Nasser Paydar February 2001
Iran’s pro-democracy, petty-bourgeois, and non-proletarian Left in its struggle for the survival of its own cliques insists on clinging to the formula of “revolution vs. counter-revolution,” or obsessing over the degree to which various social tendencies are deemed “reactionary.” However, for the conscious activists of the movement to abolish wage labour, the discourse regarding the principles, criteria, and foundations of communist activity belongs to a different realm entirely. A correct Marx’s understanding of the worker, the working class, and the nationwide unity of the labouring masses ranks among these decisive and fundamental issues. This article is a modest attempt to elucidate this matter. We begin the discussion by examining the general outlines of some of Marx’s teachings in this specific domain.
The question arises: who is a worker? Is only the productive worker a worker, while anyone not engaged in productive labour is not? Is every wage-earner a worker? If so, how do we categorize the various functionaries serving capital from ministers and parliamentarians to prison guards and executioners? Is the direct production of surplus value a necessary condition for being a worker, such that anyone who does not produce surplus value is excluded from the definition? How do we define the working class, and how do we explain the material and social foundations of its nationwide unity? A multitude of other questions could be added to these questions raised by various circles, each social tendency answering them based on its own analysis of contemporary society and its specific interpretation of classes and fundamental class relations within that society. The initial outlines of Marx’s response to some of these questions can be discerned in the following passage.
“… The worker sells his labour as a simple exchange value with a pre-determined price. He exchanges his labour for a quantity of objectified labour that is, for a quantity of values objectified through his own prior labour, which serve as its calculated and defined equivalent while capital, in return, acquires living labour, the general productive force of wealth and the activity that generates wealth. It is evident that the worker cannot grow rich through this exchange; for, much like Esau who traded his birthright for a bowl of lentils he exchanges his creative power for a fixed quantity of existing values necessary to [reproduce] his capacity to work. As we shall see later, the worker actually becomes poorer in this exchange, because he places his creative labour at the service of capital a power alien to him. His entire being is transformed into labour that gradually passes into the possession of capital. Thus, the act of exchange entails the separation of labour from the ownership of its product; it entails the separation of labour from wealth.”(1)
The above phrase almost refers to the most important components of the Marx’s definition of the worker and his position in the capitalist system or in the social organization of work based on wage labour. The worker sells his labour power in the form of an exchange value whose price is predetermined. How to use this workforce is a matter that is determined later by the capitalist and only by the capitalist. In other words, the work process in the capitalist production method is the process of surplus value production. The consumption of labour with the aim of producing surplus value and self-expansion of capital is the essence of this production method, but first: all the labour that is exchanged with capital is not necessarily directly used in the production of surplus value. Second: All labour force that is bought and sold is not necessarily exchanged with capital. In explaining the process of exchange between labour and capital, Marx separates two distinct and interrelated phases. (2)
The first phase entails an exchange between capital as objectified labour on the one side, and living labour-power in the form of a commodity on the other. In this cycle of the labour process, labour-power falls under the domination of capital only formally and non-organically. Here, labour-power is sold as a commodity a commodity that has not yet been objectified or assumed a material, embodied form. A fundamental characteristic of this link in the labour process is that, upon this exchange, the capitalist appropriates all rights regarding the application and consumption of the purchased labour-power, making them their own exclusive prerogative. A second characteristic of this phase is that the exchange takes place fundamentally and essentially because the labour-power being bought and sold is required for the process of surplus-value production and the self-expansion of capital. To put it more clearly: whether the exchanged labour-power is consumed directly for the production of surplus-value or does not immediately enter this process of consumption, in either case, it represents an inevitable and pressing necessity for the process of capital valorisation. A third characteristic of this phase must also be emphasized: although labour-power is exchanged for money here, the very occurrence of this exchange transforms money into capital. Marx refers to this process up to this point, the completion of this specific cycle as the personification of the object and the materialization of the person. We will discuss this further later.
The second phase is the stage in which the capitalist directly consumes the labour power previously purchased within the production process. It is here that labour power acquires material form and transforms into a tangible, embodied commodity a commodity whose value far exceeds its purchase price. It is within this phase that the production of surplus value is realized.
