C= c + v
C1 = c + v + s
“…it is mere tautology to say, that the excess of the value of the product over the value of its
constituent elements, is equal to the expansion of the capital advanced or to the surplus-value
produced.”
“…by constant capital advanced for the production of value, we always mean, unless the context is repugnant thereto, the value of the means of production actually consumed in the process, and that value alone.”
“Therefore in order that our investigation may lead to accurate results, we must make abstraction from that portion of the value of the product, in which constant capital alone appears, and consequently must equate the constant capital to zero or make c = 0. This is merely an application of a mathematical rule, employed whenever we operate with constant and variable magnitudes, related to each other by the symbols of addition and subtraction only.”
[If the height of a tree is C1 and c the previous height, v is the growth of the tree. If we set c to 0, we see the height of the tree is equal to the growth of the tree.]
“If, therefore, such expressions as ‘£90 variable capital,’ or ‘so much self-expanding value,’ appear contradictory, this is only because they bring to the surface a contradiction immanent in capitalist production.
If we look at the means of production, in their relation to the creation of value, and to the variation in the quantity of value, apart from anything else, they appear simply as the material in which labour-power, the value-creator, incorporates itself.
This relative increase in the value of the variable capital, or the relative magnitude of the surplus-value, I call, ‘The rate of surplus-value.’
Marx Divides the Working Day (and Night)
That portion of the working day, then, during which this reproduction [production of necessities or equal value of the necessities of the laborer] takes place, I call “necessary” labour time, and the labour expended during that time I call “necessary” labour.5 Necessary, as regards the labourer, because independent of the particular social form of his labour; necessary, as regards capital, and the world of capitalists, because on the continued existence of the labourer depends their existence also.
During the second period of the labour-process, that in which his labour is no longer necessary
labour, the workman, it is true, labours, expends labour-power; but his labour, being no longer
necessary labour, he creates no value for himself. He creates surplus-value which, for the
capitalist, has all the charms of a creation out of nothing. This portion of the working day, I name
surplus labour-time, and to the labour expended during that time, I give the name of surplus
labour. He creates surplus-value which, for the capitalist, has all the charms of a creation out of nothing. This portion of the working day, I name surplus labour-time, and to the labour expended during that time, I give the name of surplus labour.
It is every bit as important, for a correct understanding of surplus-value, to conceive it as a mere congelation of surplus labour-time, as nothing but materialised surplus labour, as it is, for a proper comprehension of value, to conceive it as a mere congelation of so many hours of labour, as nothing but materialised labour. The essential difference between the various economic forms of society, between, for instance, a society based on slave-labour, and one based on wage-labour, lies only in the mode in which this surplus labour is in each case extracted from the actual producer, the labourer.
Although, in the case we have supposed, we are ignorant of the actual length of the working day, and of the duration in days or weeks of the labour-process, as also of the number of labourers employed, yet the rate of surplus-value s/v accurately discloses to us, by means of its equivalent expression, surplus labour/necessary labour the relation between the two parts of the working day.
It is also a perfectly correct method: being in fact the first method given above with this difference, that
instead of being applied to space, in which the different parts of the completed product lie side by side, it deals with time, in which those parts are successively produced. But it can also be accompanied by very barbarian notions, more especially in the heads of those who are as much interested, practically, in the process of making value beget value, as they are in misunderstanding that process theoretically.
Senior invented the battle cry of the “last hour” in 1836. In the London Economist of the 15th
April, 1848, the same cry was again raised by James Wilson, an economic mandarin of high
standing: this time in opposition to the 10 hours’ bill.
[The WSWS raises the same bourgeois battle cry, in suppressed form, by arguing that the extra hour of labor produced by the end of the lock-down contains within it the “last hour” of profit taken from the capitalists by the lock-down. In fact, the lock-down itself does not eliminate surplus-value, as evidenced by the increased wealth of the world’s richest people. The surplus-value occurs during the exchange or as the condition of capitalist society as a society rooted in class division and only appears when the work-hours are laid side by side for observation or the day’s products are laid side by side.]
Just as the rate of surplus-value is determined by its relation, not to the sum total of the capital, but to its variable part; in like manner, the relative quantity of surplus-produce is determined by the ratio that this produce bears, not to the remaining part of the total product, but to that part of it in which is incorporated the necessary labour.
Since the production of surplus-value is the chief end and aim of capitalist production, it is clear, that the greatness of a man’s or a nation’s wealth should be measured, not by the absolute quantity produced, but by the relative magnitude of the surplus-produce.
Ch. 9 footnotes:
Creation of value is transformation of labour-power into labour. Labour-power itself is energy transferred to a human organism by means of nourishing matter.
Although the rate of surplus-value is an exact expression for the degree of exploitation of labour-power, it is, in no sense, an expression for the absolute amount of exploitation. For example, if the necessary labour = 5 hours and the surplus labour = 5 hours, the degree of exploitation is 100%. The amount of exploitation is here measured by 5 hours. If, on the other hand, the necessary labour = 6 hours and the surplus labour = 6 hours, the degree of exploitation remains, as before, 100%, while the actual amount of exploitation has increased 20%, namely from five hours to six.
One year previously, in his “Outlines of Political Economy,” written for the instruction of Oxford students and cultivated Philistines, he had also “discovered, in opposition to Ricardo’s determination of value by labour, that profit is derived from the labour of the capitalist, and interest from his asceticism, in other words, from his abstinence.”
One fine morning, in the year 1836, Nassau W. Senior, who may be called the bel-esprit of English economists, well known, alike for his economic “science,” and for his beautiful style, was summoned from Oxford to Manchester, to learn in the latter place, the Political Economy that he taught in the former. The manufacturers elected him as their champion, not only against the newly passed Factory Act, but against the still more menacing Ten-hours’ agitation.
