The idea that working people (in imperialist countries) are "parasitic" is deeply unscientific and unmaterialist. And it has involved a factually mistaken argument that workers in the U.S. (and similar countries) no longer produce surplus value etc. And it involves a mistaken notion about the role of surplus value. Under modern capitalism, significant sections of the working class are involved in the "realization" of surplus value, rather than its creation. (I.e. transportation, warehousing, distribution etc.) But the fact that a waitress doesn't "create surplus value" in the most narrow scientific sense, hardly makes her a parasite. This is connected to our earlier discussion: in which Redstar falsely equated "proletariat" only with those who produce surplus value. Our class is the class that produces most value (including surplus value) -- but many of us are exploited and oppressed in other ways (including in the ways we are denied employment or places in the legal economy etc.) The idea that workers are "parasitic" invents a new moralistic concept that is rather contrary to MLM -- and to a historical materialist understanding of class society. [End of quote from RCPer.] ********************************************* mim3 for the Maoist Internationalist Movement: As usual, the above contains no facts, only narrow theory. Redstar2000 and most social-democrats think that all workers produce surplus-value. They are too inclined to parliamentary democracy to say anything critical about the majority in any country. That's why social-democrats historically supported WWI. Redstar2000 is taking RCP=u$A's side in the struggle over whether the majority of the u.$. population is exploiter or not. The RCP=U$A pretends it has some distance from Redstar2000's position, but in principle they are both ignoring exploitation and choosing to advocate the interests of the labor aristocracy. Lenin said he would rather be on the side of the IWW in Amerika in his day than the right-opportunists and centrists. Likewise today, Amerika is even more parasitic and MIM is working with the Sakai-supporting anarchists to defeat the social-democratic line, as Lenin would have wanted. RCP=U$A is making a back-handed admission on the question of productive versus unproductive labor. To be clear, "unproductive labor" is not a synonym for "parasite." For Marx, "unproductive labor" generally contains all the meanings of "parasite," but also adds many more meanings of scientific value, and it is those scientific observations on interconnection which Marx is really known for: "Productive labour is only a concise term for the whole relationship and the form and manner in which labour-power figures in the capitalist production process. The distinction from other kinds of labour is however of the greatest importance, since this distinction expresses precisely the specific form of the labour on which the whole capitalist mode of production and capital itself is based." The term "unproductive labor" does not refer to lazy labor or inefficient labor. However, what the social-democrats and RCP=u$A both do is rob Marxism of its interconnections and theory of crisis. They castrate Marxism to fit their populist agendas. "Unproductive" in Marx's language has the meaning of not producing surplus-value. MIM has already argued that the 3 or 4 to 1 ratio of unproductive laborers to productive sector laborers in the majority-exploiter countries is factually impossible without most surplus-value in those countries coming from the Third World. That is not a "moral" argument. You either toss Marx's theory of surplus-value or you explain the pattern of facts. There is no third option. The facts are that the unproductive sector grew relative to the u.$. productive sector. That is impossible as Marx explained (unless we use the MIM explanation): my power to employ productive labourers by no means grows in the same proportion as I employ unproductive labourers, but on the contrary diminishes in the same proportion." There is also a relationship between the productive and unproductive sector ratios at an aggregate level in Marxism. This criticism MIM made regarding the proportions of productive and unproductive sector workers in majority-exploiter countries does not bother Redstar2000 at all, because Redstar2000 does not uphold a labor theory of value or Marxism's theory of economic crisis. Likewise, RCP=u$A is not at all concerned with the ratio of unproductive to productive sector workers, essentially because the RCP=U$A bought the theory of productive forces and robbed Marxism of its theory of capitalist crisis. Ironically, the RCP=U$A accuses us of "pessimism," but it is the RCP=u$A saying that surplus-value extracted per Amerikan worker can expand infinitely and support ever larger numbers of "workers" or petty-bourgeoisie, which of course is absurd on the face of it and unsupported by close examination of data on production. It is MIM pointing out that the buying off of the unproductive sector workers only occurs at the expense of exploitation elsewhere that makes the imperialists vulnerable where that exploitation and super-exploitation is occurring. According to Marx, when the capitalists lay-off the productive sector workers, they