While the process of surplus-value production certainly encompasses both aforementioned phases, not all labour power exchanged for capital necessarily undergoes both of them. By distinguishing between these two phases of the capitalist production process, Marx, on the one hand, clarifies with utmost precision the basis for differentiating between productive and unproductive labour and, on the other, lays bare the material and social foundation uniting the various segments of the working class. The conclusions drawn from Marx’s teachings in this specific realm and in relation to the particular subject of this article’s inquiry comprise the following fundamental points:
1. The failure to consume labour power within the direct process of surplus-value production brings about no change in the fundamental class and social existence of the bearer of that power or, in other words, no change in the reality of its owner being a worker. A human being whose labour power is a commodity regardless of whether that labour is productive or unproductive, or whether it passes through the second phase of the circuit; regardless of how that labour power is consumed in the production process or the nature of the use-value derived from its application; indeed, independent of all these factors is a person whose labour power is a requirement for the process of capital reproduction or the general process of surplus-value production. Such a person is completely stripped of any right to intervene in the manner in which this power is consumed or the sphere of its application and has been transformed into an integral part of the social formation of capital. Being deprived of any say in the utilization of their labour is the fundamental basis for their exclusion from any control over the destiny of their work and social life. Whatever the product of their labour or production may be, it belongs absolutely to capital, and the worker has no power to dispose of or alter it in any way. This defines the worker as a human being characteristic that are established and solidified within their social existence through the exchange between labour and capital. A human being whose labour power is a commodity whose proceeds from the sale of that labour power constitute the sole guarantee for the reproduction of their livelihood is, in any case, a worker and a member of the working class.
2. When discussing the exchange between objectified labour and living labour power, we must consider this objectified labour or capital in all aspects of its circulation and organization. Industrial capital determines the character of capitalist production, yet in the course of its circulation, it alternately assumes different forms. (3) A portion of the capital of any given society and, in this context, a significant share of total global capital assumes the role of merchant capital within the framework of the division of labour based on the capitalist mode of production. While this segment of social capital possesses an existence distinct from industrial capital, it emerges or exists fundamentally to facilitate the operational process of industrial capital. Merchant capital is not, in essence, productive capital; no value or surplus value is generated within its specific sphere of circulation. “Commercial capital is nothing but the capital that operates within the scope of the circulation territory. The circulation process is a period of the entire reproduction process, but in the circulation process, no value and therefore no surplus value is produced, only formal changes of the same circulation volume take place.” (4)
A relatively large part of the labour force of every society is exchanged only with commercial capital. The work of this vast population of the working class is not productive work, but first: its existence is a forced necessity of the capital reproduction process; Second: In the framework of the effects that commercial capital leaves on the speed of return or the reduction of the price of forming the fixed part of the total capital, it affects the capital’s profit rate. The large population of workers in the field of trade in small and large stores, banks, housing buying and selling companies, or other work centres related to the territory of commercial capital advance, at the same time as the workers in the fields of industry and accumulation of productive capital, sell their labour power, but do not produce surplus value. Their labour force passes the first phase of exchange but is not consumed in the production process of added value. This definitely does not cause any change in their livelihood and social reality as workers and labour force sellers.
3. A large part of the working class of any society or the entire capitalist world is made up of workers in certain economic fields and branches, who are famous for the division of common capitalist work into the “service” sector in a false and deeply deceiving way! The workers in the majority of these economic sectors are not merely sellers of their labour power; they are also direct producers of surplus value. The vast number of teachers selling their labour power to the owners of private primary schools, high schools, and universities worldwide; the multitude of nurses, nursing assistants, and other workers in extensive healthcare networks employed by private hospitals and medical centres; pharmacy workers, municipal employees in short, all those employed in private or public economic sectors where the purchase and consumption of their labour power generate profit for the owners of these institutions are all considered productive workers. The labour power of this segment of the global working class is exchanged not merely for capital in general, but specifically for productive capital; it not only reproduces the cost of its own sale but also generates surplus value. In the current capitalist landscape, what is categorized as “services” is predominantly a sphere of capital accumulation aimed at the direct consumption of labour power and the production of surplus value.