“To an individual with a capital of £20,000, whose profits were £2,000 per annum, it would be a matter quite indifferent whether his capital would employ a 100 or 1,000 men, whether the commodity produced sold for £10,000 or £20,000, provided, in all cases, his profit were not diminished below £2,000. Is not the real interest of the nation similar? Provided its net real income, its rent and profits, be the same, it is of no importance whether the nation consists of 10 or of 12 millions of inhabitants.”
(Ric. l.c.,.p. 416.)
Chapter 10:
Section 1:
But capital has one single life impulse, the tendency to create value and surplus-value, to make its constant factor, the means of production, absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus labour.3 Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him.4
[Taken out of context, this seems to imply that the lock-down goes against capitalist interests. That would lead to the conclusion that the end of the lock-down would provide greater profits. However, the capitalist only seeks to lengthen the working day, ceterus parabus, at constant wages, not to employ more labor in the production process. It seeks to suck labor living labor by increasing the BC part of the working day, the surplus labor. A lockdown does not prevent the capitalist from purchasing labor power and consuming it along with the constant factor, the means of production, taken to mean, as Marx specifically states, the means of production consumed during the labor process. Ending the lockdown, hiring more workers, would not extend the BC part of the day but add more AB parts to more working days without actually affecting the ratio of BC to AB. It would not increase the surplus labor as a percentage of the working day and therefore would not in itself satisfy the vampire soul of capital. This argument is in line with all the information provided in Chapter 9. The return to work has less to do with increasing production than increasing death and suffering so as to reinforce the privileges of the ruling class.]
If the labourer consumes his disposable time for himself, he robs the capitalist.5
[This seems to imply, as well, that idled labor will spend more disposable time on himself. Idled labor, however, does not work and does not count into this model of the laborer. The laborer must work at the very least the AB part of the day to be considered a laborer.]
“Hence is it that in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working day, presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e., the working-class.”
Section 2:
Corvee: Requisitioned labor, dating back to Roman times, construction of roads and work on landlord estates, a tax on labor.
“The labour of the free peasants on their common land was transformed into corvée for the thieves of the common land. This corvée soon developed into a servile relationship existing in point of fact, not in point of law, until Russia, the liberator of the world, made it legal under presence of abolishing serfdom. The code of the corvée, which the Russian General Kisseleff proclaimed in 1831, was of course dictated by the Boyards themselves. Thus Russia conquered with one blow the magnates of the Danubian provinces, and the applause of liberal cretins throughout Europe.” P. 165
Section 3:
“Mary Anne Walkley had worked without intermission for 26½ hours, with 60 other girls, 30 in one room, that only afforded 1/3 of the cubic feet of air required for them. At night, they slept in pairs in one of the stifling holes into which the bedroom was divided by partitions of board. And this was one of the best millinery establishments in London. Mary Anne Walkley fell ill on the Friday, died on Sunday, without, to the astonishment of Madame Elise, having previously completed the work in hand.” P.174
Section 4:
“Constant capital, the means of production, considered from the standpoint of the creation of surplus-value, only exist to absorb labour, and with every drop of labour a proportional quantity of surplus labour. While they fail to do this, their mere existence causes a relative loss to the capitalist, for they represent during the time they lie fallow, a useless advance of capital. And this loss becomes positive and absolute as soon as the intermission of their employment necessitates additional outlay at the recommencement of work.” P. 175
[The potential loss from the means of production lying fallow forces it to absorb more labor. This refers to the night shift. The furnaces should not cool and reheat but stay hot. The constant capital attracts labor even while fallow, and what it does not absorb it gathers around itself. This puts downward pressure on wages, assisting in the extraction of surplus value even while idle. The need to absorb forces a return to work in order to satisfy constant capital. Absent a return to work, however, the extraction of profit will still continue apace due to the mere attraction without absorption of labor by capital. All the time lost during a fallow period can be recouped through the excess of labor produced. This means that fixed capital idled only transfers its power to variable capital, raising the proportion of surplus labor, and potentially increasing the rate of profit for a time. This matches the observations noted during the pandemic lockdown: decreased use of capital, increased profits accomplished through exchange rather than production, an increase in the power of variable capital to extract surplus value.
What is described in the quote above is merely the general tendency to employ capital on a 24 hour basis and introduce shifts to the working day. There is a general tendency towards a return to work, but this does not mean that a return to work is always a maximization of profit. “Relative loss” from idleness refers to a loss in relation to the non-existence of that capital, and not in relation to the reactivation of capital. Loss becomes “positive and absolute” due to “additional outlays” at “recommencement of work.” In other words, if less capital existed, gains would increase, but a particular reactivation may in many cases decrease profits.]
Descriptions of suffering labor.
Section 5:
“In 1852, when Louis Bonaparte sought to secure his position with the bourgeoisie by tampering with
the legal working day, the French working people cried out with one voice ‘the law that limits the
working day to 12 hours is the one good that has remained to us of the legislation of the
Republic!’” P. 184
“The ‘House of Terror’ for paupers of which the capitalistic soul of 1770 only dreamed, was realised a few years later in the shape of a gigantic ‘Workhouse’ for the industrial worker himself. It is called the Factory. And the ideal this time fades before the reality.” P. 184
London Physicians: Suffering from factory labor a health emergency
Section 6:
- chartists arrested
- tribunal of capitalists over capitalists
- extortion, slaughtered children like russian elk
- civil war of half a century, pharisees, science
- night and day talmudic
Ch. 11:
Let the mass of the surplus-value be S, the surplus-value supplied by the individual labourer in
P. 213
the average day s the variable capital daily advanced in the purchase of one individual labour-
power v, the sum total of the variable capital V, the value of an average labour-power P, its
degree of exploitation (a’/a) (surplus labour/necessary-labour) and the number of labourers
employed n; we would have:
S = { (s/v) × V
P × (a’/a) × n
It is always supposed, not only that the value of an average labour-power is constant, but that the labourers employed by a capitalist are reduced to average labourers. There are exceptional cases in which the surplus-value produced does not increase in proportion to the number of labourers exploited, but then the value of the labour-power does not remain constant.