dialectically cut their own throats as a class. With declining productive sector workers, total profits in the economy also decline and recession or depression becomes inevitable. Likewise, when the capitalists pay unproductive sector workers they speed up the inevitable economic crisis and, in fact, Marx believed that even individual capitalists had a disincentive to hire unproductive sector workers-- because wages for unproductive workers come out of revenue and are thus entirely visible without scientific observation even to the capitalist. The fact that unproductive sector workers have become the vast majority in Amerika does prove that surplus- value comes from outside Amerika to support them. In addition, we can judge whether the waitress is a parasite by simple terms. His/her wages are beyond the cost of the reproduction of his/her labor-power. MIM has already provided the statistics on luxury consumption of even the lowest sector of Amerikan society elsewhere. Hence, that question can be settled there. We have also pointed out that the necessities of life are cheap thanks to surplus-value extracted in the Third World. Such a point is not necessary to consider when considering the exploited as a whole, but is necessary when arguing specifically about the relationship between imperialism and the Third World. [mim3 interjection June 8 2004: The above statement I made about wages being higher than the cost of reproducing labor-power is correct but not a bullseye. I simply gave an approximate answer that points in the correct direction, that waitress degradation is not just a Hooter s-type problem but also a question of labor appropriation. The real correct answer to this question comes from doing the calculations on surplus-value. And it's not so much a patch of this workers or that workers the way the RCP=U$A always tries to do. It's simply that it's not the case that white workers produce surplus-labor. If they did, we would have to see some evidence for that in profits, and we don't have it. Qiu Jin goes further and has argued that even very poorly paid workers will not be seeing any crumbs from exploitation in their wages once the JDPON comes to power; hence, a poorly paid unproductive sector worker is still a net exploiter! If we think about this in reverse, the reason this becomes clear is that calling someone "exploited" justifies higher wages and in the case of the net exploiter unproductive sector worker, it really misses the point of what socialism is aiming at. It's just another example of how RCP=U$A does not share MIM's goals at all. The reason that RCP=U$A takes its approach is to leave open its options for vacillation. RCP=U$A does not attack the labor aristocracy in detail as MIM does, because the RCP=U$A says only 10% of the population is enemy. At the same time, RCP=U$A wants proletarian camouflage and finds press releases connected to the People's Wars and rhetoric about the labor aristocracy without details useful. In the last 10 years of Mao's life, the Cultural Revolution press was full of quotes about how Mao was concerned about China's eight grade wage system as a material basis for capitalist restoration. It was important to steer correctly on wages or production would not be stimulated adequately on the one hand, or the ownership system would change on the other. Ultra-left mistakes would crush production and cause workers to hanker for capitalism. Rightist mistakes would bring China creeping to capitalism directly as the USSR did. Mao said, "Even now she practices an eight- grade wage system, distribution according to work and exchange through money, and in all this differs very little from the old society." This quote was printed over and over again in the Maoist press; yet today, the RCP=U$A says it can ignore the calculation of exploitation in imperialist countries! China was not robbing any countries and Mao was still urgently concerned about setting the wage rates correctly, but the united $tates is setting records for parasitism and the RCP=U$A casually calls the petty- bourgeoisie "exploited." Calling these workers "exploited" justifies their struggle for higher wages now, a struggle Lenin called counter- revolutionary. It also enables concessions to the petty-bourgeoisie upon the seizure of power by the dictatorship of the proletariat which would really be social-imperialism in the case of the RCP=U$A.] The argument that Amerikan workers are so productive is a chauvinist dream more akin to business pulp writing than Marxism. It's not true that magically appearing technology appears and saves the Amerikan economy from crisis. ******************************* mim3 for the Maoist Internationalist Movement: Here I'm just going to quote Marx at length to clear up some confusions spread by social- democrats and revisionists on unproductive sector labor. This will probably take a period of years. We will hopefully remember to tack all related discussion on this document. Something we have to realize with Karl Marx maybe more than anyone is that he's interested in a lot of different things. One of the reasons he has endured is that he connected together so many social phenomena. Typically what RCP=U$A does is fail to realize all the power of the