“For instance, teachers in educational institutions may simply be wage-labourers in the service of a capital owner. There is a wide variety of such educational institutions in England. While these teachers are not ‘productive labourers’ in relation to their students, they are certainly productive labourers in relation to their employer. The capitalist exchanges his capital for their labour power and accumulates capital through the process of consuming that labour power. A similar situation exists in venues such as theatres, playhouses, and the like.”(5)
4. The labour power of a vast number of the international working class is not fundamentally exchanged for capital. These workers sell their labour power yet are devoid of any say or rights regarding how that labour power is consumed or the ultimate fate of the fruits of their labour. What distinguishes them from other segments of the working class is that the process of exchanging their labour power does not transform money into capital. The labour power of these workers is exchanged not against capital, but against the income of the capitalist or the capitalist state or, conversely, against the paid labour of wage workers and consequently, it does not generate surplus value. Broadly speaking, the employment sectors and branches occupied by this vast workforce can be divided into two distinct categories based on their position and role within the capitalist social division of labour. First: sectors where the worker’s labour power is exchanged against the capitalist’s income or, more precisely, against a portion of the surplus value derived from workers’ labour that has been converted into the income of capital owners. Examples of such entities include certain, and we emphasize, only certain state-run educational, healthcare, and medical institutions, as well as municipalities, kindergartens, and nursing homes. The work performed by labourers in this sector much like that of workers in the sphere of merchant capital does not generate surplus value, yet it remains essential for the reproduction of the process of capital accumulation and valorisation. Second, there are sectors where the labour process corresponds to an exchange between labour power and the paid labour of the worker. Large numbers of workers and in some capitalist countries, even a significant portion of the working class continuously engage in various wage-based tasks such as construction, repairs, electrical work, carpentry, and cooking for other workers and ordinary people to secure their daily livelihood. Even if the work performed by this segment is productive in nature, the purchaser of their labour power is not thereby transformed into a capitalist. Nevertheless, they remain workers, precisely because their labour power is a commodity. The points above offer a brief, fragmentary summary of the Marx’s account of the concept of the worker under the sway of capitalist relations. According to these teachings, the working class comprises all these segments and strata the entire mass of those who sell their labour power within capitalist society. Yet, in Marx’s account, the objective concept and social reality of the working class are far more comprehensive, explicit, precise, and all-encompassing than this. It is not merely the actual, active sellers of labour power who constitute the working class; the entire reserve army of labour, the entire army of the unemployed, and all the family members and dependents of those who sell their labour power whose living conditions and very livelihood are secured through that sale also form integral elements of the working class. The self-confirmation of people’s position as people whose labour power is a commodity and as human beings whose livelihood and social existence depends on the sale of this power is the most obvious proof of their being workers and belonging to the working class. The seller of labour power, regardless of whether his labour is exchanged for productive capital, or for the income of capitalists, or for the paid labour of wage workers, in all these cases, he is a creature who owns nothing but his labour power. He is forced to sell this force. The purchase of his labour force by the capitalist, directly or indirectly, is a condition for increasing the value of capital. From any kind of interference in determining the type of consumption of one’s work, from the right of any interference in determining the fate of the result of one’s work, from any kind of self-expression regarding the work process, from playing any role in the discourse of the existing social order, the relationship between capital, the productive and political and civil order of capital, the intellectual and ideological, cultural, moral and social aspects of the production method of capitalism, all are in line with arbitration. They play the role of wage slavery. In a word, while capital is the result of the work of his class, as a powerful and superior material force, it rules over the whole destiny of his work and life and everything.