If the limit of the working day is given, and also the limit of its necessary constituent, the mass of value and surplus-value that an individual capitalist produces, is clearly exclusively dependent on the mass of labour that he sets in motion. But this, under the conditions supposed above, depends on the mass of labour-power, or the number of labourers whom he exploits, and this number in its turn is determined by the amount of the variable capital advanced. With a given rate of surplus-value, and a given value of labour-power, therefore, the masses of surplus-value produced vary directly as the amounts of the variable capitals advanced.
P. 214-215
Classical economy, although not formulating the law, holds instinctively to it, because it is a necessary consequence of the general law of value. It tries to rescue the law from collision with contradictory phenomena by a violent abstraction. It will be seen later2 how the school of Ricardo has come to grief over this stumbling block. Vulgar economy which, indeed, “has really learnt nothing,” here as everywhere sVulgar economy which, indeed, “has really learnt nothing,” here as everywhere sticks to appearances in opposition to the law which regulates and explains them. In opposition to Spinoza, it believes that “ignorance is a sufficient reason.” them. In opposition to Spinoza, it believes that “ignorance is a sufficient reason.” [Bold Added]
P. 215
But in whatever proportion a given capital breaks up into a constant and a variable part, whether the latter is to the former as 1:2 or 1:10 or 1:x, the law just laid down is not affected by this. For, according to our previous analysis, the value of the constant capital reappears in the value of the product, but does not enter into the newly produced value, the newly created value product. To employ 1,000 spinners, more raw material, spindles, &c., are, of course, required, than to employ 100. The value of these additional means of production however may rise, fall, remain unaltered, be large or small; it has no influence on the process of creation of surplus-value by means of the labour-powers that put them in motion. The law demonstrated above now, therefore, takes this form: the masses of value and of surplus-value produced by different capitals – the value of labour-power being given and its degree of exploitation being equal – vary directly as the amounts of the variable constituents of these capitals, i.e., as their constituents transformed into living labour-power.
P. 215
The pandemic gave rise to the WSWS argument against Marx that constant capital, not variable capital, determines the rate of exploitation, the rate of profit, in ¨the newly produced value.¨ As Marx explains, constant capital enters into the value of the product, but not the newly created value. Within this context, they argued that a lockdown would reduce profits for the capitalist, and the capitalist state only wanted to increase production to increase profit. They could believe this because, “ignorance is a sufficient reason,” but for the Marxist movement, this ignorance is a threat to be removed by force. The WSWS vulgar economist, ¨sticks to appearances in opposition to the law which regulates and explains…¨ The real reason for the quick end to lock downs, was not individual drive for profit through production. As Marx shows, the constant capital, the idled machines, have no effect on the actual accumulation of surplus value. Only the variable capital, the capital spent on hiring workers, can increase the rate of surplus value. The workers employed by the capitalist have already signed over their labor power, and in the lock-down do not suddenly earn wages elsewhere. Their labor power has gone over to the capitalist, along with their labor. This means that the capitalist can simply spend the higher sum on the workers and add this new cost on to the new price. The rate of exploitation held equal will produce more profit for greater amounts of capital under the pandemic, regardless of the percent of total fixed capital used.
Also, what happens to the rate of exploitation? The WSWS assumes that a lockdown is government intervention and therefore it produces a gain for the workers. This ignores all Marxist theory on the nature of the state, which, Marxists argue, does not intervene on behalf of the workers but on behalf of the capitalists. The rate of exploitation will increase, according to Marxist theory, and decrease according to WSWS theory. What actually happened? Profits increased despite a reduction in production. The WSWS failed in its revision of Marxism.
Why does exploitation increase as a result of this government intervention? We must ask, “What labor-power do the capitalists gain in the situation?” Not even what’s lost in the workday, but all the lost life due to increased illness and death resulting from exposure to the pandemic, all that labor power goes to paying the capitalist through a higher rate of exploitation. A capitalist sitting on 1000 shirts and selling 10 shirts a day will sell out his supply in 100 days. He can produce another 1000 shirts in one day, on day 100, by spending the variable capital. Or he can produce 10 shirts a day to maintain a balance between production and sales. If making 1000 shirts leads to 1 death on average, but to 10 deaths during the pandemic, the capitalist will earn 10 times as much as before, since he pays approximately the same wage but receives far more labor power in return. The lockdown does not reduce this rate of exploitation for two reasons. The lockdown itself does not reduce the higher rate of exploitation for two reasons. Only ending the pandemic can end the higher rate, but the lockdown alone does not guarantee this. Also, temporarily stopping work on production does not end the process of production. More costumers will wait on waiting lists, buy substitutes, and spend on supplies in inventories during stops in production. Shortages and rises in price for substitute goods will lead to higher prices, and these higher prices represent the greater danger, the greater cost, the greater labor power then, that is inherent in bringing goods to the market.
To this West of Scotland bourgeois brain, inheriting the accumulated capitalistic qualities of
P. 217
“four generations,” the value of the means of production, spindles, &c., is so inseparably mixed
up with their property, as capital, to expand their own value, and to swallow up daily a definite
quantity of the unpaid labour of others, that the head of the firm of Carlile & Co. actually
imagines that if he sells his factory, not only will the value of the spindles be paid to him, but, in
addition, their power of annexing surplus-value, not only the labour which is embodied in them,
and is necessary to the production of spindles of this kind, but also the surplus labour which they
help to pump out daily from the brave Scots of Paisley, and for that very reason he thinks that
with the shortening of the working day by 2 hours, the selling-price of 12 spinning machines
dwindles to that of 10!