labor theory of value and its interconnections and it takes one statement of Marx's from one context and repeats it in all contexts ad nauseum, thereby totally changing Marx's meaning. When Marx said his distinction between productive and unproductive labor was not a moral condemnation, his point was to connect to theories of economic crisis and accumulation. However, it did not mean that Marx did not ALSO have an ideological position on unproductive labor. RCP=U$A simply misread Marx's interests, what he's trying to prove in one context or another. Of course, Marx's greatest contributions were his scientific contributions. He's very concerned his readers understand matters scientifically, because prior to him, there had already been a class struggle and people of course had ideology for that class struggle before him as well. Nonetheless, Marx had an overall orientation toward unproductive sector labor unlike RCP=U$A's. Here is a very clear example that Marx was the first MIMist: "The great mass of so-called 'higher grade' workers—such as state officials, military people, artists, doctors, priests, judges, lawyers, etc.—-some of whom are not only not productive but in essence destructive, but who know how to appropriate to themselves a very great part of the 'material' wealth partly through the sale of their 'immaterial' commodities and partly by forcibly imposing the latter on other people-—found it not at all pleasant to be relegated economically to the same class as clowns and menial servants and to appear merely as people partaking in the consumption, parasites on the actual producers (or rather agents of production). This was a peculiar profanation precisely of those functions which had hitherto been surrounded with a halo and had enjoyed superstitious veneration." ("Vulgarisation of Bourgeois Political Economy in the Definition of Productive Labor" ) Next Marx describes how the bourgeoisie started revolutionary and went backwards once it established itself firmly in power, an excellent bit of foreshadowing Lenin's theory of imperialism, BTW: "Bourgeois society reproduces in its own form everything against which it had fought in feudal or absolutist form. In the first place therefore it becomes a principal task for the sycophants of this society, and especially of the upper classes, to restore in theoretical terms even the purely parasitic section of these 'unproductive labourers,' or to justify the exaggerated claims of the section which is indispensable. The dependence of the ideological, etc., classes on the capitalists was in fact proclaimed." This latter quote shows that Marx united with the bourgeois revolutionaries on the overall ideological orientation toward unproductive labor. Next, Marx describes the war among the hired hacks of the old ruling classes and the segments of the bourgeois classes. As the capitalists saw this discussion unfold in horror, they finally united on the following basis, of course: "Both the do- nothings and their parasites had to be found a place in this best possible order of things." This is directly foreshadowing Lenin who spoke alternately of an "alliance," "alignment" or even "amalgamation" of the labor aristocracy and the imperialists. Next, Marx noted that popular writers like RCP=U$A tried to come up with excuses for every sector of the economy and how it contributed to modern industrial production: "they honoured everyone by making him a 'productive labourer' in the 'primary' sense, namely, a labourer who labours in the service of capital, is useful in one way or another to the enrichment of the capitalist, etc." Finally, Marx noted with ultra-sarcasm that Malthus was better on this point than these scribblers, because at least Malthus did not try to say the parasites were making contributions to manufacturing: "In this matter even such people as Malthus are to be preferred, who directly defend the necessity and usefulness of 'unproductive labourers' and pure parasites." That is describing one chapter in Marx's work on surplus-value. There is more, including for example his denunciation of Say for thinking nothing of leaving open the possibility that unproductive sector labor could expand indefinitely. For Marx, it was obvious that such a notion was idiotic. Further foreshadowing of Lenin on how the bourgeoisie loses its revolutionary character over time after conquering feudalism is here: "When on the other hand the bourgeoisie has won the battle, and has partly itself taken over the State, partly made a compromise with its former possessors; and has likewise given recognition to the ideological professions as flesh of its flesh and everywhere transformed them into its functionaries, of like nature to itself; when it itself no longer confronts these as the representative of productive labour, but when the real productive labourers rise against it and moreover tell it that it lives on other people’s industry; when it is enlightened enough not to be entirely absorbed in production, but to want also to consume 'in an enlightened way'; when the spiritual labours themselves are more and more performed in its service and enter into the service of capitalist production—then things take a new turn, and the bourgeoisie tries to justify 'economically,' from its own standpoint, what at an earlier stage it had criticised and fought against. Its spokesmen and conscience-salvers in this line are the Garniers, etc. In addition to this, these economists, who themselves are priests, professors, etc., are eager to prove their 'productive' usefulness, to justify their wages 'economically.'" This last sentence refers exactly to the RCP=U$A seeking to justify the pay of the unproductive sector of u.