Marx’s definition of the concept of the worker and the worker’s class existence stemming from a profound materialist understanding of history is remarkably clear and comprehensive. The most salient, fundamental, and decisive conclusion drawn from this definition is the all-encompassing unity of the working class against the bourgeoisie and the entire capitalist mode of production. Any distortion of these teachings’ deals, first and foremost, a crushing and destructive blow to the very foundation of this class’s unity and solidarity in opposition to capital. A crucial issue here is the examination of the material bases and contexts underlying a specific class-based narrative regarding the concept of the worker a narrative that has preoccupied a vast segment of the Left for many years, right up to the present day. Iran’s “social-bourgeois” Left effectively alienates a massive portion of the working class from the reality of their status as workers and their own class identity; it does so for the specific reason that it perceives a conflict between its own desires and expectations and the prospect of the all-encompassing unity of the mass of wage-labourers as well as the political organization of a unified movement comprising all sectors of the working class around a socialist, emancipatory, and class-based alternative.
The Left that championed and defended capitalist-style democracy, the Left enamoured with nationalist anti-imperialism, the Left that fervently advocated for “unfettered capitalist growth” and “industrial independence,” and ultimately the Left that equated the realization of these antiquated utopias with democracy and democratic revolution, clearly perceived from every conceivable angle a need to curtail and diminish the working class while simultaneously requiring the existence of a monstrous entity known as the “middle class.” By resorting to every manner of distortion and theoretical inversion of reality, this Left strove to expand the material base of the “democratic revolution” while curtailing the scope and power of the working class and, above all, diminishing the content, substance, nature, and very existence of the working class’s social solution; or, to put it more precisely, seeking to completely strike that class-based solution from the agenda.
The Iranian Left’s insistence on categorizing teachers as “petty bourgeois,” denying the status of “worker” to nurses, nursing assistants, childcare workers, and laboratory technicians, and stripping millions of sellers of labour power of their working-class identity, stems from something far deeper than mere theoretical error or a lack of political insight. Theories, ideas, and beliefs do not descend to earth from the heavens; on the contrary, they originate from the material living conditions, expectations, and social existence of individuals or groups.
Nowhere in Marx’s writings is it stated that the term “worker” applies exclusively to factory workers. Marx speaks of the buying and selling of labour power as the defining characteristic of the capitalist mode of production. He discusses the two distinct phases of the exchange of labour power within this mode of production. He addresses workers whose labour power is exchanged against unproductive capital. He speaks of the vast numbers of workers who exchange their labour power not against capital, but against revenue. He discusses workers whose output consists of immaterial products. Marx regards all these individuals as workers and as members of the working class. His theories of surplus value, the distinction between productive and unproductive labour, the analysis of merchant capital in Volume III of *Capital*, and ultimately the *Grundrisse* and Volumes I and II of *Capital*, all eloquently elucidate this reality.
The bourgeois Left regards the direct production of surplus value by labour power as the indispensable condition for being a worker. According to this definition, the vast number of workers whose labour power is exchanged for merchant capital that is, capital concentrated within a specific cycle of circulation and capital organization are not workers at all! Otherwise, the intellectual representatives of the bourgeois Left would have to classify merchant capital as productive capital in the manner of Adam Smith and the labour power exchanged with it as productive labour! Smith held this view, and the consequence of his conception was the notion that the source of value creation lies not in labour, but in capital! By falling into this vortex, the Left is left with only two options: either it must strike a vast segment of the international working class off the list of workers effectively issuing them “middle-class credentials” or it must regard the labour power exchanged with merchant capital as productive labour as well! In the first instance, it must answer the following questions: If the massive workforce in retail stores, the trade sector, and similar areas are not workers, then what are they? To which social class do they belong? How are their labour power and means of subsistence reproduced? Does the capitalist class appropriate a portion of their daily labour as surplus labour, or not? And finally, on what grounds should they be considered a stratum of the middle class? In the second scenario that is, assuming the status of this segment as part of the working class is correctly acknowledged what then becomes of the definition stating that the direct production of surplus value is the condition and criterion for being a worker?