In this final paragraph, Marx smashes the WSWS theory to pieces, arguing it comes from a “bourgeois brain” that inherited four generations of capitalistic qualities. The WSWS argues that a lockdown, like a shortened working day, will take money away from the capitalists. In fact, the lockdown does not have the same effect, since the Carlile & Co. argument does not take into consideration that the price of the productive assets only includes the labor embodied in them, “necessary to the production of spindles of this kind.” A change in the work day will not reduce the amount of labor embodied in those machines any more than a lockdown. The capitalist, the bourgeois brain, no different from the WSWS and the Nanobureaucratic brain, confuses these issues since his survival is at stake as a member of the ruling class or as part of the nanobureaucracy that defends the ruling class from within the revolutionary movement. The lockdown keeps the price of factories the same despite reducing their use. They can always increase their use later, on a different day or after the lockdown; their amortization extends over a longer period, raising their price; and their price will always be determined by the labor that went into producing those machines when they were created.
Ch. 12
Malthus- “The price of the necessaries of life is, in fact, the cost of producing labour.” (Footnote 1)
“Granted this, it follows that the labour-time necessary for the production of labour-power, or for the reproduction of its value, cannot be lessened by a fall in the labourer’s wages below the value of his labour-power, but only by a fall in this value itself. Given the length of the working day, the prolongation of the surplus labour must of necessity originate in the curtailment of the necessary labour-time; the latter cannot arise from the former.” P. 221
Shortening the amount needed to reproduce labor.
I call relative surplus value.
it is not our motive, heavenly bodies
this augmentation
created during the working day, intensified
Ch. 13
Managers, superintendent, a special form of wage labor
lords of capital, judge, nobility
endowed by nature
preconceived
leader of industry
starting point
Part. 4. Ch. 14 Sec. 1
Manufacturing carriages- all in one place
Manufacturing cloth- various places, more independent
labor power becomes organ of specific part of production process.
Ch. 14 Sec. 2 detail labor and his instruments
Egyptian system, heriditary, no meddling with affair of state, no multiple trades
other countries> “tradesmen divide their attention between too many objects”
“animal spirits,” “recreation and delight”, any change in activity
differentiation of labor leads to differentiation of tools
the more specific the work adapted for, the more its shape must match its purpose
Sec. 3 Heterogenous vs. Serial manufacture
Watchmakers, many jobs from 1
“it is clear… no more than the necessary time…”
ideal division of labor produces at lowest cost, only multiples of same proportion will produce at the same rate, every change in proportions will go slower
division of labor vs. machinary
machinary-=> science of mechanics
labor categorized once tasks divided
speciality of the absence of all development… skilled and unskilled
Sec. 4
social division of labor – basis of commodity production, family, species, particular v. division of labor in manufacturing
tying down of labor to particular tasks develops from opposite points:
incipient loosening of tribal connections -> families, physiological difference, meetings between families and tribes the beginning of exchange of commodities based on distinct products never produced by the other group, spontaneous differences
gradually converted to commodities
dependent -> independent, independent -> dependent, the different types of work develop out of a single task, but also different independent products through exchange make others dependent
exchange does not create the differences, converts independent to interdependent
stuart mill quoted heavily by malthus
the whole of economic history the movement of this antithesis, we pass it over…
quote from mill, multiplied by the effects of the division of labor
means of communication = greater density of population, regardless of actual density
Differentiation must reach a certain point for capitalism to begin, and the tools of labor become more and more differentiated as industries develop.
new independent industries form out of parts of processes when one process is seized upon for profit.
ferguson, master of adam smith: specialization, a nation of helots
social division of labor vs. division of labor on the shop floor, manufacture
is there a difference?
cattle breader, leather maker, show maker, different places one product – vs. shop floor all in one place, all for one product
division not obvious, too many people to gather together- all observable with the eye at once
all tied together producing commodities – detail laborer, does not produce commodities, goods for exchange
can keep some of the product – cannot keep any of the product, no natural reward for individual
dispersion of ownership of means of production among independent producers – means of production all united in the hands of one capitalist
chance determines the number of workers producing each product – the number of workers involved in each process carefully determined
equilibrium reached through reaction to shocks, nature imposed – absolute authority of capitalist over men, who are just parts of a process that belongs to him
¨that same bourgeois mind… praises increased productivity but fights against social planning and regulating as an inroad against private property.¨ general organization of labor in society would lead to society as one immense factory.
social division of labor creates rules which lead to a reaction to the factory system.
ancient indian communities: common ownership of land, blending of agriculture and handicraft, production for use by the community, new communities form as new seperate wholes. only commodities are from surplus, usually only given to the state.
organization appears like natural law, evolution and dissolution of states, new states, etc. but unchangeable society.
guilds vs. merchants
guilds controlled production, repelled merchant commidities – merchants could not buy labor
guilds limited in number of apprentices, journeyman to prevent them from becoming capitalists
guilds could only employ journeyman in their own craft and could not allow division of labor in the workshops
the principal basis of manufacture: seperation of laborer from his means of production
division of labor in the workshop is part of capitalist production alone.
