FAIR WAGES
Never having actually seen The Big Bang Theory in prime time, I have been watching clips from past seasons on YouTube. Speaking as a Marxist conversant with the theory of capitalist exploitation, I should like to offer the opinion that the recent negotiations that won, for the stars of the show, a wage of a million dollars each per episode, resulted in a perfectly fair and reasonable settlement.
This raises an interesting question. I'm assuming under a marxist interpretation, artists are explooted in that part of the value they produce through people watching shows and films they star in is appropriated by studios. But what about other professions with no material output? Is a public school teacher exploited by the state, for example?
ReplyDeleteUse values produced with exchange values do not have to have material output in some atomic elements sense. For instance, the hostess or waitress at a restaurant do not produce the dish but instead produce an experience. And yes they are exploited as a result.
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to an excerpt of a Big Bang Theory episode that contains what I expect is the only utterance of the name "Gottlob Frege" ever on prime time TV. (The writer, I later found out, had done some graduate work in philosophy at Berkeley.)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FitG_PLO9Rg