Unemployed Teenagers & the Minimum Wage

Unemployed teenagers are almost like the working class.

Exploitation vs. Domination

On the last line of page 208 and half way down page 210 Marx begins talking about domination ("Growth of the domination of the bourgeoisie over the working class"). I don't understand the distinction between exploitation and domination. Can someone help me out? Thx

Slowly getting high off of ST

School has slowly eroded my ability to sleep and do much, which is why I am still up on a Friday, excuse me, Saturday morning at 2AM pondering Marx & Engels.

I was rereading Marx and Engels, and I couldn't quite understand what M&E meant by this statement and hoped you guys could provide some thoughts on the matter.

So on pg.206 at the bottom, M&E talk about how the cost of production of simple labor power is equal to the subsistence the worker requires to survive and "reproduction" (206). But what exactly does M&E mean by reproduction? Reproduction of the worker? Reproduction of the skills needed to help that new worker obtain the same such skills? What does he mean?

I was further confused by what he meant by the "wage minimum...does not hold good for the single individual but for the species" (206). Double negatives screw with my brain and I am confused as to whether it is beneficial for the individual or not, or for the species or not and why is it beneficial or not beneficial for either party?

My last point of confusion is about "individual workers...do not get enough to be able to exist and reproduce themselves; but the wages of the whole working class level down, within their fluctuations, to this minimum" (206). Do individual workers not get enough for subsistence for their own lives because some people of their species/same jobs need less subsistence and as a result, the required wages given out are lowered than what some individuals may need?

What are your thoughts?

Child Labor in India for the Commonwealth Games

This article really brings home the depth of child wage laborers:

Harvard Fellow and Trafficking Expert Siddhartha Kara Finds Child Labor for Commonwealth Games

But when they say "we," they mean "you." Sacrifice is for the little people.

This is a great article by Paul Krugman, who won what is known as the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008. Now I know you're thinking to yourself, "The NYT?? Their articles always a gazillion pages, no way I'm going to click on that!" But behold! A short, one page article on the NYT. It can, and it has, been done! Both the title of this post and the sentence below are quotes from the article. Enjoy!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/opinion/20krugman.html?_r=1

"And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices."

My Hegelian Moment

While brainstorming for a paper, I came up with a point that I thought was so insightful and original. I gave myself a mental pat on the back and was very pleased with myself. I was up in the clouds, until I did some later reading for the class and found my idea right there in the reader. *plunk. That dropped me back to earth. My ideas and I aren't so amazing after all.

Memo 9/13

"From my understanding of the reading, I arrived to the conclusion that communism is a radical ideology calling all proletariats to revolt against the State and all its oppressive functions (i.e. division of labor) that has enslaved them. If measures are effectively appropriated in said revolution, the State would diminish into a classless society where proletariats and bourgeoisie would become “united individuals” (193). As a result, under communism, individuals would live in an equitable community as Marx best describes, “Its organization is, therefore, essentially economic, the material production of the conditions of this unity; it turns existing conditions into conditions of unity” (193). "

I think this music video exemplifies some of Marx's ideas.

He says, "On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces, which no epoch of the former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire" (577). This video shows three depictions of this "horror" with the mindlessness of divided factory labor, the effects of pollution, and the aesthetic unpleasantness of industrial society.

Marx goes on to say, "Machinery, gifted with the wonderful power of shortening and fructifying human labour, we behold starving and overworking it...The victories of art seem bought by the loss of character" (578). In the video we see this trade off. Machinery can now replace the Factory Band, but now the music has lost all character. The sense of artistic expression that comes with the creativity of being human is lost. This could be seen as Smith's idea of progress gone too far.

Most Important Sentence

In order for this transition to occur, the most important thing is a revolution. The ruling class needs to be overthrown through a revolution in order for the classless group to carry through with communism, because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way.

Memo 09/20/2010

This class division of manual and mental laborers, of who does and gets what, should raise a consciousness to the underprivileged majority of society, which will lead to want for revolution to abolish the social power ruled over them. This revolution then leads to the movement of communism, where private property no longer exist and individuals are no longer subjected to specialization in one task, but are encouraged to develop their multiple abilities and talents. As a result, a voluntary division of labor emerges where society regulates and controls surplus through collective action.

