Download Education and Social Justice within the Social Universe of Capital

Education and Social Justice within
the Social Universe of Capital
Glenn Rikowski
Senior Research Fellow in Lifelong Learning, Faculty of Education,
University of Central England, Birmingham, UK
Paper presented at the BERA day seminar on "Approaching Social Justice in Education:
Theoretical Frameworks for Practical Purposes", Faculty of Education, Nottingham Trent
University, 10th April, 2000
(1)
We are all equal. There is no problem of social justice. But this is only so on the
basis of exchange-value. My labour will exchange in definite proportions to that
of Nicola Horlick’s and other sharp City operators. Yours is equal to that of the
£30 million worth of footballer’s labour of Christian Vieri; again, in a definite
proportion. However, Vieri’s labour-time expressed as a price (his wage) is likely
to be much more valuable than yours is; a minute of his labour-time (even when
his training is taken into account) will buy far more (when converted into money
wages) than a minute of your (or my own) labour.
(2)
The social substance of the social universe of capital is value: capital is value-inmotion (Kay and Mott, 1982, p.8)1. In this social universe, all phenomena assume
particular social forms. Therefore, the key question is not what ‘social justice’
means but what form it takes on in capitalist society and this short paper pursues
this question. This involves providing an outline of the form of social justice that
is socially validated within the social universe of capital. In the scenario outlined
above, massive inequality rests upon the social form of equality (and hence
social justice) incorporated within the social universe of capital.
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(3)
The formal equality of labour established through exchange-value is the basis of
the only form of social justice that is socially validated on the basis of capital.
However, the struggle for social justice on the basis of equality of labour (that
resolves itself into equalisation of labour-power, capacity to labour) runs counter
to the form of social justice validated by capital. It is necessarily subversive. If
this is correct, then it becomes possible to show how the struggle (by workers,
ethnic minorities, women, gays and lesbians, etc.) for social justice on the basis
of labour-power equalisation clashes against (negates) itself as the only form of
social justice generated by capital through exchange-value.
(4)
Education and training (through the social production of labour-power) play a
critical role in establishing capital’s formal equality of labour-powers (and of
labourers). Demonstrating this also uncovers the limitations of education and
training (as elements within the social production of labour-power)2 for creating
socially equal forms of labour, and hence labourers as social equals. These
limitations arise from the fact that institutions of education and training are
important, but not the only, elements involved in the social production of labourpower in contemporary capitalist society. The social production of labour-power
in capitalist society also includes the development of labour-powers arising from
activity within the labour process itself – and this is not susceptible to
equalisation, as labour in capitalism presupposes ‘flexibility’ of expression.
However, this perspective does yield a positive outcome for approaching social
justice in education. It generates entitlement based on equality of labour-time and
quality of inputs into labour-power formation. Of course, this entitlement does not
assume that all education and training is about labour-power enhancement, but
merely that insofar as it is then individuals receive equality of labour-time inputs
(from teachers, trainers and others practically involved in the social production of
labour-power) and equal quality of inputs.
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(5)
Without application of the entitlement principle, social justice within capitalist
education and training becomes a farce as humans are differentially valorised their labour-powers are socially designated as incorporating different values. This
is the practical outcome of differential inputs into the formation of individual
labour-powers,
and
this
may
also
generate
differences
(systemic
or
unsystematic) between social groups (e.g. males and females). However,
attempts to equalise labour-powers (and hence the labourers who own their
labour-powers) ex post facto result in situations of inequality and unfairness. For
example, if people with different labour-power values are paid the same rate for
their labour, then this becomes a situation of gross unfairness on the basis of the
form of social justice validated by capital. The entitlement to equality of labourpower development looms as partial resolution: as labour-powers of equal value
are of equal worth in the social universe of capital.
(6)
Turning the previous argument on its head, the struggle for equality in education
and training on the basis of equality of valorisation of labour-powers, challenges
capital’s social power. This is because the inequalities of labour-power quality
generated within the capitalist labour process require re-equalisation to the
socially average level in order to attain the equalisation of labour-power values
that is the foundation of social justice in capitalism. As individual capitals are
responsible for generating these inequalities, then they are responsible for reengineering labour-power equality. Thus: capitalist enterprises are responsible
for providing compensatory education and training in order to equalise labourpower values. As this process has indeterminate effects regarding surplus-value
creation, which is the basis of capitalist profit, it is unlikely that, in practice,
representatives of capital (employers) would pick up the tab.
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(7)
Whether representatives of capital or the state-form finance labour-power
equalisation is beside the point. There is no inherent drive for equalisation of
labour-power values within capitalist society. Quite the opposite: the social drive
to increase labour-power quality is infinite. This can be illustrated through
examples,3 and also through exploring the notion of a social drive of capital
(Rikowski, 2000). The practical expression of the infinite social drive to enhance
labour-power quality necessarily creates inequality of labour-power values, and
this constantly undermines any practical attempts at labour-power equalisation.
