Reading Capital redux - Thread #3 (Section 2 of the book)

[blindpig]

If I understand "social division of labor" correctly, then yes, the production of commodities is a prerequisite. If everyone in a community is producing things of need for his/her own family or self, then there is no division of labor, per se, and no production of commodities. But if a community comes together and, whether by design or by accident, begin producing things, based upon the talent or ability of individual producers, for the use of the entire community, then commodities have arrived along with a social division of labor.

Dunno Dahl, in many primitive communities there is a crude division of labor, men are generally the 'big game' hunters, women gather(which might include small game. In the post-contact Cherokee, who were 'adapting' to the commodity civilization of whites, horses and cattle were the realm of men, pigs and chickens, along with gardening, the realm of women.) Kids were also gathers. I think we need a particular kind of division of labor, one in which the labor of some can be expropriated to the private interests of others. The only motivation can be the regular production of commodities, so the need for commodities must precede this division of labor, however briefly.

[Kid of the Black Hole]

If I understand "social division of labor" correctly, then yes, the production of commodities is a prerequisite. If everyone in a community is producing things of need for his/her own family or self, then there is no division of labor, per se, and no production of commodities. But if a community comes together and, whether by design or by accident, begin producing things, based upon the talent or ability of individual producers, for the use of the entire community, then commodities have arrived along with a social division of labor.

I think a key point is in the first part of this sentence:

Wherever the want of clothing forced them to it, the human race made clothes for thousands of years, without a single man becoming a tailor."

Is it the want of clothing that forces a community of commodity producers into making clothes and also producing tailors?

[Dhalgren]

Dunno Dahl, in many primitive communities there is a crude division of labor, men are generally the 'big game' hunters, women gather(which might include small game. In the post-contact Cherokee, who were 'adapting' to the commodity civilization of whites, horses and cattle were the realm of men, pigs and chickens, along with gardening, the realm of women.) Kids were also gathers. I think we need a particular kind of division of labor, one in which the labor of some can be expropriated to the private interests of others. The only motivation can be the regular production of commodities, so the need for commodities must precede this division of labor, however briefly.

But these were not 'real" divisions, "socially". There is a difference, I think, between families dividing their members the labor of survival and societies dividing the creation of necessaries and then sharing those necessaries. But I could be way off.

[Dhalgren]

I think a key point is in the first part of this sentence:



Is it the want of clothing that forces a community of commodity producers into making clothes and also producing tailors?

No, I understood that phrase to mean that some societies may not have need of clothing of any scale, whereas other societies have need of massive amounts of clothing. So, "wherever the want of clothing forced them to it" people made their own clothes - each his own - without creating a "tailor". But, once the society advanced enough or developed enough, tailors and bakers and potters and farmers and weavers were made. And with them, commodities.

[blindpig]

Yeah, like I said, it is a different sort, and it needs a demand for commodities to come into existence.

[Dhalgren]

Yeah, like I said, it is a different sort, and it needs a demand for commodities to come into existence.

Yeah. And that "demand" is not for "commodities", but a demand for useful things. Those "useful things" become commodities when they are made for trade, or in bulk, not for the direct use of the producer.
I am not disagreeing with you, I am just thinking this through, step by step.

[blindpig]

But see, those are two different demands. The group can provide it's own use value sufficiently else it wouldn't be a group. It is the need for the need for extraneous use value as commodities which brings about the division of labor which we want to talk about into existence.

[Dhalgren]

I don't see it as a need for "extraneous use value", though. A group doesn't create things, an individual does. Now, if we are talking about joint ventures like hunting or gathering, then okay, that is a group thing; as would be defense of the group and such. But what about tool making? Or shirt or coat making? The primitive group did these things and most of these "handicrafts" were performed by individuals. Then you get to making pots and baskets and things, and skill levels and proclivities increase and develop, as the society grows and develops more and more complexity, divisions of labor occur - and being a tight group is what allows that division to take place. It seems to me that the division of labor and the creation of commodities preceded the advent of trade outside the group. Again, being wrong is nothing new to me...

[blindpig]

I don't see it as a need for "extraneous use value", though. A group doesn't create things, an individual does. Now, if we are talking about joint ventures like hunting or gathering, then okay, that is a group thing; as would be defense of the group and such. But what about tool making? Or shirt or coat making? The primitive group did these things and most of these "handicrafts" were performed by individuals. Then you get to making pots and baskets and things, and skill levels and proclivities increase and develop, as the society grows and develops more and more complexity, divisions of labor occur - and being a tight group is what allows that division to take place. It seems to me that the division of labor and the creation of commodities preceded the advent of trade outside the group. Again, being wrong is nothing new to me...

