What is the Marxist law of value?

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retical value due to a number of factors. The law of supply and demand, for example, can cause sharp increases or decreases in the cost of a product.

A company announces a drop in sales and a But, unless a monopoly (or patent) exists to limit "reorganization" plan that includes a 30 percent competition, forces in the marketplace soon restore The basic problem, then, is that workers, as a reduction in its work force. Another firm announces the cost to a level near its real value. The price of group, cannot buy back the equivalent of all the layoffs that are attributed to the introduction of labor power, in contrast to other commodities, can goods that they have produced. Thus, periodically, a more automated machinery. An airline carrier also be affected by groups of workers organizing glut of goods is produced that can't be sold. (They announces bankruptcy, fires all its union employees are often needed, but the workers as consumers and then reopens several weeks later with a new noncan't afford to buy them.) The capitalists who own these products must either go broke or export them Sound familiar? These newspaper reports are not isolated incidents but everyday reading in the local THE RICH GET sEE, into foreign markets. Different nation-states, reprenewspapers. In fact, in half of the union contracts RICHER, AND THE SYSTEM senting their local capitalists, then try to increase their domination (often militarily) of foreign marsigned since 1982, workers have had actual losses in THE POOR GET STILL WORKS kets to seek new export markets as well as sources of terms of net income compared to their previous conDraw materials and cheaper labor. tract. The givebacks have come in the form of reduced wages, fringe benefits, and/or accelerated Politicians, for example, often speak of "national security" or "our spheres of influence" as justification for overt or covert intervention around the What will happen if the standard of living of the world. These politicians are really arguing for the average worker continues to decline and the income need to maintain control of the markets, natural gap between the rich and the poor continues to resources, and a cheap labor supply for capitalist companies. And the capitalist owner then uses the We know that workers, with or without a conavailibility of the "cheap" labor in these countries as scious understanding that they live in a class-divided La threat to U.S. workers. They often announce, society, will continue to try to improve their stand"either accept wage cuts or we'll move to where we ard of living at the expense of the profits of the owners of industry. Ultimately, workers will understand that, in a capitalist society, each worker's labor During the epochs of slavery and feudalism it was power is purchased just like any other commodity. into unions and withholding their labor until they very clear to the slaves or serfs that they were being receive higher wages or better working conditions. exploited. To workers in a capitalist society, however, An important adjunct to this Marxian law of the same kind of victimization is less apparent. The The exchange value (cost) of labor power is, like value is the understanding that each worker pro- fact that workers, as a class, receive only a fraction other commodities, primarily determined by the duces much more value each day than he or she of the wealth they produce puts them economically amount of socially necessary labor time that is used receives in equivalent value in the form of wages and in the same situation as slaves or serfs. This exploitato manufacture that product. For example, a prod- benefits; i.e. the worker creates surplus value for the tion is what defines a class-divided society. uct with 100 hours of labor time invested in it will company. This, in a nutshell, is the source of the Workers learn the truth of these lessons as well as tend to sell at a cost twice as much as one that has exploitation and the ultimate cause of the economic their ultimate power to promote revolutionary taken 50 hours of labor time to produce. In the case and political instability of the capitalist system. change during the struggles to maintain their standof labor power, this boils down to the average The owners of industry, the capitalists, convert ard of living. And in the course of these struggles amount of labor time to rear, socialize, and train this surplus value into gigantic aggregates of capital, they will realize, with the help of a revolutionary each person until he or she is ready to enter the labor which they seek to invest profitably in other ven- party, that they must pursue the fight for a new tures. Inevitably, the interests of capitalists in differ- classless society in which they will democratically The value of labor power, like other products, will ent countries collide and military hostilities begin. control the processes of production and receive the fluctuate from time to time above or below its theo- The workers who have created the surplus value then tion. Furthermore, in literary matters, implicitly, one can see evidence that he "Delightful Murder" is not at all a work has read and assimilated some ideas of of crude sociological reductionism, as is the Hungarian Georg Lukacs. Written often the case when non-specialists try with wit and verve, Mandel's study provides an admirable example of the Explicitly, Mandel has been influ- potentialities of the historical materialenced by such provocative cultural crit- ist method when applied to contempoThe detective story: ics as the German Walter Benjamin;

Social anatomy of murder explore "that most difficult and complex riddle of social theory: How do the laws of individual psychology intersect Delightful Murder: A Social History the great curves of social ideology and of the Crime Story, by Ernest Mandel.