Ch. 14 Sec. 5
¨The quantity of [raw material] consumed in a given time, by a given amount of labour, increases in the same ratio as does the productive power of that labour in consequence of its division. Hence,it is a law, based on the very nature of manufacture, that the minimum amount of capital, which is bound to be in the hands of each capitalist, must keep increasing; in other words, that the transformation into capital of the social means of production and subsistence must keep extending.¨
P. 248
While simple co-operation leaves the mode of working by the individual for the most part unchanged, manufacture thoroughly revolutionises it, and seizes labour-power by its very roots. It converts the labourer into a crippled monstrosity, by forcing his detail dexterity at the expense of a world of productive capabilities and instincts; just as in the States of La Plata they butcher a whole beast for the sake of his hide or his tallow. Not only is the detail work distributed to the different individuals, but the individual himself is made the automatic motor of a fractional operation,40 and the absurd fable of Menenius Agrippa, which makes man a mere fragment of his own body, becomes realised.41 If, at first, the workman sells his labour-power to capital, because the material means of producing a commodity fail him, now his very labour-power refuses its services unless it has been sold to capital. Its functions can be exercised only in an environment that exists in the workshop of the capitalist after the sale. By nature unfitted to make anything independently, the manufacturing labourer develops productive activity as a mere appendage of the capitalist’s workshop.42 As the chosen people bore in their features the sign manual of Jehovah, so division of labour brands the manufacturing workman as the property of capital.
P. 248-249
Intelligence in production expands in one direction, because it vanishes in many others. What is lost by the detail labourers, is concentrated in the capital that employs them.43 It is a result of the division of labour in manufactures, that the labourer is brought face to face with the intellectual potencies of the material process of production, as the property of another, and as a ruling power. This separation begins in simple co-operation, where the capitalist represents to the single workman, the oneness and the will of the associated labour…
P. 249
“The understandings of the greater part of men,” says Adam Smith, “are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations … has no occasion to exert his understanding… He generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.”
P. 249
Adam Smith proposes universal education, his French translator argues against education, since “our whole social system would be proscribed.”
p.250
In its specific capitalist form ‒ and under the given conditions, it could take no other form than a capitalistic one ‒ manufacture is but a particular method of begetting relative surplus-value, or of augmenting at the
expense of the labourer the self-expansion of capital ‒ usually called social wealth, “Wealth of Nations,” &c. It increases the social productive power of labour, not only for the benefit of the capitalist instead of for that of the labourer, but it does this by crippling the individual labourers. It creates new conditions for the lordship of capital over labour. If, therefore, on the one hand, it presents itself historically as a progress and as a necessary phase in the economic development of society, on the other hand, it is a refined and civilised method of exploitation.
p. 251
Plato’s Republic, in so far as division of labour is treated in it, as the formative principle of the State, is merely the Athenian idealisation of the Egyptian system of castes, Egypt having served as the model of an industrial country to many of his contemporaries also, amongst others to Isocrates, and it continued to
have this importance to the Greeks of the Roman Empire.
p. 251: Marx quoting “friend Ure”: “…the more skilful the workman, the more self-willed and intractable he is apt to become, and of course the less fit a component of a mechanical system in which … he may do great damage to the whole.”
Footnotes:
42 “L’ouvrier qui porte dans ses bras tout un métier, peut aller partout exercer son industrie et trouver
des moyens de subsister: l’autre (the manufacturing labourer) n’est qu’un accessoire qui, séparé de ses
confrères, n’a plus ni capacité, ni indépendance, et qui se trouve force d’accepter la loi qu’on juge à
propos de lui imposer.” [The worker who is the master of a whole craft can work and find the means
of subsistence anywhere; the other (the manufacturing labourer) is only an appendage who, when he is
separated from his fellows, possesses neither capability nor independence, and finds himself forced to
accept any law it is thought fit to impose] (Storch, l.c., Petersb. edit., 1815, t. I., p. 204.
44 “The man of knowledge and the productive labourer come to be widely divided from each other,
and knowledge, instead of remaining the handmaid of labour in the hand of the labourer to increase
his productive powers … has almost everywhere arrayed itself against labour … systematically
deluding and leading them (the labourers) astray in order to render their muscular powers entirely
mechanical and obedient.” (W. Thompson: “An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of
Wealth.” London, 1824, p. 274.)
51 (D. Urquhart: “Familiar Words.” Lond., 1855, p. 119.) Hegel held very heretical views on division
of labour. In his “Rechtsphilosophie” he says: “By well educated men we understand in the first
instance, those who can do everything that others do.”
52 The more or less extensive application of division of labour depends on length of purse, not on greatness of genius.
55-56, ancient greece, the odyssey
57- plato: workers must wait on work, not work wait on worker. Marx: Where will Platonism be found next!
Begin Chapter 15 sec 1: development of machines
Mill on machines.
“Like every other increase in the productiveness of labour, machinery is intended to cheapen commodities, and, by shortening that portion of the working day, in which the labourer works for himself, to lengthen the other portion that he gives, without an equivalent, to the capitalist.”
Machines cheapen commodities, increasing surplus value, increasing toil
Machines/tools.
machine-external power
tool-manpower
tool->machine->industrial revolution
human organs- evolution
parts of machine, motor, transmitter, tool
human parts-> tools -> machines
argument in Germany that created wind mills> to who does the wind belong?? nobles, priests, etc.?
machines led to steam engine, not other way around
horse- water wheel- then steam engine
as machines became larger, more motor force needed
combinations of machines- factory+ detailed labor
envelopes, wool combers, etc.
manufacture vs. fully developed factory>
factory: continuity of movement of raw material through process with less interference by human hands
paper mill, modes of production, means of production
manufacture-factory-availability of machine makers, skilled craftsman
check quote>”experience liberates the form of production from the traditional form that gave rise to it.”
chk quote”means of communication and transport unbearable… inadequate…”
machines made by machines replaced the hand itself
machines
subjective rule of thumb in manufacture to objective scientific rules in modern industry- human forces replaced by natural forces
Chapter 15, sec. 2 – value transferred by machine to product
“Capital now sets the labourer to work, not with a manual tool, but with a machine which itself handles the tools. Although, therefore, it is clear at the first glance that, by incorporating both stupendous physical forces, and the natural sciences, with the process of production, modern industry raises the productiveness of labour to an extraordinary degree, it is by no means equally clear, that this increased productive force is not, on the other hand, purchased by an increased expenditure of labour. Machinery, like every other component of constant capital, creates no new value, but yields up its own value to the product that it serves to beget. In so far as the machine has value, and, in consequence, parts with value to the product, it forms an element in the value of that product. Instead of being cheapened, the product is made dearer in proportion to the value of the machine. And it is clear as noon-day, that machines and systems of machinery, the characteristic instruments of labour of Modern Industry, are incomparably more loaded with value than the implements used in handicrafts and manufactures.”