I don't think it is the level of complexity of given tasks which differentiates the primitive division of labor from the more 'advanced' form, it is who is creating the use value for exchange. What we are looking for is not the incidental production of this and that which might be used for exchange but the regular production of commodities for exchange. I'm afraid I'm skipping ahead but I think ya need slaves.

[Kid of the Black Hole]

I alluded to it above but I think there are two things here (they are 1A and 1B):

First, we're not talking about the TECHNICAL division of labor necessarily. It is possible/probable (and in actuality, certain) that the social division will not be dictated by the optimal technical division of labor. This is most easily demonstrated by the existence of the capitalist class, who do no work. Adding to that, it is they who wield their power as a class to maintain the relations that establish the existing division of labor.

What is more, this division may not (is not in fact) be driven by any thought of use but rather of maximizing SURPLUS value. This is a goal that is entirely SOCIALLY driven and is therefore only tangentially related to complexity or specialization.

EDIT: let me add that the related issue of humans existing more than less as automatons is really a tempoary arrangement that exists so long as it usefully develops the means of production. When these are evolved to a certain (sufficient) extent, then man can turn his aims away from this type of "efficiency"

[anaxarchos]

Capitalists are not part of the Social Division of Labor... They produce no use-values (or values for that matter). Value is produced by capitalist production but that is not the same thing.

"The use values, coat, linen, &c., i.e., the bodies of commodities, are combinations of two elements – matter and labour. If we take away the useful labour expended upon them, a material substratum is always left, which is furnished by Nature without the help of man. The latter can work only as Nature does, that is by changing the form of matter. Nay more, in this work of changing the form he is constantly helped by natural forces. We see, then, that labour is not the only source of material wealth, of use values produced by labour. As William Petty puts it, labour is its father and the earth its mother."

This has nothing to do with the social expropriation of that part of what is produced which is surplus to the redproduction of the laborer.

The capitalist is not father or mother... or second cousin... or even god-mother... more like a thief in the night.

The social organization of society and the social division of labor are two different things.

[PinkoCommie]

The social organization of society and the social division of labor are two different things.

Guilds, workshops, Ming vases, that coffee made from cat shit...all precapitalist. Well, not the coffee.

How fitting.

[anaxarchos]

Guilds, workshops, Ming vases, that coffee made from cat shit...all precapitalist. Well, not the coffee.

How fitting.

Ya gotta wonder about the first person who "invented" that coffee...

[blindpig]

Ya gotta wonder about the first person who "invented" that coffee...

I had no idea what youse guys were going on about, so I looked it up. The Vietnamese have the right of it, it is 'Weasel coffee', civets are members of the greater weasel family. Ain't that better? Take it from a man who knows, weasels got some of the smelliest crap on the planet. Gotta assume that first fella was poking thru some dried dung....but why?

Hell, mebbe it's right good stuff. Rusty's wrong on this, it is a product of the people. Fuckin' capitalists expropriate everything, our labor, land, food, song, dance, and sell it back to us for their profit.

[Kid of the Black Hole]

The social organization of society and the social division of labor are two different things.

Could you expand on this a little bit? I get that social organization is more complex than the division of labor but is the latter not a component of the former?

[PinkoCommie]

I had no idea what youse guys were going on about, so I looked it up. The Vietnamese have the right of it, it is 'Weasel coffee', civets are members of the greater weasel family. Ain't that better? Take it from a man who knows, weasels got some of the smelliest crap on the planet. Gotta assume that first fella was poking thru some dried dung....but why?

Hell, mebbe it's right good stuff. Rusty's wrong on this, it is a product of the people. Fuckin' capitalists expropriate everything, our labor, land, food, song, dance, and sell it back to us for their profit.

The origin of Kopi Luwak is closely connected with the history of coffee production in Indonesia. In the early 18th century the Dutch established the cash-crop coffee plantations in their colony in the Dutch East Indies islands of Java and Sumatra, including Arabica coffee introduced from Yemen. During the era of Cultuurstelsel (1830—1870), the Dutch prohibited the native farmers and plantation workers from picking coffee fruits for their own use. Still, the native farmers wanted to have a taste of the famed coffee beverage. Soon, the natives learned that certain species of musang or luwak (Asian Palm Civet) consumed the coffee fruits, yet they left the coffee seeds undigested in their droppings. The natives collected these luwaks' coffee seed droppings, then cleaned, roasted and ground them to make their own coffee beverage. The fame of aromatic civet coffee spread from locals to Dutch plantation owners and soon became their favorite, yet because of its rarity and unusual process, the civet coffee was expensive even in colonial times. - wiki

Word is, it is great stuff. I'd refuse on ideological grounds though, pardon the pun.

