strikes themselves were only possible through the leadership of the underground,which exists as the groupings of workers acting consciously, illegally and secretly to carry forward working class struggles . While the mass strikes were undoubtedly spontaneous, in the sense of not being planned from a political centre, they were not unorganized, although this organization was not open or unified in an overall strategy . The strikes were not merely a series of heightened social interactions nor a result of communication be-



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

23

tween social groupings in bus queues, but collective action by workers guided by working class leadership . While underground working class organization and strikes without trade unions may be difficult for industrial relations specialists to understand these are real phenomena in working class struggles in South Africa . Decisions on strike action are actually taken among workers, and leadership comes into being through groupings in production . The fact that workers refuse to elect representatives during strikes is not so much an indication of a 'leaderless' situation, as an astute assessment of the power of the employers and the state to smash the hard struggle to build organization and leaders . One of the most illuminating examples of the underground is provided by the action of the Durban dock workers in demanding increased wages in 1972 ; an anonymous but well drafted letter laid out the workers' de-

mands to the Wage Board . In other instances the demands of the workers have been set out and put on a noticeboard with the time limit for management to respond, 'round robins' and petitions have been organized, and secret strike committees have been set up . This level of organization comes out into the open only when strikes are reported or in the trials of workers accused of striking, but point to the existence of growing underground activity by workers not only at the point of production but also in the townships . Independent trade unionism in South Africa among black workers is only possible with the support of the workers' underground for the union officials and, in turn, the unions' ability to protect and extend the organization of the underground . The success of independent trade unionism is thus dependent upon the support of the organic leadership in the factories. Black trade unions differ significantly in their attitudes to works committees, the state, responses to strike action, registered trade unions, and Bantustan governments . All of them do, however, have to struggle for existence within the context of the state 'Bantu Labour relations system' which is designed to frustrate industrial organization of black workers and undermine their trade unions ; in the words of the Minister of Labour in

1953, to "bleed the unions to death" . This policy was not modified after the mass strikes in Natal, despite some division among employers on the appropriate response to working class organization . The Minister of Labour, Marais Viljoen rejected any form of accommodation with black trade unions, despite the demands of black workers, early in

1973 : "I

wish to state quite unequivocally that the government will not consider the recognition of Bantu trade unions or their organisation or affiliation in a way which is tantamount to recognition . (11) The Minister hoped by forcing the incorporation of workers' representatives into the committee system and through repression to make the unions irrelevant . Despite this official hostility, the banning of trade union officials, and the suppression of strikes, trade unions among black workers have developed as a result of the growth in working class action . Following a strike of transport workers in Johannesburg a transport union was formed in 1972 . In the buoyant atmosphere of post-strike Natal, the membership

of the General Factory Workers' Benefit Fund (a proto-union) expanded



24

CAPITAL & CLASS

rapidly and on 28 April 1973 the first trade union of black workers in Natal was formed in Pietermaritzburg by metal workers . Trade unions of clothing, textile, chemical, furniture, and transport and general workers followed . In comparison with this rapid growth there was reportedly relatively slow advance made by unions associated with the Urban Training Project (an educational labour group), which concentrated on the development of the state system of works committees . At a comparatively early stage of development of trade unionism among black workers in the aftermath of mass strike action, certain clear tendencies between the various groups became evident and then more pronounced . It is possible to distinguish between the following tendencies in the open trade union movement : 1 . The 'non-aligned' Urban Training Project tendency which includes the Engineering and Allied Workers Union, Laundry and Dry Cleaning Union, Transport and Allied Workers Union, African Chemical Workers Union, and other unions which have developed subsequently . From their inception these unions have been characterised by an explicitly 'nonpolitical' stance and have sought accommodation within the works committee system which is considered a useful basis for black trade unions . 2. The 'subordinate' union tendency of Johannesburg black trade unions including the well publicized National Union of Clothing Workers, but also tobacco, leather, commercial, and banking workers . These unions have been established under the direction of the registered trade unions in these industries and their continued existence is totally dependent on support from the parent union . 3 . The 'mobilizing' Trade Union Advisory and Coordinating Council (TUACC) including the Natal unions mentioned and later a section of workers in the Transvaal province organised in the Industrial Aid Society . TUACC was initially developed in cooperation with the KwaZulu Government when Barney Dladla, the Minister of Community Affairs, gave support to the strike movement . After vigorous protest from employers in Natal, Dladla was removed from this post, and the connection with the trade union movement is now non-existent . 4. The 'nationalistic' Black and Allied Workers Union which is the workers' arm of the Black Peoples' Convention (now legally prohibited) and expresses black consciousness ideology and an ambiguous attitude towards capital . These various groupings are not only distinguished by strategy and policy but also by geography ; the non-aligned, subordinate, and nationalisitic tendences are based in Johannesburg and the TUACC unions are the only ones of significance in Natal . These tendences within open trade unions are supplemented by the Western Province Workers Advice Bureau in Cape Town which favours the formation of works committees as possibly democratic forms of worker representation and is critical of industrial unionism among black workers . Workers associated with SACTU are also regrouping underground to discuss and develop SACTU policy and draw in politically conscious workers to train them in the ideas and work of the workers' movement . SACTU supports independent trade unions "in as far as they advance the workers' struggle ." Part of the work of the under-



25

TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

ground groupings of SACTU is "to guide and influence, firmly but carefully, the work of the open trade unions, etc, to which the workers belong, so that the errors of the union leaders and officials may be corrected by the rank and file, and the organizations kept on the right course and strengthened ." (Workers' Unity, 5, September 1977, p .6) The links which exist between SACTU and open trade unions are not formal, given the massive repression surrounding the political organization of workers, but are decided underground . Without specifying the membership of each trade union (by 31 August 1975 there were 24), it is useful to classify the tendencies according to membership : Membership 1975 Number of Unions Non-aligned Urban Training Project and unaffiliated unions 12,000 10 with similar policies Subordinate National Union of Clothing Workers and similar parallel unions many affiliated to TUCSA Mobilizing TUACC and IAS, Johannesburg unions Nationalistic Black and Allied Workers Union

29,120

8

15,620

5

2,700

1

Given the fierce recession of the economy and intensified repression, these figures reflect more or less the position in 1978 although the Black and Allied Workers Union has been destroyed by banning or detaining officials . According to figures tabulated by the South African Institute of Race Relations there were 59,550 members of black trade unions in 1975, the large majority of the subordinate unions being made up of the National Union of Clothing Workers membership of 23,000 workers . Trade union membership now compares with the situation in 1961 when there were approximately 52,800 members, an indication of the resilience of the black working class (Hemson, 1973, Annexure B) . This development has not been homogenous as the differentiation of trade unions implies and it is appropriate to discuss the different strategies and policies behind the membership figures rather than the development of each union . An evaluation of trade unionism among black workers necessarily involves a discussion of their practice in the face of repression and a growing working class movement . Since the mass strikes in 1973 there have been many protracted strikes over union recognition and a number of serious strikes which have involved black workers in confrontation with



26

CAPITAL & CLASS

the state . The mass strikes of 1976 and 1977 in protest against the shooting of students and workers in Soweto and in support of demands for the release of all political prisoners have posed the question of the relation of trade unionism to mass political resistance .

RESPONSES TO STATE POLICIES Black trade unions have had a varied response to the reforms introduced by the 1973 legislation which provided for a more developed system of plant committees . Some favoured a 'stages of development of trade unionism' approach whereby works committees would be used as `stepping stones' towards industrial organization, and others denounced the system as a threat to their existence. Differences between the 'nonaligned' and 'mobilizing' trade unions rapidly became evident in response to the growing number of works and liaison committees stimulated by state officials and employers . The Urban Training Project until mid-1973 concentrated its activity almost exclusively on the development of works committees, to the legal defence of works committee representatives, and to the publication of workers' calenders calling on workers to form works committees . With the upsurge in working class action, particularly in Natal, the Project modified its policy to encourage the growth of black trade unions from established works committees . This 'stages in the growth of trade unionism' approach found its most complete expression in Douwes Dekker's writings (particularly Douwes Dekker, 1973) . In this pamphlet he suggests a combination of works committees (whose constitutions could be modified to include recognition of a trade union) and trade unions of black workers, a view which even the subordinate National Union of Clothing Workers found unsatisfactory . The strategy which he offered encourages a particularly limited form of trade unionism which blends in with, rather than challenging, the state apparatus . The strategy possibly found its most complete expression in the Engineering and Allied Workers Union which claimed that black trade unionism had become a part of the works committee system in the Transvaal engineering industry and had been used to create a working relationship between management and the unregistered trade union . "Without a union these works committees will never work", the Secretary, Jane Hlongwane said at a meeting of the Progressive Party (12) . In this way, by educating workers to use works committees and absorbing them into unregistered trade unions, the organizers disturb neither management prerogatives nor state policy . The workers' dependence on substitutes for independent trade unionism is strengthened . A more radical approach is advocated by two differing tendencies : the Western Province Workers Advice Bureau and the mobilizing unions . The former urged the formation of works committees because of the potential security the legislation provided for workers' leaders and as a basis for fundamental workers' education . The formation of trade unions was rejected as it was felt that industrial trade unions tended to reinforce



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

27

existing divisions among workers, that they were inappropriate for the mass of black labourers in Cape Town, and that they were institutions that tended towards bureaucracy . The mobilising unions, in contrast, decided in October 1973 that works committees of all types were part of the apartheid labour system and should be opposed as such . The workers' representatives on works committees, it was argued, tended to become cut off from the workers and to oppose trade union organization, which threatened their interests . The dependence of other tendencies and unions on the anti-victimization clause in the Bantu Labour Relations Regulation Act was seen as misplaced ; protection of union members depended basically on the unity of the workers backed by the Wage Act which protects union members organizing in factories whether they belong to registered or unregistered unions (although the possibility of enforcement was considered remote) . The mobilizing unions which grew in the wake of the mass strikes in Natal have considerably more experience of strike action than other groupings . Many union organizers are former shop stewards who have been victimized for union activities and for being at the centre of informal leadership in factories which had been decisive in strike action . Organizers such as these are particularly alive to the political nature of the struggle for mass organization and said so . After the house arrest of four leading trade unionists in Natal a shop steward of the Metal and Allied Workers Union said that action by the state "symbolizes our strength and shows we are becoming stronger and stronger" . An organizer of the textile workers showed his contempt for state authority and his belief in the future power of the workers : "Even though they (the Security Police) are standing there at the gate we are not scared of them because they will have to come to us and beg . . . if this government is trying to cow us I warn them : we will drive them into the sea!" (13) Given this level of consciousness and conception of organization it is wrong to assume that union organizers have had nothing to do with strike action by their members or even by unorganized workers . According to a recent review of trade unionism in South Africa the mobilizing unions "found themselves forced into the position of playing a subsidiary role to the spontaneous action of the members themselves ." It is further argued that at factory after factory it was the workers themselves who took the decision to strike and only contacted the union afterwards (Davis, 1976, p .97) This is a serious criticism of the mobilizing unions and (with the other criticisms which are made) is an attempt to deny these unions any credibility . These criticisms are partly valid in the early phase of trade union organization in Natal during the mass strikes, when the benefit fund attempted to function as a trade union . Even here, however the textile union was well aware of the growing resistance of the workers and had submitted a lengthy statement of their demands to management shortly before the strikes in the textile industry broke out (IIE, 1974, p .30) . Any lags which subsequently occurred between strike action and union response have to be understood in terms of the perspective of strikes as a universal phenomenon in capitalism . In discussing these allegations the following points have to be made :



28

CAPITAL & CLASS

1 . That spontaneous strikes are the most authentic means of struggle under the violent suppression of working class action ; black workers prefer strikes to appear and actually be spontaneous to avoid reprisals to themselves, the factory leadership, and the trade union ; and 2 . That 'spontaneous' strikes (i .e . those directly organized by the shop floor) are the norm in advanced capitalist countries . In the vast majority of cases in the United Kingdom trade unions are not aware they have taken place . Spontaneous strikes are an indication of the workers' strength and are an immediate challenge to management ; waiting on union officials to declare strikes 'official' before coming out on strike would certainly weaken the working class movement in the United Kingdom (14) .

These important considerations apart, it is ridiculous to deny that the mobilizing unions have either been instrumental in organizing strikes or have given their fullest support to strikes whether they have been strikes of union members or not . The unions have paid a heavy price for the high level of support which has been given to the strike movement . Between 1 January and the end of August 1974 these unions supported strike action by some 12,520 workers in a variety of industries . These strikes ranged from the large-scale strike in the cotton textile industry in Pinetown involving 8,000 black workers in January to the 300 black workers who struck work at Hypack in July . In these and subsequent disputes in factories such as Heinemann, where workers demanded recognition of the Metal and Allied Workers Union in 1975 and were repressed with a baton charge, the charge that the mobilising unions were reduced to processing industrial complaints (Daivs, 1976, p .97) is shown to be completely fallacious . Union organization in these struggles was significant in raising the issues from the immediate concern over wages and conditions to demands for the destruction of all state committees within the factories which hindered union development . The unions were crucial in regrouping the strikers after they had been terrorized and dispersed by police dogs and armed police in the cotton strike in J anuary 1974 and eventually a qualified victory in the form of higher wages was achieved . Following this strike, the four trade unionists involved in varying degrees in the organization of textile workers were house arrested (15) . In the subsequent strikes the unions were well aware of the issues leading up to the strike action, provided what support was possible before and during the strike, and legal defence for those strikers who were prosecuted . A high proportion of those accused of striking illegally have been successfully defended by lawyers paid by the mobilizing unions . The question of whether trade unions should lead the workers into strike action (which is implied by 'left' criticism) is a matter of serious debate ; it would certainly be adventurist for open organizations to call strikes during a time of fierce repression and mass unemployment. The union organizers of the mobilziing unions have not seen it their role to try to initiate strike action from 'the office' (many strikes are lost with severe repercussions for the workers) ; this has to be decided upon by the workers themselves in consultation with the union officials . The strategy, timing, and organization of the strike obviously has to take place underground to protect the actual leadership . While the strikes



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

29

which have been supported and led by the mobilizing unions are not expressly political, in all cases they have either challenged the prevailing state wage control system, the 'Bantu labour relations institutions', or involved a demand for the recognition of independent trade unions or black workers . They have all involved a defiance of the security legislation (which defines strike . action as a threat to the security of the state) and the Bantu labour relations system which provides for complicated procedures for legal strike action . Despite a higher level of repression of strike action in a climate of economic crisis accompanied by a decline in production and persistent inflation, the number of black workers on strike remains high in comparison to the 1960s . In 1974, the year in which the most rapid expansion of black trade union membership took place, there were even more strikes than in 1973 although the number of workers involved declined to 58,975 . In contrast to the mass strikes of 1973, which were overwhelmingly successful in achieving higher wages, the industrial and factory strikes which have followed, given the changed economic and political conditions, have less chance of success . The strength of the working class movement is shown by the fact that industrial strike action persists despite the greater chance of failure and retaliation, and that political strikes have carried the movement into direct challenge to the state . The increasing political activity of the black working class has been accompanied by an emphasis in industrial strike action on demands relating to working conditions and union recognition . Despite a decline in industrial action by the black working class considered as a whole, the level of strike action by union members has remained at a high level . Unorganized workers on strike have increasingly sought support and protection from the mobilizing unions as defenders of the black working class.

MASS RESISTANCE AND TRADE UNIONISM The discussion of the organization of the black working class has, up to the present, centred on the black workers in industry and in certain key industries in particular : garment, textile, and metal . The crucial mining sector in South Africa (gold, coal, and base minerals) is sealed off both geographically, as the mines are usually situated outside the urban centres, and physically, in compounds which are segregated from the wider currents of the working class movement . The overwhelming majority of the workers, until recently, have been foreign, recruited from the 'hostage' dependent territories surrounding South Africa . Despite the factors of migrant contract labour, brutal discipline underground and control off shift, and a sophisticated system of exploitation, the mines have been wracked by some of the most explosive confrontations between workers and capital . In a series of strikes and uprisings, workers have demanded higher wages, an end to the compound system, and in many cases immediate repatriation . It is estimated that from the beginning of the mine uprisings (at Western Deep Levels on 11 Septebmer 1973) up to September 1975 some 50,000 black workers broke contract with the mining companies, a 'crime' in terms of the penal labour code .



30

CAPITAL & CLASS

Although the policy of the mining companies and the apartheid state has been to seal off black mine workers from communication with the wider social and political movements in South Africa, the growing strength of the mine workers' action predated to a considerable extent the development of mass resistance to apartheid in the black townships . The character of the uprisings, many of which have involved a direct attack on the offices of management, destruction of documents, and combat with the police, has demonstrated the capacity of the black working class for insurrectionary action . The workers' resistance has been met with violent retaliation : between 1972 and June 1976 it was estimated that 178 workers had been killed and 1,043 injured (Horner and Kooy, 1976) . Because of the developed system of ethnic groupings in compounds some of this resistance to capital was diverted from attacks on the whole system of control and exploitation into conflict between different nationalities and ethnic groups . Despite this factor, a committee appointed to investigate mine uprisings concluded that the workers are well aware of how vulnerable the mining industry is to strike action and are strongly attracted to socialist ideology (Report of Inter-Departmental Committee,n .d .) Growing working class resistance on the mines and the violent suppression which was the response of mining capital and the state had an important effect on trade union struggles in industry . These changes can be related to the crisis of accumulation in South Africa characterized by massive unemployment among blacks which was estimated at 2 million by Simkins (June 1976), declining demand, a negative real growth in gross domestic product, and increased inflation . In this economic and political crisis, the pressures on black workers and their trade unions have intensified sufficiently to cast doubt on the view that independent trade unionism was the object of official 'repressive tolerance' . A much tougher official attitude has been taken to strike action, most strikes have been unsuccessful, and at the same time the unions and their members have been raising important structural questions : those of management of the factory floor, unqualified union recognition, and challenges to redundancies . Union support for strike action has deepened, and the strikes have become more protracted despite the discipline of mass unemployment and harsher repression . Far from the union of black workers becoming more detached from the spontaneous working class movement, the most recent period has seen bitter struggles for trade union recognition . Workers who struck at Natal Cotton and Woolen Mills in Durban in support of their demands for the removal of the personnel manager (who is closely connected to the secret police) were all dismissed after a strike lasting 12 days . The strike was led by union members in the factory, had the full support of the union officials, and could only be sustained by this organizational backing. During this strike some 7,200 striker-days were recorded, a figure almost 40 per cent of the total striker-days in 1975 . In the Transvaal workers at Heinemann Electric who signed a petition stating : "We want the union (Metal and Allied Workers Union) to represent us and not a works or liaison committee" were baton-charged on 29 March 1976 and many injured . This onslaught on the militant black working class organized



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

31

in the metal union made a tremendous impact on working class consciousness and was described as a 'mini-Sharpeville' . The workers who reapplied for employment after the mass dismissal were forced to fill in a questionnaire stating whether they were union members and whether they accepted a liaison committee . Union organizers who were injured in the baton charge were found guilty of inciting the strike . In his judgement the magistrate said that organizing an unregistered trade union was inherently a political act given the existence of the Bantu labour relations system . These struggles were hardly an indication of the mobilizing unions reaching the dead end of the road to economism (16) . Even the non-aligned trade unions of black workers in the Transvaal have found their struggles within the law for trade union recognition and against redundancy raising decisive issues of struggle . Despite the painstaking legality of organized strike action against Pilkington's Armourplate Safety Glass in the Transvaal which started on 6 September 1976, all negotiations with the union were refused by management and police action was taken against picketers . Pilkington management called in the police to deal with the strikers, and arbitration through the Department of Labour was turned down (17) . Pickets were organized which called on replacements to join the struggle, and the strike demonstrated a cautious but determined resolve to combat management prerogatives and the police . Workers on the Rand raised funds to pay out strike pay, and the strike turned into the most prolonged strike by black workers for a long time ; the 205 workers held out for an almost unprecendented 10 weeks, causing some 11,070 striker-days lost time to the company . This increased combativeness among organized workers has to be seen in the context of the growing political resistance to apartheid throughout South Africa which has been brought into motion through mass working class struggles and is now taking the form of protracted resistance and armed action by the underground . The use of the stay-at-home weapon has increased beyond all previous experience ; there were three massive general strikes before the end of 1976 - the first involving an estimated 100,000 black workers, the second 132,000, and in September some 500,000 African and Coloured workers in Johannesburg and Cape Town (18) . This tremendous outburst of activity by the black working class raises the whole question of the relationship between wage demands, `structural' demands (such as the abolition of liaison committees and trade union recognition), and mass political action . It also raises the question of the relationship between organized workers, their trade unions and mass struggle . There is undoubtedly a connection between the increased combativity of organized black workers, violent resistance on the mines, and the unprecedented support given to the massive stay-at-homes, themselves more prolonged than in previous South African experience (the stay-athomes in August and September lasted three days, many of those in the 1950s were for shorter periods) . There is definite evidence that organized workers gave greater support to the stay-at-homes than other workers . (Organized workers obviously are not limited to those in trade union membership, factory and residential groups may also be developed under-



32

CAPITAL & CLASS

ground by politically advanced workers . It is very difficult to assess the effect of the latter groups, and the question here is of the position of trade unions as open and public organizations in relation to mass political action) . Despite appeals from trade union leaders in the garment industry to their members not to damage the industry by withdrawing their labour, for instance, workers in this industry are specifically mentioned as bringing the industry to a halt in the August stay-at-home . The garment industry in the Cape, in which the workers are represented by a reformist registered trade union, also took the lead in the September stay-at-home (19) . Since the garment industry in the Transvaal has almost 100 per cent membership of African workers in the subordinate National Union of Clothing Workers, the full support given to the stay-at-home can only be explained in terms of the independent activity of the 300 African (mainly women) shop stewards . African women, who are most vulnerable to racial legislation and are also subject to discriminatory legislation which classifies them as perpetual wards, have an advanced political consciousness . The same argument about the independent movement of shop floor leadership applies to the registered trade union in the Cape garment industry which represents virtually all Coloured workers (again predominantly women) . This point raises the issue of the effectiveness of reformist control over organized workers during periods of mass working class activity . Research would probably reveal that class conscious workers in black trade unions took a leading role in getting decision by factories to join the stay-at-homes.

CONCLUSIONS While liberal social science has argued that strikes in South Africa are a 'blunt weapon' in the struggle against apartheid, the evidence has shown that mass strikes have at times paralysed state repression and have shown the potential of developing into insurrections . These strikes are not the complete expression of resistance to apartheid (the problem of developing mass struggles together with armed struggle has been faced by the underground since 1961) but no decisive challenge to the state is possible without this proletarian form of action to disorganize production and the state . Industrial and political strikes have taken place despite the massive industrial reserve army marshalled by the recruiting agencies and the labour bureaux, testifying to the relative development of the black working class and the growing coherence of the political and economic aspirations of black workers . The mining industry which has been based on foreign contract labour (and workers' resistance is weakened by the mass of unemployed workers in 'hostage' territories) has experienced the most determined and violent resistance in strikes and uprisings . Despite the disorganizing effects of contract labour and the imposed Bantustans, migrant workers have in many cases taken a leading role (in the 1973 mass strikes) or joined in the political resistance (despite points of disjuncture caused by state intervention) . The strikes and uprisings of migrant workers on the mines



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

33

indicate that not even the most severe restrictions on movement and work, as in the case of contract workers housed in compawnds, can restrain the development of class demands . With the growth of thonopoly capitalism and the concentration of production in large-scale, highly mechanized, factories and 'industrial mines', basic production is carried out by a massified black proletariat neither differentiated by traditional skills nor having experienced the benefits of reform . These are the conditions for a rapid advance in class consciousness as the political resistance to apartheid gains momentum . The independent trade unions have arisen from these conditions of struggle although they by no means reflect the totality of working class resistance, for example, struggles in mining . But these unions have defended and advanced the position of workers involved in crucial struggles which are an essential component of the overall working class movement . Independent trade unions have deepened the struggles of the black working class by raising working class issues and 'structural' demands (such as the struggle for union recognition, against shop steward victimization, in defence of strikers, and for the permanent organization of workers) . Through organization within trade unions, black workers have exposed the role of foreign capital in South Africa (particularly in the fight for union recognition at Leyland, in Glacier Bearing, and in the textile company of Smith and Nephew ; in strike action at Pilkingtons, and in the strike for the reinstatement of victimized shop stewards at US-owned Heinemann Electric) . Foreign capital, which claims a liberalizing function in South Africa, is shown to rely on state and managerial repression to secure high profits in South Africa . These struggles have opened up new areas for international solidarity with the fight for elementary political and trade union rights in South Africa . By linking workers in a wide variety of factories in industrial unions the independent trade unions are developing an important level of black working class unity ; most notably the distinction between migrant and urban workers which has come to the fore in recent political struggles, has not been reproduced within the trade unions . Independent trade unions are carrying out important defensive functions, basically in defence of the initiative and action of the black working class, through provision of legal defence for their members and other workers . Defence of advanced workers is essential during a time of economic crisis in which workers are more vulnerable to the dictatorship of management and prosecuted more frequently for striking . In 1975 the police intervened in 61 cases of strike action and 503 workers were prosecuted for striking illegally, for 'public violence', 'illegal strike and continuation of strike', 'refusing to obey lawful command of employer', 'malicious injury to property', 'breach of contract', 'arson', 'incitement', and 'intimidation' (20) . Increasing numbers are being defended (in many cases successfully) by independent trade unions . Despite the extent of repression of black trade unions in South Africa, this alone does not make them uniquely centres of working class action in contrast to the reformism of trade unionism in advanced capitalist countries . But this is not to argue that independent trade unionism



34

CAPITAL & CLASS

does not raise important political questions from a working class viewpoint which are missing from a nationalistic perception of struggle against racial oppression . Within the country the demands of the SACTU underground express a developed program of trade union demands, linked to the overall demands contained within the Freedom Charter (which include fundamental working class aspirations such as a national health service and the nationalization of monopoly industry, mines and the banks) . The political nature of the open, independent, trade unions is not something that can be determined apart from an examination of their tendencies which are subjected to the most powerful pressures to take a 'non-political' stance . Reformism in black trade unions is not so much a reflection of the personality of the leadership (as it is often presented), as much as a response to massive repression by employers and the state and the international forces pressing on union leadership : such as the material support given by the British TUC to a conception of non-political, 'breadand-butter', trade unionism . It is debatable whether the ideology of trade unionism in the 'unionism only' form is the dominant ideology of union members, much less that of the black working class as a whole . Bourgeois ideology in the working class cannot be generated abstractly, but only materially through trade union recognition, the growth of collective bargaining, substantial increases in wages and decisive mitigation of the oppressive conditions of wage labour under apartheid . Yet it is precisely in these areas that the state finds it difficult to make concessions without enabling the advanced forces within the black working class to seize these opportunities as a platform to demand more fundamental concessions . Against the tendencies towards reformism within independent trade unions has to be set the working class movement whose direction and energy has been so clearly evident both in the 1973 mass strikes and in the political strikes of 1976 and 1977 . These mass movements have generated the support which does exist for independent trade unionism in the factories, have limited the tendency towards reformism, and have provided the bases for a revolutionary party . It is in this context that reformist leadership within the subordinate and non-aligned unions has been disciplined, and in one case a union secretary dismissed, for not carrying out the policies of the membership . Various tendencies within the independent trade union movement are providing a direct challenge to the Bantu labour relations system and are leading struggles against management dominated factory councils and for trade union recognition . There are now more than half a million black workers covered by these official factory systems which are designed to eliminate the demand for independent trade unionism among black workers . As management in South Africa, particularly management of multinationals, is using the works and liaison committee system to isolate black workers from wider industrial and political movements (Legassick and Hemson, 1976), the struggle against the state forms of factory organization becomes ever increasingly important . The inauguration of the Wiehahn commission of enquiry into industrial legislation presages the state's offensive against independent forms of organization and the further subordination of trade unionism among black workers to



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

35

factory councils and registered trade unions . It seems likely that the Commission will recommend that the activity of independent trade unions be highy restricted or eliminated altogether and something approximating to an official company union be recognized as a collective bargaining unit at each factory . For the independent trade unions to survive and grow under a more sophisticated form of repression, they have to be broad organizations able to unify advanced organized workers and the mass of unorganized workers by taking up economic demands and relating them to the system of oppression in South Africa . Lenin argued that trade unions should be organized by industry, that they should be broad organizations, as open as possible to be able to mobilize workers effectively . The aim of the unions is directly connected to their mass character : their object would be unattainable if they failed to unite all who understand the necessity of struggling against employers and the state . It is for this reason that Lenin argued that communists should support non-party unions, and distinguish the party from the trade union even in conditions of extreme repression . By arguing that the most advanced black trade unions are militantly economistic, Davis falls into the trap of failing to distinguish between open and underground organization, and fails to acknowledge the tactics adopted by black militants in working class struggles . He fails to recognise the distinction between the organization of workers and the organization of revolutionaries, between the necessarily all-embracing and open trade unions taking the issues as far as possible within the context of suppression of working class action, and the underground revolutionary party which has to be as compact and secret as possible, taking up each and every issue in the struggle against apartheid . It is the revolutionary party which can make the linkage between the particular forms of oppression in trade union struggles and all forms of struggle against apartheid, and the demand for a socialist society to end all forms of oppression . While the task of the open trade union is to advance the most general demands of the workers as far as it is able without destroying the bases for its existence and by defending all the actions of union members and other workers, the task of the underground party is to transform the "trade union strike movement into a political and direct revolutionary struggle of the masses" (Lenin, CW 13, p .61) . By attacking every trade union tendency within the country as politically underdeveloped, Davis is discrediting all open forms of working class organization which black workers have struggled to develop since 1972, including those with which SACTU workers have been associated . His arguments tend towards a rejection of work in existing trade unions but fail to develop any alternative conception of revolutionary work within working class organization . By attempting to distance himself from trade union struggles without showing how the work of underground organization could otherwise be developed Davis misunderstands the importance of trade union organization to the black working class . Lenin describes trade unions as a "tremendous step forward for the working class" and argues that the proletariat cannot develop without trade union organization (CW 39, pp .SO-51) . The work of the trade unions



36

CAPITAL & CLASS

is to educate and give all-round development and training to workers, and when workers are becoming organized Lenin argues it is fundamentally incorrect "even criminal" to be "critical" and disparaging . "The task devolving on Communists is to convince the backward elements, to work among them, and not to fence themselves off from them with artificial and childishly `Left' slogans" (CW 39, p .54) . When revolutionaries are forced through repression not to declare their intentions openly, work in open and legal (even "downright reactionary") organizations is absolutely necessary . "Inexperienced revolutionaries often think that legal methods of struggle are opportunist because, in this field, the bourgeoisie has most frequently deceived and duped the workers . . . while illegal methods of struggle are revolutionary" (CW 39, pp .96-97) . The task of revolutionaries is not to adopt one form of struggle and to reject the other, but to combine illegal forms of struggle with every form of legal struggle . It is insufficient to build a satisfactory critique of trade unions of black workers without posing the real problems of working class organization : the support for working class struggles, development of underground trade union organization, and defence of the advances which have been made . While the trade unions are not the vanguard organizations of the resistance to apartheid (from which they are excluded by their vulnerability as open organizations) because of this they are in no way an impediment to the growth of a revolutionary party . Both the party and the trade union are integral to the development of a revolutionary working class movement . The question of the relation between the trade unions and the revolutionary party cannot be reduced to mechanistic and inappropriate formulae such as the trade union being a transmission belt to the party, an auxiliary body linking the party to the class . (Stalin, 1940, p .78) The party has to be based immediately and vitally within the working class through the development of revolutionary theory and practice . The tactical questions of the organizational links between a revolutionary party grounded in the black working class and the open trade unions can only be decided underground where the relative significance of open organization in the trade unions (which Lenin endorsed) can be assessed in terms of the necessity for determined illegal political struggle by the black working class . The danger is that the very intensity of repression dissolves all necessary distinctions between the organization of workers and the organization of revolutionaries, leading both to ineffective mass organization, careless underground work, and the subordination of essential industrial organization relating mass working class action to other political work . The struggle to seize state power through armed struggle does not relegate the concrete struggles of the working class to insignificance . Lenin argued that the party should assist workers in giving precise and definite expression to demands, in promoting the organization of workers, and in explaining the real aims of the struggle . (CW 2, pp .1 14-116) This work is doubly important when the overwhelming mass of the black proletariat, particularly on mines and in plantations, is unorganized . The conscious and devoted participation of the party in the daily struggles and disputes of the exploited against the exploiters, was seen by the Third Congress of the Comintern in the theses on the method of work of communist parties,



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

37

as a prerequisite for the seizure of power . "it is the greatest mistake for communists to remain passive and disdainful or even hostile to the present struggles of the workers for small improvements in their working conditions by appealing to the communist programme and the final revolutionary armed struggle" (Degras, I, p .263) . The reformist leadership of the subordinate trade unions cannot be transformed through institutional reorganization, as suggested by Davis, in forming a single black union federation functioning under the overall umbrella of SACTU (Davis, 1976, p .103), which is a blandly utopian suggestion, but through the development of a revolutionary base in the working class which supports these unions . Abstract formulations which do not include the dialectical relationship between working class struggles, the formation of open trade unions, and the development of a revolutionary party, tend only to lead to disorganization and despondency . Since trade unions of black workers have not been brought within the ambit of the developed system of industrial relations in South Africa, they are struggling to survive, to protect their members, and engaging in struggles for recognition . The appointment of two government Commissions of Enquiry into labour legislation points to the crisis which is being faced in integrating the black working class into the subordinate structures of industrial relations in South Africa . The crisis of accumulation, marked by declining rates of profit, intense resistance by the black working class, and massive foreign indebtedness, leaves less room for the apartheid state to manouvre . Bourgeois reforms which attempt to stem the rising tide of resistance come too late and only accelerate demands for more fundamental concessions . Faced with this situation the state is attempting to introduce minimal reforms in the wake of massive repression, hoping to neutralise working class action by eliminating revolutionary leadership . The process of encouraging reformism by waves of repression is graphically described in a recent issues of Workers Unity, the organ of SACTU, which argues that trade unions are forced to take up a public posture of being non-political to avoid being smashed . Within them and among their leaders, various tendencies are to be found . There are, of course, not a few reformists, opportunists, and even collaborators - but there are also many who walk a tightrope of personal danger in truly serving the struggle of the working class . . . These organizations are forced by the repression to keep themselves cut off from the liberation struggle as a whole, but we do not oppose them . Our policy is to fight for independent unions and to give these new organizations our support - in as far as they advance the workers' struggle . (No 5, September 1977) This even-handed formulation avoids claiming that the demands for trade union rights are inherently revolutionary because of the state of national oppression of black workers, or the contrary position of dismissing all levels of working class struggle as irrelevant to armed national struggle . It has been argued that trade unionism is not a 'predetermined phenomenon'



38

CAPITAL & CLASS

outside of the strength and will of the members to impress a policy and an aim which defines it, and the growth of black trade unions in South Africa is far from reproducing an ideology of trade unionism in the black working class . A crucial aspect of the political and ideological crisis in South Africa is the relative underdevelopment of social reformism . The fact that black workers do not clearly distinguish between employers and the government creates difficulties in the development of more sophisticated bourgeois ideology and hampers the development of economism . The capital relation in South Africa exists in a weak form because it has to be constantly reinforced by the state to an unparalleled degree . Given the well developed nature of capitalism in South Africa, and the dependence of capital on the apartheid state for high rates of exploitation, the struggle against apartheid has to raise the question of a socialist society in South Africa .

FOOTNOTES

1

2

3

4 5

Daivd Hemson, research officer of the Textile Workers Industrial Union in South Africa before being banned in 1974, is a postgraduate student at Warwick University in the Department of Sociology . The tenuous nature of the formal industrial rights was shown during the struggle of white mine workers for a five day week . The threat to strike was met by a proposal to amend industrial legislation to prohibit all strikes in the mining industry . Financial Mail, 22 April 1977. Section 18 (5) of the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act 48/1953 which has now been amended under the title : the Bantu Labour Relations Regulation Act . The definition of strike action is altered only to the extent that in a highly restricted context, with due notice, strikes are not explicitly prohibited . These strikes do, however, remain prohibited in terms of security legislation . For a description of the amended legislation see Horner, May 1976 . The latest agreement for the furniture industry restricts artisan and certain other categories to 'members of registered trade unions', in this case Coloured and Indian workers . Similar disguised job reservation applies in the metal and other industries . African workers are not permitted to belong to registered trade unions . The crisis in South Africa has brought employers to demand massive job fragmentation (particularly in the metal industry) and the removal of all 'restrictive practices' on the free deployment of black labour . State vs Prefabricated Housing Corporation (Pty) Ltd, 1974 (1) South Africa, 535, Appelate Division . During periods of low levels of working class action, this leadership is often dormant unless brought into direct contact with revolutionary organization . Working class leadership exists in groups in factories which attempt to control production e .g . piece rates, and build up solidarity e .g . make collections for the families of deceased workers . These groups were 'discovered' by bourgeois social scientists



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

39

in America with the Hawthorne experiments, and the 'human relattions' approach (now

the

position of avant garde management in

South Africa) is an attempt to penetrate groups of workers with managerial ideology . The stress of all communist parties of the Third International which distinguished them fundamentally from bourgeois parties was the attempt to build up revolutionary groups in production as the basis of a political proletarian movement . 6 Statistical Year Book, 1964, H-25 . 7 Figures calculated from Horrell, 1969 : 73 and from Statistical Year Book, 1964, H-43 . Figures of black workers prosecuted should be higher as statistics on prosecutions in 1956 are not available, only the number of convictions . 8 Pillay, P .N . 1973 . A poverty datum line study among Africans in Durban . Department of Economics : University of Natal, Durban, p .22 . 9 Report of Department of Labour, 1973 . RP 33/1975 . 10 House of Assembly Debates, 1973 . No 11, Cols 687-690 . 11 People and Profits, August 1973 : 14 . 12 'Black trade unionism part of system', Daily News, 7 July 1975 . 13 Meeting of workers held 9 February 1974 to protest banning of four trade unionists in Durban. 14 For a discussion of spontaneity of strike action see Richard Hyman, 1972, Strikes, Fontana, pp .41-43 and for the response of trade unions to strike action the Donovan Commission . In comparison with many British trade unions, black trade unions particularly the mobilizing group, are highly activist . 15 On this important strike see Sechaba, April 1974, pp .2-4 . 16 See report in Star, 1 November 1975, and Financial Mail, 14 November 1975 : 646 . There were 18,720 striker-days in 1975 (Bulletin of Statistics, September 1976, 2 .43) . Pamphlets distributed by students in Soweto mentioned the Heinemann strike as a reason for workers coming out on strike during the August stay-at-home . 17 Financial Mail, 8 October 1976 . 18 Figures calculated from percentages of workers in Johannesburg participating given in Anti-Apartheid News, October 1976 and John Gaetsewe's speech in 1976 to AAM labour movement conference . 19 Daily Telegraph, 24 August 1976 reported that some industries 'notably clothing' came to a complete halt . 20 Hansard, 11 February 1976, Minister of Police .

