Marx's Wages

[Hen]

'm new to revleft so go easy on me
Was reading Marx's 'Wage, Labour and Capital' and considered this line -

"Wages, therefore, are not a share of the worker in the commodities produced by himself. Wages are that part of already existing commodities with which the capitalist buys a certain amount of productive labour-power."

But in a capitalist society the hard worker is still rewarded over the lazy worker. Thus he who is more productive may gain through promotion, commission etc a greater share of the existing capitalist owned commodities, which in turn, may come to resemble a figure closer to the workers produced share of the commodity itself. His/her hard-work means the price of his/her labour-power is elevated, allbeit through the unimpressionable eyes of the capitalist.

Or is this still exploitation? just with a hint of proportionality about it...

Help..

[Q]

'm new to revleft so go easy on me
Was reading Marx's 'Wage, Labour and Capital' and considered this line -

"Wages, therefore, are not a share of the worker in the commodities produced by himself. Wages are that part of already existing commodities with which the capitalist buys a certain amount of productive labour-power."

But in a capitalist society the hard worker is still rewarded over the lazy worker. Thus he who is more productive may gain through promotion, commission etc a greater share of the existing capitalist owned commodities, which in turn, may come to resemble a figure closer to the workers produced share of the commodity itself. His/her hard-work means the price of his/her labour-power is elevated, allbeit through the unimpressionable eyes of the capitalist.

Or is this still exploitation? just with a hint of proportionality about it...

Help..

To answer your last question first: yes, it is most certainly still exploitation as the capitalist maintains a surplus value from the labour of the worker.

It is true that one worker is more productive than another, for a variety of reasons. This is why Marx later on corrected his position and argued that it was not the labour power that the capitalist was actually buying, but the potential of labour power.

This potential is commodified within capitalist relations and is therefore following the same laws like any other commodity of which the reason is to make a profit. The one thing that makes workers special however, is that labourpotential is a living commodity. So, because workers learn, develop muscles, improve in their job, they have the unique ability to create surplus value.

I hope this answers your question. Feel free to ask more in the Learning section. Welcome!

[Hen]

Oops! Of course it's still exploitation. I knew that. The American dream, the notion that hard-work leads to reward, actually just means that hard-work leads to slightly less exploitation. I guess, people don't mind being commodified. People hear about the American dream and believe they have the ability to heighten the value of their labour-power in the eyes of the capitalist. It makes sense for a capitalist to sell it as 'opportunity' rather than 'less exploitation'.

Anyway...thanks for you help! I'll continue to get involved in the learning section. I'm certainly a newbie but have been convinced of capitalist folly for a long time. I'm asked a lot by those closest to me to explain myself, but sometimes struggle for words. Hopefully, from now on, revleft can provide me with the ammunition to persuade potential revolutionaries against capitalist greed! :)

[Zanthorus]

It is true that one worker is more productive than another, for a variety of reasons. This is why Marx later on corrected his position and argued that it was not the labour power that the capitalist was actually buying, but the potential of labour power.

Hate to be pedantic, but labour-power is potential labour. It would be somewhat wierd to buy the potential of the potential for labour. The original text would've said "labour", but the edition that the OP is reading is the one edited and published by Engels which was intended as a pamphlet for educating workers and not merely a historical document, so all references to "labour" were replaced with "labour-power" where it was appropriate. This is explained in the introduction (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/intro.htm).

[S.Artesian]

Hate to be pedantic, but labour-power is potential labour. It would be somewhat wierd to buy the potential of the potential for labour. The original text would've said "labour", but the edition that the OP is reading is the one edited and published by Engels which was intended as a pamphlet for educating workers and not merely a historical document, so all references to "labour" were replaced with "labour-power" where it was appropriate. This is explained in the introduction (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/intro.htm).

Correct, and essentially, the basis for capitalism is that one labor is not unequal to another labor. Capital "levels" labor, makes it uniform, raw, abstract by reducing it to its essential human, and social, characteristic.. time.

I think it's in The Poverty of Philosophy where Marx first expounds on this, discussing the "homogenization" of labor by the discipline of machine driven production, and Marx says "Time is everything. Man is nothing."

Capital doesn't reproduce itself on the basis of the "extra effort" made by the "good worker" but on the social exploitation of all workers, on aggrandizing the surplus labor time of the collectivity of workers.