[blindpig]

The origin of Kopi Luwak is closely connected with the history of coffee production in Indonesia. In the early 18th century the Dutch established the cash-crop coffee plantations in their colony in the Dutch East Indies islands of Java and Sumatra, including Arabica coffee introduced from Yemen. During the era of Cultuurstelsel (1830—1870), the Dutch prohibited the native farmers and plantation workers from picking coffee fruits for their own use. Still, the native farmers wanted to have a taste of the famed coffee beverage. Soon, the natives learned that certain species of musang or luwak (Asian Palm Civet) consumed the coffee fruits, yet they left the coffee seeds undigested in their droppings. The natives collected these luwaks' coffee seed droppings, then cleaned, roasted and ground them to make their own coffee beverage. The fame of aromatic civet coffee spread from locals to Dutch plantation owners and soon became their favorite, yet because of its rarity and unusual process, the civet coffee was expensive even in colonial times. - wiki

Word is, it is great stuff. I'd refuse on ideological grounds though, pardon the pun.

See? Well, that explains the 'first guy', in purely materialistic fashon too.

So typical of the Dutch. They also forbade the locals from growing various high value spices except on their plantations on specific islands, all the better to keep their iron-fisted monopoly.

[anaxarchos]

Could you expand on this a little bit? I get that social organization is more complex than the division of labor but is the latter not a component of the former?

The Social Division of Labor refers to specialization in concrete or useful labor (the labor that creates use values). Blindpig is right that it dates back to the very beginning. Labor specialization certainly exists between those of different ages, sexes, and differing individual predispositions. Thus, instead of everyone doing everything, some people do some things while others do other things (hunting, gathering, "husbandry", agriculture, etc.).

There is a natural evolution to this Division of Labor because it increases the overall productiveness of labor. A tailor is not required for thousands of years because most do their own tailoring. Yet, when the community for which tailoring is done reaches a size which justifies the specialization of that skill, the "tailor" who is born is much more productive than the individual preceding "tailorers" taken together. So too for carpenters, smiths, shipwrights, tanners, coopers, and so on.

This is all true independent of the form which the products of labor take. Since we are discussing the productiveness of useful labor, it is not required that those use-values which are produced become commodities. The Social Division of Labor advances nonetheless as does the production of use values. Only their form of appropriation is impacted.

Still, because the Social Division of Labor advances the productiveness of labor, its interaction with commodity production (the original point of my question) is profound. Each spurs the other.

But... all of this is independent of the dominant forms of social organization at any given moment. A carpenter or a scribe may be a slave, a member of a guild, an individual proprietor or a wage laborer quite independently of their position in the social division of labor as scribe or carpenter (or rocket scientist).

Finally, one does not take part in the Social Division of Labor if one does not "labor". A capitalist does not labor, any more than a slaveholder or Lord does. The capitalist is a capitalist, not by virtue of what he does but who he is - he commands capital and therefore the labor of others.

Now, a capitalist may also act as overseer (foreman, manager, boss), either because it is so much recreation (like religion) or because of his still modest circumstances, but then it is as overseer that he takes part in the Social Division of Labor and not as capitalist. Then the issue of what part of his labor as overseer is productive and what part unproductive (a cost of circulation or deduction) comes to the fore.

The organization of classes and the division of labor are two entirely different things (though necessarily related).

[Kid of the Black Hole]

Thanks, that makes sense. I'm going to run through it forward and backwards and a few times to make sure I don't still have it muddled up.

[anaxarchos]

Yeah. And that "demand" is not for "commodities", but a demand for useful things. Those "useful things" become commodities when they are made for trade, or in bulk, not for the direct use of the producer.
I am not disagreeing with you, I am just thinking this through, step by step.

Consider the obverse:

The evolution of the division of labor increases the productiveness of labor. This in turn increases the "surplus" which labor may create over and above what is necessary for simple subsistence. This then creates the basis or spurs the development of class society which is always founded on the appropriation of that surplus (whether it takes the form of surplus product, surplus labor or surplus value).

And, BTW, this is way before the commodity form becomes dominant.