BIBLIOGRAPHY Boulanger, M ., 1974, "Black Workers and Strikes in South Africa",

Race,

xv, 3, pp .351-9 . Braverman, R .E ., 1974, "The African Working Class : Recent Changes, New Prospects", African Communist, 59, pp .48-60 . Clack, Garfield, 1963, "Industrial Peace in South Africa", British Journal of Industrial Relations, 1, 1, pp .94-106 .



40

CAPITAL & CLASS

Davies, Rob, 1976, "The Class Character of South Africa's Industrial Conciliation Legislation", SouthAfrican Labour Bulletin, 2, 6, pp .6-20 . Davis, David, 1976, "African Unions at the Crossroads", African Communist, 64, pp .93-104 .

Degras, J ., 1966, The Third Communist International 7919-7943 . OUP, London . Douwes Dekker, L . et al, 1975, "Case Studies in African Labour Action in South Africa and Namibia (South West Africa) ", in Richard Sandbrook and Richard Cohen, The Development of an African Working Class, Longman, London pp .205-238 . Douwes Dekker, L ., 1973, Are Works Committees Trade Unions? South African Institute of Race Relations, Johannesburg . Feit, Edward, 1975, Workers Without Weapons : The South African Congress of Trade Unions and the Organisation of the African Workers,

Archon, Hamden . Fisher, Fozia, 1977, "Class Consciousness among Colonized Workers in South Africa", in Perspectives on South Africa, African Studies Institute, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, pp .300-353 . Gann, Lewis H ., 1973, "Southern Africa - No Hope for Violent Revolution", South African International III, 3, pp .147-158 . Gervasi, Sean, 1970, Industrialisation, Foreign Capital, and Forced Labour in South Africa, United Nations, New York . Glass, Y ., 1973, "Industrialisation of an Indigenous People", South African journal of Science, 59, pp .386-94 .

Hemson, Daivd, 1973, Black Strikes, Prices and Trade Union Organisation, 1939-73, mimeo . Hemson, David, 1976, Dock Workers, Labour Circulation and C/ass Struggles in Durban, 1940-1959 . Paper presented to the Institute of Commonwealth Studies . Hepple, Alex, 1971 . South Africa : Workers under Apartheid, Defence and Aid, London . Horner, Dudley, 1976, African Labour Representation, SALDRU Working Paper 3 . Horner, Dudley, and Kooy, Alide, 1976, Conflict on South African Mines 1973-1976, SALDRU Working Paper 5 . Horrell, Muriel, 1969, South Africa's Workers: Their Organisation and the Patterns of Employment, South African Institue of Race Relations, Johannesburg . International Labour Office, 1966, Apartheid in Labour Matters, ILO, Geneva . International Labour Office, 1965-, Speical Reports of the DirectorGeneral on the Application of the Declaration Concerning the Policy of Apartheid of the Republic of South Africa, ILO, Geneva . Institute of Industrial Education, 1974, The Durban Strikes - 1973, IIE,

Durban . Jordaan, Ken, 1974, "Trade Unionism versus Revolution in South Africa", Race Today, 6, 3, pp .76-80 .

Legassick, Martin and Hemson, David, 1976, Foreign Investment and the Reproduction of Racial Capitalism in South Africa Anti-Apartheid, London .



TRADE UNIONISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

41

Levy, Leon, 1961, "African Trade Unionism in South Africa", Africa South in Exile, 5, 3, pp .32-43 . Luxemburg, Rosa, 1925, The Mass Strike, The Political Party, and The Trade Unions, Merlin, London . Mhlongo, Sam, 1964, "Black Workers' Strikes in Southern Africa", New Left Review, 83, pp .41-49 . Mugabane, B ., 1975, "The Continuing Class Struggle in South Africa", Studies in Race and Nations, Denver, 6, 3/4 . Mthethwa, Alpheus and Mfeti, Pindile, 1975, "Report on Leyland Motor Corporation and the Metal and Allied Workers Union", South African Labour Bulletin, 2, 5, pp .36-47 . O'Meara, Dan, 1975, "The 1946 Mine Workers' Strike and the Political Economy of South Africa", journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, XI 11, 2, pp . 146-173 . Petryszak, Nicholas, 1976, "The Dynamics of Acquiescence in South Africa", African Affairs, 75, 301, pp .444-462 .

Report of the Interdepartmental Committee of Inquiry into Riots on Mines in the Republic of South Africa, n .d ., (1975?) . Ruskin Students' Association, 1975, Ruskin College and the Institution of Industrial Education, Mimeo . Santo, Bella, 1930, "Problems of Illegal Trade Union Activities", The Red International of Labour Unions, 2, 2 and 3, pp .28-33 . Simkins, Charles, 1976, Employment, Unemployment and Growth in South Africa 1961-1979. SALDRU Working Paper 4 . South African Congress of Trade Unions, 1976a, Babebetsi Mekoting : Mine Workers' Conditions in South Africa, SAC I U, London . South African Congress of Trade Unions, 1976b, Workers in Chains, SACTU, London . Stalin, J ., 1940, Leninism, Allen and Unwin, London . Trade Union Congress, 1973, Trade Unionism in South Africa : Report of a Delegation from the TUC, TUC, London . Various, 1975, "Women Workers in South African Industry", South African

Labour Bulletin, 2, 4 . Woddis, Jack, 1960, The Roots of Revolt, Lawrence and Wishart, London . Wojtkiewicz, M ., 1930, "Problems of the Illegal Trade Union Movement", The Red International of Labour Unions, 2, 1, pp .542-547 .

LABOUR POWER AND THE STATE

AbooT. Aumeeruddy Bruno Lautier and Ramon G . Tortajada

The Marxist theory of the state has developed in three main directions : the study of the relation between the bourgeoisie and the state ; the study of the functioning of the state ; and the study of its role in the valorisation of capital . However, it seems to us that the essential question is that of the foundation of the state under capitalism . This foundation must be sought in the wage-relation, whose reproduction is never given a priori. Hence the necessity for a study of the relation between the state and labour-power .

INTRODUCTION The debate on the nature and function of the state under capitalism takes two forms . The first type of debate is concerned mainly with the 'intervention' of the state in the field of the production and circulation of commodities . More precisely, it is a debate about the way in which, once the social conditions for the production of value have been achieved, the state intervenes in the way this value is divided up . This activity affects the division between wages and profits as much as the division of profit between fractions of capital . This activity implies, among other things, the regulation of money . The second type of debate is about the very nature of the state, and about the links it maintains with the class structure of society ; in particular, it is concerned with whether or not the state establishes the central social relation of capitalism, the wage-relation . We do not deny the importance of the first type of debate . On the contrary, in our view 'economic policy' is more than just a series of measures intended to restore the rate of profit or to ensure the enforcement of the rules of competition . The state is distinct from a collective organisation of capitalists not only in the sense that it alone has the power



LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

43

to make the collective interests of capitalists prevail in the face of their individual interests, but also in the sense that it alone is able to maintain the existence of a kind of production that rests on private and mobile capitals . But we must note that the emphasis put on 'economic policy' over several decades has helped to conceal the second type of debate . The latter has only emerged historically in periods of revolutionary crisis . Marx opened it after 1848, then after 1871 . Lenin, Rosa Luxembourg, Pannekoek, Gramsci started it again before and after 1917 . Then it got lost in the fog . Even as the European Communist Parties incessantly repeat that capitalism is entering an unprecendented crisis, the debate over the nature of the state is conjured away . For example, one of Marx's principal conclusions on this question, the idea that one cannot break with capitalism without the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' was abandoned almost without open debate (apart from the statements of Etienne Balibar available outside the Party) by the French Communist Party at its XXI I Congress . The contemporary emphasis on the 'economic intervention' of the state therefore contrasts sharply with historical studies analysing the period in which capitalism emerged, the period known as that of 'primitive accumulation' . While Marxist historians concede that in this period the state played a fundamental role in the constitution of the proletariat, that role disappears as soon as one gets beyond this 'stage' . The relation between social classes seems to reproduce itself on its own or, at least, by the action of 'economic' compulsion alone . A few works, in recent years, have tried to reopen the debate on the nature of the state, and these have immediately put into question the political strategy of the Parties which have aimed to take control of the state . Among those authors who have contributed most to reopening the debate there seems to be a consensus, beyond their differences, on one essential point about the role of the state : "The state is an instrument of domination at the service of the dominant class ." (1) But in most of these works this role of the state, as well as the analysis of its violence, whether overt or unobtrusive violence, is treated as selfevident. That is to say that once these obvious points have been explicitly recognised, this role of the state is not further considered in the developments that follow . The obvious thus functions to obscure . Its role is to dismiss that fundamental, open, violence that is the attribute of the state, to refer it elsewhere, to something unsaid, something implicitly recognised by theorists . But this violence is fundamental in the sense that, as we shall see, it is the precondition for the other interventions of the state . The aim of this article is precisely to underpin this obviousness theoretically, which means that one cannot start from the functioning of the state - defined at the level of its 'organization' or its 'interventions' - or even of its 'functions', defined as the search for remedies to 'dysfunctions' external to the state .



44

CAPITAL & CLASS

One cannot grasp the state as a 'regulator' (or even 'arbiter') between different fractions of capital, or as a (transitory) substitute for private capitalists in the event of a crisis, unless one has already established the foundation which permits it to impose political and social norms while at the same time being an integral part of capitalism as a whole . Our aim is not, however, to produce an ontologising analysis, but to study what establishes the state as "a separate entity, beside and outside civil society" according to the formulation of Marx and Engels in The German Ideology (p .78) . It is the externality of the state in relation to 'civil society' that seems to us to be the fundamental characteristic that distinguishes the state of the capitalist mode of production . It rests on the two central features of capitalism : (1) The production and circulation of commodities does not automatically reproduce that which is external, and at the same time essential to it : the existence of labour-power as a commodity . (2) 'Labour-power', the commodity specific to capitalism, in the sense that its existence is the "unique historical condition" for the existence of the capitalist mode of production, cannot be reproduced as a capitalist commodity . It is because the conditions of reproduction of labour-power are external to the process of production of commodites that state intervention is necessary in order to : (1) 'produce' this specific commodity, i .e . to constrain the 'bearers' of labour-power to enter into the wage-relation . It therefore amounts to assuring the conditions for the wage-relation . This is carried out in the 'developed' countries today (where precapitalist forms of production have been almost completely destroyed) by the direct undertaking by the state of part of the reproduction of the workers . But this is by no means a necessary condtion for the reproduction of the wage-relation : for a century the reproduction of wage-labour in Euorpe was effected on the basis of the pure and simple destruction of the bearers of labour-power (2), while, up till the present day in colonial and neocolonial countries reproduction on an exclusively 'domestic' basis alternates with the destruction of workers (3) . (2) assure, in the course of its use, the reproduction of this commodity . The state is at the heart of the 'fragmentation of the collective labourer', of the introduction of contradictions between wage-labourers, although they are 'objectively' reunited by the fact that they contribute to the production of a single mass of value .

PART ONE : THE STATE AND THE WAGE-RELATION A . Externality of the reproduction of labour-power in relation to the process of production of commodities . Marx's elaboration of the concept of labour-power is the result of many years of research during which he struggled with multiple contradictions .



LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

45

On the one hand, Marx, who never abandoned certain Hegelian formulations, tried to provide a theoretical foundation for the fact that capital can only realise itself as such socially in the face of not-capital ; but, contradictorily, this "not-capital" cannot be labour, since the latter appears, within the production of commodities, only as a moment of capital . On the other hand, Marx tried to provide atheoretical foundation for and not merely to postulate, as Ricardo did - the existence of profit, without, however, violating the rules of commodity equivalence . The 'invention' of the concept of labour-power is at first sight the solution to this double problem : on the one hand, labour-power is defined independently of capital, even if Marx recognised that it is no more than a "possibility" (4) ; on the other hand, thanks to 'labour-power', one can at last name, encapsulate, that commodity "whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption is therefore itself an objectification of labour, hence a creation of value" (Capital, I, p .270), the commodity without which the whole theory of surplus-value would collapse . But it is "within the sphere of circulation, on the market" that labour-power appears . If it is sold, there must be a' seller, and the seller cannot be confused with the commodity he or she sells . Two possibilities are open : either the seller is a person other than the bearer of labourpower, and so sells both 'bearer' and labour-power at the same time : this would be a relationship of slavery ; or else the seller is the bearer of labourpower him or herself, free and equal - during the period of the exchange with his or her co-contractor . Such an exchange corresponds to the general characteristic of commodity exchange : the commodity sold, labourpower, is a 'use-value' (5) for its buyer (thus defined as a capitalist) and a non-use-value for its seller, defined as a wage-labourer (note that it is nonuse-value for him or her because they have been expropriated from the means of production, because they cannot reproduce themselves by using this labour-power themselves) . Labour-power clearly exists within circulation ; it is bought and sold, it is a commodity . But that in itself does not tell us what governs the conditions of this commodity exchange . The definition of the rules of exchange by political economy, as much as in Marx's critique of it, postulates that it deals with a socially specified exchange : whether one postulates the rules of exchange as involving the equalisation of the rate of profit, the equality of marginal cost and marginal revenue, or the equality of quantitites of abstract labour, the seller on whom these rules are imposed is a capitalist, who is 'valorising' a capital . There are therefore two possibilities : either the seller of labourpower is a capitalist . He or she is conflated, as an individual, with the capital whose temporary disposal he or she sells . We fall into theories based on the idea of 'human capital' . Or else the seller is not a capitalist and the relation entered with the buying capitalist is a simple commodity relation . There is no reason to presume that this relation will follow the rules defined on the basis of the case in which the seller is a capitalist . Two types of relatively distinct problems follow : on the one hand, the problem of the conditions of the exchange between the worker and the



46

CAPITAL & CLASS

capitalist, and, in particular, that of the determination of the price of labour-power . On the other hand, the problem of the reproduction of the seller of labour-power. The distinct character of the two problems derives from the fact that the worker and the capitalist do not seek the same thing in this exchange ; the workers seek to reproduce themselves as socialised individuals, and the wage exchange is the necessary,but not sufficient, condition for this reproduction . The capitalist seeks only to reproduce his ability to dispose of a labour-power concretely specified on the basis of the structure of the collective labourer ; to give the worker the means of his or her reproduction is neither sufficient (the worker still has to be introduced into the labour process under conditions imposed by the capitalist, which implies disciplinary practices at the level of the wage-exchange and in the labour-process itself), nor necessary in every case (the capitalist may be able to find on the market workers reproduced outside any wage-relation, and use their labour-power without, to that extent, giving them the means to reproduce themselves) . One source of the incoherence of the neoclassical theory of distribution lies in this confusion between the problem of the determination of the wage-level and that of the reproduction of the labourer ; but many ambiguities in the contemporary Marxist perspective have the same basis : indeed, it is often said nowadays that the wage is merely the 'price-form' of the 'value of labour-power', or the expression in money of the latter . From which is derived the idea, to be found in all the Marxist-inspired text-books, that the value of labour-power is determined, "like that of all other commodities", by the quantity of labour socially necessary to produce it . But, over and above the question already raised of the failure to take account of the labour directed at the reproduction of labour-power, two points raise problems : (a) Firstly in relation to the determination of the quantity of labour 'socially necessary' . One may try to define this quantity outside the wage-relation, in which case one must establish a list of 'needs' . However, this leads to two possible, but equally paradoxical, solutions : - either the wage-exchange conforms with the rule of determination by the 'socially necessary labour-time', and every 'need' is necessarily satisfied ; - or one tries to show that the needs are not satisfied, and the wageexchange violates the rules of commodity exchange . The other solution is to define this quantity on the basis of the wageexchange itself . But then one has a simple equality in terms of exchange-value and not of value : the exchange-value of the commodities bought with the wage is equal to the exchange-value of labour-power . One cannot immediately discover any determination one way or the other from the observation of this rather tautological equality . (b) if this determination of a 'socially necessary quantity of labour' creates problems it is because it leads back to another question : that of the legitimacy of the use of the concept of 'value' itself in relation to labour-power . Certainly Marx adopts this usage time and again, even going so far as to make a direct connection between the conditions of production of consumption goods and the 'value of labour-



LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

47

power'. However, when Marx defines value, he does so with respect to commodities which are produced, and which are produced in a capitalist framework . (Although Marx poses the problems of the substance and of the measure of value before that of the valorisation of capital, this 'capitalist framework'is, at this level defined by the fact that the products of social labour appear, in a generalised manner, in the form of commodities) . The use of the concept of value with resect to labour-power is only legitimate if the commodity 'labourpower' is of the same nature as the commodiites on which the definition of the concept of value is based . To define the value of a commodity, one must first think of concrete labours ; as the commodity passes through circulation the exchangers abstract from the concrete characteristics of the labour to retain only one common quality : the time spent . This is a prelimary to the realisation of the value, that is to say to the fact that it may become real in being socially recognised . Nothing in this scheme corresponds to what happens in the case of labour-power : concrete labour (of the housewife, of the teacher, etc . . . .) is not recognised : there is no process of abstraction, and one starts from a/ready realised values (those of the commodities bought by the worker) to define the value of labour-power . This leads to the concealment of a very important phenomenon : it is the worker him or herself, and not the labourpower, that is reproduced on the basis of the consumption of commodities and of a labour process situated outside the process of production of commodities (and one does not know, a priori, whether or not that process is subject to the constraints imposed by the needs of the production of value) . The capitalist form of production is thus characterised by a situation that appears at first sight paradoxical : (a) On the one hand, we find the production of commodities bearing a value : that is to say the labour-time necessary for the production of these commodities can and must make itself recognised socially through the intermediary of the market. Once the value of these commodities is defined one can show, following Marx, that the process of formation of value implies that it is not just any labour that is recognised in this way : it is above all wage-labour, wage-earners being the counterpart, the reverse of the social relation that is capital (self-valorising value which poses as the subject of production) . But if there are to be wage-labourers, it is necessary for the worker to enter commodity exchange as a free subject . If he or she is to be a free subject, and is to be renewed as such, it is necessary that he or she should have a commodity to sell, and that is the condition for the reproduction of capitalism . At first sight it matters little to the capitalist what process brings an individual, who is not preordained to do so, to present him or herself as a partner in exchange : it is enough that this individual should actually be there, to sell the capitalist what he needs . What the capitalist needs (the specific commodity that only has usevalue for the capitalist) cannot be called 'labour' ; in fact, if capital implies the wage-earner, the existence of the wage-earner, in turn,



48

CAPITAL & CLASS implies that the direct producer has been dispossessed of the socially recognised means of production . There cannot therefore be any 'labour' before the producer and the means of production come together . Since the capitalist's partner in exchange encounters the capitalist within circulation, prior to production, he or she can only sell the capitalist a 'potentiality', a labour 'power' : it is up to the capitalist

to make it a reality . (b) On the other hand, alongside the production of value, we find all the social relations that determine that the capitalist actually finds before him the 'bearers of labour-power' that he needs . In contrast to what the viewpoint of the individual capitalist might lead one to suppose, there is nothing spontaneous about this confrontation of the exchangers with one another . Two types of condition have to be satisfied : -The reproduction of the potential force of production that is the wage-labourer requires a consumption . Since the wage-labourer is dispossessed of the socially recognised means of production, it is necessary that he or she should either be able to find his or her means of consumption outside the framework of this production (family gardens, domestic labour, non-commodity education and health system etc) or should be able to consume some of the commodities produced within the capitalist framework (which assumes that the wage-earner has access to the universal equivalent) . There is no process of surplusvalue extraction whatever during the labour associated with this consumption (6) . Labour within the family unit does not produce value . The consumption carried out by the workers is a consumption of pure use-values, those which are assigned to them by the social norms . This consumption is not a production of new values, nor even conservation of value . It is an unproductive consumption (7) . But this unproductive consumption is nevertheless the mark of capital . It is only possible if the worker has previously inserted him or herself into the capitalist production process . But the bearer of labour-power, once his or her consumption is completed, is still not going to present him or herself spontaneously to the capitalist, in the conditions required by the latter . Certainly, the fact that the capitalists as a whole command the commodity means of consumption is an element of the balance of forces that favours them ; but it has never been enough . In fact, wage-labour implies that the wageworker must be a social subject who is partially autonomous : at the moment of exchange he or she must be free ; the capitalists as a whole must ensure that this autonomy is limited in such a way that, despite him or herself, the wage-worker will duly come and re-engage under conditions that they fix (not only conditions of the wage, but also under concrete conditions of labour) and within the framework of the division of labour that they try to impose . But the capitalists cannot control the reproduction of the bearer of labour-power and of the conditions of wage-exchange from within the field of value . Nor can they ensure from within this field that the potential workers should be adequate to the requirements of the labour process, except at the risk of a disorganisation of production during the whole time that any inadequacy might last (8) .



LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

49

It is these two types of condition that underlie the externality of the reproduction of the labourer in relation to the production of commodities . (In order to simplify we call the bearer of labour-power who actually comes to be inserted in the wage-exchange the 'labourer' ; strictly speaking this is somewhat inaccurate : this bearer of the 'potential' to work only really becomes the labourer within the process of production, the potential disappearing, immediately it is recognised, to give way to reality) . Outside commodity production we thus find : -labour processes, in the general sense of the term : domestic labour, teaching labour, health care labour, administrative labour (social security, institutions connected with teaching etc) . Social relations are reproduced within these processes . (The term 'social relations' is used here in a general sense, and does not only describe the social relations of production) . control processes, whether this control is effected through overt violence (police, army), through masked violence (administrative control), or through indirect procedures of imposition of norms (through the family, teaching, health)(cf . Foucault 1976, esp . pp .152f) . These control processes are also modes of reproduction of social relations . -other 'activities' (for want of a better general term), reducible to neither of the above, in which another set of social relations is reproduced : affective, sexual, authority relations ; while these relations do not have a homogeneous theoretical status, they are certainly social relations : the individual is not able to choose whether or not to enter them, but in entering them he or she reproduces them (9) . 'Labour-power' cannot be produced as a capitalist commodity . Its production and its reproduction cannot be the occasion either for the valorisation of capital or for the production of value (10) . There is thus a real 'externality' of the reproduction of labour-power with respect to the process of production of commodities . This externality is situated at two levels : -The 'bearers of labour-power' (potential labourers) are not produced within the framework of commodity production . -Their transition from the condition of 'potential seller' to that of 'real seller' is not determined merely by the production-circulation of commodities .

B

The Basis of State Intervention

It is the externality of the production-reproduction of labour-power that is the basis of state intervention . The state intervenes -firstly so as to 'produce' this specific commodity : setting it to work, forcing its insertion into commodity relations . -then, in the conditions of sale ; the latter can only take place for a "limited time, or for a given task" . This is one of the contradictions of bourgeois nations : the development of capitalist relations of production depends on liberation from serfdom and from individual slavery, and the constitution of an individually free labourer ; but collectively, the collective worker appears as a collective slave, not of the capitalists, but of capital . The state is at the heart of this contra-



50

CAPITAL & CLASS

diction : it must maintain the mass of wage-workers within a set of norms, certain of which are codified by the law, others not (cf . Pashukanis, 1951, for the analysis of the n orms . c f. Foucault, 1967, for the analysis of the origins of notions of 'extra-norms'), without at the same time directly regulating their reproduction as individuals . -finally, the state must constantly intervene in the social relation once it is established in order to ensure the historical conditions for its reproduction . This ensemble is often described by the term economy policy : but this economic policy is not as coherent and autonomous as its description might lead one to believe . It is essentially a case of managing the conjuncture, of a day-to-day response to the modifications in the power relations between capital and the collective labourer (de Brunhoff, 1976 pp .4 ff) . The place assigned to the state in this social relation is dual and contradictory : (1) It is on the one hand a matter of reducing, or minimising the cost of reproducing the social relation, which takes the form of the reproduction of labour-power, as much at the level of each particular capitalist as for the mass of capitalists . In fact, in a society in which all production is commodity production, in which therefore all expenditure is a process of value creation, the reproduction of labour-power is the only true expense for the mass of capitalists . In other words, it is the only expense which is a non-production of value, i .e . the only 'real' expense . (2) It is on the other hand a matter of reproducing not labour-power, but the conditions of existence of labour-power . The fundamental role of the bourgeois state is above all to "guarantee the existence of the class of wage labourers as the object of exploitation . . . Capital itself. . . is not able to produce these foundations" (Altvater, 1973, p .99) . The dual aspect of the reproduction of labour-power does not always appear clearly, to the extent that what is usually studied is the reproduction of the labourers . In other terms, one takes the wage-relation as given, as already constituted once and for all . However the facts contradict this simplistic view . The existence of the wage-relation demands overt violence every time such violence is thought necessary (11) . Nevertheless this overt and explicit violence, which is unlimited but sporadic, is itself the condition for another continuous violence, latent, day-to-day and limited . But we are dealing with different sorts of violence : the object of the first is to underpin or re-establish a social order which is endangered ; the object of the second is to negotiate the rate of exploitation . This difference in nature is often translated at the institutional level into a certain specialisation of different bodies, the sporadic violence of the army being directed (among other things) at the subordination at all costs of the working class, to confine it within wage-labour ; while the daily violence of the police is situated, alongside other institutions, within the framework of the legal discussion of wages and of conditions of work (12) . From this it follows that, like labour-power, the state is 'external' to the process of production of commodities . But this externality has a different status in each case, except for one point : the externality of the state enables it, like labour-power, to be a 'realiser' of value . On the other



LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

51

points, the externality of the state is dependent on that of labour-power, to the extent that it is only 'from the outside' that the state can assert, but also guarantee, the 'freedom' that is the reverse of the worker's dependence . This does not exclude the state from participating directly in the process of production as well : in the construction of 'industrial infrastructures', the control of credit, levying of customs duties, etc . It is indeed the representative of the mass of national capitalists, charged with ensuring that their collective interest prevails in the face of their divergent individual interests . But, as something 'internal' to the process of production, it is not necessarily different from those collective capitalist organisations which, generally, coexist with it or have even preceded it (chamber of commerce, trade associations etc .) . The expression 'State (Monopoly) Capitalism' characterises a 'stage' of capitalism by these interventions of the state in the distribution of profit among capitalists, in the devalorisation of capital, etc . In this sense, it aims to specify both this 'stage' and the nature of the state by something which is neither essential nor specific . However, what is essential - the redirection of the wage-relation and its maintenance ) interferes with what appear to be the properly 'economic' tasks of the state, situated within the field of value, because they cannot be carried out except by virtue of an imposition on surplus-value . This maintenance of the existence of the wage-relation is translated into a whole series of expenditures that we will describe as the costs of existence of capitalist production . These expenditures, far from being the faux-frais of production, are literally essential to it . They are the social cost of capital . Each particular capitalist, as much as the mass of capitalists, aims to limit the extent of this cost, while recognising its social and political importance . The management of these expenditures is thus external to capitalist logic at the same time as being the condition of its existence . So it is the state that has to take on the role of sharing out the costs of maintaining the particular social relation, confused with the costs of managing society ; the state which is the institution that must manage the interests of the dominant class as the interest of the whole of the society it dominates. But the state has no relevant criteria for calculating any kind of an 'optimum' in the distribution of costs or in the choice of the area in which the means of finance shouldd be levied . It is up to the administration (in the broad sense) to adjudicate the conflicts between the different fractions of the bourgeoisie (the judicial apparatus only intervenes in the details, overall decisions always being taken at the political level), and the changes in the alliances between bourgeois strata are the source of modifications in the circulation of surplus-value . It is only once the maintenance of the conditions of existence of the wage-relation is assured that one can take into account the management of this relation . It is then time to 'manage' the reproduction of the labourers as a fraction of capital (variable capital), or as participants in the collective labourer . This management of the collective labourer is not done primarily through violence . Since the latter is omnipresent, it is a question : -on the one hand, of making the social order accepted .



52

CAPITAL & CLASS -on the other hand, of ensuring that these workers are adequate to capitalist needs .

PART TWO : THE STATE AND THE 'MANAGEMENT' OF THE COLLECTIVE LABOURER In reproducing the wage-relation, the state recreates not only the primary condition of existence of the bourgeoisie, but also, through its action on the modes of distribution of the mass of wages, on the conditions of reproduction of the wage-workers, it challenges the unity of the 'collective labourer' that is formed in the production of value .

A.

The Collective Labourer (13)

Most analyses of the collective 'labourer' start from the labour process and, more particularly, from the division of productive labour (cf . in particular Nagels 1974 ; Berthoud 1974 ; Gouverneur 1975) : the individual worker does not produce a commodity only, while the production of commodities requires not only workers acting directly on the matter transformed, but equally workers at the level of planning, the preparation of tasks, etc . The collective labourer is thus first of all connected with the division of labour, then with machinery to the extent to which it is the latter that separates 'manual labour' and 'intellectual labour' (14) (and the analysis of the collective labourer as a result makes it possible to reorientate the debate on the definition of productive labour, the analysis thus no longer being conducted at the level of the labour process alone, but of the immediate process of production, so that it becomes possible to state the bases of an 'objective solidarity' between technicians, staff, etc . and operatives all defined as productive) . Without denying the interest of such a direction of research, it seems to us that the fact of defining the collective labourer at the level of the immediate process of production alone particularly limits the scope of the concept and does not make it possible to put forward the basis of a theory of education, of wage differentials, of qualifications, etc . But before going further it must be noted at once that the 'collective' character of the labourer who produces a commodity appears as the product of the specifically capitalist (immediate) process of production (real subsumption) . However the latter is the (contradictory) unity of the labour process and the valorisation process . The collective labourer (in particular in Nagel's work) is generally only defined at the level of the labour process . However in the capitalist production process, there is not firstly a labour process producing use-values, in which the collective labourer appears (co-operation in the division of labour) and subsequently a valorisation of capital on the basis of the product becoming a commodity . In fact the workers who co-operate are already, from the moment the collective character of labour is established, "incorporated into capital" (15) . It is as a fraction of a value valorising itself that they participate in the production of the commodity . It is not the case that labourers produce collectively according to technical deter-



LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

53

minations subsequently followed by the appropriation of the product by the capitalist, because it is basically the (real) subordination to capital in the production process and (from capital's point of view) the reduction of the mass of labourers producing a commodity to the status of variable capital, that make possible the existence of the productive force of the collective labourer (a force of which the latter is, moreover, dispossessed) . On this basis one can therefore define an initial structure of the collective labourer at the level of the immediate production process . This structure (and this is the reason for its inadequacy) rests on the double criterion of concrete labour and of valorisation, without introducing the articulation of production and circulation, in which the abstraction of labour is realised ; and it is above all the fact of introducing valorisation before circulation which is at the root of this inadequacy . (16) . This structure can be called the 'technical' structure to the extent that it does in fact concern the cohesion-division of the concrete labours co-operating in the production of a product . But this product is a commodity ; the coherence and division that produce this initial structure have not emerged from just any technical rationality, but from the requirements of valorisation (17) . Even at the level of the definition of the individual labours which (cohesive and divided) form the collective labourer (which only exists because it is subordinated to a single capital), this 'technical' structure of the collective labourer can only be defined in its relation to capital . This initial structure of the collective labourer is that of the concrete (cohesive and divided) labours that it brings about (and not that of the labourers who form it) and, at the same time, that it defines . The recognition of the use-value of the individual labour power only takes place within this collective labourer, that is to say to the extent of their being adequate to the concrete tasks . The collective labourer produces a determinate use-value (value does not appear at this level) . But the characteristics of this use-value, as of the labour process itself, are determined by the requirements of valorisation (18) . This explains why, even at this level of the collective labourer, the concrete labours of command and control appear together with a rhythm of labour that is the result of a compromise between the requirements of valorisation and workers' resistance . The realisation of value, that is to say the social recognition of the quantum of labour incorporated in the commodities, is carried out through exchange . But exchange itself rests on a relation of equivalence, and this relation of equivalence rests on the real abstraction of the labours that cooperate in the production of the commodity (19) . The definition of value as a determinate quantity assumes that all the concrete qualities of the labour expended are not taken into account . The value of a commodity expended is not defined at the level of a single production process (nor one carried out under the domination of a specified fraction of capital) . At the level of the totality of production processes of a given product, a collection of technical norms of production are defined, which are themselves the product of the history of past techniques and of the competition between fractions of capital valorising themselves by means of this determinate production . But these technical norms do not directly determine



54

CAPITAL & CLASS

the socially necessary labour-time, it is necessary to be able to think of the product as a commodity ; and to think of a commodity (and of its value) one must simultaniously think of the totality of commodities . At the level of the totality of production processes leading to the production of different products that are exchanged for one another, the problem of equivalence appears, which in turn raises that of value . The heterogeneity of the commodities exchanged is at the root of the social and real procedure of abstraction of labour . It is not at the level of concrete labour that a quantity of abstract undifferentiated labour emerges . However homogeneous production norms may be, concrete labour in weaving cannot but be differentiated from that which takes place in metal-working : the quantity of abstract labour necessarily emerges in circulation and makes the concrete labour disappear (on all these point cf . Tortajada 1974) . Already in the simple forms of value (under the aspect of the relative form), exchange assumes that the values of the commodities exchanged (20 yards of linen and a coat, to take Marx's example) are two fractions of a social expenditure of labour, and the exchange is the social procedure through which the quantity of socially necessary abstract labour is recognised . It is not a matter of a producer exchanging a 'good' with a constituted value against another 'good' with the same characteristic, since the abstraction of labour is the product of exchange at the same time as its condition . If one moves on to the general form of value (with multiple simultaneous relations of equivalence), all the commodities exchanged participate in the definition of the unity of abstract labour at the same time as in that of the quantity incorporated in each good . It follows that what first appears is the "labour-power of society" (20), and individual labour-powers are only realised (only become socially real) in appearing as part of this global labour-power, and thus in negating their own concrete characteristics . The totality of workers producing value under capitalism therefore comprise a single collective labour, that is to say the value of each commodity cannot be thought of as the product of an autonomous group of workers . The value of a commodity can only be thought of as a portion of the value created globally by the totality of workers confronting capital . In circulation, the abstraction of labours therefore creates the undifferentiated character of the labourers (21) . The sanction which is provided by the determination of the socially necessary labour-time is not the recognition of the collective labourer who appeared at the level of concrete labour; on the contrary, this determination is made on the basis of a global mass of abstract labour-time and of a confrontation between all the commodities seeking to achieve social validation (recognition as values) . The concrete characteristics of the labour process disappear in circulation . The first result of this is "the fetish character of the commodity" . The second result is the social negation of the specific use-value of each labour-power (a use-value which is nevertheless the basis of the contractual relation between capitalist and labourer) . The third is that the commodity is constituted as capital (self-valorising value) in constituting the collective labourer as not-capital, which makes possible the reproduction of the



55

LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

process of production, since this itself depends on the labourer being notcapital (22) . The commodity is not a 'thing', a 'product', or even an 'exchange-value' : it is at the heart of the reproduction of social relations . The opposition between capital and labour is not the product of a contractual relation (the immediate form of wage-labour) or of the (more or less hierarchical) modalities of the labour process, even though the opposition is expressed in these places . The basis of this opposition is the mechanism that makes each labourer the means (object) of the reproduction of the whole of capital while excluding him or her from capital .

The production-circulation of value thus creates a unity of the collective labourer which, certainly, is the basis of the 'objective' unity of the proletariat, but which is not a product of the revolutionary practice of the proletariat (23) . The 'management' of the collective labourer describes the collection of practices by which this unity of the mass of wage-labourers is broken at the same time as the labourers are reproduced as a sum of in-

dividuals offering the characteristics required by the production process . This 'management' is essentially conducted through the wage, in its contradictory nature : -from the point of view of the wage-earner, it reproduces the worker as an individual . The process of reproduction of the wage-workers can be individual or collective and, in the latter case, takes place through the state . -from the point of view of the individual capitalist, the wage is the means of reproducing 'his' collective labourer or, more exactly, the fraction of the collective labourer that enters into a relation with his fraction of capital . The management of the mass of wages is thus, by the diversification of grades and the opposition it introduces between categories of wage-earners, the means of isolating the workers and introducing competition amongst them . -finally, from the point of view of the collectivity of capitalists, the wage is one of the means of reproducing a working class subordinated to capital .

B . Wages The action of the state in relation to wages is marked by the need to reconcile the different objectives stated above, while guaranteeing the 'confrontation' of 'dead labour' and 'living labour' (specified according to age, qualification) that this requires . Moreover, state policies in relation to wages are not homogeneous, they are adapted to the wage form itself and so are i nscribed . i n a typology of wages which it is worth spelling out . (The argument

of

this section

derives from Lautier and Tortajada 1976) . I.

Direct wage and indirect wage This distinction rests on an empirical approach, and is, moreover, confused . In fact by direct wage is meant the price that is appropriate to the labour contract . It is thus the price of the reproduction of the subordination of the individual worker to the capitalist . It expresses the cost to the individual capitalist of setting labour-power to work, but it is not



56

CAPITAL & CLASS

the price of the commodities brought by the worker for his or her reproduction, since contributions, taxes, etc . are deducted . The indirect wage is not itself a price . In fact it combines monetary benefits (social security, allowances, etc) and the use of collective facilities (a use which is not matched to price) . If the notion of the direct wage has a certain degree of relevance, that of the indirect wage does not, since it is not defined in the same conceptual field as the former . 2.

Private wage and social wage While the idea of the direct wage expresses the relation of constraint and subordination that characterises the wage, this distinction underpins its aspect of being the means of reproduction of the labourer . The private wage is the price of the quantity of exchange value over which the wageearner has effective control for his or her 'private' reproduction (essentially within the framework of the family) . It is thus exchanged by the wageearner him or herself for the commodities, the latter being consumed, but also transformed, in a place external to the capitalist production process, but immediately controlled by the wage-earner him or herself. The 'social' wage is the price of the mass of commodities consumed collectively by the labourers, in places (whether institutionalised or not : school, health service, collective facilities, etc .) equally external to the capitalist production process, in which the socialised reproduction of labour power is effected . This distinction therefore expresses the situation of the worker in the course of reproduction (as such the 'indirect' forms of the wage such as unemployment benefit, family allowances, etc, are nevertheless 'private' forms of the wage) . But it also expresses the modalities of the attempt by capital, as a whole, to 'manage' this reproduction . 3.

