Marx vs (maybe) Me

[Broletariat]

Marx explains that the way that increased productiveness allows a capitalist to extract more value from his workers is by cheapening commodities and thereby decreasing the period of time which the worker works for himself (since he works the same amount of absolute time, commodities are worth less and therefor the work spent earning money to sustain life is decreased) and so increases the amount of time the worker spends in producing surplus .Marx goes on to say that simply cheapening a single commodity will not obviously cause a large decrease in the cost of maintenance of labour-power, but that increases of productivity in one industry will spur them all on to increase their productivity. I believe the example he gives has to do with weaving and cotton, the cotton gin and massive amounts of cotton forced weaving techniques to improve or something, and honestly I don't think this explanation holds water because I can imagine a case where like, we increase productivity with bath tubs and that in no way means other spheres of production necessarily need to be more productive etc.

This just seems awkward as shit, I understand it, but it seems like a very awkward way to explain it, does my explanation differ from Marx's or merely restate it another way?

I would explain it by saying that by increasing efficiency a capitalist reduces the amount of labour required per commodity, while still working his workers the same amount of time. This leads to an increase in the amount of commodities made. Since his commodities have a less amount of labour instilled in the commodities, he is able to price them slightly more cheaply than his competitors, but still not on-par with the actual price that he is producing since the socially necessary average labour time for creating given commodity is still roughly where it is before the efficiency boost.


My explanation seems to lend itself to an easier explanation of the falling rate of profit (keep in mind I haven't actually gotten to Marx's explanation of the falling rate of profit).

Also, if you feel remotely competent to answer this question or are intrigued by discussions of this sort, go join the ultra-left club </blatant advertising>

[Hiero]

a capitalist reduces the amount of labour required per commodity,

I think you said the same thing as what you claim Marx said. Capitalism is revolutionary in the terms of improving and at times reinventing it's productive forcess. That includes people, so some companies can pay for training to improve the efficiency of their workers. Or they pay for upgrades of non-human productive forces, machines and computers.

Isn't that what you said in the above paragraph about Marx on cotton? By improving weaving techniques you can make more commodities in less time. Before the improvement maybe a worker could make 10 commodities in 1 hour, and after maybe 20 in 1 hour. Or something like that.

[Broletariat]

I think you said the same thing as what you claim Marx said. Capitalism is revolutionary in the terms of improving and at times reinventing it's productive forcess. That includes people, so some companies can pay for training to improve the efficiency of their workers. Or they pay for upgrades of non-human productive forces, machines and computers.

Isn't that what you said in the above paragraph about Marx on cotton? By improving weaving techniques you can make more commodities in less time. Before the improvement maybe a worker could make 10 commodities in 1 hour, and after maybe 20 in 1 hour. Or something like that.

Marx and I both agree that labour time is reduced. It would appear as though we disagree as to WHY this allows for a further extraction of surplus-value.

Marx posits that as labour time is reduced, commodities are cheapened and thus the cost of maintaining labour-power (the wage the worker is paid) will drop.

But simply increasing efficiency in one industry is not going to have that drastic of an effect on the price of maintaining labour-power, Marx also recognises this. Where Marx and I diverge is where he says that further efficiencies in one sphere of production necessarily spread everywhere else. I think that's true in some cases, but it would appear as though my explanation makes more sense.

My explanation also leads quite nicely into the explanation for the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

[ZeroNowhere]

The surplus-value produced by prolongation of the working day, I call absolute surplus-value. On the other hand, the surplus-value arising from the curtailment of the necessary labour-time, and from the corresponding alteration in the respective lengths of the two components of the working day, I call relative surplus-value.

In order to effect a fall in the value of labour-power, the increase in the productiveness of labour must seize upon those branches of industry whose products determine the value of labour-power, and consequently either belong to the class of customary means of subsistence, or are capable of supplying the place of those means. But the value of a commodity is determined, not only by the quantity of labour which the labourer directly bestows upon that commodity, but also by the labour contained in the means of production. For instance, the value of a pair of boots depends not only on the cobbler’s labour, but also on the value of the leather, wax, thread, &c. Hence, a fall in the value of labour-power is also brought about by an increase in the productiveness of labour, and by a corresponding cheapening of commodities in those industries which supply the instruments of labour and the raw material, that form the material elements of the constant capital required for producing the necessaries of life. But an increase in the productiveness of labour in those branches of industry which supply neither the necessaries of life, nor the means of production for such necessaries, leaves the value of labour-power undisturbed.
The cheapened commodity, of course, causes only a pro tanto fall in the value of labour-power, a fall proportional to the extent of that commodity’s employment in the reproduction of labour-power. Shirts, for instance, are a necessary means of subsistence, but are only one out of many. The totality of the necessaries of life consists, however, of various commodities, each the product of a distinct industry; and the value of each of those commodities enters as a component part into the value of labour-power. This latter value decreases with the decrease of the labour-time necessary for its reproduction; the total decrease being the sum of all the different curtailments of labour-time effected in those various and distinct industries. This general result is treated, here, as if it were the immediate result directly aimed at in each individual case. Whenever an individual capitalist cheapens shirts, for instance, by increasing the productiveness of labour he by no means necessarily aims at reducing the value of labour-power and shortening, pro tanto the necessary labour-time. But it is only in so far as he ultimately contributes to this result, that he assists in raising the general rate of surplus-value. The general and necessary tendencies of capital must be distinguished from their forms of manifestation.

