| This question <33|37> overall <34|36> Hans: <34|40>. |
| Question 105: When Marx wrote that labor is the father and the earth the mother of use-values, should he also have included produced means of production in addition to nature and labor? |
| [35] Hans: Antonio's struggle against capitalist indoctrination. AntonioGramsci's answer to question 105 is an emphatic “no.” In his view, produced means of production should not be considered one of the basic ingredients of every production process along with labor and nature. His answer [33] reads like a sermon. It is an attack on everyone who believes that produced means of production should be included. Antonio claims that those people make elementary logical errors and are the dupes of capitalist propaganda. |
| It is easy to understand Antonio's passion. In capitalist society, produced means of production are monopolized by the capitalist class. They are not collectively owned by the workers and democratically controlled by the consumers, as they should, but privately owned by the capitalists. The capitalists use this monopoly to deprive the workers of part of the fruits of their labor. Wages are commonly considered a cost of production, rather than one of its main benefits. |
| Antonio is of the view (which I share) that capitalists are dispensable; production would go on much better without them. But Antonio overshoots when he argues, in support this view, that the produced means of production are dispensable as well. Instead of telling the capitalists “we don't need your factories” the workers should take control of production in these factories. They should show the capitalists that the capitalists are not needed and that the means of production rightfully belong to the workers. |
| In his logical arguments, AntonioGramsci makes the error of reductionism. If you go back in history thousands of years, you will indeed arrive at a state where labor and nature alone, without tools, were sufficient ingredients of production. But nowadays, stranded in the woods without tools, most of us would not even be able to start a fire. Modern production simply requires tools and factories. This is why we must expropriate the capitalists and cannot just ignore them. |
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