Individual wage and collective wage The capitalist does not 'manage' the wages of an isolated individual . For him the wage is an outlay . The individual wage (the amount of money necessarily laid out to set the labour power of an individual to work, under the form of 'direct wage', taxes, contributions, etc .) is only one element of the collective wage, both at the level of quantity and at that of the structure of the collective wage . As a quantity, the collective wage expresses the constraints imposed on the capitalist by valorisation . In its structure, it expresses the reproduction of the hierarchical structure of the collective labourer, the latter being guided not only by political requirements, but also by the simultaneous need to reproduce its technical structure . 4 . Variable capital Variable capital, for the individual capitalist, is a fraction of the capital advanced, specified in its employment (24) . As a fraction of capital, variable capital (which, when spent, is laid out in the form of the collective wage) is certainly a value (in the process of valorising itself) . For the individual capitalist, that is from the point of



LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

57

view of the formation of value (25), variable capital is value being ex-

changed against labour-power, just as the commodities consumed by the workers are values being exchanged against the wage . But this does not permit one to postulate that labour-power has a value, because it is not produced under capitalist conditions . To speak of the value (and not of the exchange-value) of labour-power is in fact to abstract from the externality of the reproduction of labour-power and to see in the wage only the price of the commodities consumed, the intermediary in the exchange of one value (capital) against another capital (these commodities) and nothing else (26) . If variable capital is the part of capital that 'varies', it cannot be assimilated to the totality of the outlays agreed to by a particular capitalist to reproduce 'his' labour-power' . A part of the variable capital is used in a 'private' manner by the labourer to reproduce him or herself, another is 'socialised' (whether laid out directly by the capitalist - employers' expenses connected with the payment of wages, etc - or whether it passes through the wage-earner who pays contributions and taxes him or herself) . But a part of the socialised reproduction of labour-power is financed on the basis of taxes or contributions not linked to the wage. For the individual capitalist it is not then a matter of variable capital, but of 'faux-frais' (analagous to the faux-frais imposed by the requirements of the reproduction of the universal equivalent : they are necessary to the reproduction of capital as a whole, but not of particular fractions of capital) . Nevertheless, if one considers the capitalists as a whole, these 'fauxfrais' are a necessary expense (levied on capital) to set the collective labourer in motion (27) . The socialisation of capital implies the socialisation

of the wage-relation and also the duplication of the concept of variable capital : for the individual capitalist only the 'collective wage' (direct wages and linked charges) is variable capital ; for capital in a given social space (defined for the moment as the socio-political space in which the socialised reproduction of labour-power is effected), variable capital is formed by the totality of the outlays undertaken to set in motion collective labour-power, which is doubly structured (technically and hierarchically) . From this point of view, but only from this point of view, variable capital finances both expenses which are at one and the same time expenses for the 'mobilisation of labour-power' and for the reproduction of the labourers (like expenditure on education), and also expenses which only have the former aspect (such as expenditure on the police etc .) . 5.

Relative surplus-value The unity of the capitalists in the 'management' of the reproduction of the workers and in that of the mobilising and structuring of their labourpower, is not only expressed in the fact that they have to finance and 'manage' the processes of the socialised reproduction of the workers and of the mobilisation of their labour-power . In fact, the mass of capitalists are unified in the matter of the 'management' of the production of relative surplus-value .



58

CAPITAL & CLASS

Before analysing the movement of relative surplus-value it is worth making it clear that, while labour-power does not have a value, surplusvalue is well defined within the field of values . It is the difference between two homogeneous quantities : on the one hand, the value produced at the social level by the collective labourer ; on the other hand, the quantity of value that leaves capitalist circulation, that is realised in becoming nonvalue, unproductive consumption (29) . Relative surplus-value is not sought for itself ; what a capitalist in Department II seeks is to increase his share of surplus-value . He increases the 'productivity' of the labourer, that is the possibility of reducing labourtime below that socially necessary, of producing extra surplus-value, or, more exactly, a surplus profit which appears at the level of the individual capitalist . But if, as a result of the generalisation of this movement, the global value of consumption goods is reduced, relative surplus-value will not be realised by the capitalist who has achieved the increases in productivity, but by the mass of capitalists who buy labour-power (to the extent, although this is by no means a mechanical phenomenon, that the wage is reduced when the value of consumption goods falls) (30) . What distinguishes relative surplus-value from 'extra surplus-value' or from 'absolute surplus-value', is essentially the location of the circulation in which it is realised (31) . The 'management' of the cost of reproduction and mobilisation of labour-power thus implies the united control by all the capitalists of the price of consumption goods, whether the latter are produced in specifically capitalist conditions (industry) or not (agriculture, certain 'services') . What is called 'management of the reproduction of labour-power', with respect to the management of its cost, implies the control of the whole of the production of Department II and implies consideration of the contradictions between the interests of capitalists of this department and the interest of the capitalists as a whole . C.

Socialised management and state management of the reproduction of labour power . The need for socialised management of labour-power rests on a dual foundation : 1 . First on the triple meaning of the wage as a price . For the workers, it is the means of their reproduction as a species (which implies the reproduction of one generation after another) . For the individual capitalist, it is the means of mobilising labour-power in relation to the requirements of the structure of 'his' collective labourer . For capitalists as a whole, it is the means of reproducing and mobilising a mass of labourers defined socio-politically and technically . The dislocations between these three meanings impose socialised management, for example : - the education system must respond not to the immediate needs of this or that capitalist, but to the needs of capital as a whole . The individual capitalist, in fact, will not finance the training of free labourers if he is not assured that the latter will remain 'his' employees (32) while the existence of an education system is a need of capitalists



LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

2.

59

in general (to develop training appropriate to the process of production, but also a 'general' training, which is the ideological condition for the reproduction of the 'mobilisation' of labour-power and of the insertion of the labourers into social relations) . The education system is equally required by the workers who come into conflict with the collective capitalist not over the principle of generalised education (33) but over the content and extent of education . However the capitalists do not spontaneously demand the reproduction of those 'workers' who no longer have anything to sell : invalids, the retired, etc . It is only political conflict with the workers that establishes the modalities of this reproduction . -In the case of the unemployed, the objective of the reproduction of the workers comes into direct conflict with that of the reproduction of the 'mobilisation' of labour-power . While the maintenance of the unemployed depends largely on the mechanisms of family solidarity, individual capitalists enter into direct conflict with the general interest of the capitalists in the determination of the payments made to the unemployed, not only because of such payment itself, but also because of the fact that 'excessive benefits' have implications for the level of wages . But the reduction of unemployment benefits, which strengthens the position of the individual capitalist, is only possible if the global power relation between capital and labour improves in favour of the former . -Finally, capital 'manages' the production of relative surplus-value . In this area the labourers are concerned not with exchange-value but with the use-value of the consumption goods acquired by means of the wage . Once the latter has been negotiated, it becomes a question of controlling prices, and beyond that, the development of productivity in Department II . The growing part played by the 'socialised' wage in relation to the 'negotiated' wage not only has the effect of increasing the role of the state in wage management, but also of reducing, of transforming, the manner of wage negotiations with workers' organisations . The latter, in this respect, find their importance at the workplace reduced . The state is thus charged with creating a unity out of three aspects of the collective labourer : -The collective labourer structured in terms of concrete labours, as the latter are defined on the basis of the labour process . It must, despite the contradictions between individual capitalists, ensure that specific labour-powers are effectively sold with the qualifications necessary for the reproduction of the production process . - The collective labourer structured hierarcho-politically, that is to say divided -The collective labourer structured hierarcho-politically, that is to say divided according to three demarcations : *demarcation in terms of wage-level *demarcation in terms of the hierarchy of authority in the strict sense *demarcation into "true and false wage-earners" (cf . Magaud 1974),



60

CAPITAL & CLASS

or, more exactly, between workers covered by collective agreements that guarantee a certain amount of employment and contractual negotiations over security, etc, and the others (cf. Aumeeruddy 1977) . But the true cement of the unity of the collective labourer remains the production of value, which at the same time assigns a place to workers whose function is the realisation of this value, or even the reproduction of the labourers . But any recognition of unity on this basis can only be an immediate recognition both of the unity and of the revolutionary character of the proletariat . The role of the state appears as a succession of discrete, fragmented, interventions precisely because it cannot explicitly base its practices on what really determines them . The imperative need to divide the working class demands that it 'manage' the latter in fractions, that it negotiate scattered wage 'privileges', as to the duration of labour, the age of retirement and the level of pension, unemployment insurance, forms of training ; all in a differentiated way . Certainly, the state is the place in which class conflicts are partially resolved, but this is only possible because these conflicts are expressed in a displaced, indirect way . And this indirectness is particularly expressed in the fact that the proletariat never appears as such at the level of the state, but only appears as an aggregate of fragmented categories. This means that the state, properly speaking, while it manages the fragmentation of the collective labourer, does not directly 'manage' the collective labourer as such .

CONCLUSION The development of the debate over labour-power is not of purely academic interest. It is linked to problems posed at the level of political practice, including the problem of domestic labour. But this debate is equally linked with the question of the strategy for a break with capitalism . Although it is rarely explicitly posed as such, the question of the abolition of wage-labour remains at the heart of the definition of socialism . What we have tried to show is that this question is not independent of another, which is equally central in the definition of a political strategy, the question of the state . The state under capitalism cannot be defined except by reference to the wage-relation . The recent years of crisis have brought back to the fore the fact that 'economic policy' is above all the management by the state of the divisions in and the cost of reproduction of the collective labourer . Certainly this was a bit blurred by the three post-war decades, but that is nothing new : immediately after the armistice of November 1918, the German employers and unions established a system of collective agreements ratified by the state, and it was Roosevelt, in 1935, who got the Wagner Act passed . However, this 'management' itself rests on the status of labour-power under capitalism, forced as it is to reproduce itself outside the process of commodity production yet without being able to do so adequately for the needs of capital .



LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

61

However, even if the crisis shows that the state is partially unable to take over this management completely, it is more than risky to conclude from this that we are witnessing a 'decomposition', if not a 'withering way' of capital's state that would make it possible to avoid a revolutionary situation ; as the pillar of the reproduction of the wage-relation, the state is always in place, and nothing allows us to assume that the violence that it has always shown will disappear of itself .

NOTES This article is the result of collective work carried out at the university of Grenable (France) from 1976 to 1978 . Previous drafts have been presented at different meetings (Annual Conference of L'A .C .S .E .S ., Nice, September, 1976, Annual Conference of the C .S .E ., Bradford, July, 1977, The Society of Socialist Economists, University of Sussex, February, 1978) . Our thanks to all those who have discussed, criticised and encouraged our work, specially to Pierre Eisler (Grenoble), Simon Clarke, Olivier Le Brun and Sol Picciotto (Editorial Board of Capital and C/ass) . Responsibility remains ours . Criticisms and comments are welcome at the following address : Bruno Lautier, 20 Galerie de I'Arlequin, (3407), 38100 GRENOBLE, FRANCE . 1 . Cf., among others : "the state is the instrument of capital's domination over the class of wage-labourers" (Altvater 1973, p .98) . "The different forms of the state apparatuses should not hide its universality as instrument of the power of the dominant class . . . (Drugman 1973) . 2 . The reports on the condition of the working class dating from the middle of the nineteenth century insist on this fact (the life expectancy of workers had fallen to 21 years) . The best known in France is the 'Villerme Report' of 1840 (Tableau de l'Etat Physique et Moral des Ouvriers . . ., republished by 10/18) . 3 cf. on this point, despite some theoretical confusions about the concept of 'labour-power' : Comite d'Information Sahel 1975 ; Meillasoux 1975 . This is what Marx develops, although he does not use the word 4 "labour-power", as early as 1857 in the Grundrisse, p .267 : "The use-value which the worker has to offer to the capitalist, and he cannot offer anything else, is not materialised in a product, does not exist apart from him at all, thus exists not really, but only in potentiality, as his capacity . It becomes a reality only when it has been solicited by capital, is set in motion . . ." (N .B . Nicolaus's translation has been slightly modified to make it correspond to Dangeville's French translation) . 5 The term 'use-value' is used here in the usual sense : something that has a certain usefulness, and not as the criterion for distinguishing between Departments I and II in the framework of the reproduction schemes, as Benetti 1977 suggests .



62

CAPITAL & CLASS

Contrary to what is the underpinning of a certain number of feminist publications . For a formalisation see Harrison 1973. For the critique of this position see Lautier 1974, pp .76 et seq . Value only becomes socially 'real' in negating itself as value, in leaving 7 the circulation of value, just as capital only becomes capital in the face of its opposite . The realisation of value thus pre-supposes this unproductive consumption, which can only be carried out outside production, either in the consumption of the wage-earners, or in that of the capitalists, or in a destruction organised by the state . This 'risk' was nevertheless effectively taken for over a century in 8 France, up to the Astier law (1919) ; however, during this period, the reproduction of the collective labourer rested to a large extent on the inflow of workers formed within the artisanat . We have found it useful to distinguish among the totality of social 9 relations between those that are the result of the process of commodity production and those that are set outside the field of value . It is clear that social relations at school, in the family, etc ., do not escape the capitalist mode of production . The distinction is nevertheless necessary so as not to fall into the reduction of social reality to the production of commodities and social relations to the social relations of production alone . 10 Lautier and Tortajada 1977, pp .265 et seq . As Marx suggests when he assumes a society in which capital has taken possession of all production : "Therefore only the capitalist is the producer of commodities (the sole commodity excepted being labour-power) ." (TSV, I, p .158) At the same time the "humanist' attacks on the Marxist theory, that claim that the validity of the theory of surplus-value depends on the production of human beings according to the rules of capitalist rationality are invalidated (Schumpeter 1967, p .650 - " a special objection", said he! Schumpeter 1943, pp .27-8) . By contrast, those who extend the rules of capitalist rationality to human beings are in fact certain contemporary neo-classical economists such as Becker 1964, Friedman 1962 . 11 The litany of massacres perpetrated by the bourgeoisie against 'its' national working class, whether killing hundreds of thousands of people (Indonesia) or in using napalm bombs (Bolivia), to say nothing of Argentina, Chile, etc ., may appear exotic . However, without going back to the Paris Commune, it is as well to remember that Nazism as well as fascism cannot be explained by the tendential fall in the rate of profit alone . 6

Our aim is not to analyse all the 'functions' of the army and of the police, notably in crisis periods . 13 This section derives from an earlier work of B . Lautier 1976, pp .13-19 . 14 It is worth noting, in most of these analyses, a deformation of the thought of Marx, because his "real subsumption of labour under capital" is reduced to machinery . cf. : "With the development of the real subsumption of labour under capital, or the specifically capitalist mode of production, the real lever of the overall labour process is increasingly not the individual 12



LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

63

worker . Instead, labour-power socially combined and the various competing labour-processes which together form the entire production machine participate in very different ways in the immediate process of making commodities, or more accurately in this context, creating the product . Some work better with their hands, others with their heads, one as Manager, engineer, technologist, etc . the other as overseer, the third as manual labourer or even drudge"

(Capital I, pp .1039-40) . 15

"Being independent of each other, the workers are isolated . They enter into relations with the capitalist, but not with each other . Their cooperation only begins with the labour process, but by then they have ceased to belong to themselves . On entering the labour process they are incorporated into capital . As co-operators, as members of a working organism, they form a particular mode of existence of capital . Hence the productive power developed by the worker socially ("travailleur collectif" in French) is the productive power of capital .

(Capital I, p .451) 16

In the same way, introducing valorisation before circulation (whether in studies conducted in terms of 'branches', 'industries' or 'sectors'), makes it impossible to give any theoretical status to the 'quest for the maximum rate of profit', but rather to make it an exogenous datum, a 'psychological disposition of the entrepreneur' . 17 Analyses of this question have become more widespread since the start of the 1970s, tending to show the impossibility of analysing concrete labour (and, in particular, the productivity of labour) without reference to the problem of valorisation and to the real domination of capital over labour in the production process . See in particular Gorz et al . 1973, (especially Gorz's article "technique, technicians et luttes de classe), Coriat 1976 . 18 "The process of production is the immediate unity of labour process and valorisation process, just as its immediate result, the commodity, is the immediate unity of use-value and exchange-value . But the labour process is only the means whereby the valorisation process is essentially the production of surplus-value, i.e . the objectification of

unpaid labour" (Capital I, p .991) 19 "Equality in the full sense between different kinds of labour can be arrived at only if we abstract from their real inequality, if we reduce them to the characteristic they have in common, that of being expenditure of human labour-power, of human labour in the abstract .

And it is only the exchange of products which performs this reduction by confronting products of different labours on an equal basis" (Capital I, p .166) (N .B . Ben Fowkes' translation of Capital has been slightly modified to make it compatable with Joseph Roy's French translation - revised by Marx - .) 20 " . . . the labour that forms the substance of value is equal human labour, the expenditure of identical human labour-power . The total

labour-power of society, which is manifested in the values of the world of commodities counts here as one homogeneous mass of



64,

CAPITAL & CLASS

human labour-power, although composed of innumerable individual units of labour-power . Each of these units is the same as any other, to the extent that it has the character of a socially average unit of labour and acts as such . . ." ( Capital I, p .129, our emphasis) . The concept of "abstract labour" has been very little discussed in the Marxist literature . Although Rubin posed in explicitly in 1928 it is only with the work of Napoleoni, Colletti and, more recently, Arthur and Kay that we have seen a renewal of the 'debate' . 21 A lack of differentiation of a completely different character from the movement generally analysed on the tendency of 'deskilling', of generalisation of simple labour, which is situated at the level of concrete labour. 22 "The use-value which confronts capital as posited exchange-value is labour . Capital exchanges itself, or exists in this role, only in connection with not-capital, the negation of capital, without which it is not capital ; the real not-capital is labour" (Grundrisse, p .274) 23 Here we cannot accept the conclusion of the Brighton comrades : "The revolutionary task of the working class is the reconstruction of the collective worker with the objective of Socialist accumulation". (Brighton Labour Process Group, 1976, pp .91-2) 24 "The means of production on the one hand, labour-power on the other, are merely the different forms of existence which the value of the original capital assumed when it lost its monetary form and was transformed in the various factors of the labour process . ( . . .) On the other hand, that part of capital which is turned into labour-power does undergo an alteration of value in the process of production . It both reproduces the equivalent of its own value and produces an excess, a surplus-value, which may itself vary, and be more or less according to circumstances . This part of capital is continually being transformed from a constant into a variable magnitude . I therefore call it the variable part of capital, or more briefly, variable capital ." (Capital I, p .317) 25 cf. Same reference : "The same elements which from the point of view of the labour process, can be distinguished respectively as the objective and subjective factors, as means of production and labour-power, can be distinguished, from the point of view of the valorisation process, as constant and variable capital ." 26 And it seems to us that Marx does this especially in Capital pp .273ff . 27 Not in the sense of the sum of the workers co-operating in the production of a commodity but co-operating in the production of its value, that is to say participating in the process of production of a// commodities . 28 It seems that Brunhoff calls capital from the point of view of the capitalist the "day-to-day value" of labour-power, and variable capital from the point of view of capital-in-general the "reproduction value" . But then, if variable capital really is initially value, labour-power is not and does not have to 'validate' its 'value' socially, as all other commodities have to . Thus "the problem of the relation between the dayto-day value and the reproduction value of labour-power is presented I



LABOUR-POWER AND THE STATE

65

anew, not at the level of principles (of the reproduction value being socially validated), but at the level of the arrangement of its financing ." 29 For obvious logical reasons, it does not seem to us that it is possible to define surplus-value as "the difference between the use-value of labour-power and its value" (Cartelier 1976, p .261) . To be able to establish a difference, the two elements must initially be homogeneous . 30 Marx clearly postulates such a 'mechanistic' relation : "The value of commodities stand in inverse ratio to the productivity of labour . So, too, does the value of labour-power, since it depends on the values of commodities ." (Capital I, p .436) 31 cf. K . Marx, Oeuvres I, p .1679 where M . Rubel quotes the lines, cut from the final edition of Capital : "Surplus-value is absolute, because it implies the absolute lengthening of the working day beyond the labour-time necessary to enable the worker to live . Absolute surplusvalue is relative, because it implies a development of the productivity of labour which allows the limitation of the necessary labour-time to a part of the working day . But if we consider the movement of surplusvalue, this apparent identity disappears" . 32 A situation that cannot generally exist in contemporary capitalism . 33 It is therefore only at first sight surprising to state that the laws dealing with education under the capitalism of the Third Republic should have been taken up almost word for word certain of the resolutions of the Paris Commune .

BIBILOGRAPHY Altvater, Elmar, 1973, "Note on Some Problems of State Interventionism", Kapitalistate, 1, pp .96-108 . Reprinted in J . Holloway and S . Picciotto, ed, State and Capital (Arnold, 1978) . Arthur, Chris, 1976, "Abstract Labour" CSE Bulletin . Aumeeruddy, Aboo, 1977, La politique d'emploi des entreprises et les formes d'emplois (Mimeo, Grenoble) . Becker, G .S ., 1964, Human Capital (NBER, New York) . Benetti, C ., 1977, Marx et l'Economie Politique (Maspero, Paris) . Berthoud, A ., 1974, Travail Productif et Productivity du Travail chez Marx (Maspero, Prais) . Brighton Labour Process Group, 1976, "The Production Process of Capital and the Capitalist Labour Process, CSE Conference Paper, Coventry (Mimeo) . Brunhoff, Suzanne de, 1976, Etat et Capital (PUG/Maspero, Grenoble) . Cartelier, J ., 1976, Surproduit et Reproduction (PUG, Grenoble) . Colletti, Lucio, 1972, "Bernstein and the Marxism of the Second International" in From Rousseau to Lenin (NLB, London) . Comite d'Information Sahel, 1975, Qui se Nourrit de la Famine en Afrique (Maspero, Paris) . Coriat, B ., 1976, Science, Technique et Capital (Seuil, Paris) .



66

CAPITAL & CLASS

Drugman, B ., 1973, Etat, lutte de classes et reproduction elargie du capitalisme (Mimeo, CERES, University of Grenoble) . Foucault, M ., 1967, Madness and Civilisation (Tavistock, London) . , 1976, La Volonte de Savoir (Gallimard, Paris) . Friedman, M ., 1962, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago UP) . Gorz, A ., 1973, Critique de la Division du Travail (Seuil, Paris) . Gouverneur, J ., 1975, "Le travail 'productif' en regime capitaliste", Insthut des Sciences Economiques de Louvain, Working Paper 7503 . Harrison, John,1973, "The Political Economy of Housework", CSE Bulletin Winter, pp .35-52 . Kay, Geoff, 1976, "A Note on Abstract Labour", CSE Bulletin, V, 1 . Lautier, Bruno, 1974, La Reproduction de la Force de Travail, These d'Etat, University of Paris IX . , 1976, "L'analyse du travailleur collectif", Grenoble . Lautier, Bruno and Tortajada, Ramon, 1977, "La force de travail comme marchandise particuliere", in Sur l'Etat (Contradictions, Louvain) . Magaud, J ., 1974, "Vrais et faux salaries", Sociologie du Travial, ! . Marx, Karl, n .d . Theories of Surplus Value, Volume 1 (Lawrence Marx, Marx, Karl, n .d . Theories of Surplus Value, Volume 1 (Lawrence and Wishart) . " , 1965, German Ideology 1965, German Ideology, (Lawrence and Wishart) . 1973, Grundrisse (Penguin) . 1976, Capital, Volume 1 (Penguin) . Oeuvres, Vol 1, (NRF, Paris) . Meillassoux, Claude, 1975, Femmes, Greniers et Capitaux (Maspero, Paris) . Nagels, J ., 1974, Travail Collectif et Travail Productif dans /'Evolution de /a Pensee Marxiste (University of Brussels) . Napoleoni, 1975, "Abstract Labour, Exchange and Capital in Marx", in Smith, Ricardo, Marx (Blackwell, Oxford) . Pashukanis, E ., 1951, "The General Theory of Law and Marxism", in Babb and Hazard (eds), Soviet Legal Philosophy (Boston) . Rubin, I ., 1972, Essayson Marx's Theory of Value (Black and Red, Detroit) . Schumpeter, J ., 1943, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (Allen and Unwin) . Schumpeter, J ., 1967, History of Economic Analysis (Allen and Unwin) . Tortajada, Ramon, 1974, La reduction du travail complexe au travail simple, these complementaire .

THE ANOMALIES OF CAPITAL Susan Himmelweit and Simon Mohun

INTRODUCTION Ever since the Conference of Socialist Economists was founded, controversy among its members has surrounded the fundamental concepts of Marxian economics . Debate has been heated and vehement, confused and repetitous, dogmatic and assertive, and productive of little agreement between participants, except an agreement to disagree abusively . While the debate has touched virtually all areas of Marxian economics, it basically concerns the nature and status of value theory and its relation to the everyday concepts of wages, prices and profit . Positions on debates in other areas, such as productive and unproductive labour, or whether one can make statements about tendential movements in the rate of profit, cannot be taken prior to an understanding of the basic debate about value . What this paper attempts to do is to show on what issue an understanding of the concept of value turns, and what the theoretical implications are for different understandings . In the process of developing the argument, we will survey the basic issues according to our estimation of their intrinsic importance . Clearly this may differ significantly from the weight various issues have been accorded by past authors or by our current readers . Consequently, while we hope to summarise as clearly and succintly as possible the issues that have been raised, we do so within a framework about which there is no agreement, and we hope that those who disagree will bear with the argument to the end rather than adopting the entrenched dismissive positions so common in the past . Indeed, we would stress that our argument is addressed precisely to the problems which are central to the neo-Ricardian critique of Marx's theory of value . While our discussion of these problems attempts an answer to this critique, it is not thereby concerned with an uncritical defence of the letter of Marx's writings . Accordingly, we do think that we have something new to say . We have had some difficulty with terminology . One of the main points that we shall make in this paper is that Marx made a separation of certain categories that for others are not differentiated . Thus for example Marx distinguishes exchange-value from value, while Ricardo tries to make value do for both . In general, we have tried to use the terminology of the author under discussion, but clearly we have had to move into Marx's usage when making specific criticism of the elaboration of the categories themselves . We hope that this will not cause any confusion . In the interests



68

CAPITAL & CLASS

of (at least intial) clarity, we will give our understanding of Marx's usage here . That of other authors we hope can be understood from the context . For Marx, value is the property of commodities that differentiates them from products of labour in general (i .e . from things not produced specifically in order to be exchanged) . Exchange-value is the proportion in which commodities exchange for one another in the market . Commodities are bought and sold for money, and the quantity of money for which they exchange is called their price . Given a theory of money, the determination of exchange-value is immediately the determination of price, and therefore any theory of one is automatically a theory of the other . Accordingly we use the phrases "theory of price" and "theory of exchange-value" interchangeably . Another pair of categories which Marx distinguishes but Ricardo does not are those of abstract and concrete labour . So when we use "labour" when referring to Ricardo, we mean neither abstract nor concrete labour but an undifferentiated category . This is important, for it is easy to slip into viewing Ricardo as merely having failed to make Marx's abstraction, and thinking that what Marx called "concrete labour" was simply Ricardo's "labour" . We shall show in the paper why we consider this view to be mistaken . It is important to note that in general "abstract" does not mean "theoretical"; concrete categories are also theoretical . Indeed, "facts" are but abstractions themselves . However, a mere consideration of facts (surface phenomena) leads us nowhere . Abstractions are validated as startingpoints for analysis if and only if their elaboration produces an understanding of more concrete categories . This seems to us to be what Marx means when he writes, "The concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse . It appears in the process of thinking, therefore, as a process of concentration, as a result, not as a point of departure, even though it is the point of departure in reality and hence also the point of departure for observation and conception ." (Marx, Grundrisse , 1973, p .101) A final terminological point : we occasionally talk of theories and abstractions as unscientific . We mean this in the minimal sense that they hypostasise some cateogry that is historically specific, that is, that they take a category that needs explanation as a facet of capitalist production relations, and eternise it, taking it as a given, whether of man, nature of of production in general . The plan of our paper is as follows . The first section considers the Ricardian labour theory of value and the fundamental contradiction in which it is enmeshed . The second section considers Marx's theory of value, and shows how this theory, while located within a totally different method, incorporates, reformulates and can thereby resolve Ricardo's dilemma . The next section outlines Marx's critique of Ricardo, making more explicit the methodological differences between them, and concludes with a taxonomy of current positions on the basis of their stance with respect to Ricardo's dilemma . The following two sections examine the current indictment of



THE ANOMA L IES OF CA PI TA L

69

value on charges of redundancy and inconsistency ; the alternative understandings of value are shown to determine what case there is to answer . Issues of correct and incorrect technical solutions to Marx's so-called "transformation problem" are related but not central to the substance of our argument . We have therefore relegated them to an appendix . While our paper should be comprehensible without reading this, those who wish can pursue the implications of our position into this area .

SECTION 1 RICARDO AND EMBODIED LABOUR The modern criticisms that have been directed at Marx's theory of value have their origin in Ricardian value theory . Consequently it is necessary to examine the latter in order to situate subsequent discussion so that first, we can determine the precise significance of what constitutes Marx's advance on Ricardo, and second, we can show that the epithet neoRicardian, while often employed as a term of abuse, does have a certain descriptive meaning and validity . Ricardo developed his theory as an attack upon Adam Smith's costdetermined theory of price . As Ricardo saw it, Smith's view was that in a society characterised by private property, the price of a commodity was determined by the sum of its three constituent parts, wages, profit and rent ; or as Smith put it, "wages, profit and rent, are the three original sources. . . of all exchangeable value ." (Smith, 1904, p .57) Nevertheless, Smith did recognise that, "in that early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land, the proportion between the quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different objects, seems to be the only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchanging them for one another ." ([bid, p .52) But he found such a "labour theory of value" to be insufficient with the emergence of private property and the accumulation of means of production, for it takes no account of rent and profit ; accordingly Smith abandoned his labour theory in favour of what Marx later dubbed the "trinity formula ".0) In this context Ricardo's achievement was to generalise Smith's labour theory from Smith's "early and rude stage of society" to a world in which production involves the use of accumulated stock (capital) . Ricardo rejected any notion that the value of a commodity was determined by the remuneration due to the owners of the labour, capital and land necessary for its production . Instead, he considered that the value of a commodity was determined by the quantity of labour necessary for its pro-



70

CAPITAL & CLASS

duction - both direct labour, and indirect labour embodied in the means of production . Thus Ricardo's labour theory of value is essentially an embodied labour theory . And Ricardo is very clear on how he differs from Smith : " . . . Adam Smith thought, that as in the early stages of society, all the produce of labour belonged to the labourers, and as after stock was accumulated, a part went to profits, that accumulation, necessarily, without any regard to the different degrees of durability of capital, or any other circumstance whatever, raised the prices or exchangeable value of commodities, and consequently that their value was no longer regulated by the quantity of labour necessary to their production . In opposition to him, I maintain that it is not because of this division into profits and wages, - it is not because capital accumulates, that exchangeable value varies, but it is in all stages of society, owing only to two causes : one the more or less quantity of labour required, the other the greater or less durability of capital :that the former is never superceded by the latter, but is only modified by it ." (Ricardo, 1951, pp .XXXVI-XXXVI I, emphasis in the original) In this letter to James Mill (of 28 December 1818) Ricardo raises issues which are germain to current controversies . For on the one hand he had posited a theory of the value of products, independent of and prior to their division between classes ; that is, there is in commodities an inherent value, to be subsequently allocated according to the claims each class has by its role in production . This is in contrast to Smith's view that the sum of demands for remuneration arising from production relations (i .e . costs) constitutes the value of the commodity itself . But on the other hand for Ricardo, although he was not always consistent, "exchangeable value" and "value" were generally synonymous concepts, and therefore although he rejected Smith's view of value as being determined by the sum of costs, he still required their equality . For in any theory of "equilibrium price", the term that modern vulgar economy (neoclassical economics) gives to "exchangeable value", this price must tautologically equal total costs paid, because the money paid for a commodity must be remuneration for someone and a fully inclusive definition of costs is just total remuneration (2) . This is why Ricardo was forced to recognise that the durability of capital modified the determination of value by the quantity of labour embodied . For if commodities do actually exchange in proportion to their embodied labour times, the rate of profit per year of a capitalist whose capital is required to be tied up for a longer period will be less than that of one whose capital is used faster, even if the total amounts of embodied labour in the two cases are the same . This is clearly not how prices will remain : the price of the more slowly produced commodity must in equilbrium be higher than that of the other, otherwise no capitalist will advance capital for its production . Since not all commodities do involve the tyingup of capital for equal lengths of time, it follows that if value is to be identified with equilibrium price (exchange value) it cannot be determined by embodied labour time without modification .



THE ANOMALIES OF CAPITAL

71

Ricardo made two very closely related points with respect to the durability of capital . He defined capital to be circulating capital if it is turned over at least once in the time period under consideration (i .e . is totally consumed during that period), and to be fixed capital if it is turned over in a longer period (i .e . is not totally consumed in the period in question) . Now consider two capitals embodying the same total labour . First, they may be very differently divided into fixed and circulating components . Second, they may be identically so divided, but their fixed components may be of different durabilities . Either way, although total embodied labour is the same for each capital, the commodities produced by each capital must differ in (exchange) value, because of the different times for which the various components of each capital are tied up . This is necessarily the case in an economy in which competition equalises the rate of profit on each capital over the time period being considered . Since the distinction between fixed and circulating capital merely has reference to the time period chosen, the two cases can be subsumed under the generic point that because in equilibrum each capital must receive the same rate of profit, then different turnover times must modify the determination of (exchange) value by labour embodied . It cannot be stressed too strongly given their contemporary currency that these results are not new ones ; they emerge out of the first chapter of Ricardo's Principles . . ., and indeed gave Ricardo a great deal of trouble . Thus he wrote to McCulloch in June 1820, "I sometimes think that if I were to write the chapter on value again which is in my book, I should acknowledge that the relative value of commodities was regulated by two causes instead of by one, namely, by the relative quantity of labour necessary to produce the commodities in question, and by the rate of profit for the time that the capital remained dormant, and until the commodities were brought to market ." (Ibid, pp .XXXIX-XL) But he persisted with his embodied-labour theory of value, writing four months later to Malthus, "You say that my proposition 'that with few exceptions the quantity of labour employed on commodiites determines the rate at which they will exchange for each other, is not well founded' . I acknowledge that it is not rigidly true, but I say that it is the nearest approximation to truth, as a rule for measuring relative value, of any I have ever heard ." (Ibid) . Yet Malthus was correct within this framework . For with the formation of a general rate of profit in the economy, exchange-values of commodities do vary with both the quantity of embodied labour and the temporal structure of how that labour is embodied in capitals of different durabilities . If these structures differ, then so do relative (exchange) values from ratios of embodied labour. Ricardo was reduced to saying that embodied labour was the most important element in the determination of value . But



72

CAPITAL & CLASS

within a theory which is only concerned with the explanation of the magnitude of exchange value, this is an arbitrary assertion . Thus Ricardo refused to concede that embodied-labour time might not be the predominant determinant of exchange-value ; but to justify this refusal he should have set himself the problem of deriving the necessary differences between value and price from the determination of value itself. However, posing the problem in this way demands a distinction between categories of value and exchange-value not consistently present in Ricardo's work . The recognition of a contradiction between a labourembodied theory of value and a cost-summation account of price marks the limits of Ricardo's scientific achievement (3) .

SECTION 2 MARX AND ABSTRACT LABOUR Two possible resolutions of Ricardo's contradiction exist . One way out of the dilemma is to abandon the first approximation of the labourembodied theory of value in seach of some other account of the magnitude of exchange-value . Such a path historically comprised the retreat from science to vulgar economy . The other possible resolution involves the complete reconceptualisation of value, a recasting of the theory of value as an abstraction, rather than an hypostasised assumption, wherein its significance and status is such that its apparent inconsistences can be recreated as the expression of the real contradictions of capitalist society . This was Marx's project, the development of a theory of value as the specific application of his method of historical materialism in order to analyse the production relations of capitalism . The method of historical materialism defines the differentia specifica of epochs of histroy by class relations established between those who produce and those who appropriate the surplus . That is, "the essential difference between the various economic forms of society . . . lies only in the mode in which this surplus-labour is in each case extracted from the actual producer, the labourer ." (Marx, 1938, Capital I, p .200) More generally, "The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element . Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political form . It is always the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers - a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite stage in the development of the methods of labour and thereby its social productivity which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure . . ." . (Marx, 1972, Capital III, p .791 )



THE ANOMALIES OF CAPITAL

73

The application of such an understanding to capitalist societies, then,

requires first of all investigation of what is specific to the form of production in these societies ; that is, that it is the production of commodities . For without this, the specific form of surplus extraction that defines the capitalist mode of production could not be described . This is because capitalist exploitation is the form of surplus extraction that requires for its definition only relations of commodity production and exchange, including crucially those of labour-power. For the extraction of surplus-value, which distinguishes capitalism from other class modes of production, is itself a commodity relation . Hence, while Marx had many different startingpoints in his analysis, he settled on the commodity to begin his final exposition (4) . The distinguishing feature of commodities is that they are produced for exchange . In such an exchange process, two commodities are measured against each other in determinate proportions, yielding a relation of equivalence between a certain quantity of one commodity and a certain

quantity of the other . There is therefore an

equalisation

of the com-

modities as far as their exchange-value is concerned, and a differentiation

with respect to their

use values

(the effects to be gained from subsequent

consumption of the commodities) . Exchange value is thus merely that which is posed as equal in the pure act of exchange, something manifested

by commodities in exchange,

after

their production . But since what is at

issue is the production relations of capitalism, rather than abstracting from the production process itself the analysis has to investigate what it is that differentiates the production of commodities from that of products in general . Since production of a commodity is both the production of a use-value,

and the production of an exchange-value,we can make a similar

conceptual

distinction between the labour which produces the one aspect and the labour which produces the other . The labour which produces the individuated useful properties of a commodity is useful or concrete labour ; such labour produces products, but it is only in certain sorts of societies that products become commodities . For in these societies, in addition to the aspect of labour which produces use-values, there is another aspect of

labour which produces use-values as

commodities,

which is abstract labour .