Does the increased productivity of machines exceed the increased labor required to make them? A machine’s value is spent on the product over the course of its life. If the machine is durable, it only increases the value of each product a little, allowing for the cheapening of the commodity through increased productivity.
Ricardo> gratuitous production
check> power/value of machine measured by the amount of labor it replaces
displacement of labor, 66 men, 1 machine
women used in place of horses
Ch. 15 sec. 3: The Proximate Effects of Machinery on the
Workman
revolution of modern industry- organized machinery in factory
subsection A: employment of women and children
entire family conscripted, usurped labor of the home
How is unity between machine and man acheived? Effects on the laborer:
labor power costs include family, but machinery brought in the family, lowering the value of the laborer. 4 people must work now for the same as 1 before.
“childish labor”- see infantile disorders, diseases of childhood
costs of family increased because labor in the home replaced by money spent
find quote: commodity exchange between free agents, labor and capital, but in reality: purchase of children, not equal exchange of commodities, a slave trade
jewish historian, woman eats baby
sordid trafficking, similar to purchase of slaves in US
not a contract between free people, mothers bring their children to poor house to sell them
mortality 9,000 per 100,000 workers’ children under 1 year old
manchester 26,000 per 100,000 workers children’s mortality under 1 year old
in most agricultural districts, low mortality,
complaints about factory act leading to child labor in other industries (other way around)
poisoning 1861 report
manchester, high rate of child mortality
definition – mode of cultivation
check: gang/undertaker- opiates
but in some where revolution in cultivation introduced new methods, factory system, to remove marshes and convert to corn fields
infants and men given opiates
we see how china and india avenged themselves on england
education it is evil footnote 59
machines replacing men also meant men could not stand up for themselves as workers
machinery invades industries with capital and lengthens the working day.
“moral degradation,” “intellectual desolation”, products of capitalist exploitation
loopholes in laws used to lower the quality of education
the teachers themselves can’t read
after factory work, progress made in school lost
quote from factory owner: education makes them independent and therefore it is evil
preference for hiring married women: “woman’s virtues perverted to her injury,” a means of her “bondage and suffering”
subsection B prolongation of the working day
quote> machinery decreases time necessary to produce a product, but in the hands of capitalists used to increase the working day in inhumane ways
robert owen:the machine wants to get rid of human resistance to its operation-
resistence lightened by light work and use of women and children.
long hours of work comes from kidnapping and robbing orphanages-workhouses.
masters independent of the workers
Marx: “The productiveness of machinery is, as we saw, inversely proportional to the value transferred by
it to the product. The longer the life of the machine, the greater is the mass of the products over
which the value transmitted by the machine is spread, and the less is the portion of that value
added to each single commodity. The active lifetime of a machine is, however, clearly dependent
on the length of the working day, or on the duration of the daily labour-process multiplied by the
number of days for which the process is carried on.”
Marx: “…a machine working 16 hours daily for 7½ years, covers as long a working period as, and transmits to the total product no more value than, the same machine would if it worked only 8 hours daily for 15 years.The productiveness of machinery is, as we saw, inversely proportional to the value transferred by it to the product. The longer the life of the machine, the greater is the mass of the products over which the value transmitted by the machine is spread, and the less is the portion of that value added to each single commodity. The active lifetime of a machine is, however, clearly dependent on the length of the working day, or on the duration of the daily labour-process multiplied by the number of days for which the process is carried on.”
(my note:) the same result occurs with a fixed maximum hours, but with increasing intensity, intensity 1x, intensity 2x, leading to retirement in a shorter time, 20 years, 10 years, more surplus value, the same productivity. (end note)
gradual reduction of value of machine due to new better machines is reduction of exchange value, a reduction in surplus value, not a reduction of total production. the rush to overwork the machines and labor now comes entirely from the capitalist and not from the point of view of the demands of society.
Marx: “Machinery produces relative surplus-value… when it is first introduced sporadically into an industry, by converting the labour employed by the owner of that machinery, into labour of a higher degree and greater efficacy, by raising the social value of the article produced above its individual value, and thus enabling the capitalist to replace the value of a day’s labour-power by a smaller portion of the value of a day’s product. During this transition period, when the use of machinery is a sort of monopoly, the profits are therefore exceptional…”
(my note:)The social value rises because the fixed capital increases above the industry average. The social value is the fixed capital and the variable capital, which includes the cost of labor power. The individual value is the cost of variable capital, and so it is lower. This means that at a given price in the market, both will sell at the same price, but the newer process leads to higher value for the capitalist because the unit cost of production is lower. The capitalist does not actually produce something more valuable or lower the price of the product.
(end note)
Marx: “As the use of machinery becomes more general in a particular industry, the social value of the product sinks down to its individual value, and the law that surplus-value does not arise from the labour-power that has been replaced by the machinery, but from the labour-power actually employed in working with the machinery, asserts itself. Surplus-value arises from variable capital alone.”
(note)
as more machines of the same type enter into the market, the added value disappears. this means that the capitalist did not benefit from adding machines but by adding a specific new kind of machine that gave him a monopoly on that production process. once that monopoly is gone, the capitalist can only gain from the employment of more labor.