London, Pluto Press, 1984, 152 pp.

In 16 tightly written and well-docuAlthough Marx and Engels wrote mented chapters, Mandel correlates the prophetically on many aspects of art evolution of the crime novel to the comand society, they failed to foresee the plex relationship of crime and property rise of a mass culture industry in the in bourgeois society, a social system advanced capitalist nations. One curi- itself inherently criminal. He argues that ous feature of this multimillion-dollar as bourgeois society came into being, it business is the persistence, from the rise was necessary to alter the existing popuof bourgeois society to the present stage lar sympathy for bandits and hostility to of late capitalism, of the detective thriller. Millions upon millions of copies Progenitors of the crime story perof crime stories have been sold world- formed this legitimating function for the new bourgeois laws and values. SubErnest Mandel is a leading theoreti- sequently, the ideological content of the cian of the Fourth International, best detective novels would be modified to known for his books "Marxist Eco- meet other needs of the society, especially during the interwar period with the ensuing rise of corporate crime and Of course, crime stories are the creations of individual authors, each with a distinctive set of skills and motivations. nomic Theory, "Late Capitalism," "The Nevertheless, as Mandel demonstrates Second Slump,, and "The Long Wave in a striking chapter called "From an of Capitalist Development, as well as Integrative to a Disintegrative Function his introductions to the first three vol- of the Crime Story,' the genre is so restrictive and ideologically laden that He has now written the first book even most left-wing detective-story writattempting to explain the extraordinary ers have failed to subvert the genre for success of the detective genre from a SociAlist Action historical materialist perspective. "Delightful Murder" is filled with "Delightful Murder"' however, is not useful information about the relation of a literary history. It is a social history crime to the state, to accumulation and that employs the Marxist method to competition, and to capitalist reifica14 SOCIALIST ACTION union work force. POORER...

work production.

increase?

me 5 Value of labor power market.

their hand at cultural analysis. of social evolution as a whole?" the police.

wide since 1945.

Boston Socialist Action P.O. Box 1046 GMF Boston, MA 02205 BOOK REVIEW mass consumption. Buffalo Socialist Action P.O. Box 275 Buffalo, N.Y. 14207 Chicago Socialist Action Box 80 B, 2520 N. Lincoln Chicago, IL 60614 (312) 772-7096 Cincinnati Socialist Action umes of Marx's "Capital." P.O. Box 3033 Cincinnati, OH 45201 (513) 242-9043 radical ends. Cleveland Socialist Action P.O. Box 6151 Cleveland, OH 44101 (216) 429-2167 become the problem. can buy labor power cheaper." full value of their labor power. Houston Socialist Action Box 551, 4800 Calhoun Houston, TX 77004 (713) 643-2030 Los Angeles Socialist Acti Box 217, 18653 Ventura Blvd Los Angeles, CA 91356 (213) 250-4608 Michigan Socialist Action P.O. Box 4523 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Minneapolis Socialist Acti P.O. Box 14087 Dinkytown Station Minneapolis, MN 55414 New York Socialist Action P.O. Box 20209, Ca. Finance 693 Columbus Ave New York, NY 10025 fodder Export of capital rary cultural phenomena.

Phoenix Socialist Action

P.O. Box 5161 Phoenix, AZ 85010 (602) 894-0055 Pittsburgh Socialist Action P.O. Box 10769 Pittsburgh, PA 15203 Puget Sound Socialist Actior P.O. Box 2903 Olympia, WA 98507 San Francisco Socialist Actio 3435 Army Street, Rm. 308 San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 821-0458 Washington Socialist Action P.O. Box 3467 Washington, D.C. 20010 (202) 232-1481 West Virginia Socialist Action P.O. Box 701 Fairmont, WV 26555-0701

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Other authors trace the oppression of Black people up through the beginnings of the modern era. In "The Rape of Africa, Lamar Middleton concludes, "If a continent has been stolen from 140 million natives, it is assuaging to remember that the In his highly recommended "Capitalism and Slavery, Eric Williams likewise emphasizes that the Industrial Revolution, on which modern capitalism was based, February is Black History Month. Its roots go back to 1926 when Dr. Carter G.