Marx's "value" is the product of abstract labour . Accordingly, value is a category of commodity production, whose form is exchange-value ; what gives commodities exchange-value is the labour that remains on abstraction from the labour that produces use-value . Now in a sense such an answer to the question of what gives commodities exchange-value is already preempted by that very question, for all that Marx has to do is to specify the nature of commodity-producing labour . So to talk of the proof of such a specification is meaningless . But, within the framework of historical materialism, that Marx's answer is not an arbitrary one is ensured by the nature of the exchange itself, since it carries on as a real process the commensuration of the products of labour under commodity production .

Therefore there can be no

a priori

determination of abstract labour,

for not until commodities are actually exchanged on the market can the products of individual producers satisfy the needs of others . It is the pro-



74

CAPITAL & CLASS

cess of exchange on the market which manifests the social character of individual labours, establishes the social connections between independent commodity producers, and which thereby determines that the value realised in exchange (exchange-value) is the form of appearance of that labour, and only that labour, which is socially necessary to the production of the commodity in question . Hence value is measured not in units of embodied labour time, but rather in units of "socially necessary labour time ." Thus the reduction of labour to abstract labour is something that can only be done by the market ; the value of a commodity has to be expressed, and then only after the event, in the use-value of another commodity . Eventually, one commodity becomes that against which the value of all other commodities is expressed ; one commodity becomes universal equivalent, that is, assumes the money-form . "Commodities, first of all, enter into the process of exchange just as they are. The process then differentiates them into commodities and money, and thus produces an external opposition corresponding to the internal opposition inherent in them, as being at once use-values and values . Commodities as use-values now stand opposed to money as exchange-value . On the other hand, both opposing sides are commodities, unities of use-value and value . . . These antagonistic forms of commodities are the real forms in which the process of their exchange moves and takes place ." (Marx, 1938, Capital I, pp .77-8) So now the separation of the expression of the value of a commodity from the commodity itself is complete . The value of a commodity has no expression except as exchange-value, commensuration of itself against another commodity in the market . But this exchange-value itself has no expression except against one particular commodity, money . Price is this sole expression of value (and exchange-value) . There is no manifestation of value in terms of its substance, abstract labour, nor of its measure, socially necessary labour time . The only form in which value appears, and the only way it can appear, is in terms of the money commodity (gold, for example) and its quantitative measure (weight, for example) . This is what the price of a commodity is, the quantity of the money-commodity for which it will exchange . It is the only form in which exchange-value is expressed, and clearly therefore the only form for the expression of value too . Marx summarised his method as follows : " . . . I do not proceed on the basis of 'concepts' hence also not from the 'value-concept', and I do not have the task of 'dividing' it up in any way, for that reason . What I proceed from is the simplest social form in which the product of labour in contemporary society maniests itself, and this as 'commodity' . That is what I analyse, and first of all to be sure in the form in which it appears . Now I find at this point that it is, on the one hand, in its natural form a thing of use-value, alias use-value, and on the other hand that it is bearer of exchange-value, and is itself an exchange-value from this point of view. Through



THE ANOMALIES OF CAPITAL

75

further analysis of the latter I discovered that exchange-value is only an 'appearance-form,' an independent mode of manifestation of the value which is contained in the commodity, and then I approach the analysis of this value ." (Marx, 1976a, Marginal Notes on Wagner, p .214 . Emphasis in original ) So his starting point is not an arbitrary assumption, but a reality, the commodity, considered as the social, historically specific form of the product . And the abstraction which allows this consideration of the commodityform is a real one . The process of the theoretical discovery of abstract labour is not merely a process of mental generalisation, but has a real existence in the reality of the exchange process . The equalisation of products of labour on the market occurs every day, standardised by money, the universal equivalent of value . Since individuals alienate their products as commodities in exchange, so too do they alienate the labour producing those commodities . Abstract labour is a real activity, a social reality, whereby individuals alienate their labour-power from themselves . Colletti puts the point well : "This in turn implies that in a society in which individual activities have a private character, and in which therefore the interests of individuals are divided and counterposed, or, as we say, in competition with one another, the moment of social unity can only be realized in the form of an abstract equalization, ignoring the individuals themselves ; hence, in this case, as a reification of labour-power - a labourpower which is said to be equal or social, not because it genuinely belongs to everyone and hence mediates between the individuals, but because it belongs to nobody and is obtained by ignoring the real inequalities between the individuals ." (Colletti, 1972, p .87 . Emphasis in original) Hence the analysis of the commodity-form reveals exchange to be more than the equalisation of products . For equality of human labour can only take the form of a quantitative value-relation between the products of labour ; and the social realtions between the producers of labour ; and the social relations between the producers can only take the form of social relations between their products . This of course is central to to Marx's theory of value, for " . . . the labour of the individual asserts itself as a part of the labour of society, only by means of the relations which the act of exchange establishes directly between the products, and indirectly, through them, between the producers . To the latter, therefore, the relations connecting the labour of one individual with that of the rest appear, not as direct social relations between individuals at work, but as what they really are, material relations between persons and social relaions between things." (Marx, 1938, Capital I, p .44) From this understanding of commodity fetishism, Marx develops his analysis to reveal behind the equality of the exchange relation, the inequal-



76

CAPITAL & CLASS

ity of capitalist production relations . As soon as the direct producers' ability to work (labour-power) assumes the commodity-form, then the elaboration of the contradictions immanent in such a form constructs the mode of surplus extraction in capitalism . For once the conditions under which labour-power becomes a commodity are realised, then its unique use-value (realised in its consumption in the labour process) of creating more than its own value is sufficient to explain both the production of the surplus and its extraction as value by the capitalist . Through this understanding of capitalist production relations, the extraction of surplusvalue can be understood without recourse to theories of unequal exchange . This marks a crucial difference of Marx's value theory from an embodied-labour theory of value : the latter cannot correctly theorise the class relations of capitalism . For without an understanding of the production relations of capitalism, the exchange relation between capital and labour can only be treated as of equal significance with those between different fractions of each class . That is, within Ricardian theory, competition between capital and competition in the labour market are logically as fundamental as the exchange between capital and labour itself . Whether the proponents of such theory recognise the more fundamental significance of the latter, that recognition is a purely arbitrary choice, following not from their theory but from a superimposed ethical position . When all parts of the whole are analysed as exchanges, there is no way in which the exchange between a worker and a capitalist is necessarily exploitative, unless that between, for example, one capitalist and another is potentially so as well . To overcome the symmetry of the exchange relation and to uncover the production relations that constitute the basis of capitalist exploitation requires a recognition of the commodity as the specific form of the product under capitalist relations . To do this requires the formulation of a completely new set of categories which cannot be situated in the embodied-labour theory of Ricardo . And all this, despite the seemingly small change which Marx makes : "The value of every commodity . . . is determined not by the necessary labour-time contained in it, but by the social labour-time required for its reproduction ." (Marx, 1972, Capital III, p .141 . emphasis in original) However, this is only the first step . For the formal subsumption of labour to capital on the basis of previous techniques of production gives way to its real subsumption as capitalist relations affect every aspect of the labourprocess and "revolutionise" the mode of production . The laws of motion of capitalist development can then be elaborated . But capital is here still considered as capital in general, "the incarnation of the qualities which distinguish value as capital from value as value or as money . Value, money, circulation etc ., prices etc ., are presupposed, as is labour etc . But we are still concerned neither with a particular form, nor with an individual capital as distinct from other individual capitals etc . We are present at the process



THE ANOMA L I ES OF CA PI TA L

77

of its becoming . This dialectical process of its becoming is only the ideal expression of the real moment through which capital comes into being . The later relations are to be regarded as developments coming out of this germ ." (Marx, 1973, Grundrisse, p .310 . Emphasis in original . See also pp.449-50) It is only through the development of these later relations that we can recognise that not only is production under capitalism production for (surplus) value rather than for use-value, but capital itself is value in process ; a process in which a given value takes the form of different use-values in the process of its self-expansion . It is only through this separation of value from use-value, a social separation and not merely an analytic one, that the exploitative relation that is capital functions . On this basis, capital in general can be individuated intodifferent capitals through the synthesis of production with the circulation of different use-values ; but now commodities can no longer be taken to exchange at their values .

Marx derives this result by showing initially how the logic of his analysis leads to the presumption of different rates of profit in different industries ; and this for two reasons . First, only living labour produces value, but the rate of profit is defined across total capital . Thus for a given rate of surplus-value, a greater proportion of capital represented by labour power (variable capital) rather than means of production (constant capital) will produce more surplus-value than one with a higher ratio in value terms of means of production to labour power . This ratio, the value composition of capital, determines for a given value of capital and rate of surplus-value, the quantity of surplus-value produced . If we could work out the rate of profit in value terms, it would be the total surplus-value produced per unit of total capital, and would thus vary, for a given rate of surplus-value, according to the value composition of capital . Secondly, if two capitals, again with the same rate of surplus-value, and of equal value, have the same value composition but different turnover times, then the capital which turns over faster (has the shorter turnover time) has the higher rate of profit, because surplus-value is produced each turnover yet the capital advanced remains unaltered . But having stated the problem with respect to different turnover times (a statement in which the common basis with that of Ricardo's stumbing block is most

obvious (5) ), Marx proceeds to concentrate on the problem with respect to different compositions of capital . The rate of profit under discussion is the "value rate of profit", or the rate of profit in value terms upon each capital . Algebraically, this is given by r= s = sv c+v c/v+1 where c, v and s are respectively, the constant and variable parts of, and surplus value produced for, an individual capital . The rate of exploitation is then s/v, while c/v gives the value composition of capital . The effect of competition between capitals is to create a tendency for the rates of profit on different capitals to be equalised, and hence a tendency towards the



78

CAPITAL & CLASS

formation of a general rate of profit . Now on the assumption of a uniform rate of exploitation s/v -. (6), but no such assumption of uniformity for c/v, the "value rate of profit" will vary across industries and cannot therefore be this general rate of profit . Marx therefore implicitly dismisses the "value rate of profit" at least for an individual capital when he says : "differences in the average rate of profit in the various branches of industry do not exist in reality, and could not exist without abolishing the entire system of capitalist production . It would seem, therefore, that here the theory of value is incompatible with the real phenomena of production, and that for this reason any attempt to understand these phenomena should be given up ." (Marx, 1972, Capital III, p .153 ) But of course he does not give up his attempts to understand the real phenomena . Recognition of the incompatibility implies recognition that commodities necessarily cannot exchange at their values ; this as a direct result of the extension of value analysis to its logical results in capitalist competition . For while value analysis implies the commensuration of socially necessary labour-times through commodity exchange, capitalist competition implies the commensuration of paid labour-times through the formation of an average rate of profit . These two commensurations have been shown to be in contradiction . The latter is a consequence of the former, since it is only as a consequence of the commensuration of commodities in exchange that labour-power can become a commodity and capitalist competition result . Thus, though competition's commensuration is a consequence of that of socially necessary labour-times, it modifies the operation of the latter . This modification is expressed in the transformation of values into prices of production . This, the "transformation problem", is therefore a necessary result of the contradictory nature of capitalist production relations, and not at all a problem with Marx's theory, which recognises this result . Indeed, we could rather say that Ricardo's problem is that by failing to recognise the contradiction between the two commensurations, he does not pose the transformation problem - he just requires its solution . The important point, then, is not the technicial correctness of Marx's solution (we leave discussion of this to the Appendix), but that the neccesity for this transformation of values into prices of production has been derived from his understanding of value itself .

SECTION 3 METHODOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES The previous section situated Marx's theory of value within this problematic of historical materialism ; the present section requires however a more explicit presentation of the methodology of his (abstract) labour theory of value, partly in order to elucidate further the theoretical process



THE ANOMA L I ES OF CA PI TA L

79

of abstraction, and partly to situate Marx's criticisms of Ricardo's (embodied) labour theory of value . The inclusion of the latter is justified by the dismal fact that many today continue to work in the Ricardian framework and that indeed much modern "Marxism" has not only failed to go beyond Ricardo's theory but has indeed retreated from its very substantial achievements. Marx's fundamental critique of Ricardo, as the best exponent of classical political economy, is that he "never once asked the question why labour is represented by the value of its product, and labour-time by the magnitude of that value ." (Marx, 1938, Capital I, p .52) and so for capitalism "does not examine the form - the peculiar characteristic of labour

that creates exchange-value or manifests itself in exchange-values the nature of this labour ." (Marx, 1969, Theories of Surplus Value 11, p .1 64 . Emphasis in original .) Since the question at issue is why under capitalism labour and labourtime take these particular forms, a failure to resolve this question simultaneously fails to identify the historical specificity of the capitalist mode of production . Thus Marx remarks that "It is one of the chief failings of classical economy that it has never succeeded by means of its analysis of commodities, and, in particular, of their value, in discovering that form under which value becomes exchange-value . Even Adam Smith and Ricardo, the best representatives of the school, treat the form of value as a thing of no importance, as having no connection with the inherent nature of commodities . The reason for this is not solely because their attention is entirely absorbed in the analysis of the magnitude of value . It lies deeper . The value form of the product of labour is not only the most abstract, but is also the most universal form, taken by the product in bourgeois production, and stamps that production as a particular species of social production, and thereby gives it its historical character . If then we treat this mode of production as one eternally fixed by nature for every state of society, we necessarily overlook that which is the differentia specifica of the value-form, and consequently of the commodity-form, and of its futher developments, money-form, capitalform, etc ." (Marx, 1938, Capital I, p .52, n .2 . Emphasis in original) Now there are two senses in which the analysis could fail to identify the historical specificity of capitalism . In a weak sense, the analysis might just fail to explain what is historically specific . In this sense Ricardo's analysis can be judged wanting, for while he is undoubtedly talking about capitalism, he fails to explain its historical specificity . Because of this failure, Ricardo's analysis is enmeshed in a contradiction irresolvable within his



80

CAPITAL & CLASS

framework . The resolution in the direction of vulgar economy leads to the strong sense of the lack of historical specificity : historically specific categories are rendered universal and hence natural . It follows that any analysis which uncritically employs these categories will always tend to ascribe asocial, natural, even eternal qualities to what is socially specific to capitalism (7) . For economic categories are but thought-constructs which are determinate abstractions of the prevailing relations of production ; that is, "The categories of bourgeois economy . . . are forms of thought expressing with social validity the conditions and relations of a definite, historically determined mode of production, viz ., the production of commodities ." (Ibid, p .47) Without this recognition, for Marx, no analysis can be scientific . Ricardo's "great historical significance for science" was to show that "The basis, the starting point for the physiology of the bourgeois system - for the understanding of its internal organic coherence and life process - is the determination of value by labour-time . Ricardo starts with this and forces science to get out of the rut, to render an account of the extent to which the other categories - the relations of production and commerce - evolved and described by it, correspond to or contradict this basis, this starting-point ; to elucidate how far a science which in fact only reflects and reproduces the manifest forms of the process, and therefore also how far those manifestations themselves, correspond to the basis on which the inner coherence, the actual physiology of bourgeois society rests on the basis which forms its starting-point ; and in general, to examine how matters stand with the contradiction between the apparent and the actual movement of the system. " ( Marx 1969, Theories of Surplus Value 1 1, p .166, first emphasis in original, second added .) But his procedure was misguided : "Ricardo's method is as follows : he begins with the determination of the magnitude of the value of the commodity by labour-time and then examines whether the other economic relations and categories contradict this determination of value or to what extent they modify it . The historical justification of this method of procedure, its scientific necessity in the history of economics, are evident at first sight, but so is, at the same time, its scientific inadequacy . This inadequacy not only shows itself in the method of presentation (in a formal sense), but leads to erroneous results because it omits some essential links and directly seeks to prove the congruity of the economic categories with one another ." (Ibid, pp .164-5 . Emphasis in original) But there can be no proof of "the congruity of the economic categories with one another" in the way in which Ricardo attempts . For Ricardo begins with the existence of commodities, wages, capital, profit,



THE ANOMALIES OF CAPITAL

81

the general rate of profit, the various forms of capital in circulation (fixed and circulating) and so on . In other words he begins with the whole of capitalist production and a complete theorisation of the relation between wage and profit rates . Far from postulating the existence of a general rate of profit, "Ricardo should rather have examined in how far its existence is in fact consistent with the determination of value by labour-time, and he would have found that instead of being consistent with it, prima facie, it contradicts it, and that its existence would therefore have to be explained through a number of intermediary stages, a procedure which is very different from merely including it under the law of value ." ([bid, p .174 . Emphasis in original ) The lack of mediation of categories in Ricardo's work proves to be an insuperable barrier within his frame of reference . In the face of the contradiction between a labour-embodied theory of value and a cost-summation account of price, Ricardo's scientificity consisted in his obstinacy in maintaining the former in the face of the latter, rather than dissolving it in the vulgarity of passive reflection upon appearances . Yet consider the category embodied labour . A sort of abstraction is certainly being made, for in so valuing a commodity, various aspects of the labour performed in its production are ignored, such as who did it, where it was done, and what it produced . But the content of this abstraction is purely that of rendering physically heterogeneous objects commensurable . Embodied labour is thus a means of aggregation, and there is nothing to restrict its application to any particular sort of society . (8) The recognition simply of commensurability is insufficient to make the concept historically specific to capitalism, which is to say that embodied labour is not abstract labour . The point is not that no abstraction is involved in the concept of embodied labour ; rather it is not a social abstraction corresponding to a particular historical process, but it is arbitrary, a mental convenience : an assumption that labour is homogeneous when it is plainly not . Indeed it is because Ricardo's concept of labour has no historical specificity, since it is not the product of an historical process of abstraction, that his theory as a whole fails to explain what is historically specific . Ricardo's theory is, then, a model built upon assumptions rather than the theorisation of a real world process by means of abstraction . Assumptions are thought-constructs which have no real existence but are invented in order to simplify and to structure the complexity of the analysis (consider, for example, the assumptions of neo-classical perfect competition) . Assumptions are of course designed in order to be able to say something about the world, but to the extent that they do this (Ricardo's assumption, for example, of the tendency towards equalisation of the rate of profit in different sectors across the economy) they do so purely by virtue of being imposed upon empirical 'facts' in order to render appearances coherent and plausible . Hence they are expressions of surface phenomena which see in such immediate forms the whole nature of the phenomena in question . But descriptions of surface phenomena exclude the possiblity of necessary



82

CAPITAL & CLASS

contradictions as the determinants of the motion of these immediate forms . For at the level of the particularity of phenomena, appearances either are or are not contradictory with each other, and contingently so . Hence the recognition of any determinate contradictory reality is ruled out . And it further follows that nothing can be deduced from assumptions which is not already entailed by those assumptions ; hence theory becomes tautology, the deduction of conclusions from assumptions . By contrast, Marx's method of abstraction, his dialectical method, is precisely concerned to show that the forms of appearance of capitalism are just that, forms of appearance . Through his critique of these forms, and their reflection in bourgeois thought, Marx shows first, that these reflections fail to identify the social forms that they express but treat them rather as natural phenomena (commodity fetishism) ; and second, that the forms of appearance of capitalism are always transitory in that they constitute barriers to their further development . This is no mystical idealism, but a materialist recognition of the process of motion through contradiction which constitutes the process of human history . Such a dialectic is "in its essence critical and revolutionary" ; it "includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time, also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up ; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence ." (Marx, 1938, Capital I, pp .xxx-xxxi) The process whereby both the existence of something and its impermanence can be captured is by the method of abstraction . Thus abstract labour is derived by an abstraction inherent in the exchange process in order to capture the moment of the social fabric of capitalist society in its simplest form . The immanent development of the pure value-form into its specific capital-form is immediately posited, (just as historically commodity production preceded and evolved into capitalist production), and the contradictions constituting the most abstract moment are elaborated through mediation, suspension and their reappearance in successively more concrete moments . The result is that the historical reality of capitalism is grasped in thought as a part of the process of the transformation of that reality . Thus Marx describes how the method of inquiry "has to appropriate the material in detail, to analyse its different forms of development, to trace out their inner connection . Only after this work is done, can the actual movement be adequately described . If this is done successfully, if the life of the subject-matter is ideally reflected as in a mirror, then it may appear as if we had before us a mere a priori construction . " ( I bid, pp .xxix-xxx . Emphasis added .) But what the "a priori construction" will show is value as the constitutive form of the social relations of capitalism, from which the analysis proceeds through a hierarchy of abstractions in order to comprehend in thought the



THE ANOMA L IES OF CA PI TA L

83

real world . Only once the basic capital/labour relation has been grasped can "the various forms of capital . . . approach step by step the form which they assume on the surface of society, in the action of different capitals upon one another, in competition, and in the ordinary consciousness of the agents of production themselves ." (Marx, 1972, Capital I11, p .26) Thus considerable mediation is required before competition can be explained on the basis of abstract labour . Of course, "Competition merely expresses as real, posits as an external necessity, that which lies within the nature of capital ; competition is nothing more than the way in which the many capitals force the inherent determinants of capital upon one another and upon themselves ." (Marx, 1973, Grundrisse, p .647 . Emphasis in original ) Nevertheless such mediation is essential in order to explain the forms of appearance which are necessarily adopted by social relations in the capitalist mode of production . For all the various phenomena arising from the process of competition "seem to contradict the determination of value by labour-time as much as the nature of surplus-value consisting of unpaid surpluslabour. Thus everthing appears reversed in competition . The final pattern of economic relations as seen on the surface, in their real existence and consequently in the conceptions by which the bearers and agents of these relations seek to understand them, is very much different from, and indeed quite the reverse of their inner but concealed essential pattern and the conception corresponding to it ." (Marx, 1972, Capital III, p .209 emphasis in original .) Marx's account of the formation of a general rate of profit in competition, his transformation procedure, is precisely the transition from the "inner but concealed essential pattern" to the "pattern of economic relations as seen on the surface" . It is a movement required, a procedure of transformation, between abstractions of different orders of conception . What it is not is a process of redistribution of aggregate surplus-value . It is often claimed that aggregate surplus-value is redistributed such that capitals do not share in it in accordance with the amounts of money-capital exchanged for labour-power, but rather that they share in it in accordance with the amounts of capital exchanged for both labour-power and the means of production ; this redistribution is supposed to occur through differences between values and prices of production (9) . But there is no real world state which exists prior to such redistribution . Of course competition distributes aggregate surplus-value according to total capital advanced, but there is no redistribution . The process of redistribution is not a real world process, but a conceptual one which is symbolic of the theoretical transition required between concepts of a different order . The pro-



84

CAPITAL & CLASS

cess takes place wholly in thought, for the process is one of conceiving the value produced by production first in abstraction from competition, and second by allowing for the effects of competition . This transformation between abstractions of different orders of conception is rendered perhaps more comprehensible without resort to parables of redistribution . We can now bring together the threads of the discussion in order to draw some conclusions about Ricardian and Marxian value theory, and the different methodologies employed . First, if one adopts a Ricardian concept of value as embodied labour, one is trapped in irreconcileable contradictions . Prices are and must equal costs, therefore cost-determined "theories" of price are correct (and contentless) . But it follows that one cannot assign embodied-labour values to commodities in general in any way that preserves a meaningful functional correspondence between embodiedlabour values and equilibrium prices, or between their rates of change . However, this has long been known - it is one of the reasons why neoclassical economics is not Ricardian . That Marx made mistakes in his own transformation procedure (to put it least charitably- is no reason to fall back on a Ricardian understanding of value . For Marx's transformation procedure is a deduction of the forms of appearance of values which is based on a full elaboration of the contradictions immanent in the real abstraction that is value itself. The capital-relation is a value-relation, but values as quantities of abstract labour can exist only in commodity-form, and commodities are purchased and sold on markets for prices . In this way the fundamental contradiction between value and use-value finds its most complete expression in the fact that it is through competition that the laws of motion of capitalist development are expressed . For quantities of value are expressions of social relations, the fact that there is a necessary connection between a certain article and that fraction of aggregate social labour-time required to produce it . It is the market that makes this connection, and necessarily only in distorted form . Only market processes realise the quantitative expression of abstract labour, and this quantitative expression only has a price-form . As we have seen, the abstraction that is value yields the price-form directly, but as soon as competition is

accounted for, then abstract labour cannot directly be assigned to commoditites . I n this sense, all of Marx's numerical examples are potentially misleading in their assignment of numerical values to commodities - these numerical exercises must be seen as didactic and expository devices rather than analytical explanations . Otherwise, there is no complete escape from Ricardo's problemic . It was Ricardo's failure to recognise the historical specificity of capitalist production, and thus of the value-form, which led him to demand for his (embodied) labour theory of value a direct bearing on the determination of price, a direct bearing which neither his theory nor the contradictions of capitalism could support . The reason for the inclusion of this apparent digression into the history of political economy, and Marx's critique of it, is that it is very common to find modern work which while claiming to employ a Marxist understanding of value has not in fact advanced upon Ricardo's . Indeed, we can use the contradiction between a labour-embodied theory of value and a cost-summation account of price,



THE ANOMA L IES OF CA PI TA L

85

the contradiction that beset Ricardo, to classify such work in modern political economy (10) . Under the heading of "Ricardian" come those analyses which remain enmeshed in Ricardo's problem and do not advance beyond it (11) . "Sraffian" is a term that applies to those which "solve" the problem by clinging to one horn of the dilemma, abandoning altogether the category of value, thus repeating, over a century later, the post-Ricardian retreat from political to vulgar economy (12) . In spite of this difference (that Sraffian analysis forms a part of vulgar economy while Ricardian does not) the two together have generically been called "NeoRicardian" . Indeed they do have certain features in common . For in both, labour is neither abstract nor concrete, value (whether consequently rejected or not) is embodied-labour, capitalism is not rendered historically specific, and occasionally a sociological theory of class struggle is appended as guarantee of "Marxist" authenticity and rectitude (as if the class struggle were discovered by Marx, when it is plainly present in Ricardo and many others .) As we shall see below, such work is enmeshed in all the contradictions which beset Ricardo, which is not really terribly surprising . Another school, called by some "fundamentalist ",does not recognise Ricardo's problem and its consequences (13) . While the term "fundamentalism" may be appropriate to their apparent desire to show every word of Marx's to be correct, more importantly they miss the fundamental issue . While adopting an apparently Marxist understanding of value, and recognising the necessity of accounting on this basis for the appearances of the real world, their insistence on the technical correctness of Marx's solution to the transformation problem implicitly assumes, despite their explicit methodological promises to the contrary, that value is a category of direct applicability as an analytic tool at successively lower levels of abstraction . Thus they want appearances and reality, if not, like Ricardo, to coincide, at least to be immediately accessible to the same tools of analysis without transformation . The issues of this paper then are of considerable relevance to a critique of "fundamentalism", but rather than continue to criticise a school whose practice is to dissolve the real world into an epiphenomenon of capital in general, we shall continue to focus on those issues directly . On the basis of this understanding, we now turn to an examination of certain modern "puzzles" in value theory to demonstrate how the analysis of these within an embodied-labour framework provides no escape from Ricardo's problematic save that of . vulgar economy . The reason is simple : these puzzles are of the same genus as the transformation "problem" itself. By contrast, a Marxist analysis of them will serve to develop the understanding of abstract labour and price which we have established above .

SECTION 4 THE MODERN ASSAULT ON VALUE An interpretation of Marx's transformation procedure as a "problem" provides the starting-point for much of the modern criticism of Marx's



86

CAPITAL & CLASS

value theory . Such modern criticism, whose ancestry goes back at least as far as von Bortkiewicz and Bohm Bawerk, is largely based on the work of Sraffa. As such, it is precisely subject to the strictures which Marx considered applied to Ricardo's work . For the introduction of competition at the outset of the analysis leads to the same problems ; problems which have devastating consequences for what is interpreted to be Marx's value analysis . Indeed many would go as far as to say that "the project of providing a materialist account of capitalist societies is dependent on Marx's value magnitude analysis only in the negative sense that continued adherence to the latter is a major fetter on the development of the former ." (Steedman, 1977, p .207) . In its strongest statement this claim has two foundations -- each apparently equally damaging to value analysis ; together, invincible . The first is that value as a concept is internally inconsistent, the second that it is redundant . The claim is that "it has been proved that Marx's value reasoning is often internally inconsistent, completely failing to provide the explanations which Marx sought for certain central features of the capitalist economy . By contrast, these same features can be given a coherent explanation in terms which make no reference whatsoever to any value magnitude ." (Ibid, pp.206-7) i)

The redundancy of values We will take the charge of redundancy first . To avoid any misunderstanding, we will read the charge, from the most recently published work of one of the least circumspect of the accusers, Steedman : "If there is only one available method for the production of each commodity - and thus the value of a commodity - is determined_ only one product then : i) the physical quantities of commodities and of labour specifying the methods of production, together with the physical quantities of commodities specifying the given real wage rate, suffice to determine the rate of profit (and the associated prices of production) ; ii) the labour-time required (directly and indirectly) to produce any commodity - and thus the value of any commodity - is determined by the physical data relating to methods of production ; it follows that value magnitudes are, at best, redundant in the determination of the rate of profit (and prices of production) ; iii) . . . The traditional value schema, in which all the constant capital and all the variable capital elements in a productive activity are summed and represented by a single "C" and a single "V" figure, is not adequate to the determination of the rate of profit (and prices of production .)" (Ibid, pp .202-3) (14) To summarise, the rate of profit, prices and values can all be calculated once the methods of production and the wage are specified ; on the other



THE ANOMA LIES OF CA PI TA L

87

hand, none of these other variables can be calculated from a knowledge of values alone . Thus values are but statistics derived from the methods of production, a compression of the full data, and a compression that loses much that is of importance . Now the Sraffians are in their own terms clearly correct . A full specification of physical input-output requirements does give sufficient information to calculate exchange ratios and rates of profit . (15) Certainly no less can be demanded of a cost-determined "theory" of price . But further, such a full specification also gives sufficient information to calculate amounts of labour embodied, were such information required . But in no sense is it, since knowledge of the amounts of labour embodied is not sufficient to calculate exchange ratios and rates of profit . This for them clinches the argument that "values" are redundant : they are derived from the phsycial input-output specification, not vice versa . They cannot be used by themselves to derive exchange ratios and rates of profit, while anyway the physical input-output specification can do that directly . It should of course be clear that the "value" being talked about here is total labour embodied, the Ricardian concept . For how else could (as in (ii) above) the value of a commodity be determined by the physical data relating to methods of production rather than vice versa? Why else would one elaborate the determination of value rather than the determination by value? The former means the mere functional determination of one quantity (values) by other quantities (input coefficients and labour input vectors) . The latter encapsulates the method whereby the relations of commodity production are such that input coefficients and labour input vectors can be specified . For it is only through the exchange of products that individual labours are commensurated and socially necessary labour times are established . And this is critical . For what is being counterposed here is on the one hand an understanding of values as mere derivates of physcial quantities required for production, and on the other hand an understanding of the social quantification of production requirements posited on the value abstraction . How then has Steedman advanced on Ricardo? For as we have seen, Ricardo recognised the lack of functional dependence of prices and the rate of profit on embodied labour times . The point is that Steedman, following Sraffa, has solved this problem of Ricardo's by showing us upon which variables prices and the rate of profit do functionally depend . In doing so, however Sraffa and Steedman are treading a well-worn path the path that leads to vulgar economy and a cost "theory" of price . In solving Ricardo's problem, they have simply stated a series of tautologies, for that, after all, is all a proof of functional dependence can be . Halted by the contradiction between a labour-embodied theory of value and a costsummation account of price, Sraffians are thus led to jetison the former as redundant . While Steedman emphasises the logical purity of his conclusions, it is in fact in Sraffa's own work (Sraffa 1960) that the argument is clearest. For Sraffa never saw his task as specifically one of criticism of Marx, and thus he found it unnecessary either to introduce a concept of value as distinct



88

CAPITAL & CLASS

from price or even to consider value as labour-embodied . What Sraffa did was to show that with a full specification of the input-output requirements of each commodity (i .e . a list of the amounts of all commodities, including labour-power, required to produce a given commodity) then the price of each commodity can be calculated as a sum of its costs of production together with the profit accruing to the capitalist on whose account the production of the commodity is taking place . It is important to recognise here then that Sraffa's famous dated-labour analysis, in which the price of a commodity is broken down into the sum of labour-input costs incurred in all periods from the present backwards, is just precisely that : an expression of price in terms of costs . Sraffa therefore implicitly rejects any theory of value as a property of the labour employed in the production of a commodity (whether "embodied" or "abstract") in favour of an account of price as determined by costs of production . That the coefficients involved in the dated-labour equation are quantities of labour embodied in no sense relates to Ricardo's labour-embodied theory of value and in no sense removes Sraffa from the school of vulgar economy . For Sraffa, and for vulgar economy, prices are made up of costs and costs, of course, are but prices . (16) Sraffian economics is thus clearly different from Ricardian . It is talking about the physcial product and its division between classes instead of the total labour of society and its division . Nevertheless, both Sraffians and Ricardians work on the assumption that the specification of input requirements (whether in terms of physical inputs of particular use-values one . This does not mean, as neo-Ricardians would claim, that the specification of input requirements is simply determined by the class struggle and by profit maximisation . What it rather means is that the specification of-what is produced (the composition of output) and the techniques by which it is produced (the technical coefficients of production) is meaningless in abstraction from the way in which the labour process is organised and from the way in which production, as a social activity through the market's universal commensuration of what is produced, determines both what it produced and how it is produced . Hence neither of the latter can be taken to be a given .

ii)

The inconsistency of values

The other criticism that the Sraffians level against Marx's value theory is that there are internal inconsistences in the concept of value itself. The argument can be dressed in more or less technical clothing . Here we shall give it in as uncomplicated a way as we can ; and will show why the sheep's clothing hides nothing but a sheep after all . Not surprisingly the wolf which appears to some finally to have gobbled Marx will be revealed to have had a most Ricardian supper. The claimed inconsistency in the concept arises when established methods of calculating values give either indeterminate or negative answers . The former can arise when there is a choice between two equally profitable techniques of producing the same commodity, and the latter when two different commodities are the simultaneous result of the same production process and a question arises as to how to allocate the total embodied labour time between them . Basically, both problems arise from the same

THE ANOMA L IES OF CA PI TA L

89

source : capitalists, who control what is produced and how, make their decisions on the basis of maximising their profit, which, for the production of a given commodity means minimising their costs . But costs

are prices, not values, and the minimisation of one may not, and in general will not, be the minimisation of the other and thus anomalies may arise . Let us take the two cases in turn . The first arises when there are two methods of production of the same commodity, that are (in price terms) equally cheap and cheaper than all others for producing that commodity . These methods are clearly the only ones that will be used by efficient capitalists, but because there is nothing to choose between them on the criterion of profit maximisation, some capitalist will use one method and some the other . Now there is no reason why these two methods should use the same quantities of total embodied labour . Where such a choice of techniques exist, which method of production determines the value of this commodity? The second anomaly arises when we have joint production of two commodities . Joint production is considered to be an important problem because this is the standard way of incorporating fixed capital into Sraffian analysis. The inputs to such a production process are a machine of a certain age (thus productive capacity), other means of production, and labour ; the result is a commodity that will be sold plus a slightly more used machine which will be employed in the production process next period . The machine will continue to be used each period until, because it is no longer profitable to use it, it is scrapped . This way of looking at production processes involving fixed capital, together with the existence of clear real cases of joint production,points to the problem of how in ajoint production process to allocate the embodied labour between the two commodities produced in order to determine the values of each commodity (17) .

If some other process exists and is in use for producing one of the commodities alone, we could determine the labour embodied in that commodity from this non-joint process and determine the labour embodied in the other commodity by subtraction from the total quantity of labour embodied in the joint process . But the total labour embodied in the joint process may be less than that in the non-joint one, leaving - a negative "values" for the second commodity after subtraction . It is possible that a process which used more labour to produce only one product than another did to produce two would remain in use because, as we have seen, capitalists decide which production method to use on the basis of profit calculations based on prices, not on the basis of embodied labour calculations, and the former process might be as profitable as the latter though clearly more "wasteful" of embodied labour . This anomaly thus arises for the same fundamental reason as the other, that capitalists make their decisions on the basis of prices rather than on the basis of embodied labour values . The problem however appears in a different form : not that "values" may be merely indeterminate, but that they may even be negative . Various solutions have been suggested to these problems, primarily by those who want to rescue the Ricardian concept of value, but all solutions proposed involve some modification of the concept . One approach (Armstrong, Glyn and Harrison 1978) to the problem



90

CAPITAL & CLASS

of the indeterminacy of the "value" of a commodity which has two methods currently in use for its production is to take the value of the commodity to be the average "actual labour-time" embodied in it . By "actual labour-time" is meant the total labour time spent on production of that commodity divided by the quantity produced of the commodity . This certainly gives an answer, given the required information, but the required information is much greater and specifically more concrete than that previously required . It begs the question of why "labour embodied" is a worthwhile quantity to calculate even more strongly than before, if to calculate it requires a full specification not only of methods of production but also of the extent of their use . It is now a purely descriptive statistic, stripped of any analytic content ; and in any case such an approach is forced to concede the indeterminacy of embodied labour values of individual commodities in the case of joint production, the other anomaly . Thus the price of such a rescue attempt is the reduction of Ricardo's analytic procedure to the empirical inspection of actual labour times in cases in which it is hoped that joint production is not significant . A considerably more robust approach is that of Morishima 1973, 1974 . Following von Neumann, he reformulates his theory of value in terms of inequalities rather than equations . This means that the value of a commodity is the minimum total labour-time required to produce a net output that includes one unit of the commodity . So in the case of two equally profitable methods of producing the same commodity, its value is given by the method that uses least labour-time . Joint production does not affect this ; if x units of total labour time are needed to produce commodities A and B jointly and there is no other way of producing commodity A, then x is the minimum total labour needed to produce A and thus the value of A . If there are other methods of producing A, each will require a certain amount of labour, and then the value of commodity A will be the smallest of these requirements . This way clearly avoids the problem of indeterminate or negative values, for every process uses a determinate positive amount of labour . The value of the commodity is just the smallest of these determinate, positive amounts . On the other hand, a different problem arises, that of non-additivity of values . The value of two commodities jointly produced, such as A and B above, will not in general equal the sum of their individual values . Indeed, in the case above, if commodity B also cannot be produced by an alternative method, the values of commodity A alone, of commodity B alone and of a bundle consisting of A and B together will all be the same . This non-additivity poses problems in calculating such variables as the rate of exploitation, since the sum of necessary and surplus labours may not equal total labour performed . Nevertheless it does capture the labour-embodied concept of value and does not lead to nonsensical results . In so far as this is Morishima's purpose he has clearly and elegantly succeeded . To summarise then, the attack on value as both a redundant concept and an inconsistent concept is well-founded within a Ricardian framework . Attempts to salvage the concept of embodied labour from the attacks on its consistency by some modification of the concept must fail, on the same count as Ricardo, to provide a basis for a theory of price . Yet within this



THE ANOMALIES OF CAPITAL

91

framework, the calculation of embodied labour times, in whatever form, has no other justification . The problem of redundancy - already present in Ricardo's own work - is thereby rendered even more acute .