However, the scope of the democracy-seeking Left’s premises and criteria is not limited merely to expelling and purging this vast mass of workers from the class and social structure of the working class. The “social bourgeois” Left completely dismisses the class existence of all those segments of the working class whose labour power is exchanged not for capital, but for income! In this narrative, a person counts as a worker only if their labour power generates surplus value for capital and the capitalist. On this basis, the vast multitude of wage-earners in schools, hospitals, municipalities, universities, water and sewage networks, fire departments, postal and telecommunications services, municipal elderly care centres, and childcare facilities are all, by the decree of this narrative, branded as bourgeois Left! Consider the masses of Iranian teachers who, after a lifetime of selling their labour power and working under the most gruelling conditions, earn a total monthly wage of no more than $100; the hundreds of millions of municipal workers across the globe; and the hundreds of millions of wage-earners in healthcare and educational centres people who possess no commodity other than their labour power and have no means of livelihood other than selling that commodity all of them are “promoted” to the ranks of the middle class or the petty bourgeoisie. What is the point of this? As we have previously explained, discarding the working class’s socialist alternative settling scores with the movement to transform the working class’s objective reality, ridding oneself of the working masses’ independent class alternative, and subsequently erecting, upon the ruins of all this, a pro-democracy stance loyal to the order of capital and wage slavery requires precisely this sort of definition and distortion of the working class’s social existence.
Iran’s bourgeois Left does not limit itself to excluding only those segments of teachers, childcare workers, nurses, nursing assistants, and municipal workers whose labour power is exchanged for income; it also targets the counterparts of these various working-class strata in other sectors of these professions workers whose labour power directly generates surplus value. As previously noted, a vast number of workers in these fields employed in both private and even state-run capital-accumulation centres produce surplus value directly for the owners of these institutions through the sale of their labour power. For teachers, childcare workers, nurses, and nursing assistants employed by private capitalists, labour power is directly transformed into capital, generating value far exceeding the cost of that labour power itself. But these individuals are not counted as workers, and no doubt is permitted regarding their status as members of the middle class.
Those who champion the “social-bourgeois” narrative of the worker and the working class often appearing “more Catholic than the Pope” express concern that if we remove the criterion of the direct production of surplus value from the definition of a worker, then military and law enforcement forces would also qualify as workers!
A cursory Marx’s look at any part of Marx’s writings could save these devotees of “worker purity” from falling prey to such anxiety. Vast networks of repression, the machinery of the bourgeoisie’s reactionary violence, the bureaucracy, and the degenerate legal system of capitalism all have the singular task and mission of imposing the capital-driven order of production, politics, and civil life upon the working class. In the concise lines above regarding the Marxist definition of the worker, I noted that, in the process of selling their labour power, the worker is reduced to a position where the fruits of their labour manifesting as capital and the relations of wage slavery loom over their entire existence like a terrifying nightmare and a deadly monster; this fetishized, tyrannical force dominates their life and livelihood, tightening its grip on the very throat of their social existence at every moment.
“The realization of labour as the loss of reality manifests to such an extent that the worker loses his own reality to the point of starving to death. Objectification as the loss of the object manifests to such an extent that the worker is deprived of objects essential not only for his life but also for his work. In fact, labour itself becomes an object that the worker can secure only through extraordinary effort and at highly irregular intervals. The appropriation of the object in the form of alienation from it manifests to such an extent that the more objects the worker produces, the less he possesses them, and the more he falls under the sway of the product of his labour namely, capital.”(6)
If we consider the material and class-based depth of Marx’s analysis regarding the position of the worker and the working class in capitalist society, we readily perceive that the vast majority of the sprawling state apparatus including its extensive administrative hierarchies, its wide-ranging police, military, and law-enforcement networks, and its legal and judicial systems, along with all those whose very work consists of imposing wage-slavery upon the working class constitute an integral part of the capitalist class. The forces comprising this bureaucracy, military-police machinery, and the various legal, civil, planning, cultural, and social institutions are, in essence, the agents and operatives of an octopus-like apparatus dedicated to defending the existence of capitalist exploitation and the anti-human capitalist order. Those who viewing capital through a Marx’s lens understand it not merely as a quantity of money or commodities but as a social relation, and who see the capitalist not just in terms of legal ownership but as “capital personified,” quite simply recognize the position of this vast multitude within the social organization of labour as that of elements and strata of the bourgeoisie. The fact that these individuals also receive their share of the surplus value generated by the exploitation of the working class in the form of a monthly salary certainly does not alter the fundamental nature of their social existence as capitalists.