Marx: “The development of the factory system fixes a constantly increasing portion of the capital in a form, in which, on the one hand, its value is capable of continual self-expansion, and in which, on the other hand, it loses both use-value and exchange-value whenever it loses contact with living labour.”
(note)
it is not replacing workers with machines that leads to profit. It is the constant application of the machinery to the laborer. This depends only on the flow of variable capital, meaning wages and raw materials.
replacing old machines with new machines does not bring profit either, except in that old machines would lose contact with labor if the new machines could employ labor quicker or more completely.
(end note)
surplus value only comes from variable capital. machinery increases fixed capital, lowering the ratio of variable to fixed capital. only 1. increasing the number of workers or 2. the amount worked above the socially necessary labor, (the working day increase or cost of labor decreases) only these 2 can increase surplus value. the machinery reduces the amount of workers necessary and so reduces the profit. increasing the amount of workers also reduces profit
Marx: “…of the two factors of the surplus-value created by a given amount of capital, one, the rate of surplus-value, cannot be increased, except by diminishing the other, the number of workmen. This contradiction comes to light, as soon as by the general employment of machinery in a given industry, the value of the machine-produced commodity regulates the value of all commodities of the same sort…”
If the capitalist does not adopt new machinery but continues to employ more labor, he will not be able to produce the product at a competitive rate. That is, by increasing the number of workers, he also loses profit since he brings his constant to variable capital ratio below the industry average. he will try to sell at a higher price and fail, making his entire operation unprofitable.
Marx: “and it is this contradiction, that in its turn, drives the capitalist, without his being conscious of the fact, to excessive lengthening of the working day, in order that he may compensate the decrease in the relative number of labourers exploited, by an increase not only of the relative, but of the absolute surplus labour.”
The capitalist struggles to maintain the rate of profit and can only do this by increasing the length of the day, or given a maximum, the intensity of the work. This struggle to maintain the rate of profit makes sense, since the new machines (A) should in general lighten the workload to produce a given product. This should give the workers more power in negotiating increases for themselves, bringing closer to the idleness of their master, which the capitalist must then (B) counter with increased hours or increased work-intensity so that the worker “is compelled to submit to the dictation of capital.” The master can better torture his slaves with the new machinery. Not only through torture, but through the creation of a redundant population, he can then force them to work extra hours since they are desperate for work.
Marx contrasts the antiquities, Aristotle, etc., who believe machines brought freedom to the slaves, with the modern view of Christianity, which valued the poor above the rich. The antiquities believe the slavery of the many created the conditions for a more improved, developed man, when in fact the opposite was true. These men did not deserve any special honor for owning a sausage-maker machine.
sec. C of effect on workman
shortenin of hour by law, intensification of work
the more hours, the less intensity, the more intensity, the fewer hours
fixing hours with laws increases intensity
tension/density/condensation
dense hour vs. pourous hour
speeding up machines and tending to multiple machines
piece work also used
run at maximum speed: 1. machine nt break, 2. quality of product same, 3. labor can continue at the same rate
shorter day leads to increased speed
experiments with shorter day show equal production and wages
over time, increased horse power/ machine
more machines. but hands/horsepower is equal
labor “governed” by machine
under 10 hour day, industry expanded fastest, under 12 hour day, slower, and without limits even slower
speed of production increased, but the amount of production increased too, leading to more work.
the owners argue: intensification has a limit , quality reduced, breakage increased
so, reducing the work day must reduce the quality of the product
increase in horsepower led to more workers, but fewer in proportion to machinery
stats: overall production accelerated after limit of workday
number of looms increased throughout industry, number of total operatives decreased. number of child labor employed increased
speed doubled
2 people per loom,changed to 4 looms per operative
deaths of workers increased due to increased work
workers demand even shorter day (which would lead to more intensification, injury leading to disability, and death)
volume exports also more than doubled (value of exports also doubled)
absolute number of workers can increase, but relative to number of mills, it decreases.
sec. 4 Factory
machinary -> system -> capitalist exploitation of women and children
confiscation of worker time
more intense exploitation
pindar – combined workers, central powers- self-regulated moving force, skills
2 descriptions-
1.workers the subject, act on automaton –
2.automaton moving workers, conscious human parts subordinated to unconscious machine
2.- not automaton but autocrat,
willing menials
takes tools from workers and skill from workers and makes them part of the machine
higher skilled, lower skilled hierarchy swept away
2 types of workers – (1)operative machine workers (2) feeders and attendants (mostly their children) (2.5) small amount of repairman and engineers
a minor amount of scientists technical “superior class of laborers”
new machines allow for a new routine, all can accomplish every task instead of specialization of labor.
proof: “relay system” of 1848/1850 manufacturers revolt/ rebellion
machines that replace child labor lagging behind, waiting for state to force them to school.
operatives can be used for road manufacture, municipal work etc.
proudhon’s ideas disproven: he believes machines are designed to improve the workers’ lives in various ways.
this lowers the cost of their reproduction and makes them more dependent on the capitalist. machines a synthesis of the detail operations of labor, each part of the process replacing living labor with machines, displacing more and more workers.
Two types of production increases:
“Here as everywhere else, we must distinguish between the increased productiveness due to the development of the social process of production, and that due to the capitalist exploitation of that process.” P.284
Manufacture vs. Factory:
“In handicrafts and manufacture, the workman makes use of a tool, in the factory, the machine makes use of him. There the movements of the instrument of labour proceed from him, here it is the movements of the machine that he must follow. In manufacture the workmen are parts of a living mechanism. In the factory we have a
lifeless mechanism independent of the workman, who becomes its mere living appendage.” p.284
transform workers beginning in childhood into servants of a machine
complete dependence on capitalist
the machine makes use of him, not him using a tool, mere living appendage
labor of surveillance: “destroys the mind and body through excessive application”
nerves and muscles harmed
dead labor pumps dry living labor, dominates over living labor
in the brain of master and machine inseparably united with his monopoly of it
work of surveillance turns them into “labor of looking”
soldiers of an army, with hierarchy of an army or nobility under the master
code of factory disciple: Arkwright, greatest thievery and mean.