SECTION 5 REDUNDANCY, INCONSISTENCY, AND MARX'S THEORY OF VALUE In this section we return to Marx's theory of value in order to examine whether the charges of redundancy and inconsistency have any validity when directed against the category abstract labour . As a preliminary we can note that the answer to the charge of redundancy has already been made ; value theory is not redundant in Marxism because it is necessary to the very specification of the production relations of capitalism . The redundancy of values cannot therefore be "proved", were it to be possible, by showing that values can be derived from a specification of production conditions, by input-output data . For the law of value itself is the process by which those production conditions are such that they can be technologically represented by an input-output specification at all . It is value analysis that reveals what is historically specific to the capitalist mode of production, and the burden of our argument has been to show that values have a real, social existence . To render them an arbitrary piece of theoretical baggage, to be taken on board and jetisoned at will, is precisely to think of values as a mental construct, an assumption from which to make deductions to be compared with the facts, rather than the necessary result of a real process of abstraction . The reality of values stands or falls with the reality of capitalism . Dispense with the one and you dispense with the other . While as a political programme this may be admirable, as a theorisation of current reality it leaves something to be desired . Occam's razor cannot therefore be used to excise the category of abstract labour ; the charge of redundancy must be rejected . The second charge is that of inconsistency . We have seen that the calculation of quantities of embodied labour involves insuperable difficulties unless the concept be redefined in a programming framework, as Morishima . The question is whether any of the same difficulties are involved in the calculation of quantities of abstract labour, in the calculation, that is, of socially necessary labour times . To answer this question we must reexamine the separation of abstract from concrete labour as it applies to the anomalous cases described in the last section . In these, the problem arose either because one commodity was being produced by two different production processes or because two different commodiites were being produced by one production process . Now two commodities can differ qualitatively only in their use-values . Therefore the identity of the commodities produced by two production processes or the difference of two commodities produced by one, in the anomalous cases, is at first just a question of use-value . Marx used the differences between use-values to differentiate concrete labours . Provided we consider only use-values that are produced



92

CAPITAL & CLASS

singly with only one technique in use at any point in time, this allows a one-to-one correspondence between use-values and concrete labours . The problem with the anomalous cases is that this one-to-one correspondence breaks down . For joint production involves one type of concrete labour to produce more than one use-value, and different techniques are different concrete labours producing the same use-value . These peculiarities arising from the use-value aspect of the commodity would be of no significance for the value aspect were it not that the difference or identity of use-values is manifested in their exchange . For the different use-values produced by a joint production process will be sold at their own, in general different, prices . Conversely, if two different production processes produce identical use-values, they must be sold at the same price . But value is the category which links production to exchange in the single product single technique case . In the anomalous cases, the one-to-one correspondence between production processes and the process of exchange of their products breaks down . For since concrete labours cannot uniquely be allocated to use-values, the abstraction from concrete labours to abstract labour also performs no unique determination . Abstract labour is still being performed in each of the production processes ; that it cannot be allocated to the specific use-values produced merely implies that the "commodity" cannot now be both the result of the production process and that which is exchanged on the market . The link between the two is value of course : value is produced in the labour-process, but only has a price-form . However, the specification of that linkage is always a contradictory one, counter-posing value as an attribute of what is produced, reflected in the commodity, with its manifestation in the commodityform and more specifically upon its exchange. This relates back to the necessity to derive the contradiction between value and its form, exchange-value, from the unfolding of the value abstraction itself . For until this unfolding leads to the level of abstraction at which capitalist competition is introduced, there is no need for the distinction between values and prices of production, and the anomalous cases disappear . At this level, the market allocation of labour to different production processes is not in conflict with the law of value ; cost minimisation is value minimisation . Therefore any individual commodity produced will have a determinate, positive value . For at no level would commodities be produced unless their exchange-values were each positive and at this level this occurs if and only if their values are each positive . (18) But the development of the commodity-form through exchange entails capitalist competition . As soon as this is taken into explicit account, prices of production must in general differ from values . So we can retain values as attributes of production processes, but cannot allocate values to individual commodities produced in joint production processes, not a unique value to the indistinguishable product of two different production processes . Prices of production remain but the expression of value . However, and this is the crucial point, they are the only expression of value . Thus the uniqueness and separability of the former is essential, while that of the latter is not .



THE ANOMALIES OF CAPITAL

93

Marx himself, of course, did not consider these problems specifically . But our treatment here is quite consistent with Marx's own elaboration of his categories, albeit in different contexts . Thus when he considers the results of the production process as a mass of commodities whereby the total capital advanced reproduces itself together with a surplus-value, he remarks that, "The labour expended on each commodity can no longer be calulated - except as an average, i .e . an ideal estimate . The calculation begins with that portion of the constant capital which only enters into the value of the total product in so far as it is used up ; it continues with the conditions of production that are consumed communally, and ends with the direct social contribution of many co-operating individuals whose labour is averaged out . This labour, then, is reckoned ideally as an aliquot part of the total labour expended on it . When determining the price of an individual article it appears as a merely ideal fraction of the total product in which capital reproduces itself." (Marx, 1976b, Capital I, p .954 . Emphasis in original) Individual values become "ideal estimates ",fractions of the total, which may or may not be realised in the price-form depending on the quantities of the commodities actually sold . And in his discussion of the time-chitters, he writes : "Every moment, in calculating, accounting etc ., that we transform commodities into value symbols, we fix them as mere exchange values, making abstraction from the matter they are composed of and all their natural qualities . On paper, in the head, this metamorphosis proceeds by means of mere abstraction ; but in the real exchange process a real mediation is required, a means to accomplish this abstraction ." (Marx, 1973, Grundrisse, p .142 . Emphasis in original) Such a real mediation is the real contradiction underlying all the problems discussed in this paper . The anomalous cases discussed are no more anomalous than the solution of the transformation "problem", for in each case the anomaly arises from the contradiction between the fundamental concept of socially necessary labour time and the development of its full consequences in capitalist competition . For the former has implicit within it the operation of the law of value, the minimisation of values, while the latter is expressed through the formation of the general rate of profit, and the minimisation of costs, i .e . prices . It is this contradiction itself which renders the assignment of numerical values to commodities impossible as soon as explicit account is taken of competition . It is this contradiction itself which renders an understanding of the transformation problem as a real world procedure of the redistribution of surplus value, mistaken ; what is required is the dialectical development of categories in order to appropriate a real contradictory world in thought . It follows then that because the law of value operates through the distorted form of capitalist competition, the capital which sets in motion



94

CAPITAL & CLASS

some production processes which are "wasteful" of total social labour may still be validated by that competition, and hence produce a portion of the total surplus value . Such "wasteful" processes are those in which the time spent in the production of a given use-value is longer than that spent in the production of that same use-value by another process (one anomalous case) ; or those which produce one use-value where another can produce the same use-value plus something extra for the same or less expenditure of human labour-power (the other anomalous case) ; or those whose continued use is validated by the market in competitive capitalist conditions rather than by the "pure" operation of the law of value . The last, of course, is the general case of capitalist production, which is itself the ultimate anomaly . CONCLUSION In this paper we have attempted to explain and extend Marx's value theory . In order to provide a framework in which much of the debates on the nature and significance of value theory can be situated, we made a distinction between a Ricardian embodied-labour theory of value and the Marxian theory of value based on the category of abstract labour . While the former is intended immediately to be a theory of price, the latter is so only after several mediations . These mediations are critical to the fundamental difference in method between the two theories . Ricardo made no distinction between value and exchange-value, demanding unsuccessfully of his theory that it be an immediate explanation of surface phenomena . He failed because capitalist relations are inherently contradictory, and the forms they take constitute a set of appearances that do contradict their fundamental determinations . Two responses were possible to Ricardo's failure . One, that of vulgar economy, was to abandon the search for explanation, seeing appearances as the whole phenomena in question, and limiting the scape of any particular theory by the requirements of internal consistency . The other, that of Marx, was to recognise capitalist reality as contradictory, and to attempt to structure theory in such a way as to elaborate within it the contradictions of the capitalist world . To do this, he used a method of abstraction which recognised the historical specificity of the capitalist mode of production and hence its transience . We have shown how this differs from a method of building theory on assumptions, a method common to the defeated Ricardo and to vulgar economy . And by this method of abstracting value as that which is specific to capitalist products, Marx not only had a justification for the distinction between value and exchange-value, but could derive the very necessity for that distinction from the category of value itself. Hence Marx's transformation procedure is not, as it would be for Ricardo, an attempt to correct an unfortunate disjuncture between an embodied-labour theory of value and the requirements that the equalisation of the rate of profit makes of prices . Rather, that disjuncture is recognised as the necessarily contradictory link between value, as the explanation of



THE ANOMA L IES OF CAPITAL

95

capitalist production relations, and its expression as exchange-value in prices . Hence it is not surprising that, when competition is accounted for, the one-to-one relationship of values to exchange-values disappears . We then considered certain modern objections to values, and showed that when brought against Ricardo (often addressed under the pseudonym of Marx) they have validity . But the substance of the objections is not new, in the sense that they are objections to the results of the distinction of exchange-value from value . For this reason, the same objections have no relevance to Marx's theory of value, for the contradictions between value and price, and the anomalies that thereby arise, are explained within the theory itself as consequences of the recognition of value as an attribute of the production of commodities which is only validated by their exchange . Again, it should not be surprising that, when capitalist competition is accounted for, the one-to-one relationship of values to exchange-values disappears . The anomalies are therefore all of the same sort . They arise out of the elaboration of the contradiction between value and use-value in order to account for the phenomena of capitalist competiton . We have shown how this contradiction is contained in the distinction between abstract labour (which produces value) and concrete labour (which produces usevalue) . The former is commensurated through the exchange of commodities . But there is a second commensuration in capitalism : the equalisation of the rate of profit consequent upon the purchase and consumption of labour-power in definite amounts of time . The commensuration of these quantities of times through the equalisation of the rate of profit contradicts the commensuration of socially necessary labour times through commodity exchange . The burden of this paper has thus been to show that both commensurations are fundamental to an account of capitalism which reproduces the contradictions of capitalist reality . For fundamentalists, values are sacred ; the commensuration of paid labour times, while recognised, is allowed no effect on socially necessary labour times . For Sraffians, values are irrelevent ; the only commensuration is that of capitalist competition, and production is a black box technology of input-output coefficients . For Ricardians, there is no realisation of Ricardo's contradiction ; commensuration is a muddled one of actual labour times, and analysis cannot be developed since contradiction cannot be contained within Ricardo's framework . What this paper has attempted is an approach which develops the contradiction between use-value and value such that the contradictory commensurations of capitalism are integrated within a methodology of historical materialism . But this is only a beginning in the understanding of the complex reality of the capitalist mode of production .

APPENDIX We saw in Section 2 that the formation of a general rate of profit is incompatible with the exchange of commodities at their values . Put another way, the amount of profit accruing to each capital must in general



96

CAPITAL & CLASS

differ from the amount of surplus-value produced for that capital . Our concern here is to capture the existence of surplus value in its more concrete individuated form of profit . This capturing of something in a more concrete form could in general be called a process of transformation . The particular transformation at issue here is that which displays surplus-value as profit and, in so doing, reveals the contradiction between value and its forms, exchange value (expressed as price) . Now this transformation has a quantitative dimension . Values, exchange-values and prices are all quantities, as are rates of exploitation and of profit . If there are use-values to which both value and price can be assigned, then we should be able to write down the relation between these two quantities. Similarly, if consequently rates of exploitation and of profit can be defined for the same economy, we should be able to express the quantitative transformation of the one into the other in algebraic form . As we have seen in Section 3, these transformations of quantities are not the whole content of the transformation procedure, for they only encapsulate one aspect of the procedure : that concerned with quantities . Nevertheless, given the above proviso (and Section 5 shows why it is a meaningful proviso), we can consider a quantitative transformation procedure . This for Marx is one which accounts for "prices of production" as different from values, the former being defined to equal total capital advanced plus an amount of profit proportional to that capital ; that proportion being given by the rate of profit (in value terms) for the economy as a whole . Then capitals with higher than average value-composition will sell their commodities at prices of production greater than their values, and conversely for those with lower than average value-composition . Algebraically, Marx's solution is to let the average rate of profit be R, where R= C+V S where S, C and V are now defined for total social capital . That is, summing over all commodities, S = -i si, C = 1~ i ci, V = i vi . Then for an individual commodity, its price (of production) is given by

wi = ci + vi + R(ci+ vi) _ (ci + vi) (I + R) compared with the value wi of that commodity, wi=ci+vi+si Certain properties of Marx's solution should be noted at this point . It evidently follows that total price of production equals total value : Y- i -'i = Ei wi that total profit equals total surplus-value : R( 2 . i[ci +Yi vi) =

2~iCsi,

and that R is the average rate of profit in the sense of an average of all individual value rates of profit, each one weighted by the value of the capital advanced : R =

~i (si/ ci + vi) (bi+ vi) C+V

Two related objections have been raised to Marx's procedure . Those who raise these criticism focus on the inadequacy of Marx's formula



THE ANOMA L I ES OF CAPITAL

97

for the determination of prices of production, and generally proceed from such weaknesses to question his value theory as such . We have been concerned with the latter in the main body of this paper, and it is to the procedural criticisms in their own right that we now turn . First, in the equations, prices of production are calculated on the basis of the means of production and labour-power consumed being assessed as capital in value terms . This clearly means that prices of production cannot be any representation of exchange-value ; otherwise we would have the absurd situation that the money paid for a commodity consumed in production by its purchaser is different from the money received by its seller . There is plenty of textual evidence that Marx was aware of this (Marx, 1972, Capital III, pp .160, 164-5, 206-7), and that to account fully for the formation of a general rate of profit, not only output values but also input values require transformation . Second, Marx's procedure is indicted for inconsistency . The rate of profit measured in value terms is used to prove the necessity for deviations of prices of production from values . But such deviations imply that the ratio of the aggregates of total surplus-value extracted to total value advanced as capital, cannot in fact be taken to be the rate of profit, since the point of the procedure is precisely to transform value magnitudes in order to derive the existence of an average rate of profit . Both indictments of Marx's procedure are clearly well-founded, and to render Marx's account both complete and consistent is straightforward . Many different formulations have been proposed, all correct solutions being formally identical . Seton's starting point (Seton 1957) however is closest to that of Marx, and so we reproduce it here . Algebraically, let cij = value of commodity j transferred to commodity i in order to produce one unit of commodity i ; and vij = value of commodity j, necessary to reproduce the living labourer, required in order to produce one unit of commodity i . (i,j = 1,2 N, where there are N commodities .) Hence, adding necessary subscripts, we get _ Zcij and vi = Evij J

and so

j

wi = E(cij + vij) +si 1 Let xi = wi/wi be the transformation factor which transforms the value of commodity i . Then xj (ij + vij) (1 + t) W, = xiwi = where r is the (price)rate of profit on an individual capital, i .e . the general rate of profit, and is to be found from these equations . These N equations can be solved for the N + 1 variables, x1, x2, . . . .x N and F. There will be up to N possible solutions for the rate of profit, but only one of these will give a meaningful (i .e . non-negative) solution for the set of relative "prices of production ." (19) Relative to Seton's "solution", Marx's procedure can be regarded as merely incomplete . We can take Marx's procedure as an algorithm at each stage of which thus far transformed values for outputs are used to value inputs, to calculate the rate of profit and thus obtain a further transformation of the value of outputs . Provided that this iteration converges, the



98

CAPITAL & CLASS

limit of the sequence of transformed values and transformed rates of profit will be identical to that obtained from the solution to the full set of simultaneous equations given above . Indeed the evidence used to support the thesis that Marx knew he should have transformed input values could equally well be adduced to support the idea of an iterative procedure . (Marx, 1974, Capital III, pp .164-5 especially ) (20) It is important to note that this procedure is not the same as any historical transformation procedure (21) . The buying and selling of labourpower is a later historical development than that of many other commodities. It therefore makes sense to talk of the commensuration of socially necessary labour times, that takes place through the exchange of commodities, occurring before the other commensuration that occurs through the equalisation of the rate of profit . But, and this is critical, it is only through the development of the wage-labour relation, which simultaneously brings into play this latter commensuration, that socially necessary labour times are brought into any equivalence with hours of the clock . In the abstraction of simple commodity exchange, there is no reason why the time that a tailor takes to produce that which is exchanged with the produce of one hour's labour of a carpenter, should be one hour measured by the clock . As socially necessary labour times these are equivalent . But clock-time is only introduced with the wage-labour relation when labour-power is sold for specified amounts of time . Thus while it is true that, historically prior to the development of capitalist competition, commodities exchange at their values which are measured in units of socially necessary labour time, the development of capitalist competition not only introduces a deviation of prices from socially necessary labour times, but also gives those socially necessary labour times an independent quantitative aspect that did not exist before . This process is certainly not captured in any iteration procedure like that above . Related, but not identical, to the historical transformation procedure is the idea that the transformation procedure is a process of redistribution . (9) This is very much the way in which Marx alludes to the process, but we feel that such allusions are mistaken . Surplus-value is not redistributed between capitals so as to equalise the rate of profit because there is no state from which this redistribution occurs . At no stage in the circuit of capital is surplus value attributed to capitals proportional to the labour-power they consume . A parable of the sale of the commodity leading to a redistribution until each capital's share of surplus-value is proportional to total capital advanced, is as misleading as parables of a mere redistribution through history . Redistribution is only meaningful if one can specify a state from which redistribution occurs and a state after such a redistribution . Both parables are misleading therefore because they spuriously attribute an identity of substance to surplus-value and profit . Surplus-value and profit are one and the same thing in that the one is the form of the other . But to proceed in analysis from surplus-value to profit, rather more is involved than mere redistribution : that, after all, is the burden of the main body of our paper . Hence, in the corrected solution, that total value does not equal total



THE ANOMA L I ES OF CAPITAL

99

"price of production", that total surplus-value does not equal total profit, and that Marx's average value rate of profit R does not equal the price rate of profit T, is irrelevant . The insistence of fundamentalists that these equalities must hold shows that their understanding of the transformation procedure is as a mere quantitative procedure . They do not recognise that the movement from surplus value to profit, from values to prices, is a total transformation that cannot be expressed as a quantitative redistribution . That Marx chose to stress these aspects of his solution only shows how easy it is to fall into the redistribution trap . Finally, as regards the algebra, we can note that the solution to the full set of simultaneous equations yields only relative "prices of production" . If we are interested in money prices, and, as we have seen, these are the only phenomenal expression of exchange-values, then the exchangevalue of all other commodities must be expressed in terms of the moneycommodity . (22) Thus we must specify the price of a unit of the moneycommodity to be one . (23) In so doing, we have changed our units of measurement from those of socially necessary labour time to those of the money-commodity . Labour time is expressed in terms of gold, and this stage in the construction of the world of appearances is now completed .

NOTES Susan Himmelweit teaches Economics at Birkbeck College, University of London . Simon Mohun teaches Economics at Queen Mary College, University of London . We would like to thank the encouragingly large number of CSE comrades from the UK, the USA and Holland who took the time and trouble to read earlier drafts of this paper and to send us comments upon them . We would like to emphasise that we do not see this draft as a definitive statement, and that we hope that its publication will encourage wider debate . 1

2

Smith's discussion is in Smith 1904, ch .6 . Marx's appreciation of Smith is in Marx 1968, Theories of Surplus Value 11, p .165, and his discussion of the "trinity formula" is in Marx 1972, Capital 111, Part VII . The point here is that a tautology is not a theory (though the statement of a tautology may well have ideological content) . Prices are a sum of costs, but this is not an explanation unless we have some independent explanation of costs . There are different ways of evading the need to explain costs . Smith appeared at times not to try at all . Sraffa takes one cost (the wage, or the rate of profit) as given, derives the remaining ones from this, and sums to derive prices . The unexplained part is clearly the initial "given" cost . Neoclassical economics derives costs from initial endowments and individual prefer-



100

3 4

5

CAPITAL & CLASS ences, which are themselves unexplained . (Indeed, the latter are only ideological constructs .) Sraffians sometimes use class-struggle in the same way . All such theories do is to reflect upon appearances rather than attempt to explain those appearances ; for this reason they can be classified as vulgar . Within historical materialism, labouring activity provides the basis for explanation . So from this perspective only Ricardo and Marx escape from this classification because their theories of value have an independent basis in the production process . It would not be inconceivable to base an explanation of value upon remuneration, but remuneration itself would then have to be explained on such an independent basis . This formulation of Ricardo's contradiction is to be found in Fine 1975, 1977 . While we will follow Marx's own elaboration only up to a certain point (our aim is not to reproduce the three volumes of Capital) it should be emphasised that the starting-point can only be justified to the extent that the appearances of capitalism can be understood and thereby reproduced in thought by such an elaboration . This latter is not, however, a purely passive process ; the end of the analysis of capitalism is the removal of this contradictory reality, (the revolutionary end of capitalism), and it is in these terms that the starting-point must be assessed . Marx's identification of the problem with respect to different turnover times seems to take us straight back to Ricardo . But Ricardo's capital, as money laid out on inputs, can only vary in the length of time for which it is tied up - hence the distinctions made between fixed and circulating capital, and within fixed capital, purely on the basis of the time for which such money is tied up . For Ricardo, it is only "a matter of transferring given, advanced values to the product and of their replacement by the sale of the product . The difference now depends only on whether the transfer of value, and consequently the replacement of the value, takes place piecemeal and gradually, or in bulk . By this means the distinction between the variable and constant capital, which decides everything,is blotted out, hence the whole secret of the production of surplus-value and of capitalist production, the circumstances which transform certain values and the things in which they present themselves as capital, are obliterated . All constituent parts of capital are then distinguished merely by their mode of circulation (and, of course, circulation of commodities concerns itself solely with already existing given values) . . ."(Marx, 1970, Capital 11, pp .222-3) If we are concerned with market phenomena "rather than the internal machinery of the capitalist process of production" (ibid . p .220), then different turnover times and different value compositions are equally important . But Marx focuses on the latter since it is the production of surplus value that is critical, not the manner in which particular values are transferred . Emphasis on the latter merely "brings to completion the fetishism peculiar to bourgeois Political Economy, the fetishism which metamorphoses the social, economic



THE ANOMALIES OF CAPITAL

101

character impressed on things in the process of social production into a natural character stemming from the material nature of those things ." (Ibid . p .229) 6 Marx justified this assumption by claiming that "although the equalising of wages and working-days, and thereby of the rates of surplus-value, among different spheres of production . . . is checked by all kinds of local obstacles, it is nevertheless taking place more and more with the advance of capitalist production and the subordination of all economic conditions to this mode of production . The study of such frictions, while important to any special work on wages, may be dispensed with as incidental and irrelevant in a general analysis of capitalist production . In a general analysis of this kind it is usually always assumed that the actual conditions correspond to their conception, or, what is the same, that actual conditions are represented only to the extent that they are typical of their own general case ." (Marx, 1972, Capital III pp .] 42-3) Whether or not we accept this as an accelerating tendency of capitalist development, it is a valid assumption . Even if there do exist differences in rates of exploitation, we have no reason to assume these to be balanced by compensating differences in value compositions . (Indeed there is no reason to make any assumption about value compositions .) The value rate of profit on individual capitals will still not be equalised . 7 As long as these categories define the frame of reference of the analysis, then in so far as political conclusions can be deduced from the employment of these categories, such conclusions will tend away from the advocacy of revolutionary change . Thus there resulted, in the early stages of capitalism, an imperative to generalise what was already implicit within the status quo (thus Ricardo's advocacy of the interests of industrial capitalism against the interests of the landlords), and, in the period of capitalism's maturity, a teleological justification of the status quo (thus the concentration of neoclassical economics upon equilibrium analysis) . Alternatively, critical theories within this framework can only reject the status quo on the basis of an arbitrary ethical principle (thus petit-bourgeois or utopian socialism) . !t might be claimed that a restriction is imposed, since the existence 8 of a general rate of profit ensures that it is capitalism which is being theorised . While that is true for Ricardo's theory of price, it says nothing which restricts the use of embodied-labour to capitalism . It might further be claimed that a restriction to certain societies is implied by the commensurability of labour times ; that this commensurability applies only to those societies in which labour is mobile . This clearly does not restrict the use of the concept of embodiedlabour to capitalism, for slave or communist societies would satisthis condition too . 9 For a clear exposition of such a parable see Baumol 1974 . 10 The following footnotes classify the more prominent advocates of each tendency we identify . But there is so much confusion in the literature that many writers adopt vacillating and obscure positions ;



102

CAPITAL & CLASS

we have omitted these . It should also be clear that there are some few authors who recognise the problems that we have outlined . Among such authors are Colletti 1972, Fine 1975, 1977, Fine and Harris 1976 and 1977 Gerstein 1976, and Shaikh 1977 . 11 Examples are (implicitly) Glyn and Sutcliffe 1972, Harrison 1973a, 1973b, Gough 1973, 1975, and Armstrong, Glyn and Harrison 1978 . 12 Examples are Samuelson 1971, Hodgson 1973, 1976, and Steedman 1973, 1975, 1977 . 13 The term is used by Fine and Harris 1976 . Examples are Yaffe 1973, 1975, Bullock and Yaffe 1975, Howell 1975, Williams 1975, and Murray 1977 . 14 The point of these provisos at the beginning of the charge is to look at the simplest and most unproblematic cases. If there is only one available method for the production of each commodity, each method using only circulating capital and producing only one product, the cases that give rise to the "puzzles" which lead to the charge of inconsistency cannot arise . 15 Formally their equations can be shown to be equivalent to Seton's simultaneous equation system which we outline in the Appendix . Gerstein 1976 has an interesting discussion of the mathematics . Strictly speaking, it should be noted that Sraffa actually specified the composition of output, so that he worked with total amounts of inputs necessary to produce the specified outputs rather than with input-output coefficients . As a result he did not need to make any assumptions about returns to scale since he had precluded variation in outputs . 16 The limited nature of Sraffa's results impels Sraffians sooner or later to turn to the general linear production model of von Neumann . For a very clear exposition of what it is possible to do with such a model, see Bliss 1975 . 17 Cases of joint production proper are not at all uncommon, particularly in the chemicals industries . Consider for example the cracking of oil in refining processes . The joint products thereby produced include tar, bitumen, high octane fuels such as kerosene, petroleum, lubricating oils, most precursors to plastics such as PVC, synthetic food materials, and industrial alcohol . The latter is also produced in other joint production processes . Joint production is therefore a significant phenomenon, sufficient to problematise the quantification of embodied labour, and, considering that most of the products just mentioned are themselves used as inputs in further production processes, to problematise the calculation of ratios based on quantities of embodied labour, even if one does not claim any significance for them as "values" . 18 We are indebted to Ben Fine and Laurence Harris for letting us read the draft manuscript of their book Rereading Capital (Macmillan, forthcoming) wherein this point is made . 19 The relevant parts of the often cited Frobenius-Perron theorems are those which state that any non-negative matrix has a non-negative eigenvalue with which a non-negative eigenvector can be associated .



THE ANOMALIES OF CAPITAL

103

And further, that if the matrix is also indecomposable, that eigenvalue is unique and positive, and can be associated with a positive eigenvector. (Morishima 1964, p .195) . Elsewhere (Morishima 1974) Morishima points out that Frobenius was born in 1849 and Perron in 1880, and that Marx therefore could not have known their theorems . 20 Morishima would agree, arguing that Marx "was very successful in using this social scientific approach to cover his mathematical deficiency and . . . obtained practically the same solution as we accept today by the rigorous application of the Frobenius-Perron theorem" . (Morishima 1974, p .614) Shaikh 1977 adopts a similar approach . 21 Murray 1977 advocates an historical transformation position and makes reference to further literature on the subject . 22 The development of paper money requires a corresponding further development of the analysis . 23 To obtain unique absolute "prices of production" requires a "normalisation condition", an equation which specifies some characteristic of the value equations which it is desired to remain invariant to the transformation into "prices of production" . The issue is a purely mathematical one ; there is no matching to a real world invariance and so the choice of normalisation is arbitrary . Gerstein 1976 discusses the issue clearly, but is quite wrong in feeling compelled to choose between alternative conditions. On the other hand, to specify the "price of production" of the money commodity to be one also fixes absolute "prices of production" . But it does so, not by the arbitrary imposition of a meaningless invariance postulate, but by a further transformation to a more concrete form, that of money-prices .

BIBILOGRAPHY Armstrong, P ., Glyn ., and Harrison, J ., 1978, 'In defence of Value', Capital and Class 5, (summer) . Baumol . W ., 1974, 'The Transformation Problem : What Marx Really Meant', Journal of Economic Literature, (March) . Bliss, C .J ., 1975, Capital Theory and the Distribution of Income, NorthHolland, Amsterdam . Bullock, P ., and Yaffe, D ., 1975, 'Inflation, Crisis and the Post-war Boom Revolutionary Communist,3/4 (November) . Colletti, L., 1972, From Rousseau to Lenin, New Left Books, London . Fine, B ., 1975, 'Marx's Economics : A Dual Theory of Value and Growth, by M . Morishima . A Review' . Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists, IV . 12 (October) . Fine, B ., 1977, 'The Political Economy of Value and the Value of Political Economy . An Essay in Honour of Maurice Dobb' . Mimeo . Fine, B ., and Harris, L ., 1976, 'Controversial Issues in Marxist Economic Theory', in Millibrand, R ., and Saville, J ., (ed) Theory', in Milibrand, R ., and Saville, J ., (ed) Socialist Register 1976,



104

CAPITAL & CLASS

Fine, B ., and Harris, L ., 1977, 'Surveying the Foundations', in Milibrand,R ., and Saville, J ., (ed) Socialist Register 1977,(Merlin Press, London) Fine, B ., and Harris, L ., Forthcoming, Rereading Capital, (Macmillan, London Gerstein, I ., 1976, 'Production, Circulation and Value : The Significance of the "Transformation Problem" in Marx's Critique of Political Economy', Economy and Society, Volume 3 . Glyn, A ., and Sutcliffe, B ., 1972, British Capitalism, Workers and the Profit Squeeze ~ Penguin, Harmondsworth .) Gough, I ., 1972, 'Marx's Theory of Productive and Unproductive Labour,' New Left Review 76 . Gough, I ., 1973, 'On Productive and Unproductive Labour - A Reply,' Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists . 11 .7 . (Winter) . Harrison, J ., 1973a, 'Productive and Unproductive Labour in Marx's Political Economy,' Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Econommists 11 .6 . (Autumn) . Harrison, J ., 1973b, 'The Political Economy of Housework,' Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists . 11 .7 (Winter) . Hodgson, G ., 1973, 'Marxist Epistomology and the Transformation Problem', Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists 11 .6 (autumn) . Hodgson, G ., 1976, 'Exploitation and Embodied Labour time,' Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists V .13 (February) . Howell, P ., 1975, 'Once Again on Productive and Unproductive Labour,' Revolutionary Communist 314 (November) . Marx, K ., 1938, Capital Volume },(Allen and Unwin, London) , 1969, Theories of Surplus Value, Volume II .(Lawrence and Wishart, London . 1970, Capital Volume I (,(Lawrence and Wishart, London .) 1972, Capital Volume I I (,(Lawrence and Wishart, London 1973 . Grundrisse,(All en Lane, London .) 1976a, Value Studies by Karl MarxLNew Park, London 1976b, Capital Volume (,(Penguin, Harmondsworth) Morishima, M ., 1964, Equilibrium, Stability and Growth,(OUP, Oxford) Morishima, M ., 1973, Marx's Economics : A Dual Theory of Value and Growth,(CUP, Cambridge Morishima, M ., 1974, "Marx in the Light of Modern Economic Theory", Econometrica . Murray, R ., 1977, Value and Theory of Rent : Part One, Capital and Class 3 (Autumn .) Ricardo, D ., 1951, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation Sraffa, P ., (ed),(CUP, Cambridge . Samuelson, P .A ., 1971, "Understanding the Marxian Notion of Exploitation : A Summary of the So-called Transformation Problem Between Marxian Values and Competitive Prices,' Journal of Economic Literature, Vol . 9, No .2 . Seton, F ., 1957, 'The Transformation Problem,' Review of Economic Studies, Vol . 24 .



THE ANOMALIES OF CA PI TAL

105

Shaikh, A ., 1977, 'Marx's Theory of Value and the "Transformation Problem", in Schwartz, J ., (ed), The Subtle Anatomy of Capitalism, (Goodyear, Santa Monica .) Smith, A ., 1904 . An Enquiry into the Nature and Cause of The Wealth of Nations,(G rant Richards, London) Sraffa, P ., 1960, The Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities,(CUP, Cambridge .) Steedman, I ., 1973, 'The Transformation Problem Again,' Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists 11 .6 (Autumn) . Steedman, I ., 1975, 'Positive Profit and Negative Surplus Value,' Economic Journal (March) . Steedman, I ., 1977, Marx after Sraffa,(New Left Books, London Williams, M ., 1975, 'An Analysis of South African Capitalism - Neo-Ricardianism or Marxism?', Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists, IV .10 (February) . Yaffe, D ., 1973, 'The Crisis of Profitability : A Critique of the GlynSutcliffe Thesis,' New Left Review 80. Yaffe, D ., 1975, 'Value and Price in Marx's Capital! Revolutionary Communist 1 (January) .

Pluto 41~ Press Marxism and the Party John Molyneux John Molyneux examines the work of Marx, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky and Gramsci taking as his central theme their concern with the relationship between the party and the working class . He explores such questions as the independence of the party, spontaneity and consciousness, democracy and centralism ., and the implications of these debates for the revolutionary party today . £2 .95 paper £6 .60 cloth

Rights at Work Jeremy McMullen

Contracts/ equal pay/ lay-offs/ discrimination/ maternity/ dismissal/ union recognition/ collective agreements/ strikes/ tribunals and other issues . Information essential to every working person . £2 .25 paper £12 .00 cloth Unit 10 Spencer Court, 7 Chalcot Road, London NW I 8LH

SURVEY REGIONALISM : SOME CURRENT ISSUES Doreen Massey

SOME DEFINITIONS AND THEMES The term 'regionalism' is a very inadequate one . Recent discussions in the CSE Working Group, however, failed to come up with anything that was both more accurate and less than a paragraph long . For the purposes of this survey, 'regionalism' is taken to refer to the analysis of intra-national spatial differentiation . Its concern is to study the mechanisms by which the process of accumulation generates uneven spatial development, and the effects of such unevenness on the development of a national social formation and particular areas within it . The scale is intra-national in the sense that it is at this level at which the spatial unevenness which is the focus of attention occurs . This does not mean, however, that such differentiation is produced solely by mechanisms defined at the national or intra-national level . Spatial unevenness in the process of accumulation, within a social formation, may just as well be dominantly the product of mechanisms operating at an international scale . The object of study, however, is spatial uneven development and its effects within a national economy . Such effects may occur at any spatial level within the social formation, from inequalities between major regions to patterns of growth and decline of particular cities (I) . The process of accumulation within capitalism continually engenders the desertion of some areas, and the creation there of new reserves of labour-power, the opening up of other areas to new branches of production, and the restructuring of the territorial division of labour and class relations overall . The geographical distribution of population is typically far more than a general tendency to agglomeration superimposed on a "territorial division of labour, which confines special branches of production to special districts of a country" (Capital 1, p .353), as occasionally implied by Marx . Even in those few areas where particular branches of production have entirely dominated the economy, it is not possible simply to assume that such areas will be the same as others equally so dominated . It is more than the branch of production which determines the characteristics of a region . Thus Gervais, Servolin and Weil (1965) distinguish three types



REGIONALISM

107

of agricultural region in France, a distinction based primarily on the nature and stage of articulation of capitalism with peasant production, and on the dominant form of class relations (quoted in Lipietz, 1977, pp .48-52) . Such differences in the economies and class structures of particular areas may also be associated with significant differences in political relations . The resulting picture of 'regions' and of 'inter-regional relationships' is thus enormously complicated . The purpose of work within regionalism is to understand the formation, nature and effects of this spatial differentiation . Why, however, should socialists be interested in the analysis of this aspect of uneven development? Briefly, the fact and the form of spatial differentiation can affect both political and economic development . The levelling-out of employment rates between regions figured in the UK National Plan as a means of increasing the available labour-force ; in Italy regional disparities are argued to have been beneficial for accumulation (Secchi, 1977) . Analysis of spatial differentiation can therefore be an important component simply in understanding the working of an economy . But there are also much more immediate political reasons . Most obviously, analyses of uneven regional development can contribute to the debate on regional separatist movements . More generally, however, the present crisis is affecting different parts of the country in different ways and to different degrees . Such spatial differentiation can frequently operate in a divisive way in the working class . When faced with massive declines in local industry and jobs, community groups and unions have frequently fought as though the problem was one of and for their area . This, of course, is the way in which the 'problem' is represented by capital, and it has two main repercussions . First, it sets workers of one area against those of another in a chase after available jobs, for instance . The prime recent example of this has been the attempt to portray the inner cities as having lost out to the State-assisted peripheral regions . Here an important part of the work within regionalism can be to show the relation between the disparate problems and struggles of different parts of the country . A second repercussion of 'regional problems' is that localised economic problems are often understood as stemming from the supposed inadequacies of the partucular areas and its people . The Red Paper on Scotland attributes some of the problems of Scotland to a shortage of local entrepreneurs (see Firn, 1975) ; the White Paper on Inner Cities of the present Labour Government lays much of the blame for the present decline of those areas on their inhabitants' lack of (appropriate) skills . A prime aim of studies in regionalism is to combat this spatial definition of phenomena and to analyse and point to the real causes of such disparities . The purpose of this survey is to present some of the issues currently pre-occupying analysis within regionalism . However, because work in this field is as yet rather disparate (indeed coherent debates are only just now beginning to emerge), the paper has as an aim also to formulate some major lines of implicit contention and to argue for a particular approach to analysis . Many of the debates hinge on methodological issues, but their implications go way beyond methodology . Such issues include : whether or not one starts analysis from pre-given regions ; the potential or otherwise of the regional analysis of Stuart Holland ; the possibility of 'borrowing' formulations from underdevelopment theory . It is primarily around questions such as these that the structure of the paper is organised .