Best part of my memo for 9/20.

The transition from tribal society, ancient society, feudalism, and capitalism to communism is a transition from natural division of labor to voluntary division of labor (Burawoy, Lecture 9/16); a transition to communism would mean the overthrow of this “fixation of social activity” in which workers produce for “an objective power above” them and the rise of a new society in which no one specializes in one task but can be “accomplished in any branch he wishes”, made possible by society’s regulation of general production (Tucker, p. 160).

Best Part of My Memo

However, in order to succeed in changing people’s belief of life and the governance of power, it is necessary for this communist revolution to occur and overthrow the ruling class and the ruling beliefs of society.

Sentence from the Monday memo

The final two factors that must be in place in order to have a transition from a capitalist society to a communist one are that we end the idea of “private property,” and for production to be regulated.

Best Part from Monday's Memo 9/19

The main difference between "natural" and "voluntary" activity is choice (160). The fact that individuals have the right to choose what to do under communism is the reason why it is a classless society. In this sense, society regulates and controls the productive forces as opposed to exploitation in a capitalist society.

Best little chunk from my Memo

" Communism is unlike Tribal, Ancient Communal, Feudalistic, and Capitalistic societies where it’s a natural division of labor focusing on specialization that in turn eliminates human potentiality. Communism’s main goal is to regulate and control all the productive forces so appropriation isn’t possible anymore. Without exploitation the masses and future generations can grow up in a fair and equal classless society."

Best sentence from my Memo

Marx agreed that machinery helped "shortening and fructifying human labor" (M&E 378), but a the same time, the invention of machinery causes us living in a society that depended on material force.

How I feel when you don't come to office hours...

I Love Lucy

This video was shown to my in one of my sociology courses a year ago. I watched it again today and it reminds me of what we have been discussing in class, the division of labor. I find it interesting that towards the end, Lucy's superior wanted to speed up the process of productivity encouraging the idea that with division of labor, productivity cannot only be made faster, but also more efficient.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wp3m1vg06Q

Smith vs. Marx and Engels

Just a bit of my memo...

A key difference that I noticed between Smith and MnE seem to be that of an idealist vs. a realist. While smith suggests what could and should happen as a result of the division of labor, Marx seems to argue against Smith, reporting on actual events that prove Smith's assumptions wrong.

specialization in a job brings forth creativity in an individual to

Smith suggests that a specialized people make for a better country - assuming fair and deliberate trade and a well-governed society, whereas Marx implies that a division of class is the result of the division of labor - the fewer upper class capitalists get rich and exploit the greater mass of the poorer working class, which exemplifies an unjust society.

A false assumption by Smith

Hey, so this is part of my memo discussing a false assumption made by Smith (that an increase in DL/productivity leads to an increase in labor opulence). Let me know what you think, if I'm missing something, or why I don't draw the right conclusions, wtv. : )

A crude understanding of today’s American middle (non-manufacturing) class is as follows (this assumes that services are peripheral/secondary to consumer goods):

The class designs goods (engineers, sketches, etc) à the class is paid for its labor à the designs are manufactured abroad à the manufacturing labor is paid à the goods are returned to the US and sold back to the non-manufacturing class.

The great assumption that Smith makes is that the manufacturing labor is a politically empowered class. That is clearly not the case. Those with the political power are the owners of mass capital, and they are free to find their manufacturing labor in countries which have a very low standard of living and low standard of worker rights. Therefore, the productivity of the manufacturing class, it seems, is greatly disconnected from the increase in profit which that productivity creates. Though it doesn’t directly follow from this, I would argue that in fact the increase in the division of labor has led to a decrease in labor opulence! The curve may be U-shaped: initially it may have held true, however the division of labor is now so great that the laborer is almost completely removed from the final good (and its profits), and therefore cannot realize that an increase in her/his productivity leads to greater production (and greater profit).

A Working Class Hero

The Division of Labor