Marx notes that the concern of the foreman, in the Bolton meeting, was that higher wages would reduce profits, because the capitalist could not control the price of their commodities, sold on world markets, whereas Proudhon's objection was that it would mean higher prices, and reduction in supply, i.e. a shift of the supply curve to the left.
As Marx sets out in Value, Price and Profit, and Wage Labour and Capital, the argument that wages are determined by supply and demand for labour-power is correct, but, only because wages are a price for labour-power sold as a commodity, i.e. only so long as you accept bourgeois production relations as eternal. In the same way, its true that the best conditions for workers is when the demand for labour-power is strong, which is when capital accumulates more rapidly, but capital accumulates more rapidly when profits are high, which implies that wages are low.
The reactionary petty-bourgeois ideology of Proudhon is exposed when he says,
“A workers' strike is illegal, and it is not only the Penal Code that says so, it is the economic system, the necessity of the established order....
“That each worker individually should dispose freely over his person and his hands, this can be tolerated, but that workers should undertake by combination to do violence to monopoly, is something society cannot permit.” (p 157)
The same sentiments could be expressed by any Brexitory. In fact, Marx notes legislation only rubber stamps the actual social relations established in society. The fact that Thatcher's government could not have existed in the 1960's, and the same is true of Reagan's government, and Volcker's policies, has been mentioned. In the 1960's, Harold Wilson had to abandon the anti-union laws set out in In Place of Strife, and, in the early 1970's, Heath's government had to discover the Official Solicitor, to get the Pentonville Five out of gaol, and avoid a General Strike, against its anti-union laws. The Tories will find the same problem, as is Macron in France.
Marx notes that, in England, parliament had to repeal The Combination Acts that made unions illegal, and that was simply a reflection of reality, as it had developed under pressure of capital accumulation.
“Parliament had to modify the law in order to bring it more and more into line with the conditions resulting from free competition, it had of necessity to abolish all laws forbidding combinations of workers. The more modern industry and competition develop, the more elements there are which call forth and strengthen combination, and as soon as combination becomes an economic fact, daily gaining in solidity, it is bound before long to become a legal fact.” (p 157)
The same was seen in the 1950's, and is being seen again, now, as trades union membership and activism rises alongside increased economic activity and competition between employers for scarce labour supplies. All that Proudhon's statement about the French Penal Code showed, was the lower level of capitalist development in France.
No comments:
Post a Comment