Contradiction: after puberty, training no longer effective,
Vs.: 6 months training is enough to prepare a new worker.
unifying labor in action->
slave driver’s lash to overseer’s book of penalties- fines, deductions from wages
when rules are broken, profit increases more than if rules are followed.
“despotic bell” engels- calls him from bed or dinner
1866, sheffield, highest courts in london- double standard in law- worker breaks contract, jail- employer breaks contract, civil action only
pence of salaries taken for lateness, court approved, many hissed manufacturer, hareb, leaving court, time keeper did not use a clock, randomly assigned penalty and penalties were excessive, but court sided with manufacturer anyway.
high court in london, a legal monstrosity: worker can be prosecuted over and over for the same crime
fines for manufacturing product flaws gave rise to a general strike in pottery district
worker and debtor through fines
charges for training
undercurrent reasons for strikes inexplicable to public
june 1863:
many accidents happen because of cleaning while machinery is in motion, too slow, too quick, finger lost
cleaning is not paid for, so workers also rush through
manufacturers enthusiastic about slaveholders rebellion
“Economy of the social means of production, matured and forced as in a hothouse by the factory system, is turned, in the hands of capital, into systematic robbery of what is necessary for the life of the workman while he is at work, robbery of space,
light, air, and of protection to his person against the dangerous and unwholesome
accompaniments of the productive process, not to mention the robbery of appliances for the comfort of the workman.” -p. 286
>fourier< factory is a tempered??? check quote
shocking levity of capitalists with regard to lost fingers, campaign sought to remove amendments that protected hands from dangerous machinery> which would you hire, a worker with a missing finger or one with all their fingers, all else being equal?
slaveholders rebellion???
side note: a manufacturer does not benefit from keeping the machines going unless the particular machine and its products belong to him or her and the price of the product exceeds the price paid for all the materials, labor, and the part of the machine consumed through wear in the process of production. a new model of machine replaces all the older models, meaning that in general the capitalist wants to shut down more machines than he leaves on.
when the capitalist leaves the machine on during cleaning, this is not to increase production but to prevent a loss on his investment in the machine. if he turned the machine off for cleaning, that would reduce production in that time but not the total amount produced across the whole life of the machine. leaving the machine on produces more on that day, but that does not raise the total amount produced by that machine. productivity is not increased by the capitalist’s decision but instead the rate of profit, the rate of extraction taken away from productivity. that has to do with the capitalist hurrying production in order to sell the products before the competition (meaning he would idle the other capitalist’s machine). what is hurrying along is not the production but its sale before any competitor. the excess (used to idle more machines in other markets) produced by the capitalists as a whole remains the same if it is our capitalist or another who makes the sale on that particular day.
therefore, the capitalist really benefits from making workers risk their fingers cleaning dangerous machines without turning them off is through his removing at a certain rate the fingers of the workers. the profit is the fear of the workers for their fingers, for their future earnings without fingers, and not any type of productivity gain.
end note
***start from sec 47, 0:00***
sec. 5 strife between workman and machine
capital and worker from beginning of capitalism had a conflict.
master as cheaply as possible
workers comply with higher demands of work
the instrument of labor itself causes rebellion
inventor of new type of loom strangled to death by mayor
town council prohibits
loom burned in public by order of the senate, 1685
water-powered saw mills approved barely by parliament
wool-shearing machine puts 100,000 out of work, burned by crowd
50,000 petition against arkright
luddites give state pretext for attacks
learned with experience not to attack machinery but employment of them by capital
— not to attack material instruments of production but mode in which they are used
******* my comment: contradiction, is machine enslaving worker or is machine increasing production?
“savage character” of workers’ attacks
***** quote n polygamy
attacks against new manufacturing come from guilds and older forms of labor, not the workers of the mills
early manufacture writers: machines supply for a deficiency of workers and do not replace workers
there is a difference between measuring the amount of work done by machines and saying how may workers would be needed to replace the machine and looking at actual workers, weavers and displacing them with machines, looms.
manufacture depended on division of labor, not uniformity of labor under factory system.
manufacture had to expand to meet demand from the expanding colonies
many new laborers appeared in cities after enclosure and collapse of feudalism,
cooperation and division of labor seen favorably
machinery and cooperation replaces polygamy
machine cannot save time for an individual, only a large mass of people, building it would take more labor than the labor saved
instead of specializing in the use of one tool, the workers now needed to serve one machine along with others.
the machines were designed to mold them from an early age to be a part of the machine.
rural populations forced out, sheep go in: QUOTE, prelude to industrial revolution
subversion of agriculture, political revolution, competitor machinary and labor
QUOTE: self-expansion of capital directly proportional to amount of labor it replaces.
2 consolations: temporary effect, mastery of machine occurs by degrees
continue from MINUTE 15 sec 47
death for many results due to wages pushed below necessary by machines:
temporary? lives ended in temporal world
but replacement not only occurs with traditional people but with machinery with minor improvements over machinery without those improvements.
employer made independent of skilled labor completely
substitute of skilled labor by unskilled, adult by child, etc. (my comment: machine fills skill-gap between new and old)
American civil war expanded machinery even faster in England.
1861-1868
“But machinery not only acts as a competitor who gets the better of the workman, and is constantly on the point of making him superfluous. It is also a power inimical to him, and as such capital proclaims it from the roof tops and as such makes use of it. It is the most powerful weapon for repressing strikes, those periodical revolts of the working-class against the autocracy of capital.”
especially 23:33
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