$. imperialism and just as Lenin warned philistines would on behalf of the labor aristocracy. ******************************************* RosaRL, RCP=U$A fan at awip: "Look -- think about it this way. If a worker works in a factory that produces prepackaged bbq, isn't he productive? If the worker in that factor is loading boxes on a truck, isn't he productive? "So what is the difference in the cook at the restaurant who obviously adds value to the product by his labor power? what is the difference in the waitress and the person putting the box on the truck that makes the one productive and the other not?" ****************************** notsocialdem replied: RosaRL, it was inevitable that you RCP=U$A fans would use the Bush administration argument that Burger King cooks are "productive" and belong as "manufacturing sector." OK. You know what? Your argument about cooks and waiters is too small to matter. We could hand it over to you, but you don't have any way of assembling what the "rcP=u$A" calls a majority of exploited people within u.$. borders. Now the cashiers at Burger King, the sales workers in general, the technology "workers" and the bank workers are far too numerous not to be supported by Third World surplus-value. The white-collar workers alone would have had Lenin saying in 1980 that the majority of whites are not proletarian. The reason there are so many restaurants in the first place in the united $tates is that food from the THird World comes with so much surplus-value transferred from THird World productive sector workers that there is an huge variety of businesses that can arise parasitically on that basis. ********************************* RosaRL, RCP=U$A fan replied: First, ideology check! Who says they belong in the manufacturing sector? Not the Bush administration for sure nor bourgeois sociology that like to classify so much of the working class as 'service industry'. I find this quite interesting when in fact the very people that claim there is no working class in the US (and therefore no class struggle in the US) are actually the pushers of bourgeois ideology! ************************************* mim3@mim.org You have to see this to believe how much RosaRL stole the line right out of Bush's mouth in the last two quotes. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/20/politics/main601336.shtml Among other quotes from the Bush administration exactly paraphrasing RosaRL: "Mixing water and concentrate to produce soft drinks is classified as manufacturing. However, if that activity is performed at a snack bar, it is considered a service." The Bush administration wants to change it just as RosaRL says that BBQ manufacturers and cooks are the same. Sorry, RosaRL, we don't know whose butlers and chefs you are defending, but they'll be gone eventually with the JDPON. ******************************************* MC5 adds: I want to expand on something that was said. It's just not true that Marxism is some kind of dogma with no applicability to today. Many of the questions around then are around today. One is definitely this question of "waitresses" that RCP=U$A hack-fan Kasama keeps raising as if Marx were worried about this unproductive vs. productive question for no reason. Here again the distinction between oppressed nation and oppressor nation is needed. Now why is it that in the Third World, a waiter or butler is generally considered a luxury while in the u$a it's a way of life? Why are teenagers often fast-food workers? Let's put it the other way around: can you see that many waitresses and other services in the Third World? Why? If the capitalists were really being enriched by the waitresses and that's all there is to it, then why can't the Third World set up businesses like that and have a huge service sector just like in the united $tates? How much is involved in setting up waitress businesses? The reason is that waitresses could in some cases be productive sector workers but generally, they exist, because they help realize surplus-value, an extension of the agricultural sector, because what is a restaurant but a food distribution center for rich people? If we took the same food and brought it to the starving in the Third World, do we think we would need waiters to deliver it? So how can we say that waitresses are not connected to parasitism even on that level, the distribution of restaurants globally. When it comes to waitresses, there is some ambiguity on whether they do what they do as service or whether they are really being hired against capital. Then if they are hired against capital as opposed to a revenue stream, then we have to ask whether they are involved in surplus- value realization or production. (Part of the problem is whether a restaurant-owner is really a capitalist vis-a-vis a