108

CAPITAL & CLASS

APPROACHES TO ANALYSIS The concern, then, has been how to formulate approaches which enable analysis of the complexity of spatial differentiation ; how to go beyond general references to 'uneven development' . The present section briefly indicates a number of approaches which have been attempted, each of which has yielded insights and information, but each of which also has its problems . Abstract formulation and general laws There have been a number of attempts to derive general propositions concerning the spatial form and development of the capitalist mode of production . First, the possibility has been investigated of elaborating a 'law of value over space' (see, for example, Hein (1976), Lipietz (1977) ) . At different levels of analysis, both these authors reject such mechanisms and proportional ities . Indeed Lipietz interprets the absence of any regulatory economic mechanisms over space as a fundamental reason for State intervention in the geographical organisation of capitalism (2) . A rather dif-

ferent attempt at the formulation of general statements about the geography of capitalism has been to propose a characterisation of the system's component parts . Thus, Castells (1977) defines the urban as the space of capitalist consumption, the region as the space of production . Such attempts have in general been roundly criticised (Harloe, (1978) and Sayer (1977) ), primarily as abstract and arbitrary . Thirdly, there are a number of writings which propose a necessary tendency within capitalism towards spatial centralisation, not only of control, over the process of production, but of production itself . Such conclusions have a degree of empirical backing and an apparent radicalism, and are clearly stimulated by a desire to counter the conclusions of equality which emerge from neo-classical theory (see Holland, 1976 ; Purdy, 1977 ; Castells, 1977) . Marx, too, was inclined to see an inevitable tendency under capitalism towards spatial concentration (see Capital, volume 1, p .352 and Grundrisse, p .587, both quoted in the discussion in Harvey, 1975) . But, apart from their dubious theoretical status, the vulnerability of such ahistorical generalisations has become apparent in face of the recent tendency for the regional decentralisation of production (see later, and criticisms in Mellor (1975), Harloe (1978) and Massey (1976) ) . Empirically, neither the neo-classical nor the 'centralisation' school is correct . Though apparently opposed, they share the same problem of substituting for historical analysis predictions derived from an a-historical formal model . Given its political importance, the work of Stuart Holland merits a little more elaboration . Holland's (1976) argument is that a tendency to regional inequality is intrinsic to capitalism but that it has until recently been offset, primarily by State action . The present dominance of multinationals has undermined this ability of the State since these firms are able both to play off States against each other and to locate in the Third World, thereby ignoring the peripheral regions of metropolitan countries . The tendency to regional inequality has therefore re-emerged . Empirical evidence to the contrary is seen as an exception, merely 'disguising' the underlying trend (p .57) . This is not in any way a class analysis, and indeed, by con-

centrating on regional rather than class relations, it has potentially divisive



REGIONALISM

109

implications . Equilibrium theory is simply replaced by an elaboration of Myrdal and Perroux ; in order to account for the previous invisibility of the claimed empirical tendency, State regional policy has to be interpreted as unambiguously directed towards regional equality ; the State is umpire between capital and the public interest - a role it would again play in Holland's proposed policy solution ; present regional problems are in fact interpreted as the result, not of capitalism, but of a 'meso-economic sector' which, with its super-profits, has broken free from economic imperatives again an important proposition since it enables the proposed solution of nationalised forms acting differently from their private competitors (3) . Holland's work does not, then, provide a jumping-off ground for analyses of spatial differentiation, nor even of the regional problem, though it has certainly raised some important empirical issues and highlighted the political significance of certain aspects of spatial uneven development . Its frequent acceptance as 'Marxist' - or at least as the best we've got should be a stimulus to further work .

Approaches borrowed' from underdevelopment theory Few of the Marxist classics treat the subject-matter of regionalism to more than a passing reference (cf, for instance, the comments of Harvey, 1975, p .274) . This lack of forebears has produced a sense of unease, an important effect of which has been a tendency to adopt methods of analysis developed at 'other spatial scales' . In particular this is true of work at the international level, in imperialism and underdevelopment . However, this paper will argue that, while much may be gleaned from such analysis for the study of spatial differentiation within a social formation, it is not possible simply to transplant them to 'a lower level of spatial disaggregation' . The relations between nation states within world imperialism are not to be equated with 'interregional relations' within a nation . First, there are empirical differences between nation states and their constituent 'regions' . These include, for instance, monetary unification and trade and customs policies (see, eg, Hechter, 1975) . More fundamentally, the State as a focus for class relations is usually less strong at regional level than national (Lipietz, 1977) . These are, of course, tremendous generalisations, and great variation exists in the degree to which such differences hold, but, as we shall see, they are indicators of potential problems in any simple transference of theories derived at the international level to problems of intra-national spatial differentiation . A second, and related, implication of such transference is that there is a general problematic of 'the spatial', of which the basic idea is that geographical differentiation and 'inter-areal relations' at one scale are simply those of another scale writ large, or small . As Anderson (1975) points out, in such a problematic "spatial form and scale are considered in the abstract, forgetting that we are dealing with social divisions of territory and socially different types of territorial division" (p .15) . The object of analysis is not arbitrary divisions of 'space' as such . Thirdly, and most importantly, the theories discussed in the present section tend on the whole in their application at international level to take nation states as objects given to analysis . Whether or not this is correct at



110

CAPITAL & CLASS

an international level, this paper will argue that 'regions' are not necessarily pre-given to the study of intra-national spatial differentiation . Considerable debate exists on this, and as will be seen there are a number of different approaches to the problem . This paper will argue that regions must be constituted as an effect of analysis ; they are thus defined in relation to spatial uneven development in the process of accumulation and its effects on social (including political) relations . Thus the analysis of the production of uneven development does not imply a pre-given regionalisation . This is not to say, however, that there can never be reasons for analysing the place, within the overall process of spatially uneven development, of an already-specified region . The recent growth of 'regional nationalism' has inevitably brought such questions to the fore . For this to be a valid procedure, however, there has to be a clear reason for taking the regions as given . To take an example, what is the basis for analysing 'East Anglia' in terms of its 'interregional relations? As far as I am aware, there is no significant and specifically East Anglian social or political force . And if indeed East Anglia is a coherent entity in terms of economic criteria, this should be the result of analysis and not assumed from criteria and boundaries constructed in some other area of investigation . This point will be taken up again later . There is another theme which underlies much of the work discussed in this section, though again it is by no means exclusive to it . Again, moreover, it is a subterranean theme rather than an explicit debate . This concerns the presence, or not, within regions of metropolitan capitalist countries, of pre-capitalist forms . The implications of most of the work reported here is that no such forms exist . The study of the North East of England accepts this implicitly . Carter (1974) explicitly adopts a market definition of capitalism and appear to equate being influenced by the dynamics of the CMP with being capitalist . Lovering (1977) points out that the internal colonialism model frequently applied to Wales lacks any concept of modes of production and their relations of conservation-dissolution . Moreover, having formulated a more coherent model, he finds no empirical evidence of the reproduction of non-capitalist modes . Only Lipietz (1975 ; 1977), writing in France, presents argument and empirical evidence for the opposite point of view . The issue is of course far broader than the problems of regional analysis, and stems from underlying theoretical and political positions . Finally, it should be stressed that the theories of underdevelopment referred to here are all subject to debate and criticisms in relation to their application at international level . It is beyond the scope of this paper to deal with those debates . All that will be referred to here are those points which concern their use at regional level . In one of the more thoughtful attempts to use dependency theory, Carney, Hudson, Ive and Lewis (CHIL) (1975) draw "on this body of theory . . . to suggest certain characteristic features of underdeveloped regions in the way Szentes (1971) has done for countries, and 'test' them against our British case study - the North East" (of England) (p .144) . They argue "that the temporary externalisations of economic contradictions that characterised an imperial phase of capitalist development are, in some capitalist societies, and especially France and the United Kingdom,



DEBA TE: REGIONAL ISM

111

being replaced, in part, by attempts to contain them internally" (p .157) . Their argument involves analysing the contradictory place of the North East where "the basis of profitability . . . historically has involved depression of wages as they enter into costs of production, and/or the reproduction of a large reserve army of unemployed" (p .149), in an overall economy "the basis of (which) lies in high real wages and high demand for consumer goods within the domestic market, and on capitalist consumption and State expenditure to prevent realisation crises re-emerging whilst allowing continued capital accumulation" (p .149) . In another example, Carter (1974), in a discussion of bourgeois analyses of the Scottish Highlands, uses Frank (1970) to challenge the typical view of that region as the 'archaic' sector of a dual economy . Significantly, at the empirical level the debates about this approach do reflect the problem of switching objects of analysis, from international to interregional . This is particularly the case in relation to class structure . CHIL, in their paper on N .E . England, talk of an "indigenous bourgeoisie" and advocate the use of Frank's work to explain how the local bourgeoisie has become increasingly controlled from outside the region (pp .153-4) . Considerable scepticism of this position is expressed in Anderson (1975) and in a discussion reported in Harloe (1975, p .166) . Lebas (1977, p .84) launches a general attack which clearly relates the identification of such regional classes to the demands of this type of approach . She talks of "a 'creeping parochialism', a characteristic often noted of research groups doing work 'on their region' . This incipient parochialism, compounded with the lack of concerted theoretical perspective, leads researchers to establish the questionable existence of 'regional bourgeoisies' " . As already argued in the present paper, however, such matters are clearly empirical questions . Mellor (1975) who severely criticises (on empirical grounds) the use of dependency theory, herself gives evidence of regional class distinctiveness within both working class and bourgeoisie . Closely related to dependency theory are the concepts of unequal exchange . Lipietz (1977) and Sayer (1977) both examine the usefulness of this approach, and the concepts are referred to in a number of other studies . The positions follow those of Emmanuel (1972 ; 1975) and Amin (1973 ; 1976) with Lipietz's approach integrating concepts of 'external articulation' and 'unequal exchange in the broad sense' (spatial differentiation in the distribution of industries with high and low organic compositions), and 'integration' and 'unequal exchange in the narrow sense' (based on spatial differentiation of wage levels) with Rey's (1973) concepts of stages in the process of articulation to capitalism of non-capitalist modes . Starting with criticisms made at the empirical level, Sayer (1977) follows Emmanuel in arguing that "unequal exchange in the narrow sense is unlikely to take place within countries unless there is some institutionalised differentiation of wages within each sector (eg, apartheid)" . In fact, it is not clear that such a statement can be made a priori, but anyway the evidence for its empirical validity or otherwise is not unambiguous . Empirical criticism is also made of unequal exchange in the broad sense . This is that, while the usual notion of this form of unequal exchange



112

CAPITAL & CLASS

would have low organic composition sectors in the peripheral regions, high organic composition sectors in the 'central areas', and consequently a flow of value (with profit-equalisation) from periphery to centre, in fact one of the characteristics of recent industrial investment in intranational peripheral regions in Western Europe and the USA has been its high degree of capital-intensity relative to that of the centre . Thus Sayer refers to "some interesting and possibly counterintuitive spatial and structural changes . . . and perhaps surprising inverse relationship between regional income and capital investment per employee" (p .6) . (4) The opposite point of view is put by Lipietz (1977) . For him, unequal exchange in the broad sense represents the articulation of different modes, or different stages of modes, of production (see, for instance, pp .58, 61), but its effect is one of the bases for regional inequality of wages typified in the phase of integration and implying unequal exchange in the narrow sense . Moreover, it is as an empirical question of unequal exchange in the narrow sense that Lipietz raises current tendencies of manufacturing investment (pp .58-59) . Here, however, the problem is not the specification of the mechanism of unequal exchange but simply a worry as to why the inequality of wages has not provoked the equilibrating reaction to be anticipated from the simple equation form (i .e . why do capital intensive plants form a significant proportion of the production processes presently being established in peripheral areas?) . The 'answer', which Lipietz himself later discusses, is that the response of capital to spatial differentiation may take a number of forms, and cannot simply be predicted out of historical context . The present attractiveness of peripheral regions as a location is due to more than wage differentials . There are, however, other questions to be answered about this approach . First, Lipietz follows Palloix in emphasising that even if unequal exchange in the narrow sense is occurring, an analysis which is simply confined to that can only register the fact of its occurrence, as the result of an alreadyexisting regional differentiation . He explains such inequality by unequal exchange in the broad sense . The second question refers to unequal exchange in the broad sense . The equalisation of the rate of profit between sectors with different organic compositions of capital is a tendency always in operation in a capitalist economy . The particular empirical phenomenon being referred to by this approach is the fact of systematic spatial pattern . What remains unclear are both the implications of this in terms of the nature of regional 'inequality' (in what sense is this unequal exchange?) and the mechanisms of production of that inequality . The third line of work which tries to formulate regional questions in an 'imperialism' framework is that which uses the internal colony model . We refer here only to attempts to apply the approach to regions within metropolitan capitalism . Hechter's (1975) discussion of the British Celtic fringe is probably the best-known example . Hechter's own approach is not squarely within the Marxist tradition, and although he uses terms such as mode of production, this tends to refer to rural/urban differences rather than to class relations and modes of appropriation of surplus labour . His work has, however, been influential amongst Marxists and non-Marxists,



REGIONALISM

113

and particularly within the nationalist movements . Lovering (1977) provides a detailed discussion and critique of the use of concepts of internal colonialism within Plaid Cymru . His criticisms include the loose and incorrect use of the term 'exploitation', the conception of the State as a deliberate conspiracy, and the lack of empirical evidence for many of the claims of the proponents of the model - in terms, for instance, of class structure, and net flows of resources . Finally, the use of all three of these approaches either implies or encourages an analysis of the production of spatial differentiation which starts from pre-defined regions (a characteristic, as we have seen, related to their original, international contexts) . All the authors are aware of this problem and its implications, but it is difficult, using such approaches, to escape them . Thus, Carney, Hudson, Ive and Lewis take as given, without any analytical justification (5), the North East of England as 'a region', as an adequate theoretical object . Indeed, they refer to it as a 'social formation' (pp .149, 151) . Moreover, in spite of their correct insistence (pp .140, 155) that 'inter-areal relations' do not exist, the test of the dependence model refers to 'direct economic dependence' and to 'trade dependence' . Their analysis is referring to important real phenomena, yet just as the definition of 'the North East' requires justification, so does the concept of a 'region' . Concepts of 'inter-regional relationships' imply the definition of spatial entities with some degree of internal coherence, whether economic or political . Such definition must be the result of analysis ; it cannot be an intuitive or a priori starting point . The analyses of Wales referred to by Lovering, on the other hand, do have a reason, at least at the political level, for starting with a predefined region . Yet, as Lovering points out, the divisions and dependencies within Wales are comparable to those between Wales and England . Where there are such dislocations between 'political' and economic regionalisations, that itself may be an important phenomenon to analyse . The attempt to conduct analysis on the basis of given regions, especially when combined with theories originating at the international level, can also (though it does not necessarily) entail political implications which have been much subject to attack . Mingione (1977) in discussing south Italy, writes "it seems certain that the internal regional imbalances which exist are not principally a result of imperialist exploitation . . . Rather they result from a process of centralisation and specialisation which is common to all capitalist development"(p .95) . In afootnote,he adds"For this purpose I do not share the analysis of those authors who mechanically extend theories of imperialism to apply them to under-developed regions . The divergence becomes yet wider when one considers the political conclusions which these authors draw, ending bygivingtheoretical support to separatism, local nationalism and the rebellion of all the classes in underdeveloped areas against a hypothetical colonial domination" (p .109) . Clearly, the authors of Plaid Cymru, for example, would take the opposite line . Again, it is not clear how, politically, one should understand "dependence", the concept of "a structurally deformed economy" or "externally-oriented accumulation" in a regional context . These are debates which link the analyses of 'regionalism' to those of nationalism and regional separatism .



114

CAPITAL & CLASS

Lipietz (1977) is aware throughout of these problems (see, for example, pp .25-26), and his regions and inter-regional relations are therefore the product of his analysis . But even in Lipietz's work problems arise when linking regions defined in terms of their histories to regions defined in terms of their relation to the presently-emerging spatial division of labour . Clearly there is no necessary one-to-one correspondence between the two and it may not therefore be appropriate to start (as Lipietz tends to) from a specification of the first for an analysis of the second . Such change over time in the 'regionalisation' of a social formation may involve a radical restructuring both in the 'shape' of the spatial variation and in the nature of the use made by capital of any given form of differentiation . In fact, what Lipietz is doing here is to handle implicitly a change in regional structure which we would argue should be made explicit in the framework of explanation .

From accumulation to spatially uneven development The approach which is suggested here begins from the process of accumulation and analyses the production of spatially uneven development without any pre-specified regionalisation of that space . From analyses of accumulation, it produces concepts of geographical organisation in terms of the spatial division of labour . We take as starting-point the historically-dominant processes of production, and define the uneven geographical distribution of the conditions for accumulation in relation to those processes . In general terms, this means beginning with those elements of accumulation which both have an effect on the rate of profit and are unevenly spatially distributed (Hein, 1976 ; Regional Social Theory Group, 1978) . It is the fact that regional inequality is specified in relation to the evolving characteristics of production which makes this not an externally-provided regionalisation . In any given period, new investment in economic activity will be geographically distributed in response to this pattern of spatial differentiation . But the nature of this response may vary . The term "spatial division of labour" is meant to refer to the way in which economic activity responds to geographical inequality in the conditions of accumulation the particular kind of use made by capital of such inequality . This will differ both between sectors and, for any given sector, with changing conditions of production . The term does not, therefore, refer to a division between regions . The nature of capital's response to spatial unevenness is itself a product of the interaction between the existing characteristics of spatial differentiation and the requirements at any time of the dominant process of production . This interaction is important - not only does production shape geography, the historically-evolved geographical configuration (both the fact of spatial differentiation and its particular nature) has its influence on the course taken by accumulation . Thus, for instance, it may be precisely the fact of spatial separation which enables the preservation for a longer period than otherwise of certain conditions of accumulation - low wages and lack of militancy may be easier to ensure (for capital) in isolated areas dependent on one or two individual capitals . In turn, the preservation of



REGIONALISM

115

such conditions may influence the kind of technological changes pursued by capital . It should also be stressed that the forms of spatial differentiation relevant to the process of accumulation are by no means confined to `the purely economic' . The degree of organisation and militancy of the labour force are well-recognised 'location factors' even within neo-classical industrial location theory . What such location theory does not recognise, of course, is that it is the specific form taken by class relations which determines these conditions . Such relations may be the basis for the lack of organisation of the labour force (Mandel, 1963, gives a detailed example of this from Flanders) . Again, specific relations of land-ownership may prevent what would otherwise be the best location for a particular production process (Lipietz, 1975) . State regional policies (which themselves may be a response to economic and local political conditions) may also be influential . One schematic way of approaching this as a historical process is to conceive of it as a series of rounds of new investment, in each of which a new form of spatial division of labour is evolved . In fact, of course, the process of change is much more diversified and incremental, though certainly there are periods of radical redirection . In general, however, any new form of spatial division of labour will typify only the more advanced sectors of production, and may well vary between each sector . Between rounds, in other words, conditions will change . They will do so as a result of the combination of 'more purely spatial' changes with those in the requirements of production . First, the process of accumulation may be affected by changes in relative location through developments in transport and communication . The pressure towards improvements in these derives from the requirement both to cut costs of production and to reduce the time of circulation (Grundrisse, pp .533-538 ; see also Harvey, 1975) . The effect is that "the relative differences (in distances) may be shifted about by the development of the means of transportation and communication in a way that does not correspond to the geographical distances". . . a fact "which explains the deterioration of old and the rise of new centres of production because of changes in communication and transportation facilities" (Capital, 2, p .253), Such shifts in the spatial surface produce changes in the relative competitive positions of individual capitals, in the relative prices of different commodities, in methods of production, etc . At a more aggregate level, they will change the relative competitive position of branches of production in whole regions, and even transform the conditions in a particular region to being favourable to a branch of industry not yet located there . Second, changes in the characteristics of accumulation may occur either in the production requirements of specific branches - and therefore in their locational requirements (see e .g . Dunford, 1977 ; Massey, 1976) - or in the balance between branches of production with different locational demands . In either case, a different regional distribution of production will result . This new distribution of economic activity, produced by the evolution of a new division of labour, will be overlaid on, and combined with, the pattern produced in previous periods by different forms of spatial



116

CAPITAL & CLASS

division . The combination of successive layers will produce effects which themselves vary over space, contributing to a new form and geographical distribution of inequality in the conditions of production, as a basis for the next round of investment . A spatial division of labour is therefore not equivalent to a 'regionalisation' . It is suggested, on the contrary, that the social and economic structure of any given local area will be a complex result of the combination of that area's succession of roles within the series of wider, national and international, spatial divisions of labour . In general terms, there is probably an increasing degree of agreement that analysis should start from accumulation rather than from regions . Within that context, new debates are now emerging . One of these concerns the most appropriate unit for analysis . The preceding discussion is relevant both to individual capitals and to branches of production . Other work, however, has been done at a broader level . At a Departmental level a broad division has been postulated in the interwar period, between expanding Department I I production in the S .E . of England and a stagnating Department I in the North (Carney, Lewis and Hudson, 1977) . In contrast it is the regional implications within Europe of "accumulation imperatives in relation to the component parts of capital" (variable capital, circulating constant capital and fixed constant capital) which are examined by the Regional Social Theory Group (1977) . In Italy, the distinction between leading, export-oriented and backward domestic sectors has been found to be important . Thus, Garofoli (1975a) analyses the connection between unbalanced regional development and the development of leading sectors . He does this by investigating the connection between the alternation of extensive and intensive phases of accumulation and the forms of use of labour-power . Secchi (1977) also distinguishes between extensive and intensive phases and analyses their different regional implications in Italy over the period from the late ninteenth century to the early 1970s, the extensive phases corresponding to a strong concentration of production and employment in the developed areas, the intensive phases to a combination of de-industrialisation and the location of large leading-sector plants in the backward areas . So far, the discussion of the approach which starts from accumulation has concentrated on the response of capital to spatial differentiation . The second, and equally important, stage is the analysis of the effects of that response . This will be taken up in a later section . For the moment, we use this general approach to present some of the changes in regional economic patterns at present going on in the U .K .

AN EMERGING FORM OF THE SPATIAL DIVISION OF LABOUR For reasons of space, this section can only be indicative, but it seems important to present at least the main features of what appears to be emerging as a new form of intra-national spatial division of labour, and one which characterises certain expanding branches of productions, such as electronics . Briefly, then, the characteristics of production which underlie this new use of space include : the increasing size of individual capitals and the



REGIONAL ISM

117

related features of a smaller number of larger plants in direct production (Dunford, 1977), complex units of production -e .g . chemical/petro-chemical complexes (Castells and Godard, 1974 ; Dunford 1977), the division of production into autonomously-functioning stages which can be also separately located (Lipietz, 1977 ; Massey, 1976), and the increasing separation within individual capitals of the function of overal control (Lipietz, 1977) . Within production too there have been major changes - in particular the recent apparent acceleration of deskilling of direct work alongside an increase in research and development . Finally, the role of the State is typically of growing importance both in financing major individual projects (Castells and Godard, 1974 ; Blietrach and Chenu, 1975) and in the provision of 'regional infrastructure' . Where such changes take place in an intranational context in which there is marked spatial differentiation in wage levels of direct workers, in levels of skill, in degree of organisation of the labour movement, and in the degree of presence of, for instance, banking and commercial capital, a new form of geographical organisation is arising . Such is the case in most countries of Western Europe and North America . One use by capitals of such spatial differentiation is increasingly based on the geographical separation of control and R & D functions from those direct processes of production still requiring skilled labourers and of these in turn from mass-production and assembly work requiring only semiskilled labour-power . (It should be noted that this is not some ideal-typemodel, but simply a form frequently found amongst presently-leading sectors.) This third stage of production is increasingly located in areas where semi-skilled workers are not only available (since they are everywhere), but where wages are low, and where there is no tradition - at least among these workers - of militancy . Typically this will involve the incorporation of workers with no previous experience of capitalist relations of production - drawn either from the remnants of pre-capitalist modes, from the collapse of a previously-dominant industrial branch (in which case it will be the women, not the workers employed in the former specialisation, who will be employed) or from areas where workers (again mainly women) do not become totally dependent on (nor organised around) capitalist production relations (e .g . seaside resorts with seasonal self-employment in tourism) . Although the introduction of these factories into such (frequently depressed) areas is hailed by the State as beneficial, (6) its positive effects may be minimal . Wages and skills remain low, and it is not even necessarily the case that much new employment will result : one of the major characteristics of such factories is that they have few local links and stimulate little locally in terms of associated production (the Italians label them 'cathedrals in the desert') . A good example in the UK is given by Carter (1974) in his analysis of the Highlands . Some of these plants may themselves be relatively labour-intensive (such as electronics assembly), others employ very few workers (steel and chemical complexes are typical examples) . The 'second-stage' of production is typically located in the old centres of skilled work - primarily nineteenth century industrial towns and cities :



118

CAPITAL & CLASS

the critical characteristic of this stage, however, is its decreasing (quantitative) importance . More and more, standardisation and automation are enabling capital to be locationally freed from its old ties to skilled labourpower . It is the link between such changes in the production process and the possibilities open to capital as a result of the spatial differentiation of labour-power (together, of course, with the collapse of other sectors, characterised by a different spatial division of labour and formerly based in the cities) which is behind much of the present industrial decline of the inner cities (see Community Development Project, 1977 ; Massey and Meegan, 1978) . In such sectors as electronics, it appears that this rung in the spatial division of labour is fast disappearing and that a simple dichotomy is emerging between the city-regions (rather than the inner cities) of the core, and the peripheral regions . Thus, changes in the labour-process as a result of competition, the use by capital of spatial differentation ; and the reconstitution of the working class, here go hand in hand . The fact of geographical differentiation in the wages, skills, and organisational strength of the working class both influences the form of, and enables, particular developments in accumulation . The fact of the spatial basis of the organised strength of skilled labour-power both encourages spatial decentralisation from those bases when capital's dependence upon skill decreases, and thereby enables a much more effective undermining of the strength of the working class (7) . Finally, the central metropolitan regions (such as London, Paris) are typified by the presence of control functions, research, design and development, and by the significant presence of managerial and technical strata (it is this presence, rather than the absence of manual work, which is distinctive) . A number of points should be quickly made to round off this brief description . First, the pattern which has been described is an intra-national division of labour, but the precise form which it takes within any one nation will be determined also by the place of that nation itself within the international division of labour. (Thus Michon-Savarit (1975) analyses how the future pattern of spatial organisation and interregional relations within France might vary with different possible scenarios for the international division of labour .) Second, this is thus a very different form of spatial division of labour from, for instance, sectoral specialisation . Its economic repercussions are also different - regions at the 'bottom' end of the hierarchy, for instance, are placed in direct competition with countries in the Third World . Such changes in the form of the spatial division of labour can be misread as an end to spatial differentiation . Thus, to take one example, the development of locational hierarchies such as these has an important basis in the increasing level of 'technology' both in the production of given commodities and as an element of competition between capitals . Commenting on the relation between this change in production and regional differentiation, Mandel (1975) writes that "regional or international differences in levels of productivity no longer provide the main source for the realisation (??) of surplus profits . This role is now assumed by such differences between sectors and enterprises . . . There thus develops a permanent pressure to accelerate technological innovation . For the dwindling of



REGIONALISM

119

other sources of surplus profits inevitably leads to a constant hunt for 'technological renewal" (p .192) . While it is true that inter-regional productivity differentials (ie between firms) are no longer a dominant source of surplus

profit, the example just presented shows that this does not necessarily imply either that regional differentials have disappeared, or that they have ceased to be relevant to capitalist investment strategies . On the contrary, such differentials would appear to be important in the appropriation of precisely those sources of surplus profit which Mandel now sees as dominant . An adequate use of regional differentials within the intro-firm division of labour is an important component of inter-firm competition, and part-

icularly so in those branches of production which combine fast rates of technological change with the assembly-line-production of standardised commodities . Finally, it is clear that the latest form of the spatial division of labour is establishing not only a different form of use by capital of spatial differentiation, but also a new shape of geographical 'regionalisation' .

THE EFFECTS OF SPATIAL DIFFERENTIATION IN THE PROCESS OF ACCUMULATION The analysis of the evolution of a new spatial division of labour is, however, only the first stage in the study of spatial differentiation . It is next necessary to analyse the way in which this new use of space is combined with the geographical pattern of previous uses . It is the effects of this combination which produce both the distinctive characteristics of local areas, and the overall pattern of regional variation in a social formation . First, there are the effects on any particular geographical location or area . Some examples of direct effects have already been referred to, but there are broader implications . Thus, taking initially just the economic level, the presently-emerging spatial division of labour does not characterise every branch of production . It arises from the combination of certain newly-dominant features of the process of production with a spatial configuration formed as a result of previously-dominant features . The 'new spatial division of labour' described here is therefore one (a) which is a feature primarily of new and advanced sectors of production, and (b) which is articulated with an inherited, and different, form of spatial division . New branches of production may be introduced, affecting the conditions of production of established local industry ; large inter-regional or multinational capital may enter an area previously the preserve of local firms . This process of combination will therefore produce effects which go beyond the direct implications of the locational strategies of capital, and which will possibily produce precisely that regional specificity which a number of the analyses referred to earlier (and which started from a regional base) have correctly been trying to grasp . Moreover, these effects are not confined to production . They will include, for example, locally-differentiated effects on class structure (Lipietz, 1977, p .85, Lewis and Hudson, 1977, are good examples) . Gramsci's work also contains a number of comments on and analyses of this aspect of the impact of spatially-differentatied accumulation : Turin is



120

CAPITAL & CLASS

"the proletarian city, par excellence" . . ." precisely because of this powerfully united character of the city's industry" (in The Historical Role of the Cities, Gramsci, 1977), and similar analyses are made of Milan, Piedmont, and the city-countryside relationship . Mandel (1963) analyses the formation of the 'two proletariats' of Belgium as a result of the distinct economic development of the regions of Wallonia and Flanders . As is clear from both Gramsci and Mandel, such processes may also imply a potentially politically significant spatial differentiation in forms of class struggle . Castells (1977, ch .14) makes similar points in relation to 'urban social movements' . It is the combination of effects such as these which produces the complex form of spatial variation which is the empirical phenomenon with which regional analysis is faced . This paper has argued so far that the causes of such complex differentiation can not be explained adequately by starting from any pre-given regionalisation . However, the examination of the resultant pattern of accumulation, and of its effects, may well require some method of spatial summary, and this may include the identification of 'regions' . Considering that it is so central, there is relatively little debate on 'the concept of a region' (either its possibility or its nature) . One of the clearest positions is that of Lipietz (1977) who insists on the dominance, in the definition of any such entity, of distinctive social relations based primarily on the geographically-differentiated articulation of capitalism with pre-capitalist modes (see, for instance, pp .33, 26 ; and Lipietz, 1975, p .419) . As already mentioned, such a position, also held by others in specific analyses, is disputed at both empirical and political levels . In Italy, a related debate focuses on what is the correct class characterisation of the South : Mingione (1977) follows Gramsci (1949) in arguing that the bourgeois revolution did not involve the South ; Secchi (1977), discussing the twentieth century, attacks the common thesis that "the Italian system is characterised by modern (capitalist) activities mainly concentrated in the Northern regions, and by backward (pre-capitalist) activities concentrated in the southern regions" (p .36) . To return, however, to the 'concept of region', a different question which can be raised against Lipietz's definition concerns not whether the particular criterion is appropriate but whether there is any point in attempting to establish any criteria for universal application . It may be that regional specificity and coherence may be established on a variety of different bases - though 'class relations' in a general sense will evidently be a dominant component . Mandel's (1963) work on Belgium again provides a good example . Having begun from an analysis of the process of accumulation in relation to Belgium as a whole, he analyses the spatially-differentiated form that this takes, and the impact of this in turn on class relations (see above) . His analysis is that Wallonia and Flanders are distinct in terms of date of industrialisation, the nature (branch, size, etc .) of industry, the degree of urbanisation and the nature of internal spatial organisation, and in terms of language, culture and religion, and politics - in relation both to nationalism and socialism . It emerges clearly not only that spatial separation has been very important in the construction of these characteristics of the Belgian national social-formation, but also that the integration between form of accumulation and politics and ideology, and the effect of



REGIONALISM

121

that, clearly warrants the identification within the country of two distinct regions . It should not be assumed, however, that in every spatial analysis of a national capitalist economy such divisions will always emerge so clearly, nor that they necessarily cover the total geographical area of the state . Such a 'regionalisation' should not be forced on unwilling evidence . At the economic level, for instance, the combination of successive spatial divisions of labour may not produce in any sense coherent economies . It has already been mentioned that Lipietz's regions switch from those constructed through historical analysis (and which are based on the articulation of modes of production) to those characterised on criteria (primarily type of labour-power) relevant to an analysis of the present spatial division of labour. 'Region' may mean many things - in this case both a coherent spatial entity in terms of social relations and a geographical disaggregation on the basis of a single economic variable . Lipietz's is a perfectly feasible procedure so long as the different status of these regional types is fully recognised . Moreover, it is possible to summarise and analyse the effects of geographical differentiation without the construction of coherent regions . In the UK over the last decade or so, for instance, a definite change has been taking place in the form, composition and geographical distribution of the reserve army of labour . Some aspects of this have already been referred to (e .g . the decline of the 'inner cities') . This is an important phenomenon to recognise and to analyse but it is not necessary therefore to define, say, inner cities, as 'regions' the coherence of which extends beyond the distribution of this aspect of accumulation . In such cases, different geographical bases may well be appropriate for the analysis of different phenomena . Finally, whether of not coherent regions may be defined from the analysis, the rationale for any particular form of geographical summary should be related to its usefulness in analysing the effects of such differentiation . These effects will occur not only at the local level (as already discussed) but also as a result of the impact of the fact and form of spatial differentiation on the development of the social formation as a whole . A number of studies have been produced analysing this impact, in both economic and political terms . One point which emerges clearly from them is that no a priori assumptions should be made as to whether such effects are problematic or positive for capital . There is some tendency to assume that severe spatial inequality is necessarily a problem for capital, that regional policy is designed to cope with these negative effects, but that it is continually subordinated to the more pressing demands of accumulation . At certain historical periods this is undoubtedly true (examples include the UK in both the 1930s and 1963), but spatial inequality may also be functional . Both aspects appear in Secchi's (1977) study which emphasises the role of territorical inequality in both periods of growth and the crises of the Italian economy . Secchi carries this analysis through to the political implications of the spatial pattern, particularly in relation to systems of intercapitalist alliances . Garofoli (1975b) takes up the same themes . Carney, Lewis and Hudson (1977) examine the contradictory effects in the UK of the inter-war geographical specialisation in Departments I and II . They argue that : "The crucial restraint on the continued accumulation



122

CAPITAL & CLASS

of capital in the Department I I industries of the South was the depressed conditions of consumption in those areas dominated by Department I production". Yet at the same time : "One of the conditions for the success of Department I I production in the South was that a large mass of skilled labour was thrown out of work in the North and so acted as a reserve army sustaining reductions in production costs in the South by their presence and sustaining production needs for labour-power by their migration south" (p .58) . Again, of course, such effects have more than simply economic implications . Mandel's article (Mandel, 1963) examines the very important political repercussions of Belgium's patterns of regionalisation, this time in terms of the labour movement .

IN CONCLUSION This review has been something of a mad dash through a disparate and sometimes confusing field of work . It is hoped, however, that a number of points have been established . First, that there is such a field of study as regionalism, with a valid general object . Second, that within that field there are a number of very different stages of analysis and distinct questions . In particular, attention has been focused in this paper on the difference between the production of spatial unevenness, the effects of that unevenness, and the fortunes of particular regions . It is argued here that these must be carefully distinguished, both in terms of the questions being asked and in terms of the direction of causality involved . Finally, spatial differentiation can have important effects, both on the development of a national capitalist economy, and on the course of political struggle .

NOTES Doreen Massey works at the Centre for Environmental Studies, 62 Chandos Place, London W .C .2 . Much help was received in writing this survey from discussion in the CSE Regionalism Group, and in the Editorial Committee of Capita/andC/ass, and in particular from detailed comments by James Anderson, Mick Dunford, Mike Geddes, John Harrison, Jim Lewis, Richard Minns, Diane Perrons and Andrew Sayer . 1 For reasons of space the present review has a very restricted scope . It is confined in its empirical basis, and to some extent in its propositions, to metropolitan capitalist countries, and it has had to omit consideration of a number of very closely related fields of work, in particular analysis of nationalism, and of the burgeoning debate specifically on 'urbanism' . Neither has there been room to consider the literature on state intervention in this field, particularly regional policy . 2 Although there is clearly a point here, this does seem overformal, and may have the effect of implying that the existence of theoretical equilibria implies a problem-free capitalist economy . It is nonetheless worth noting that the introduction of the spatial dimension plays havoc with neo-classical concepts of general equilibrium (see Massey, 1974) .



REGIONALISM

3 4

5 6

7

123

A number of these points are elaborated further in Anderson, 1977 . Earlier in the same article Sayer examines the difficulties of using measures of capital intensity to indicate organic composition . It is clear, however, that he is referring to a real phenomenom in terms of the direction of differentials in organic composition . It is also the case, of course, that the workers in the different regions are applying labourpower of different skills, etc . (value) . Which is not to say that such a justification could not be provided . Elements of such an argument appear both in this article and in Carney, Lewis and Hudson, 1977 . Such developments are also frequently attributed to regional policy which may well have encouraged them, but not in any sense against the trend of the changing requirements of accumulation . It is interesting to note that those who hold to the `inevitable spatial concentration' model of capitalism, are also forced to attribute such developments solely to the effectiveness of state intervention . Spatial separation and differentiation can also be important elements in more immediate strategies, either of individual capitals (for which geographical mobility may enable total changes in production which might otherwise be fought by the unions on-site) or of State policy (the way in which inner city workers have been set against those of peripheral regions is a good recent example) .

REFERENCES Amin, S ., 1973, L'Echange inegal et la loi de la valeur, Anthropos - IDEP Paris . Amin, S ., 1976, Unequal development, Harvester . Anderson, J ., 1975, "The political economy of urbanism : an introduction and bibliography", Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Architectural Association . Anderson, J ., 1977, Stuart Holland's regionalism : reformism reheated, paper presented to CSE Regionalism Working Group, mimeo . Bettelheim, C ., 1972, Appendix I Theoretical Comments, in Emmanuel (1972) . Bleitrach, D ., and Chenu, A ., 1975, "Amenagement : regulation ou aggravation des contradictions sociales? Un exemple : Fos-sur-mer et faire metropolitaine marseillaise" . Brenner, R ., 1977, The origins of capitalist development : a critique of neoSmithian Marxism . New Left Review, vol . 104, pp .25-92 . Carney, J ., Hudson, R ., Ive, G . and Lewis, J ., 1975, "Regional underdevelopment in late capitalism : a study of the North East of England" in Masser, I . (ed .) Theory and practice in regional science, Pion, London . Carney, J ., Lewis, J . and Hudson, R ., 1977, "Coal combines and interregional uneven development in the UK" in : Massey, D .B . and Batey P .W .J . (eds) London Paper in Regional Science, vol . 7, Alternative Frameworks for analysis, Pion, London .