Again, the practical considerations involved also miss the point. The infinite drive
to enhance labour-power quality negates equalisation of the value of labourpowers. The latter has no theoretical – let alone practical – mode of existence. It
is shattered and fragmented by the former, a priori. More importantly, what this
indicates, is that the form of social justice validated by capitalist relations of
production cannot logically (let alone practically) be expressed. Social justice on
the basis of capital exists only in the form of a mode of social life denied. The
concept of ‘mode of existence (or being) denied’ (as in Gunn, 1992, 1994)
typically reveals a duality of life within the social universe of capital, where one
side of the duality points towards life beyond the realm of capital. This
revolutionary moment is denied (it becomes unsustainable) on the basis of the
form of life within the social universe of capital. In the argument developed here,
social justice is opened up on the basis of exchange-value and the equalisation
of labour-powers, only to be closed down on the basis of capital’s social drive
(expressed as an infinitude) to enhance labour-power quality – thereby
generating inequalities of labour-power values. On this analysis therefore, social
justice is impossible in capitalist society. Social justice in capitalist society is the
struggle for social justice itself: the struggle to make it real, when only its virtual
existence is possible within the social universe of capital.
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(8)
The opening up of social justice on the basis of exchange-value and the
equalisation of labour-powers is nevertheless significant. The uncovering of the
form that social justice takes in capitalist society is an indicator of a suppressed
form of sustainable life: communism. The struggle for social justice is therefore
simultaneously the struggle to liberate a form of social life – communism – where
social justice can take on a real (as opposed to virtual) existence. The
inequalities generated by: the infinite social drive to enhance labour-power; the
deviation of the price of labour (expressed in paid money wages) from the value
of labour-power (the wage as outcome of socially necessary labour); and, finally,
the vast inequality of money rewards for labour these processes entail –
collectively provide the spark to seek practical solutions to gross social
inequalities. Those at the sharp end of this process, and in the UK increasingly
many more as labour reward inequalities increase, may be angered to the point
of anti-capitalist action by this situation.
(9)
Social justice is a latent social form within capitalist society that cannot attain real
existence. As sustainable social justice is impossible on the basis of capitalist
social forms, the drive to create social justice in capitalist society – fired by the
anger of shocking social inequality – pushes at the boundaries of capitalist social
relations, and against the limits of capital itself. The struggle for social justice in
capitalist society is, therefore, an aspect of a struggle for a form of life where
social justice is possible: communism. Communism is ‘… not a state of affairs
which is to be established … [but is] … the real movement which abolishes the
present state of things’ (Marx and Engels, 1846, p.57 - original emphases).
Struggles for educational and labour market equality are necessarily linked to the
struggle against the social force that oppresses us all: capital. There are not two
separate struggles: one form of struggle against inequalities within capitalism, on
the one hand; and, then against capital itself - as a social force flowing through
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social relations - on the other. There is only one fight, but the enemy - capital - is
everywhere; we exist within its social universe, after all. There is no hiding place;
it is even within us as alien social force (Rikowski, 1999a-b). There are no
‘externalities’ involved, and hence there is no ‘inside’ either. Capital as the
expansion of value increasingly becomes all that there is – on an historically
progressive scale within its own social universe. Capital deepens as social force
within its own universe at the same time as the substance of this universe (value)
expands (Rikowski, 1999b).
(10)
Fortunately, the flow of capital as social force into the ‘human’ does not close off
history by the eradication of ‘humanity’. As the ‘human’ progressively morphs into
a form of capital, human capital, the contradictions of capital are also
incorporated within ‘humans’. Thus, although we are, and continue to become,
capital on a progressive scale, our awareness of ourselves as capital increases.
Furthermore, we are driven to attempt to solve the contradictions incorporated
within ourselves as forms of capital. We are driven to address contradictions of
everyday life thrown up by capitalist social forms materialised in concrete
institutions and organisations. This makes the social universe of capital an
unsafe place – for capital itself.
(11)
The struggle for social justice in capitalist society is an aspect of trying to make
sense of our predicament. In attempts to transform social justice from something
virtual into a real possibility, in trying to ground principles of social life on a
rational basis in a mad world, we start to put the social universe of capital at risk.
Its fragility is exposed. Our hopes for social justice depend upon us uncovering
the weaknesses of capital within its (the only apparent) social universe
(Holloway, 1995). On the basis of these insights, collective mobilisation against
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capital at precisely those weak spots maximises the likelihood of success for
dissolving the social universe of capital.
Notes
1. The concept of ‘the social universe of capital’ is explained in and expanded on in Neary and
Rikowski (2000), available on request.
2. The social production of labour-power in capitalism is uncovered and outlined by Rikowski
(1990, 1999b).
3. These examples are outlined in Rikowski (2000), which is available on request.
References
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Glenn Rikowski
Faculty of Education, University of Central England
10th April 2000
[email protected] and [email protected]
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