Woodson-rightly honored as the father of Black history-started Negro History Dr. Woodson was born in Virginia in 1875. He received his doctorate from Harvard and founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915.

He retired from a teaching career in 1922 in order to devote full time to research as director of the association and as editor of The Journal of Negro History. Woodson's writings include "The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, "A Century of Black History Month should be utilized to educate Blacks and all people about the true history of the relationship between the peoples of European and African ancestry during the past 500 years. This education should not be just a recitation of facts, but it should explain why racism was utilized to rape and exploit the human and natural resources of Africa and what lessons can be learned in order to transReaders may find helpful references for Black History Month among the following additional books: "The World and Africa, by W.E.B. DuBois; "The Black Black history can be fully understood only by placing it within the context of Man's Burden,, by E.D. Morel; "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, by Walter world history. For example, Henri Pirenne points out in his "History of Europe" Rodney; "Africa's Gift to America, by Joel A. Rogers; "My Bondage and My that the word for slave in all Western languages (esclave, sklave, slaaf) is merely the Freedom"' by Frederick Douglass; "American Negro Slave Revolts" by Herbert Aptheker; "South Africa-White Rule, Black Revolt, by Ernest Harsch; and "Fighting Racism in World War II," by George Breitman, C.L.R. James, Edgar Since I came to live in New York City in 1963, I have been burglarized four or five times, had three bikes and two trombones stolen, and have been held up once by a gang of boys. In 1964, on the lower East side, I was lying down and saw the window at the foot of my bed begin to open. I jumped up, grabbed a bottle and yelled at the man who was starting to climb into my apartment. He quickly climbed back up his rope to the roof. What would I have It is understandable that many people in the United States symBy KWAME M.A. SOMBURU "It is impossible to understand the present or have some knowledge of the past. "

—Malcolm X on Afro-American History.

Week.

Negro Migration, and "Negro Makers of History."

form our present racist, capitalist society.

name of the Slavic people of Europe.

"The Slavs—as pagans—were beyond the taken prisoner were sold like cattle" Pirenne justice and 19th centuries"' for pale of humanity, and those who were states. "For the people of the 9th and Keemer, and others.

On the radio On Jan. 4 and 10, Suzi Weissman read the entire article by Ralph Schoenman, "The Unfinished Chinese Revolution" (Socialist Action December 1984), on her radio program on KPFK.

After her second reading, she took phone calls from her listeners and referred them to Socialist Action newspaper. I was very pleased to hear the article and the questions over the air.

B. W., Los Angeles SPANISH MOROCCO TUNISIA MOROCCO "ALGERIA:

RIO DE ORO LIbYA ERITREA FRENCH SOMALILAND _FRENCH WEST AFRICA: ANGLO.

EGYPTIAN ORITISH GAMBIA SUDA SOMALILAND PORTUGUESE GUINEA AMER ETHIOPIA SIERRA LEONE TOGO \ ITALIAN UGA SOMALILAND LIBERIA RIO MUNI ;BELGIAN: BRITISH GOLD COAST : CONGO EAST AFRICA ARTITION OF AFRICA EAST AFRICA GERMAN LOWING THE 1884 NYASALAND BERLA CONEERENCI BRITISH SPANISH MADAGASCAR FRENCH BELGIAN MOZAMBIQUE GERMAN PORTUGUESE SWAZILAND ITALIAN INDEPENDENT BECHUAMALAND BASUTOLAND Source. London Times Allas of World History UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA would have been impossible without the immense slave trade and the products of slave labor.

Dear P.R.

Thank you for your sup port and your correction. Th mistake in the Local 9 articl was ours, not Jake Cooper's.

The editor DSA on Thomas Dear editor, The Democratic Socialists of America is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Norman Thomas-perennial presidential candidate of DSA's predecessor, the people of 17th, profits derived from the DSA are ignorant of their movement's sordid history. Hopefully, the exposure of Norman Thomas' CIA dealings will give them food for thought. But when Harrington and co. publicly swallow such elements of the military-security complex as the Pentagon and NATO, why should any one think they would gag on the CIA? Lenni Brenner, Berkeley, Calif.

Paper sells well Dear editor,

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Black History Month: Learning from our past

A Personal View ihooting for

10th centuries, the Slav was what the Black was fraud was committed in the holy cause of civilization."