But do all individuals within the bureaucratic structure or the network of the capitalist social order belong without exception to the various strata of the bourgeoisie? The answer is no. First and foremost, let us consider that a vast number of the workforce specifically the productive workforce in any society consists of workers in the military industries. These workers who, for instance, in Iranian society up until the early 1970s even wore military uniforms and were distinguished by military hierarchies differed in no way from other segments of the international working class. They are exploited just as much as other strata of the working class. The extent of the disenfranchisement, oppression, and abuses they suffer at the hands of the capitalist system is no less than that experienced by other workers; furthermore, the surplus value generated by the exploitation of their labour accounts for a massive portion of global capitalist profits.
Beyond this, a number of the lower-level functionaries within the bureaucracy of capital are individuals drawn into this sphere solely by the need to sell their labour power; they work under the pressure of necessity and compulsion, aiming merely to secure their daily livelihood. Possessing no assets other than their own labour power, their approach to this employment is dictated by the dominion capital holds over workers’ lives shaping both their choice of work and their way of living. Like other segments of the workforce, they are dissatisfied even resentful regarding their working conditions. Depending on their level of understanding, awareness, and political consciousness, they align themselves with those protesting the system; typically, as soon as the first signs of a rising protest movement among working-class and downtrodden people appear in any country, they join forces with it. Yet, the global “social bourgeois” Left often feels apprehensive or even ashamed to classify this group as workers! The reason for this is not particularly obscure. The romanticizing “social Left” traditionally seeks sanctity and reverence not in the struggle against wage labour or in the quest to abolish class divisions and the condition of human wage-slavery but rather in a state of purity, moral rectitude, and the “authentic” essence of the worker. One should not be surprised to learn that, from this ideological perspective, the sanctification of the worker is inextricably linked to the sanctification of wage-slavery relations itself! From the perspective of this leftist spectrum, it is inconceivable that a worker would be a fascist, a racist, an anti-communist, a pawn of capital, or an agent implementing capitalist barbarism!
Social romanticism fails to examine the capitalist mode of production, the concept of labour power as a commodity within this system, and the role these relations play in stripping individuals of any free choice regarding their life interests and desires. Instead, it relies on criteria such as the mere presence or absence of individuals in the direct process of surplus-value production, the nature of the work (good vs. bad, honourable vs. dishonourable), and the like, to distinguish between workers and non-workers.
I dedicate the concluding lines of this piece to a brief reminder regarding another important point in this discussion. While some rightly emphasize that intellectual workers belong to the global working class, they often base their arguments primarily on the technological transformations of the capitalist world and the expansion of intellectual jobs relative to manual labour. What must be clarified and emphasized here is that the inclusion of intellectual workers within the working class cannot and should not be inferred merely from the computerization of production and its consequences in recent decades. The reality is that, even from the early stages of the establishment of the capitalist mode of production, a significant portion of workers across various spheres of labour and production held intellectual roles. In many instances, their labour power was consumed directly within the production process and served as a source of surplus-value generation. The fact that this sector consists of workers and, specifically, productive workers are explicitly emphasized throughout Marx’s teachings.
“It is certainly a distinctive feature of the capitalist mode of production that it differentiates between various types of mental and manual labour or a combination of the two and distributes them among individuals. But this in no way contradicts the fact that the material product is the result of the collective labour of all these individuals. In other words, it is the product of their combined labour that has been transformed into material wealth and capital. Just as in their relationship to capital, all these individuals are wage labourers and in the true sense of the word productive labourers. Not only do they participate directly in production, but they also exchange their labour directly for capital; through their labour, they produce not only their own wages but also surplus value.”(7)
February 2001
References:
1. Marx, *Grundrisse*, Persian translation, Vol. 1, p. 272;
2. Marx, *Theories of Surplus-Value*, section on productive and unproductive labour;
3. Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 2, Persian translation, p. 59;
4. *Capital*, Persian translation, Vol. 3, Part 4;
5. *Theories of Surplus-Value*, productive and unproductive labour;
6. *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts*, Persian translation, p. 126;
7. *Theories of Surplus-Value*, productive and unproductive labour.