124

CAPITAL & CLASS

Carter, I ., 1974, "The highlands of Scotland as an underdeveloped region" in : E de Kadt and G . Williams (eds), Sociology and Development, Tavistock Publications, pp .279-31 1 . Castells, M ., 1977, The Urban Question, Edward Arnold . Castells, M . and Godard, F ., 1974, Monopolville : /'enterprise I'etat, l'urbain, Mouton . Community Development Project, 1977, The Costs of Industrial Change. Dunford, M .F ., 1977, "Regional policy and the restructuring of capital", Sussex University : Urban and Regional Studies, Working Paper 4 . Emmanuel, A ., 1972, Unequal Exchange : a study of the imperialism of trade, New Left Books . Emmanuel, A ., et al, 1975, Un debat sur /'exchange inegal, Maspero, Paris . Firn, J ., 1975, External control and regional policy, in The Red Paper on Scotland, edited by Gordon Brown . Frank, A .G ., 1970, Latin America : Underdevelopment or Revolution . Monthly Review Press, New York . Garofoli, G ., 1975a, Produttivita del lavoro e safari : uni analisi dei differenziali intersettoriali ed interregionali, Archivio di Studi Urbani e Regionali, no .3-4, pp .97-123 . Garofoli, G ., 1975b, Un' analisi critica della politica di riequilibrio regionale in Italia : it caso del Mezzogiorno, Archivio di Studi Urbani e Regional,, no .3-4, pp .165-183 . Gervais, M ., Servolin, C ., and Weil, J ., 1965, Une France sans Payson, Le Seuil, Paris . Gramsci, A ., 1949, llrisorgimento, Einaudi, Turin . Gramsci, A ., 1977, "The historical role of the cities", in Selections from political writings, 1910-1920 . Lawrence and Wishart . Harloe, M . (ed), 1975, "Proceedings of the conference on urban change and conflict", Centre for Environmental Studies, Conference Papers 14 . Harloe, M ., 1978, "Marxism, the state and the urban question : Critical notes on two recent French theories", in : Crouch, C . (ed), : British Political Sociology Yearbook . Harvey, D ., 1975, "The geography of capitalist accumulation : a reconstruction of the Marxian Theory", Antipode, vol . 7, No .2, pp .9-21 (also in Peet, 1977) . Hechter, M ., 1975, Internal colonialism : The Celtic fringe in British national development, 1536-1966, International Library of Sociology, Routledge and Kegan Paul . Hein, W ., 1976, "The accumulation of capital on the world scale, the nation state and uneven development ; Outline of a theoretical approach", Paper to CSE Working Group on the Neocolonial State, mimeo . Holland, S ., 1976, Capital vs. the Regions, Macmillan Press . Lebas, E ., 1977, "Regional policy research : some theoretical and methodological problems" in M . Harloe (ed), Captive Cities, Wiley, London, pp .79-88 .



REGIONALISM

125

Lee, R ., 1977, "Regional relations and economic structure in the EEC" in : Massey, D .B . and Batey, P .W .J . led), London Papers in Regional Science, vol . 7, Alternative Frameworks for Analysis, pp .19-38 . Lipietz, A ., 1975, "Structuration de I'espace, probleme foncier et amenagementdu territoire ",Environment and Planning, A,vol .7, pp .415-425 Lipietz, A ., 1977, Le capital et son espace, Maspero : Economic et Socialisme, 34. Lovering, J ., 1977, "The theory of the 'internal colony' and the political economy of Wales", mimeo . Mandel, E ., 1963, "The dialectic of class and region in Belgium", New Left Review . vol .20, pp .5-31 . Mandel, E ., 1975, "Late Capitalism", New Left Books, London . Marx, K ., Capital, Lawrence and Wishart . Marx, K ., Grundrisse, Penguin . Massey, D .B ., 1974, "Towards a critique of industrial location theory", Centre for Environmental Studies, Research Paper No 5 . (also in Antipode, Dec . 1973 and Peet, 1977) . Massey, D .B ., 1976, "Restructuring and regionalism : some spatial effects of the crisis". Paper presented to CSE Working Group on Regionalism . Centre for Environmental Studies, Working Note 449 . Massey, D .B ., and Meegan, R .A ., 1978, "Restructuring vs . the Cities", Urban Studies, vol .1 5, No .3 . Mellor, R ., 1975, "The British Experience : combined and uneven development" in : Harloe, M . led), 1975 . Michon-Savarit, C ., 1975, "La place des regions francaises dans la division internationale du travail : deux scenarios contrast6s", Environment and Planning, A, vol . 7, No . 4, pp .449-454 . Mingione, E ., 1977, "Theoretical elements for a Marxist analysis of urban development" in : Harloe, M . (ed), Captive Cities, Wiley, pp .89-110 . Purdy, D ., 1977, "Review of Holland's 'Capital vs . the Regions' and 'The Socialist Challenge' "Capital and Class, No .1 . Regional Social Theory Group, 1978, "Accumulation, the regional problem and nationalism" in : P .W .J . Batey (ed) London Papers in Regional Science, vol .8, Pion, London . Rey, P-P ., 1973, Les alliances de classes, Maspero, Paris . Sayer, A ., 1977, "The law of value and uneven development : some problems and possibilities for analysis" . Paper presented to the Regional Social Theory Group, Regional Science Association, Lanehead Workshop, July . Mimeo . Secchi, B ., 1977, "Central and peripheral regions in a process of economic development : The Italian case" in : Massey, D .B ., and Batey, P .W .J . (eds), London Papers in Regional Science, vol .7 : Alternative Frameworks for Analysis, Pion, London . Szentes, T ., 1971, The political economy of underdevelopment, Akademiai Kiado, Budapest .

REVIEW ARTICLE INTELLECTUAL AND MANUAL LABOUR : AN INTRODUCTION TO ALFRED SOHN-RETHEL

INTELLECTUAL AND MANUAL LABOUR By Alfred Sohn-Rethel MacMillan (London, 1978) . p .p .216 . £3 .95 paperback . (Available through CSE Book Club) Reviewed by Monika Reinfelder and Phil Slater Alfred Sohn-Rethel's Intellectual and Manual Labour (1978b) is a major theoretical work, and could well prove a decisive turning point in the Anglo-Saxon attempt at a Marxist theorisation of philosophy and science . It takes the debate away from orthodox epistemology and moves it in the direction of a perspective that locates the formal determinants of thought in the elementary form of the socio-economic realm, which for capitalist societies is, of course, the commodity . However, while this undertaking comes as a welcome departure both from the naive materialism of the "reflection theory" and from the ultimate idealism of Althusserian "theoretical practice", one should not underestimate the tremendous barriers to comprehension facing the reader, barriers rooted in the theoretical and ideological constellation of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, in particular its lack of any deep-seated history of Marxism or dialectics generally . And yet, Sohn-Rethel's book is, for that very reason, ideally suited to make a significant intervention in this constellation : aiming at a historical materialist critique of the very logic of Western thought, Intellectual and Manual Labour challenges that tradition at its roots, while simultaneously struggling to extricate the Marxist tradition from the dogmatism and superficiality that make it such easy prey for its political opponents in this field (1) . While a simple review would be inadequate to such an undertaking, a systematic critique, by contrast, would be somewhat premature, since it would take as its object a theory devoted to questions which in the Englishspeaking world are not yet even recognised as questions . Thus, anybody



REVIEW ARTICLE

127

sensitive to the lack of any adequate historical materialist theorisation of philosophy and science should recognise that Intellectual and Manual Labour is a serious pioneer in this area, and that wide circulation and discussion of it offer excellent propects for initiating a qualitatively higher level of debate all round . Given this strategic consideration, and given that the book is bound to strike many of even the most enthusiastic readers as obscure and "alien", the present contribution offers a brief introduction to Sohn-Rethel's life and work, an outline of the substance and structure of Intellectual and Manual Labour (which, with one important exception, contains the main fruits of his theoretical production) (2), a schematisation of the criticisms levelled at Sohn-Rethel (largely in Germany), and a tabulation of his publications in German and English over the last four and a half decades .

LIFE AND WORKS Alfred Sohn-Rethel was born in 1899, and thus belongs to the generation of German-speaking individuals that boasts the names of Adorno, Benjamin, Horkheimer and Marcuse (Bloch, Korsch and Lukacs being slightly older) . However, whereas these men began, at a relatively young age, to publish works that were later to be of seminal importance for the student anti-authoritarian movement, Sohn-Rethel published his first major work, Geistige and korperliche Arbeit (1970b), at a time when antiauthoritarianism had been superceded by what has been called the "Organisational Phase". This meant that if he was not to be dismissed as an anachronism, Sohn-Rethel had to address himself to the inflamed debate on political economy, class struggle, Marxism and revisionism . As it turned out, not only did Sohn-Rethel's theory contribute to the discussion on commodity, value and money, as well as on monopoly capitalism, socialism and technocracy, not to mention the very basis of historical materialism itself, but his book became one of the central objects in the whole debate on revisionism and anti-revisionism (3) . Despite the efforts of the `orthodox Marxist-Leninists', with their 'dialectical materialism' and 'reflection theory', to preclude any substantive discussion of the book the first edition was a sell-out, and, faced with competition from a pirateedition, Suhrkamp brought out the second edition in the popular 'edition suhrkamp' series (1972b) . Prior to this success, Sohn-Rethel had been almost totally unheard of, despite several attempts at partial exposition of his theory (see bibliography), and despite an approving mention by Adorno in Negative Dialektik of 1966 to the effect that Sohn-Rethel has been the first to point out the affinity between thought form and commodity form (4) . However, this relative obscurity soon changed after 1970 : a string of publications followed (see bibliography), not only elaborating on specific themes of the opus magnum, but also reconstructing the long and difficult road that lay behind it . People began to take an interest in the personal and intellectual life of this mysterious figure who, at the age of seventyone, had published a major work of Marxist theory .



128

CAPITAL & CLASS

Born in Paris in 1899, Sohn-Rethel was the son of an artist and the godson of one of the big names in the German steel industry, Ernst Poensgen (5) . Sohn-Rethel spent much of his boyhood with the latter in Dusseldorf, being a frequent visitor to the factory, his interest always at the shopfloor level . Thus, contrary to what the structure of Intellectual and Manual Labour might suggest, the author's interest in the modern labour process was riot the result of an originally theoretical concern, but a preoccupation dating back to his boyhood and early youth . Returning to his own family in Berlin in 1912, Sohn-Rethel was thrown out of home in 1916 as a result of his increasing political radicalisation . He went to Heidelberg University in 1917, where he became involved in anti-war activities, the latter proving so dangerous that he was forced to shift his studies to Munich . Conscripted shortly before the German surrender, he then lived through the momentous years between 1918 and 1923, convinced of the necessity and imminence of revolution . The failure of the German revolution must be counted one of the most crucial phenomena driving Sohn-Rethel, like so many of his generation, to undertake a comradely but critical reassessment of some fundamental features of the entire Marxist tradition . Sohn-Rethel had read Marx while still at school, but it was in the 1920s that he began a sustained analysis of Capital, in particular the first three chapters, convinced that here alone could be found the basis for the politically indispensable historical materialist critique of idealism . Pursuing what turned out to be a life-long, though often interrupted task, he came into early contact with Benjamin and Bloch, as well as Heidegger, Cassirer and Koyre, and last but not least, Adorno, with whom he corresponded in the mid-1930s . It was around this time, after an intriguing spell as a reasearch assistant in the Berlin office of the Mitteleuropaischer Wirtschaftstag (Central European Economic Congress), (6) that Sohn-Rethel was obliged to flee from the Gestapo as a result of his involvement with several resistance groups . He landed in England in 1937, where he was to work on his theory in almost total isolation for over thirty years . At this stage, Sohn-Rethel's publications were limited to a short, but insightful account of the collapse of reformism and the rise of fascism as a new strategy of capital (1932), and a shortened version of the doctoral dissertation he had submitted in 1928 (1936) . The latter was a fairly restrained effort, presumably written with due consideration to its academic purpose ; however, the author's later preoccupation with the dialectic of socialisation/privatisation in thought/action already emerges in the argument that the relation between the exchange nexus and the individual economic subject's Reason is one of strict "incongruence" (1936 : 43ff), as well as in the methodological emphasis on the exchange act. By the time the dissertation appeared in print, however, Sohn-Rethel's theorisation had made significant advances, and these find expression in two expository pieces of the mid-1930s, both of which were finally printed in Warenform and Denkform (1971e) . Of the two, the first is perhaps the more important : in the form of a letter to Adorno (then residing in Oxford), it is remarkable for the consistency it reveals between Sohn-Rethel's mature theory and the problematic he was trying to establish decades earlier . For Sohn-Rethel, then as now, the Marxist critique



REVIEW ARTICLE

129

of political economy is "inadequate to its own purpose as long as its conceptual tools (say the analysis of the commodity form and value relation) do not offer the prospect of contructing an exhaustive critique of the truth of bourgeois idealism" . And if the economic analysis of capitalism fails to provide an adequate theory of philosophy and science, "then at some point it will fall short on the tasks of social transformation" (1971e :1Of) . At this stage, Sohn-Rethel is more concerned with specifying the problem than with constructing bold answers, but even here he broaches some major arguments of his mature theory : for example, the abstract nature of the exchange act, and the synthetic function of money, as well as the latter's mystified representation in Kant's "transcendental synthesis a priori" . As yet, however, there is no attempt at a historical materialist deduction of the Kantian forms and categories, no theory of head and hand, and no notion of the "dual economics" of late capitalism . Thus, the three major components of the opus magnum are, at this stage, absent . Having settled in England in 1937, Sohn-Rethel worked, though with repeated interruptions, on his project of a critique of philosophy and science from the perspective of Marx's analysis of commodity, value and money . The only kindred spirit he found in England was George Thomson, the distinguished Professor of Greek and author of several major works of Marxist theory . Henceforth, the two men drew extensively on each other's work, always generous in their mutual acknowledgement ; indeed, Thomson actually goes so far as to say that Sohn-Rethel "helped me to appreciate the profound philosophical importance of the opening chapters of Capital" (7) . However, despite Thomson's support, a 1950s manuscript of Sohn-Rethel's Intellectual and Manual Labour was turned down, not merely by the 'respectable' publishing houses, but also by Lawrence and Wishart (which, given the intellectual tradition of the British CP, is not altogether surprising) . In any case, Sohn-Rethel became increasingly tied up with school teaching, only returning to intensive theoretical work in the 1960s, convinced that he would have to turn his attention to the German-speaking world if his work was to be transmitted seriously . The success of post-1970 proved him right . Not only did he become an eminently publishable semi-cult figure (as well as a major bogeyman to the 'orthodox Marxist-Leninist' camp), but in 1972 he was appointed Guest Professor for Theory of Knowledge and Society at the University of Bremen, holding the post (the very title of which is a tribute to his struggle against the 'autonomy' of epistomology) until 1976, the maximum period tenable for a Guest Professorship . Upon his return to England, he concentrated on producing an Enlgish edition of his opus magnum, which, as it turns out, is no mere translation, but constitutes the most advanced version of his theory . Previous attempts at exposition in English (see bibliography) will, of course, retain their topicality, both as basic (though partial) introductions and as documents reconstructing the difficult task of forcing a dialectical argument into a language dominated for centuries by an empiricism that masquerades as 'sound common sense' . However, these monographs cannot adequately convey the symtematic frame of reference within which they were ultimately thought, and it is thus to Intellectual and Manual Labour (1978b) that serious discussion of Sohn-Rethel's work must ultimately turn .

130

CAPITAL & CLASS

INTELLECTUAL AND MANUAL LABOUR Intellectual and Manual Labour opens with a short preface (xi-xiv) (8) by way of a brief intellectual autobiography, but also presenting the basic argument in the bewildering, "crazy" form in which it first struck Sohn-Rethel in the 1920s : "in the innermost core of the commodity structure there was to be found the 'transcendental subject' " . This conviction of the "secret identity of commodity form and thought form" was never to be shaken : "I had grasped the beginning of a thread whose end was not yet in sight" (xiii) . As it turns out, unravelling this thread through half a century of hard work has led Sohn-Rethel over a range of problems so vast and so (seemingly) diffuse as to be difficult to peruse, let alone review. To take just one of the provocative questions posed in the Introduction (1-9) : "Is modern technology class-neutral?" (1) . Sohn-Rethel's refreshing treatment of this perennial problem not only leads backwards to the origin of Western thought in commodity production, but also returns to present-day questions of workers' control, class consciousness, revolutionary strategy, technocracy and Meoism, thereby providing dramatic illustration of the political pertinence of what may seem, particularly in the early sections of the book, an obscure and idiosyncratic undertaking . The Introduction serves the useful purpose of presenting the basic arguments of the text in advance . Quoting Marx's '1859 Preface' to the effect that it is men's social being that determines their consciousness, Sohn-Rethel argues that there is a lacuna not only in Marxism but in Marx himself : there is no historical materialist analysis (indeed, in the '1859 Preface' there is even no mention) of the "conceptual foundations of the cognitive faculty vis-a-vis nature which in one form or another is characteristic of the ages of commodity production from their beginnings in Ancient Greece to the present day" (5) . Introducing the concept 'social synthesis' to designate the network of relations by which any one society forms a coherent whole, Sohn-Rethel implicitly challenges the 'reflection theory' by stating a major methodological premise : "The conceptual basis of cognition is logically and historically conditioned by the basic formation of the social synthesis of its epoch" (7) . That the social synthesis of commodity producing societies is effected via exchange conforms to this premise, for the "constituent elements of the exchange abstraction unmistakably resemble the conceptual elements of the cognitive faculty emerging with the growth of commodity production" (6) . In fact, this is no mere resemblance, but "true identity" (7) . To substantiate this thesis constitutes the fundamental undertaking of the book . Part One, 'Critique of Philosophical Epistemology' (11-79), which is to carry the weight of the entire book, begins by trying to justify the author's critical focus on a Kantian problematic, rather than on the more orthodox Hegel-Marx constellation . Kant's question concerning the Dossibility of synthetic judgements a priori is a real question : namely, how does one explain the pre-given nature of the forms of intuition and categories of the understanding? Kant's own reply ("Via the faculty of transcendental synthesis a priori") is a hypostatisation that merely restates the problem in the form of a self-assertive 'answer', but this should not prompt



REVIEW ARTICLE

131

us to follow Hegel's 'sublation' (Aufhebung) of the Kantian problematic into absolute idealism, for such a course blots out a paradox which, for Sohn-Rethel, is objectively rooted in "the realities of capitalism" (15) . Rather than 'sublating' the problematic in the tradition of Hegel, and rather than discarding and vilifying it in the tradition of the Diamat, Sohn-Rethel asks (38) : what is the historical origin of our ability to construct mathematical hypotheses and the elements contributing to them? What is needed, according to the author, is the demonstration that abstract thought, while having the form of thought, does not originate out of thought, but out of a socio-historical act which, though abstract, constitutes a real abstraction (Realabstraktion) by virtue of being a spatiotemporal occurence (20) . For Sohn-Rethel, only one person has ever affirmed the possibility of such a real abstraction, and that is Marx (19), to whose analysis of the commodity the enquiry must turn . Whereas Marx, in his critique of political economy, begins with the two-fold nature of the commodity (use-value and exchange-value), SohnRethel, pursuing the critique of epistemology, concentrates on the corresponding polar activities : namely, use and exchange . If the social synthesis of the commodity producing societies is carried by the exchange nexus (29), then exchange should, to satisfy SohnRethel's methodological premise, also constitute the real abstraction sought after . This is indeed the case : the act of exchange, the abstraction from all use, provides a form of equation (Gleichung) . that "abstracts quantity in a manner which constitutes the foundation of free mathematical reasoning" (47) . Paradoxically, however, this abstractness of the action is not reflected in the actor's minds, which, on the contrary, remain occupied with the use-value to be acquired : "the action is social, the minds are private" (29) . True, the abstraction does achieve "representation" in coined money, but (in line with the fetishism of the value form as a whole) this "representation" is "disguised as a thing" and is thus not recognisable in its "true identity as abstract form" (33) . However, Sohn-Rethel argues that the abstraction operative in exchange does achieve an "identical" expression, namely in the so-called "pure understanding", the cognitive source of scientific knowledge (34) . To illustrate this "identity", he turns (putting tremendous intellectual demands on his reader) to ancient Greece and lonia, which, as is often forgotten in philosophical discussion (George Thomson being a notable exception), achieved a 'Greek miracle' in the secular sense of creating coined money, thereby generating the violent class struggles that posed radically new problems for the human mind to ponder. The long line of philosophers from Thales to Aristotle applied their intellectual genius not least to these very problems, but the most dazzling results of their labour took a form no less fetishistic than the money form itself ; for example, Parmenides' 'the One' can be regarded as the first concept "fitting the description of the abstract material of money, but without any idea of what his concept stood for and what had prompted him to conceive it" (65) . In fact, what came into being was "the capacity of conceptual reasoning in terms of abstract universals, a capacity which established full intellectual independence from manual labour" (60) . If Part One attempts to show how abstract thought is founded, log-



132

CAPITAL & CLASS

ically and historically, on exchange, the aim of Part Two, 'Social Synthesis and Production' (81-135), is to explain this in terms of economic exploitation : "intellectual in separation from manual labour arises as a means of the appropriation of products of labour by non-labourers" (90) . It is not possible to summarise here the author's account of the changing relation of head and hand from ancient Egypt to the present, and, in any case, this part of the book is far easier than the first and thus requires far less by way of introduction for the English reader. However, the coherence of what Sohn-Rethel ultimately intends as a political text rests on his understanding of the capitalist mode of production, and it is thus crucial to grasp the author's argument regarding the specific relation of head and hand requisite to that mode . Whereas in ancient Egypt exploitation meant the non-labourer's appropriation of the products of labour of direct producers who were often their own 'masters' as regarded the precise structure of the labour process, the rationale of capital valorisation is incompatiable with a labour process based on the labourer's 'know-how' and autonomous manual expertise, and must, on the contrary, establish an "unambiguous division of head and hand in the production processes" (113) . For Sohn-Rethel, this is the ultimate significance of the mathematico-experimental method of Galileo and Newton : while manual labour is necessary both to set up the experiment and to carry out in the production process the operations to which the results are applied, the actual experiment itself is "safeguarded from any touch by human hand and made to register specific measurements which are then read as indicated by the instruments", which is only possible if, in direct opposition to the craftsman's skill, the phenomenon under investigation can be "torn out of the context in which it occurs" (732) . The mathematico-experimental method thus secures to capital "the possibiliby of a knowledge of nature from sources other than manual labour" (122) . Part two closes with a discussion (far less radical than one might have expected) of the c/ass nature of what we know as 'science', a problem that, like the analysis of capitalism generally leads directly (although the reader will find the transition very demanding) into Part Three, 'The Dual Economics of Advanced Capitalism' (737-785) . Drawing on the work of Lenin, Baran and Sweezy, and Braverman, but also stressing the need for a Marxist critique of bourgeois theorists like Eugen Schmalenbach (the founder of 'management sciences' in Weimar Germany), Sohn-Rethel argues that the economic background to the rise of what is known as 'monopoly capitalism' lay in structural changes within the production process itself. In line with Marx's concept of the increasing organic composition of capital, modern management is faced with the increasing dominance of the so-called 'indirect' or 'fixed' element of cost, with the result that any attempt to reduce output, for whatever reason, will effect a drastic rise in unit costs . Thus, the rising organic composition of capital makes production "increasingly inadaptable to the market regulatives", and the capitalist class is forced "to try to obtain control of the movements of the market" (745) . This attempt, which is precisely what makes

them 'monopolists', is the point at which Baran and Sweezy begin their analysis of Monopoly. Capital, whereas for Sohn-Rethel the essence of the



REVIEW ARTICLE

133

matter lies at the level of capitalist production as a process of capital valorisation : the major feature of monopoly capitalism is not some ill-defined `rising surplus' (Baran and Sweezy), nor even those phenomena Lenin analysed under the rubric of 'Imperialism', but a "substantial increase in the rate of exploitation of the labour employed in the industries at home" (146) . For Sohn-Rethel, this strategy was pioneered by one man, Frederick Winslow Taylor . The detailed discussion of Taylorism, which marks off Sohn-Rethel as one of the few Marxists to have attempted a serious analysis of the modern labour process (9), focuses on the attempt to reduce the various operations of the "collective labourer" to a uniform measure of time, the establishment and implementation of which presuppose, to quote Taylor, "taking the control of the machine shop out of the hands of the many workmen, and placing it completely in the hands of the management" (152) . From Taylor's "unit times" (154), via Frank Gilbreth's "synthetic timing" (155), to Henry Ford's "flow production" (159f) is a momentous, but (from the perspective of capital) quite logical development . Important as this analysis is for an understanding of the capitalist labour process, however, it gives rise in Sohn-Rethel's account to a far from unproblematic theory of the 'dialectic' of late capitalism : namely, the thesis of 'dual economics' . The author is apparently quite aware that it is this aspect of his theory, rather than the formal analysis of the commodity, which will come in for severest criticism in the English-speaking world, for he emphasises in advance that this whole section is bound to be "a great deal more speculative" and is only intended to serve "as a basis for further research by others" (139) . Nonetheless, the thesis of 'dual economics' is perfectly clear ; it begins by delimiting post-1896 capitalism from the "periods' presented in Capital : according to Sohn-Rethel, Marx analysed the period of manufacture, where the transformation of the mode of proudction takes labour-power as its starting-point, as well as the period of large-scale industry, where the instruments of labour are the starting-point, but he did not live to see and analyse what Sohn-Rethel regards as the 'third period', namely, monopoly capitalist flow production, where, the author argues, "it is labour itself that forms the starting-point" (141) . Despite the remarkably advanced 'extrapolations', particularly in the Grundrisse, Marx did not, in Sohn-Rethel's eyes, show "the implications carried by the external necessity of the continuity of the production process (143), implications which constitute the heart of the concept of 'dual economics' . This theory runs as follows : whereas laissez-faire capitalism was a market economy, uniformly resting on a commensuration of dead labour, monopoly capitalist flow production confounds this with a TayloristFordist commensuration of living labour, of "labour in action" (171) . The logic of the latter, a logic of production rather than appropriation (carrying fantastic significance for the social nexus) is, of course, subordinated to, and deformed by the primacy of capital valorisation ; nonetheless, the irrepressible duality in the mode of commensuration of labour (hence, "dual economics") means that the modern labour process might "harbour potentialities which could assume a vital significance if society



134

CAPITAL & CLASS

were no longer subservient to capitalism" (165) . The critique of political economy thus leads into a critique of "scientific management" : what masquerades as an "objective, neutral science" is, in reality, the translation of the principles of the resocietisation of labour into the one-dimensional, fetishistic language of capital valorisation . Just as this fetishism is "one of the particular ideological concerns, not only of the capitalists themselves, but of the State" (1571), so any adequate socialist strategy must include the transitional struggle of the resocietised labour force to itself become "the societising force" : only as such can it "bring about the unity of head and hand that will implement a classless society" (140) . Such a strategy, far from being an abstract demand "from without", is in fact objectibely prepared by the development of capitalist exploitation : the fetishism of capital has, at least according to Sohn-Rethel, "worn thin in a type of production where both labour and machinery assume compound structure" (163) . A rare example of a 'Sohn-Rethelian' struggle is offered in the form of the Pirelli strike of 1968, where the workers took over their assemblylines, structuring 'counter-norms' and reducing the flow to one third of the management-rated speed (162f) . The same strategy of uniting head and hand constitutes, for Sohn-Rethel, the guiding principle of China's 'Cultural Revolution' (169, 182, 184), and of Mao's critique of USSR technocracy (178) . Finally, Sohn-Rethel emphasises that 'dual economics' does not in any way imply a mechanistic transition to socialism, and nor does it imply any inate necessity of a breakdown of capitalism "other than by its revolutionary overthrow" (165) . Part Three closes with a reminder that "the purpose of a study like the present must be seen against such a background" (185) . Part Four, "Historical Materialism as Methodological Postulate" (187-204), is by way of a methodological appendix (and appeared as such in the German editions), underpinning the method, structure and logic of the entire analysis . As such, it returns to and elaborates on the methodological discussions featured in the Introduction and in the opening pages of Part One . In particular, the author now makes explicit his evaluation of the Diamant's 'reflection' theory' : while conceding (over-generously) the latter's political and ideological value, he not only declares its theoretical (that is, explanatory) value to be "nil", but goes on to castigate its "damaging effect" of militating against all "serious historical-material investigation of the phenomena of cognition" (189) (10) . In fact, Sohn-Rethel cannot really concede that the 'reflection theory' has even a healthy political value, since the theory must necessarily assume the "neutrality of science and technology towards social class", thereby distinguishing itself "as an ideology of technocracy, not of socialism" (191) . The book closes with the conviction that it is only the "revolutionary commitment of our exposition that yields the truth" (204) .

CRITICAL OUTLOOK Given the absence of any adequate historical materialist theorisation of philosophy and science, constructive criticism of Sohn-Rethel should



REVIEW ARTICLE

135

not be such as to blur his significance as a pioneer in this field . Given this proviso, however, it will not be amiss to map out the areas where his work has been subject to serious criticism of a kind that aims to drive the argument further, rather than demolishing it . Basically, this criticism covers the related areas of value theory, capital theory, and socialist theory, and, common to all three, the question of Sohn-Rethel's reading of Marx . The latter, be it said in anticipation of charges of 'consulting holy scriptures', is an integral element in the assessment of a theory formulated on the basis of a specific reading of Capital . Although the charge of 'revisionism' was all too often merely a polemical devise in the absence of any substantive discussion of Sohn-Rethel 's work, J ost Halfmann and Tillman Rexroth make a serious attempt to demonstrate that his shifts of emphasis in the commodity analysis rest on a "misunderstanding" . According to this argument, Sohn-Rethel does not grasp the relation between value and value form, and he fails to follow the Marxian progression from simple commodity circulation to capital theory ; this double flaw reveals itself in Sohn-Rethel's focus on the more 'tangible' phenomenon of the exchange act, implying that labour is abstractified only in the sphere of circulation (Halfmann and Rexroth, 1976, pp .80ff) . The ultimate expression of this misunderstanding comes, so his critics argue, in the thesis of 'dual economics' : far from establishing any such 'duality' of economic laws, the societisation_ of labour is fundamental to the consolidation of capital (Ibid, pp .87ff) . All in all, conclude Halfmann and Rexroth, the basic difference between Sohn-Rethel and Marx is that the latter "locates the unity of the form in the contradictory nature of a value-determined societisation principle, whereas Sohn-Rethel presents the same state of affairs in terms of two sets of structural laws" (Ibid, p .101) . Equally fundamental is Hans-Dieter Bahr's criticism : he detects a residual empiricism in Sohn-Rethel (11), but also proceeds to construct (on the basis of a serious study of the Grundrisse) a theory of machinery that is implicitly critical of Sohn-Rethel for effectively replacing value theory with a theory of head and hand, and for reproducing, thanks to a 'dialectical' analysis, precisely the sort of uncritical evaluation of machine technology that Sohn-Rethal had hoped, at least at the programmatic level, to loosen up . Bahr does not extend this implicit criticism to the political level, but this .can readily be done by looking at other Marxists who, like Sohn-Rethel, have worked on the modern labour process, but who have drawn radically different conclusions as regards class consciousness and strategy . A particularly useful devise (one implied by the collection of articles entitled The Labour Process & Class Strategies) (12) is to confront Sohn-Rethel's 'dual economics' and socialist strategy with the Italian tradition associated with Mario Tronti . While agreeing to a great extent with Sohn-Rethel's picture of the Taylorist-Fordist deskilling of the labour force, the 'Trontians' would argue that this class composition is capitalist pure and simple, and that precisely because of its Taylorisation-Fordisation the working class can no longer meaningfully fight under the banner of 'workers' control', but only in terms of a 'refusal of labour', that is, a refusal to reproduce itself as capital . Sohn-Rethel's perspective, by contrast, would then appear not only as reformist, technicist and even oppressive, but as anachronistic in terms of the class competition he himself depicts .



136

CAPITAL & CLASS

However, this schematic account of critical perspectives on SohnRethel's work should not be seen as detracting in any way from his crucial achievements . Halfmann and Rexroth themselves subtitle their critique 'Sohn-Rethel's Revision of Value Theory and the Productive Consequences of a Misunderstanding' ; these "productive consequences" consist, above all, in the attempt to relate thought form and commodity form, and thereby to liquidate the idealist conceptualisation of philosophy and science, particularly in its residual role inside Marxist theory . In the English-speaking world, Sohn-Rethel's very departure has yet to establish itself as a meaningful undertaking, and in this sense his work can only be described as seminal . Needless to say, every aspect of his theory will have to be scrutinised critically, but the debate will only be constructive if conducted at, rather than be/ow the level at which Sohn-Rethel's analysis operates . At the very least, Intellectual and Manual Labour is a reasoned call to its readers to awaken from their dogmatic slumbers, and as such it cannot be recommended too highly .

NOTES 1 2 3

Dates and letters in parentheses refer to the bibliography below . The exception is Sohn-Rethel 1978c . For details, see note 6 . A brief outline of the German debate on Sohn-Rethel up to 1975 can be found in Halfmann and Rexroth, 1976, pp .7ff. 4 "Sohn-Rethel was the first to point out that hidden in the transcendental principle, in the universal and necessary activity of the mind, lies labour of an inalienably social nature ." Adorno, 1973, p177 modified . Adorno is referring here to an expose Sohn-Rethel sent him in 1936 ; for details, see below . See also Sohn-Rethel 1978a, p .137 . 5 The following account is based on the autobiographical material scatterred throughout Sohn-Rethel 's publications, supplemented by an interview with Sohn-Rethel in Birmingham, 31 January 1975 . 6 Here, Sohn-Rethel gained first-hand experience of the gradual fusion of private enterprise, finance capital and Nazi politics . His reflections on this experience are collected in Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism (1978c), some of which was written as early as 1932, and which includes personal recollections, attempts at a value analysis of Nazism, and indicators as to how these early sketches could be brought under the later theoretical concept of 'dual economics' . 7 Thomson, 1961, p .7 . This book, which constitutes Volume Two of Thomson's Studies in Ancient Greek Society, is the crucial work in the present context . 8 Throughout this section, all page references in italics are to Intellectual and Manual Labour (1978b) . 9 Apart from Marx himself, the list would include Gramsci, Mario Tronti, Ferruccio Gambino, Sergio Bologna, Karl-Heinz Roth and Harry Braverman . 10 This part of the book is based on the author's 'Materialism and its



REVIEW ARTICLE

137

Advocacy' (1947/48), an attempt to loosen up the dogmatism on such questions in the British CP . In part a critique of the Party luminary, Maurice Cornforth, the article was printed with an appended reply from Cornforth, who, by quoting Lenin ("The fundamental premise of materialism is the recognition of the external world, of the existence of things outside and independent of the mind"), concludes that Sohn-Rethel "cannot claim the authority of Marxism for this positivistic critique of Marxist views" . Cornforth establishes the 'authority of Marxism' without a single reference to Marx, and instead of reflecting on the Marxian proposition (quoted by Sohn-Rethel) that it is men's social being that determines their consciousness, Cornforth discusses a significantly impoverished proposition : "existence determines conscious ness" . Thereby, Cornforth reasserts without a moment's thought the very proposition Sohn-Rethl had written the article against, and any discussion of the substance of Sohn-Rethel 's argument is precluded . 11 . In fact, Bahr's critique amounts to an accusation that Sohn-Rethel's theory is marred by a helpless tangle of empiricism, idealism and disastrous silences : "On the one hand, Sohn-Rethel regards thought forms as 'arising' from exchange acts (whereby he merely identifies a problem), and, on the other hand, he intercalates an - unnamed act of reflection between commodity form and thought form . Yet reflection of one form in another medium presupposes the very understanding that compares the real and reflected forms with one another in order to arrive at a judgement as to their formal identity ." Bahr . 1973, pp .64f. 12 Apart from a reprint of Sohn-Rethel's "The dual economics of transition", this collection includes reprints of seminal documents by Tronti, Raniero Panzieri and Sergio Bologna .

Alfred Sohn-Rethel : a bibliography 1932

1936

1947/ 48 1948 1961

(anon .) "Die soziale Rekonsolidierung des Kapitalismus" in Deutsche Fuhrerbriefe, 72 (16 Sept .) and 73 (20 Sept .) Rptd (with a postscript "Ein Kommentar nach 38 Jahren"), 1970a ; also rptd in 1973b . Von der Analytik des Wirtschaftens zur Theorie der Volkswirtschaft : Methodoloqische Untersuchunq mit besonderem Bezuq auf die Theorie Schumpeters (Emdetten : Lechte) . Rptd in 1978a . "Materialism and its Advocacy" in Modern Quarterly, New Series, III, 1 (Winter) . "Die politischen Buros der deutschen Grossindustrie" in Blick in die Welt, 15 . "Warenform and Denkform : Versuch einer Analyse des gesellschaftlichen Ursprungs des 'reinen Verstandes' " (includ . a resume in English) in Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Gesellschafts-und Sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe, X, 2/3 . Rptd in 1971e .