waitress especially in family-owned businesses where family is the waitress). This last question can only be answered by comparing oppressor nations with parasitic bloat with oppressed nations. At most Burger King type organizations, there are more cashiers than chefs. Cashiers are not productive sector, no way. They are sales workers who assist in realizing surplus-value. The fact that a Burger King or Taco Bell or McDonald's can have four people up front and one at the side window, with only one or two people in back is a clue that most of what is going on in the restaurant chain is realizing surplus-value, not producing it. The reason for that is that most of the work has been done before anyone arrives and the cashiers get busy: dead labor arrives at McDonald's pre-packaged as beef patties, cut fries, etc. Hopefully anyone who has read Marx knows that sales workers are not producing surplus-value. This aspect of theory alone damns Italy as a majority- parasite country. The next question is waitresses in the many restaurants. If they are not part of a petty-bourgeois family running a restaurant, are they really producing surplus- value or are they more or less the same as cashiers? The answer in the imperialist countries is that restaurant profit is already determined by the purchase of food inputs. These food inputs already contain surplus-value ready to be realized as profit if cashiers and waiters bring the food out. (Granted, cooks are another question. In majority-exploiter countries, they add some s-v, just not net s-v.) This becomes clearest at self-serve restaurants which you often see with buffets or road-stops. There you just take the food on your tray and pay the cashier. Some chains have restaurants with waitresses. Some of the same restaurant chain or same kind of food have no waitresses. Both are profitable for the same underlying reason of the food inputs produced by exploited and super-exploited workers. Hopefully people realize that the majority of restaurants have no waitress or have a family operation. Another angle on this question, if one could really hire waiters and make money that way and not just realize surplus-value that is already in food inputs, then certainly by now we'd see companies specializing in waiting tables and providing their superior services for profit. Generally we do not, which proves what I am talking about, but if there is such a thing, it would be the Hooters chain. So this question goes to our level of radicalism, what we see as parasitic bloat and what we see as necessary. There is both a question of luxury consumption possible because of parasitism and a question of whether surplus-value is produced. I guess someone could say that Hooters waitresses produce surplus- value, because a chain opened up specifically to hire wimmin for their looks and entertainment bringing service to a whole new level, which is why there is now a Hooters airline too. Definitely some capital had to go into that and definitely no one can evade that it was for that purpose of hiring a kind of worker. Those wimmin are being hired by a multinational corporation obviously focusing on service, so a plausible case can be made for "enrichment of the capitalist." Nonetheless, despite the heavy use of capital and the focus on service even more than the food or airline inputs themselves, viewing these Hooters wimmin as productive sector would still be a mistake, not seeing all the interconnections in the theory of surplus-value and parasitism. To us at MIM, Hooters is not just sexism. After all, they are a huge chain making lots of money. Hooters is also parasitism. Aside from sales as quintessentially unproductive sector labor with no ambiguity, there is also advertising. In Hooters above all, but in many other places, waitresses are there as advertising. They are to attract customers, same as in topless bars which often do well too. The surplus-value waiting to be realized is in the food and drink or the standard aspects of airline transport. It's tempting to be "moralizing" and say Hooters waitresses and topless bar matrons are "exploited," but they are not by Marxist definitions. They produce no surplus-value and in fact are parasites of the unproductive sector. They are "degraded," but they produce no surplus-value, even as they make huge tips in parasitic society. Those tips again are so large and extensive in imperialist society, because of the surplus-value flowing around the economy that makes it possible to pay for such. So far I've talked about three categories of restaurants: those with no wait staff, (the majority), those that are petty-bourgeois family owned and cannot be counted as productive sector and those like Hooters where wait staff are a form of advertising to be abolished by the JDPON. It remains our point that Marx's theories of surplus- value do continue to provide insight on restaurants today and especially their distribution between oppressed and oppressor nations. Being too gutless to tell a waitress that she might be unproductive sector is a good reason to give up political economy and Marxism as a whole. The whole sexist atmosphere in waitress jobs has to be connected to the nature of advertising in imperialism and that is parasitism.