138

CAPITAL & CLASS

1965

"Historical Materialist Theory of Knowledge" in Marxism Today, IX, 4 (April) . Translated/expanded in 1971d . 1969 "Imperialism, the Era of Dual Economics : Suggestions for a Marxist Critique of 'Scientific Management' " in Praxis, V, 1/2 . 1970a "Die soziale Rekonsolidierung des Kapitalismus (September 1932)" in Kursbuch, 21 (Sept .) Rpt (with a postscript "Ein Kommentar nach 38 jahren") of 1932 . 1970b Geistige and korperliche Arbeit : Zur Theorie der gessellschaftlichen Synthesis (Frankfurt : Suhrkamp) . 2nd edn (revised/expanded), 1972b ; English edn, 1978b . 1971 a "Die technische Intelligenz zwischen Kapitalismus and Sozialismus" in Neues Rotes Forum, 3 (June) . Rptd (revised) in 1971d ; also reptd (revised), 1973c . 1971 b "Brief von Alfred Sohn-Rethel an die Redaktion des Neuen Roten Forum" in Neues Rotes Forum, 4 (Oct .) Extract reptd in 1971 d . 1971 c "Aus Anlass van Joachim B i schoffs 'Materiel le and geisteige Produktion, Sohn-Rethels' "Siegeszug" durch die nichteveisionistische Linke' " in Sozialistische Politik, III, 13 (Oct .) . 1971 d Materialistische Erkenntniskritik and Vergesellschaftung der Arbeit: Zwei Aufsatze (Berlin : Merve) . Incl . translation/ expansion of 1965, rpt (revised) of 1971 a, and extract from 1971 b . 1971e Warenform and Denkform: Aufsatze (Frankfurt : Europaische Verlagsanstalt) . Incl . rpt of 1961 . Rptd (expanded), 1978a . 1972a "Mental and Manual Labour in Marxism" in Paul Walton a . Stuart Hall (eds), Situating Marx : evaluations and departures (London : Human Context Books) . 1972b Geistige and korperliche Arbeit : Zur Theorie dergesellschaftlichen Synthesis (Frankfurt : Suhrkamp) . 2nd . edn . (revised/expanded) of 1970b . English edn, 1978b . 1972c "The dual economics of transition" in Bulletin of The Conference of Socialist Economists, II, 2 (Autumn) . Rptd, 1976c . 1972d Die okonomische Doppelnatur des Spatkapitalismus (Neuwied : Luchterhand) . 1973a "Intellectual and manual labour : An attempt at a materialistic theory" in Radical Philosophy, 6 (Winter) . 1973b Okonomie and Klassenstruktur des deutschen Faschismus : Aufzeichnungen and Analysen (Frankfurt : Suhrkamp) . Incl . rpt . of 1932 . English edn, 1978c . 1973c "Technische Intelligenz zwischen Kapitalismus and Sozialismus" in Richard Vahrenkamp (ed .), Technologie and Kapital (Frankfurt : Suhrkamp) . Rpt (revised) of 1971 a . 1974a "More on the Lin Piao-Confucius debate" in China Now, 42 (June) . 1974b "Confucius and the changing family" in China Now, 43 (July/ August) . 1974c "Die Formcharaktere der zweiten Natur" in Chris Bezzel a .o .

Das Unvermogen der Realitat : Beitrage zu enier anderen materialistischen Asthetik (Berlin : Wagenbach) . 1975a "Science as alienated consciousness" in Radical Science journal 2/3 . This article is based on a paper given in 1974, which the RS]



REVIEW ARTICLE

139

collective, with the author's permission, completely rewrote ; the author's reservations vis-a-visthe result are contained in the"Author's Introduction" . 1975b "Eine Kritik der Kantschen Erkenntnistheorie" in Neues Lotes Folum (sic), XXVII, 1 (May) . 1976a "Materialistische Erkenntnistheorie?" in Alternative, XIX, 106 (Feb) . 1976b "Das Geld, die bare Munze des Apriori" in Paul Mattick a .o ., Beitrage zur Kritik des Geldes (Frankfurt : Suhrkamp) . 1976c "The dual economics of transition" in The Labour Process and Class Strategies, CSE Pamphlet no .] (London : stage 1) . Rpt of 1972c . 1978a Warenform and Denkform : Mit zwei Anhangen (Frankfurt : Suhrkamp) . Rpt (expanded) of 1971e ; incl . rpt of 1936 . 1978b Intellectual and Manual Labour : A Critique of Epistemology (London, Macmillan) . English edn of 1970b/1972b . 1978c Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism (London : CSE Books) . English edn of 1973b . Secondary References Adorno, Theodor W . (1973) . Negative Dialectics (London : RKP) . Bahr, Han-Dieter (1973) "Die Klassenstruktur der Maschinerie" in R . Vahrenkamp (ed .) Technologie and Kapital (Frankfurt : Suhrkamp) . Halfmann, Jost and Rexroth, Tillman (1976) Marxismus GIs Erkenntniskritik (Munich : Hanser) . Thomson, George (1961) The First Philosophers (London, Lawrence & Wishart) .

Capital and Land Landownership by Capital in Great Britain Doreen Massey and Alejandrina Catalano Social Structure and Social Change Series

The pattern of landownership in Great Britain has undergone substantial changes since the war . The `land and property boom' of the early 1970s brought into sharper focus questions concerning both this changing pattern and its economic and political implications . This book collects together the available data on the present pattern of landownership, and uses this as the basis of an analysis of landownership by capital in Great Britain, and its role in relation to the economic structure as a whole . The book explores the changing nature of `the land problem' under capitalism, and whether or not a distinct fraction of capital exists in Great Britain based on landownership . The authors argue that different types of private landowners pose different problems for capitalism and go on to analyse the differential effect of recent legislation on those different types . The book contributes to the debate on the analysis of private landownership under capitalism . ; Cloth £9 .95 . Paper £3.50

®

Edward Arnold 41 Bedford Square, London WC 1B 3DQ

REVIEWS

THE MAKING OF MARX'S 'CAPITAL' By Roman Rosdolsky, translated by Pete Burgess Pluto (London, 1977), pp .581, £18 Reviewed by Simon Clarke and Ben Fine 1

The Making of 'Capital'. Simon Clarke The English publication of Rosdolsky's book is an important event . The book has already had a strong influence, directly and indirectly, on the development of Marxism in this country, most obviously in its inspiration of the 'fundamentalist' stream of Marxism identified especially with David Yaffe, but also including thinkers like Ernest Mandel and Paul Mattick . Fundamentalism involves an approach to Marx that regards the analysis of Capital as something akin to an eternal truth, formulated at a sufficient level of abstraction as to be untouched by history . While, as is argued below, this approach has serious weaknesses, it also has great strengths, for it constantly forces us back to examine and re-examine Marx's arguments before conceding revisionist claims, so many of which are based on a failure to take Marx's own arguments seriously . Rosdolsky's book is the product of twenty years work carried out in

EDITORIAL NOTE

Wal Suchting, one of the translators of the Marx article The Value-Form (the appendix to the first edition of volume 1 of Capital), which we published in Capital & Class 4, has asked us to point out that some of the italicisation, which is important to the article, is inaccurate . Also, the phrase "andre Ware" is translated on p .135 as "other commodities" where "another commodity" would be a better translation . These relatively minor inaccuracies were due to problems of communication between the translators (who were in Germany and Australia at the time) and with the editors of Capital & Class .



REVIEWS

141

the isolation of exile in the USA in a period in which even those few Marxist theoreticians who survived had turned their backs on Marx's own work, and especially on Capital . As he notes in his Preface, he wrote the book, ill-equipped as he was, because there was no better equipped to take on the task . The aim of the book is to reassert the centrality of Capital in Marx's work and to affirm its continuing relevance to contemporary capitalism . This is done firstly through avery extensive commentary on the Grundrisse and secondly through a survey of debates that have arisen around Capital. The aim in the first case it to show that the Grundrisse anticipates, and sometimes complements, the argument of Capital, and in the second case is to reassert Marx's arguments against his critics . Many of the arguments developed by Rosdolsky have already been made familiar to English readers, but Rosdolsky develops them with a rigour and a scrupulous attention to Marx's texts that adds a new dimension . Marx is not simply invoked as an authority, but rather Rosdolsky insists that we read Marx for ourselves, to the extent that he often quotes at what some may feel is inordinate length, especially from the Grundrisse . The advantage of this procedure is that, because Rosdolsky lays his entire case before us, we are able to interrogate his own interpretation, and to use Rosdolsky's book as a resource in developing our own understanding of Marx . While sophisticates may feel that much of Rosdolsky's account is pedestrian, he does change the emphasis of previous interpretations of Capital in very significant ways, most notably in his focus on the question of the relation between capital-in-general and many capitals and in his insistence on the centrality of the concept of use-value to Marxism . Moreover his exposition of the Grundrisse is clear, though it would have benefitted from heavy editing, and includes some stimulating and even acute observations, while his cross-references to Capital, the Critique and Theories of Surplus Value are often very helpful . The deficiences of Rosdolsky's book are the counterparts of its merits . Written in a period and a country in which to remain a Marxist required an unshakeable faith, this book is an expression of that faith . It was the faith of a few, such as Rosdolsky, that kept Marxism as a critique of capitalist society, distinct from the practice of those who proclaimed themselves Marxist . It is works such as this, and those it has inspired, that have provided the indispensable foundation on which the contemporary renewal and revitalisation of Marxism can build . This is all that Rosdolsky aspired to, as he indicates in his modest Preface . But while Rosdolsky's task was to sustain his faith in the unquestioned truth of the work he took it upon himself to preserve, it is our task now to question and to develop that work in order to transform if from a fossil into a living social force . Today it is once again possible and necessary to submit Marx's work to the test of history in order to give it new life . Today faith is not enough . Capital can no longer be seen as the sacred text, inviolate and inviolable, that contains within it all the secrets of the universe . While we must acknowledge our debt to Rosdolsky's fundamentalism, the way to do so is by moving beyond it and recognising its weaknesses . Ben Fine takes up the weaknesses of fundamentalism in Rosdolsky's



142

CAPITAL & CLASS

treatment of specific theoretical issues . I would like to focus on its deficiences in the interpretation of the Grundrisse . Since Rosdolsky's aim is to defend a Marxist 'orthodoxy' and to prevent the Grundrisse from being counterposed to Capital he seeks to show that the Grundrisse anticipates Capital in every important respect . The differences between the two are treated as being merely differences of presentation or of terminology and not of substance . Thus Rosdolsky devotes the first fifty pages of his book to a discussion of the structure of Marx's work that usefully surveys and concludes past debates but that concentrates on presentation and not on substance . There is no discussion of the structural change between the Grundisse Marx starts with money and ends up with the commodity, Grundrisse Marx starts with money and ends up with the commodity, arguing in a manner that is certainly dialectical but that is also often idealist, in Capital Marx develops money out of the commodity in a thoroughly materialist dialectical argument . This inversion of both argument and method has enormous implications that fundamentalism misses . For fundamentalism remains idealist in believing that Marxism is based on a logical relation between essence and appearance, a relation that looks the same from whichever side it is viewed . It fails to realise that in moving through the Grundrisse to Capital Marx developed a properly historical method that made possible a properly materialist, and no longer purely formal, analysis of capital . The bulk of Rosdolsky's book consists of an exposition of the Grundrisse reorganised, more or less, according to the plan of Capital. This reflects Rosdolsky's belief that the difference between the two is simply one of presentation . While this approach is interesting for the comparisons it throws up, it nevertheless suppresses the real differences between the Grundrisse and Capital. In particular it destroys the coherence of the Grundrisse so that the latter ceases to exist as a work in its own right . Thus the main value of the Grundrisse to Marxists is lost, for surely the exciting thing about the Grundrisse is that it is not simply a text that anticipates Capital, it is the text in which we can actually see Marx at work, groping towards the solutions that would make Capital possible, developing the concepts that were to play a central role in Capital, as Rosdolsky himself points out . Thus it is only in the course of the Grundrisse that Marx develops the distinction between labour and labour power, or the distinction between constant and variable as opposed to that between fixed and circulating capital, that are central to Capital. In the Grundrisse Marx is only groping towards an understanding of the nature of capital . Without an analysis of the circulation of commodities and the circulation of capital Marx does not clearly distinguish money from capital . Athough, as Rosdolsky emphasises, Marx takes the themes of the opposition of value and use-value as his guiding principle in both Capital and the Grundrisse, the significance of the opposition changes . Thus instead of seeing production as a twofold process, production of value and production of use-values, in the Grundrisse Marx tends to contrast production with circulation as use-value to value and so tends to see the fundamental contradiction of capitalist society as lying in the opposition of production to circulation and not in production itself . This determines



REVIEWS

143

the theory of crisis, the understanding of socialism, and the importance attached to Proudhonism in the Grundrisse . The absence of a series of key concepts from the Grundrisse, and the hesitancy with which others are approached, takes us back to the starting point of the Grundrisse . By starting with money instead of with the commodity Marx avoids the need to raise the question that is fundamental to Capital, the question of the 'form of value' . It is only once this concept is developed that Marx can develop the distinction between exchange value and value and so the concept of abstract labour. It is correspondingly only when the historical specificity of value has been properly examined that Marx can rigorously distinguish use-value from value and so labour from labour power, fixed from constant capital etc . All this Rosdolsky misses because he is so intent on defending Marx's infallibility, because he does not treat Marxism as a living theory, developing through Marx's work, and crying out to be further developed . While Rosdolsky recognises the absences from the Grundrisse, he treats the absence or incomplete development of concepts in the Grundrisse as mere terminological differences . Where whole arguments are absent from the Grundrisse, Rosdolsky simply fills them in with reference to later works . As an attempt to elucidate the making of Marx's Capital Rosdolsky's book must be judged a failure, for it never goes beyond consideration of the form of presentation of truths themselves considered eternal and immutable . However to treat Rosdolsky as he treats Marx is to do him a disservice . As a testament to one man's faith the book is remarkable . Within its limitations the book contains many acute and novel insights . As a work of reference, as a source of erudite quotations, as a stimulus to further consideration of the development and originality of Marx's thought, Rosdolsky's book is invaluable . Its availability in English, in a very clear and lucid translation, should go far to dispersing the aura that has surrounded fundamentalism, if only it is treated as Rosdolsky would have us treat it, as a basis on which to make Marx's theory "a living source both of knowledge and the political practice which this knowledge directs" .

2 From Capital-in-General to Many Capitals . Ben Fine It is with some relief that I found myself able to review the parts of Rosdolsky's book that were contributions in their own right to Marxist economics . For these are of considerable interest, whereas, with the occasional exception, his exegesis of the Grundrisse e tc . i s so dominated by the stringing together of quotations, that a reading of the originals is at least as good as a reading of the book . Rosdolsky is the best representative of the fundamentalist school . It is this which both determines the qualities and the limitations of his contributions . By fundamentalist, I mean those that draw the distinction between analysis at the level of capital-in-general and that at the level of many capitals . Rosdolsky's achievement lies in the quality of his analysis of capital-in-general and his ability to draw the limits of such an analysis . That is he poses the nature of the problems to be studied at the level of analysis to be associated with many capitals (for example, the transformation problem) . His limitations lie in the inability to undertake such studies, and to substitute a dogmatic assertion of the



144

CAPITAL & CLASS

validity of his interpretation of Marx's analysis for these (again the transformation problem but there are others) . Let us begin with Rosdolsky's study of capital-in-general . His most excellent contribution concerns the status of use-value in Marx . For many of us attempting to combat the dreaded spectre of individual utility theory in economics teaching, it is easier to argue that the treatment of specific use-values is absent from Marx's economics, since it would first require an analysis of the economic and political relations which give rise to the ideology that determines tastes . But Rosdolsky argues that specific utilities are present throughout capital, but as socially determined categories . The most important is labour-power, but the others are to be associated with the forms of capital (money, productive, commodity, constant, variable, fixed, etc .) and the functions (i .e . use values) that they perform . Rosdolsky also discusses the problem of the reduction of skilled to unskilled labour arguing correctly that in principle the reduction between the two offers no more difficulties than the reduction of one form of unskilled concrete labour to another . Beyond here, however, Rosdolsky does not recognise that analysis of capital-in-general has reached its limits and he is reduced to some circular argument . Like others after him, he does not acknowledge that a more specific determination requires a specification of the social relations in which the skilled labour is produced and used . He would have done well to have acknowledged the quotation from Marx he refers to elsewhere in the context of primitive accumulation 'the dialectical method of presentation is only correct when it knows its limits' . Before moving onto the limits posed by the fundamentalist method on Rosdolsky's work, it is as well to examine critically the abstraction in moving from capital-in-general to many capitals and, indeed the many levels of abstraction that exist in Marx's economics . The point is that movement of analysis from the level of capital-in-general to many capitals is not an undifferentiated concept . For the transformation problem it involves competition to equalise rates of profit . For the aggregate circulation of capital (and commodities) at the end of Volume II of Capital, it involves many capitals in the interaction of buying and selling but competition in any form is not present . That the distinction between capital-ingeneral and many capitals is not simple is reflected in the other popular forms of locating levels of analysis - the abstraction that commodities exchange at their value, abstracting from competition, abstraction from distributional struggle, etc . Each of these in fact has different orders of significance and each cuts across the others in locating the level of analysis . Consequently, waving the magic wand of capital-in-general and many capitals is a source of analytical confusion . For each object of analysis the problem first has to be posed in terms of the many dimensions of abstraction involved before it can possibly be solved . Consider then Rosdolsky's treatment of the law of tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TRPF) . He correctly identifies the tendency as existing at the level of capital-in-general, the counteracting tendencies being associated with the movement of many capitals . But these counteracting tendencies exist therefore at different levels of analysis and must be analysed as such (devaluation of capital, raising the rate of exploitation, foreign



REVIEWS

145

trade, etc .) . Marx borrowed his list of counteracting tendencies from J .S . Mill but in his chapter on the internal contradictions of the law of the TRPF, he only analysed those associated with the devaluation of capital precisely because these exist at a less complex level than the others . We find analysis of the other counteracting tendencies throughout Capital, but they are not related to the Law as Such in a systematic way . This dependence by Marx on Mill for his "list" of counteracting tendencies was first pointed out in English, as far as I know, in my article with Laurence Harris in Socialist Register 1976 . Rosdolsky refers to Grossmann's note of the similarity in the latter's German work of 1929 (only reprinted in 1967) . The point of this is not to claim exegetical credit but to demonstrate that Marx's list of undifferentiated counteracting tendencies is borrowed from Mill and consequently has not been integrated systematically into his own theory and that this has escaped the majority of discussion of the law of TRPF . However, this is strictly irrelevant for Rosdolsky (as for all fundamentalists) for whom the level (this should be levels) of abstraction dividing capital-in-general from many capitals is identical with the order of determination . The tendency must dominate the counteracting tendencies because it exists at the level of capital-in-general . This is simply false reasoning and false representation of Marx, whose concern is to analyse the Internal Contradictions of the Law not the quantitative effects on the rate of profit (which in any case has not even been studied in the context of the operation of all the counteracting tendencies) . Rosdolsky's treatment of the reproduction schema is the best presently available to Marxism . For most of us, Rosa Luxemburg's criticisms of Marx's reproduction schema are simply a tautologous dependence on underconsumptionism . The production of surplus value necessarily creates the revenue with which it can be purchased, even if disproportionality or the separation of the acts of production and exchange do not render what is logically possibly into what is actual . Thus, either consciously or otherwise, we accept some element of underconsumptionism, or we adopt TuganBar-anovsky's scheme of equilibrium expansion as a logical rejoinder to the illogic of underconsumptionism . Rosdolsky adopts neither of these approaches, rejecting Tugan's scheme because it cannot correspond to capitalist reality . Why not is the question to be answered . Rosdolsky answers because capital accumulation does not produce sufficient demand to realise the surplus value it can produce, partly because the workers' consumption is limited (and this is clearly related to distributional struggle), and partly because capital does not produce means of production for the purposes of producing more means of production (as is required by an increasing organic composition) . But surely this is precisely the underconsumptionist thesis? The answer is no, because the effects of capital accumulation are to be seen as the product at a complex level of the underlying contradictions associated with the law of the TRPF, they are not accidental effects of the anarchy of the market and distributional struggle . The point is that if underconsumption is theorised as in Luxemburg, then a solution is theorised as in Tugan . But both schemes of analysis misunderstand the basis on which the problems of realisation arise . Capital can no more solve the problems of realisation by increasing wages than it can by



146

CAPITAL & CLASS

decreasing them . The problem lies not in the spheres of distribution or exchange (effective demand) but in their interaction with and dependence upon the accumulation process (fundamentally the expansion of capital in production) . Perhaps I have read more into Rosdolsky than exists there . But as I suggested at the beginning, he does pose the problems of analysing many capitals (seen here as the relationship between production, distribution and exchange), he does not solve them . That we begin to do so is of increasing importance, particularly in the context of the reproduction schema . In the modern world, with state economic intervention geared in part to manipulation of effective demand and distributional struggle between capital and labour (incomes policy), Marxists are easily led to accept these categories of analysis uncritically . Consequently, the economy is determined in their analysis by changes in distributional struggle and the level of aggregate demand, but these are not constructed as categories from analysis of the accumulation of capital and its associated laws and structures of abstraction and determination . Distributional struggle between capital and labour is based upon the reserve army, which is in turn determined by the pace and nature (extent of expulsion of living labour) of accumulation, quite apart from the effect of trade union strength . These cannot be considered as simultaneous forces to be aggregated into a simple unity pushing up the level of wages or not . More transparently, the level of effective demand, whilst often identified with class struggle over the level of employment, has no such direct and simple correspondence . Indeed, it is a category which obscures the distinctive role played by capital, since it confuses the expenditure of money as capital with its expenditure as revenue, giving each an equal effectivity . Rosdolsky discusses other topics critically - such as methodology, and the "Marxism" of Joan Robinson . Whilst informative and stimulating these do not go beyond nor surpass in quality other contributions in these areas . For those looking for direct relevance of Rosdolsky's work to the modern world, there will be disappointment . On the rare occasions when he commits himself to statements that could not have been made by Marx, these are dogmatic and controversial (for example, money can only exist ultimately as a commodity embodying labour-time, the laws of value and planning clash under socialism - following Preobrazhensky - but elsewhere the law of value does not exist under socialism) . In my view, this failing of Rosdolsky is not imposed by the object of his book, but by its method . Those constrained within the fundamentalist school prove again and again that they are unable to move to an understanding of the complex except by arbitrary theorising isolated from the laws of capital-ingeneral . It is Rosdolsky's achievement to have unconsciously demonstrated this whilst elaborating the laws of capital-in-general and posing the problem of their concretisation .



REVIEWS

147

KARL KORSCH : REVOLUTIONARY THEORY Edited by Douglas Kellner University of Texas Press (Austin & London, 1977), pp . 299, (11 .25 Reviewed by Phil Slater The growing Anglo-Saxon interest in recent years in Karl Korsch (1886-1961) has been seriously hampered by the inaccessibility of many of his most important writings; some have never been translated from their original German, while others, written in English, are buried in obscure, often defunct journals . Thus, while Marxism and Philosophy has, deservedly, received wide attention, it has usually been viewed in isolation from the Korschian opus as a whole . As a result, Korsch has either been assimilated to the Lukacs of History and Class Consciousness, or else made the "hero/ villain" in a retrospective legend according to which his entire theory and practice were, from first to last, "ultra-left" . Buckmiller's serious attempt (1973) to rectify this picture has not (at least, to my knowledge) been made available to the English-speaking public . In this situation, Douglas Kellner has decided against writing a book on Korsch, and chosen instead to edit a selection of Korsch's writings that admirably reflects both the progression of political positions taken up by Korsch between the late 1910s and middle 1950s, as well as the vast range of burning political issues to which he addressed himself, and from which, in the light of historical experience, he drew the inspiration for any prospect of theoretical advance . These issues, further advance upon which will now necessarily involve a serious consideration of Korsch's contributions, include : workers' control and the transition to socialism ; Social Democratic reformism, anarcho-syndicalism, Leninism and Stalinism ; corporate state, fascism and state-socialism ; Paris Commune, Weimar Republic, Spanish Civil War and New Deal USA . Kellner divides his selection into six clear sections, each given a short, but lucid and informative introduction . In a highly differentiated overall introduction which draws upon, and quotes from, Korsch's work as a whole, Kellner argues that the key to this vast, complex and open-ended opus lies in what he calls Korsch's "revolutionary historicism", that is, the latter's concern "to derive his theory from the requirements and possibilities of the historical situation" and to make this theory "a material force in revolutionary struggle" (pp . 73-4) . Thus, it was not subjective inconsistency that turned Korsch into a Leninist critic of the USSR, and finally into a critic of Leninism and Lenin himself; rather, it was as a result of Korsch's truly remarkable sensitivity (developed in and through political action) to the dangers of fetishising what he called "the composite result of the class struggles of a previous historical era" (p . 171) . For Korsch, revolutionary theory must be dialectically related to the changing "ground on which the workers' class struggle against capitalism" (p . 258) . For all his growing scepticism vis-a-vis a reified "Marxism", and despite his attack on what he regards as Marx's own residual Jacobinism,



148

REVIEWS

Korsch remained faithful to Marx inasfar as the concern was to trace and exploit the dialectic between "the impasse that modern capitalism has reached in the present phase of its historical development" (p . 254) and "what may be called, in a very comprehensive sense, the Marxist, that is, the independent revolutionary movement of the international working class" (p . 193) . It is this very dialectic that Korsch grappled with relentlessly, and it is this same dialectic that, together with the de-dogmatising prospect that it holds, was behind the recent renaissance of interest in Korsch, particularly (and indicatively) in Italy, as revealed in the short, but informative review by Marramao (1975) . But to pursue this dialectic today means, ultimately, to pass beyond Korsch's categorial apparatus, for in his incisive critique of the economism of the Second and Third Internationals, and in his liberating return to the notion of class struggle as praxis, Korsch's own historical analyses reveal a fundamental lack of economic depth in common with such diverse, but affined writers as Sorel, Gramsci and the Frankfurt School . As early as 1919, when Korsch was a pioneering proponent of the anti-mechanistic significance of the councils, there was no attempt on his part to relate the determinate historical role of this organisational form to the composition of the German labour-force . Only thus could he write, after the destruction of the German councils movement, that "on the day of revolutionary action, the councils will again rise like the phoenix from its ashes" (p .21) . Thus, in the context of a consideration of the significance today of Korsch's early writings, a reading of Bologna (1976) will suggest a fundamentally critical appraisal, a suggestion already put into practice with specific reference to Korsch by Paolo Perulli, who is quoted in Marramao (1975) . Now it is true that the principle of "revolutionary historicism" prevented Korsch from parroting the slogan of "all power to the councils" in subsequent years, and the criticism of him for basing his revolutionary strategy on the "professional worker" is therefore of limited validity . The unfortunate thing, however, is that despite his move away from any dogmatic model of the councils, and despite his serious consideration, again in the light of historical experience, of such organisational forms as the trades unions and the anarchist collectives, Korsch's writings on the advanced capitalist and state-socialist economies failed to locate the changing forms of class struggle in the labour process . This failure to live up to his own principle of relating theory dialectically to the changing terrain of class struggle means that Korsch is unable to free himself entirely from that very fetishisation of living forces that he himself criticises so convincingly ; and he can actually reveal traces of that residual "Jacobinism" he claims to detect in Marx . For example, Korsch speaks in 1935 of "the destruction of all remains of an independent proletarian class movement and even a class consciousness through fascism" (p . 166) : implicitly hypostatising a historically determinate form of proletarian movement and consciousness, Korsch views the political consolidation of the fascist state as the negation of all proletarian movement and consciousness, thereby remaining oblivious to the task of analysing the new composition of the labour-force and the



REVIEWS

149

new forms of its consciousness and struggle . In this regard, a critical reception of Korsch's work would benefit greatly from a comradely confrontation with Karl Heinz Roth's as yet (at least, to my knowledge) untranslated Die 'andere"Arbeiterbewegung (1974) . On the other hand, Roth's (as well as Bologna's and Perulli's) concepts of recomposition, massification, autonomy, etc ., are the concepts of a theorisation based on active participation in a revolutionary struggle postdating Korsch's work, which was effectively brought to an end in the late 1950s . It would be a sterile and abstract undertaking simply to measure Korsch against the achievements of a subsequent practical-theoretical constellation, particularly in view of the fact that many organisations on the revolutionary left today cling to what Korsch called "the composite result of the class struggles of a previous historical era" perhaps even more convulsively than was the case when Korsch wrote . In this situation, Korsch's writings can play an important role in challenging dogmatism and thematising the need to relate theory dialectically to the ever changing "ground on which the workers' class struggle against capitalism" . All in all, this welcome edition of Korsch's writings offers the chance of setting the spirit of "revolutionary historicism" to work on the theory and practice of the post-Korschian left, and vice versa . To this end, Kellner's selection will serve as the indispensable basis for the Anglo-Saxon debate . REFERENCES Bologna, Sergio (1976) "Class composition and the theory of the party at the origin of the workers councils movement" in The Labour Process & C/ass Strategies, CSE Pamphlet, 1, London . Buckmiller, Michael (1973) "Marxismus als Realitat" in Uber Karl Korsch, Jahrbuch Arbeiterbewegung, 1, ed . C . Pozzoli, Frankfurt, Fischer . Marramao, Giacomo (1975) "Korsch in Italy" in Te/os, 26 . Roth, Karl Heinz (1974) Die "andere"Arbeiterbewegung, Munich, Trikont .

THE END OF PROSPERITY : THE AMERICAN ECONOMY IN THE 1970s

by Harry Magdoff and Paul M . Sweezy Monthly Review Press (New York and London, 1977) pp . 136 . £4 .75 Reviewed by Ben Fine This book is a collection of ten essays written over the past five years and published in Monthly Review . It attempts to chart and explain the development of recession in the United States during the 1970s . For Sweezy, who has argued the underconsumptionist thesis with increasing vigour over a period now extending for more than thirty years, the recession should



150

REVIEWS

surely have proved to be the world's kindest response to his analysis . Paradoxically, just as Sweezy's thesis of tendency to stagnation attained its height of popularity during the "post-war boom", most notably with Monopoly Capital, so its decline has accompanied that of the world economy . Underconsumptionism has become the most frequently dismissed theory of modern capitalism . On its errors we can all agree . Or can we? The elements of explanation in this book are all too familiar, and to be found both in Marxist and bourgeois analysis otherwise presumed removed from and critical of underconsumptionism . Underlying all of the essays are the propositions of political economy associated with the Monthly Review school . Monopoly and competition are seen as anti-thetical, abolishing in one coup de plume the laws of motion of capitalism discovered by Marx and creating in their place an under-investing and hence stagnating capitalism . Essentially the only social constraint on the operation of monopolies is the overall level of demand for products. The failure of effective demand however becomes displaced into an over-expansion of the credit system . This is the novel emphasis of the school in deference to the inflation of the 1970s . On the one hand, credit is expanded to boost effective demand and stave off recession . On the other hand, it is lavished on companies, unprofitable through demand deficiency, because the consequences of bankruptcy in terms of loans foregone would far outweigh the cost of advancing an additional loan . It is a case of bad credit thrown after bad . Similarly credit is otherwise thrown into speculative adventures in the absence of real profitable outlets . But what makes bad credit bad? If credit can be and is used to expand effective demand, why should it fail to do so and lead to inflation when the economy is simultaneously characterised by chronic under-utilisation of capacity? These problems constitute the theoretical and practical crisis of Keynesianism, as is recognised by the authors . It is a crisis that cannot, however, be resolved theoretically, as the authors do, by adopting the Keynesian framework and simply asserting that bad credit is over-expanded whilst good production is not . (In fact recourse is made to that old substitute for lack of argument-analogy, for example, punctured tyres expanding in size and pressure whilst simultaneously aggravating the deflating puncture . Better to have examined the engine?) . It does have the advantage though of interpreting all events within a fool-proof framework . The charted levels of unemployment and over-capacity correspond to stagnation, those of credit expansion to inflation (as "creeping stagnation" and "banks : skating on thin ice" bring "Keynesian chickens . . . home to roost") . To this can be added the cliches of modern political economy, that any state expenditure (e .g . the Vietnam war) is inflationary and any balance of payment or exchange rate "crisis" demonstrates a weakening of hegemony . If they do, neither in this book nor elsewhere have these propositions been given any satisfactory theoretical status, nor can they be until freed from a Keynesian problematic .



151

REVIEWS MARXIST ECONOMICS FOR SOCIALISTS : REFORMISM By John Harrison Pluto (London, 1978) pp .169, £2 .40 pb ., £4 .80 hb .

A

CRITIQUE

OF

Reviewed by Harry Newton It is a truism, often overlooked, that every generation must be educated anew . This applies with great force to the education of Socialists . Knowledge is not won on a once and forever basis . John Harrison's book is therefore an essential and perhaps long-overdue contribution to the theoretical arming of the present generation of Socialist students . The book not only explains in a clear and concise manner the ground plan and key concepts of Marxian economics but goes on to give a working application of the theory to post-war capitalism . This application of the theory demonstrates John Harrison's main strength which is that he understands, what so many alleged Marxists fail to understand, that all Marxist theory and writing must be a positive guide to action . He keeps in mind that "many men have philosophised about society but the point, however, is to change it . The difficult material in Part One of the book never becomes boring or sterile . Part One makes clear that the true title of the subject matter of the study is Political Economy, that is, a study of social relationships of power, class power, who gets what out of social production, and not a study of economics as defined by non-Marxist economists which is a futile exercise in supply and demand curves . The move from Marx's concentration on production to the non-Marxist concentration on market distribution serving the purpose of concealing exploitation and the extraction from the working-class of surplus value . The Introduction and Part One of John's book strips the mask from the concealment . Part Two : "Capitalism and the Productive Forces : the Critique of Social Democracy" traces the origin and development of capitalism . The progressive role of capitalism in organising the forces of production and thereby laying the base for the potential abundance of production thereby laying the base for the potential abundance of production upon which communism can be achieved is well presented . The inner crisis over over-accumulation endemic in capitalism and its manifestation in workers' movements and class struggle is explained as posing for the working-class the choice of reform or revolution . Whilst 'reform' was, and still is, a non-solution in real terms, the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, especially his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money presented capitalist apologists outside and inside the labour movement with a theoretical fig-leaf to cover their intellectual exposure . J .M . Keynes promised the ruling-class that his theory would stabilise capitalism . Leaders from the 'aristocracy of labour' promised the labour movement that with the help of Keynes it would be possible to achieve socialism without the dreaded class-struggle . The more cautious of the capitalist academics timidly asked Keynes if in the long-run his monetary schemes would be inflationary, to which Keynes boldly replied "in the long-run we will all be dead" . Keynes was writing in the capitalist crisis of

CAPITAL & CLASS

152

the 1930s, the outbreak of World War Two followed by the post-war reconstruction boom offset the more acute manifestation of the chronic crisis of the capitalist system . The book investigates, in detail, the above mentioned period and concludes with an annotated Guide to Further Reading . In conclusion may I say that this book carries the hall-mark of the expert writer, i .e . it can be read at all levels of sophistication, the beginner will find a clear and reliable outline, the intermediate student will be guided via the reading list into the deeper water and the experienced Marxist will find what we have all been waiting for - the beginning of a serious Marxist treatment of postwar capitalism . If the last few sentences suggest a book which is all things to all men this should not be taken to suggest, also, political opportunism . The political integrity is beyond question .

kllamssn Journal of revolutionary socialists of the Middle East

khamsin S available

now The first English-language edition takes as its main theme : Oriental Jewry and includes articles on `Zionism and its Oriental subjects', 'Egyptian Jewry - why it declined' and `The development of class struggle in Egypt' .

available Aug 78 with its main theme : Women in the Middle East and includes articles on 'Women and politics in Lebanon', 'Islam and women', 'Problems and perspectives of women's emancipation in the Middle East' and 'Palestinian women in Israel' .

khamsin 6

Subscriptions : individuals £6 .50, institutions £8 for4issues . Alicheques/postal orders payable to Khamsin 8 Honiton Road, London NW6

Single copies £2 from bookshops and direct from Pluto Press Unit 10 Spencer Court, 7 Chalcot Road, London N W 18 LH Telephone 01-722 0141

ECONOMY AND CLASS STRUCTURE OF GERMAN FASCISM Alfred Sohn-Rethel "The shattering defeat of the German working class at the hands of Adolf Hitler is an event so momentous and awesome that historians, particularly on the Left, have often failed to consider the other side of the equation ; and have not asked how it was that German Big Business, most of which held the Nazis in deep contempt, were forced to support (and indeed encourage) the seizure of power by a hysterical Austrian mystic at the head of a ragbag terrorist army . Alfred Sohn-Rethel's book is important simply because it confronts this knotty question . . ." David Edgar . £5 .95 cloth TECHNOLOGY AND TOIL : Work and Capital in the Industrial Revolution edited by Maxine Berg 'Capital,' wrote Adam Smith, 'is command over labour .' This collection of documents, provides acute insights into how this control was established - and fought against - in the 'industrial revolution' which took place in Britain from the late 18th to the late 19th centuries . The collection includes selections from early management theory on factory organisation, descriptions of typical labour processes, and accounts of workers' organisation against the capitalist division of labour . Maxine Berg of the CSE Labour Process Historians Group, has set each selection in context and provided an historical and methodological introduction for the collection as a whole . £8 .95 cloth CSE Books, 55, Mount Pleasant, London W .C .1 .



CSE bookclub JUST OUT INTELLECTUAL AND MANUAL LABOUR : A CRITIQUE OF EPISTEMOLOGY Alfred Sohn-Rethel, was Professor of Epistemology and Social Theory at Bremen University, West Germany until his recent retirement . II socialism is to present an alternative to technocracy, if society is to gain control over technology rather than the reverse, then one must establish, as a theoretical precondition, that srieni edepends on social history for its very origin and its logic . This hook demonstrates that the conceptual form of thinking of philosophy and science can be traced outside the immanency of the mind and, in fact, to what Marx calls the 'commodity abstraction' which is the key to the formation of societies in which production is carried on for exchange . I his is the novel element in this book : the view that exchange is the vehicle of a historical process in time and space, by the agency of human action, not human thought . I he theory argued in this hook sees development forced in the direction of production operated on a social scale substituting the capitalist system of private appropriation by the resources of reunified intellectual and manual labour .

publisher's price £4 .95 CSE bookclub price £2 .95 JUST OUT INDUSTRY AND LABOUR CLASS STRUGGLE OF WORK AND MONOPOLY CAPITALISM Andrew L . Friedman, Lecturer in Economics, University of Bristol Throughout the history of capitalism radicals have been occupied with the struggle against exploitation at work . Although Marx recognised the importance of worker resistance, he did not systematically study the possibility that changes might occur under capitalism in response to the contradictory or self-destructive forces created by capitalist accumulation . In this hook Andrew Friedman analyses the capitalist mode of production in general, starting from Marx's framework as set out in Capital. He examines the dav-to-day operation of worker resistance and managerial counterpressure . and also helps to explain why areas of deprivation continue to exist beside areas of prosperity in all advanced capitalist countries, despite concerted attempts by governments to remove the 'pockets' of deprivation .

publisher's price £4 .95 CSE bookclub price £2 .95

offer open in UK and Republic of Ireland only

Prices include postage and packing . Cheques/ postal orders to be made out to CSE and sent to: CSE, 55 Mount Pleasant, London WCI Please indicate amount of cash enclosed and address to which the order is to be despatched .