It is not our intention to consider, here, the way in which the laws, immanent in capitalist production, manifest themselves in the movements of individual masses of capital, where they assert themselves as coercive laws of competition, and are brought home to the mind and consciousness of the individual capitalist as the directing motives of his operations. But this much is clear; a scientific analysis of competition is not possible, before we have a conception of the inner nature of capital, just as the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies are not intelligible to any but him, who is acquainted with their real motions, motions which are not directly perceptible by the senses. Nevertheless, for the better comprehension of the production of relative surplus-value, we may add the following remarks, in which we assume nothing more than the results we have already obtained.

If one hour’s labour is embodied in sixpence, a value of six shillings will be produced in a working day of 12 hours. Suppose, that with the prevailing productiveness of labour, 12 articles are produced in these 12 hours. Let the value of the means of production used up in each article be sixpence. Under these circumstances, each article costs one shilling: sixpence for the value of the means of production, and sixpence for the value newly added in working with those means. Now let some one capitalist contrive to double the productiveness of labour, and to produce in the working day of 12 hours, 24 instead of 12 such articles. The value of the means of production remaining the same, the value of each article will fall to ninepence, made up of sixpence for the value of the means of production and threepence for the value newly added by the labour. Despite the doubled productiveness of labour, the day’s labour creates, as before, a new value of six shillings and no more, which, however, is now spread over twice as many articles. Of this value each article now has embodied in it 1/24th, instead of 1/12th, threepence instead of sixpence; or, what amounts to the same thing, only half an hour’s instead of a whole hour’s labour-time, is now added to the means of production while they are being transformed into each article. The individual value of these articles is now below their social value; in other words, they have cost less labour-time than the great bulk of the same article produced under the average social conditions. Each article costs, on an average, one shilling, and represents 2 hours of social labour; but under the altered mode of production it costs only ninepence, or contains only 1½ hours’ labour. The real value of a commodity is, however, not its individual value, but its social value; that is to say, the real value is not measured by the labour-time that the article in each individual case costs the producer, but by the labour-time socially required for its production. If therefore, the capitalist who applies the new method, sells his commodity at its social value of one shilling, he sells it for threepence above its individual value, and thus realises an extra surplus-value of threepence. On the other hand, the working day of 12 hours is, as regards him, now represented by 24 articles instead of 12. Hence, in order to get rid of the product of one working day, the demand must be double what it was, i.e., the market must become twice as extensive. Other things being equal, his commodities can command a more extended market only by a diminution of their prices. He will therefore sell them above their individual but under their social value, say at tenpence each. By this means he still squeezes an extra surplus-value of one penny out of each. This augmentation of surplus-value is pocketed by him, whether his commodities belong or not to the class of necessary means of subsistence that participate in determining the general value of labour-power. Hence, independently of this latter circumstance, there is a motive for each individual capitalist to cheapen his commodities, by increasing the productiveness of labour.

Nevertheless, even in this case, the increased production of surplus-value arises from the curtailment of the necessary labour-time, and from the corresponding prolongation of the surplus-labour. Let the necessary labour-time amount to 10 hours, the value of a day’s labour-power to five shillings, the surplus labour-time to 2 hours, and the daily surplus-value to one shilling. But the capitalist now produces 24 articles, which he sells at tenpence a-piece, making twenty shillings in all. Since the value of the means of production is twelve shillings, 14 2/5 of these articles merely replace the constant capital advanced. The labour of the 12 hours’ working day is represented by the remaining 9 3/5 articles. Since the price of the labour-power is five shillings, 6 articles represent the necessary labour-time, and 3 3/5 articles the surplus-labour. The ratio of the necessary labour to the surplus-labour, which under average social conditions was 5:1, is now only 5:3. The same result may be arrived at in the following way. The value of the product of the working day of 12 hours is twenty shillings. Of this sum, twelve shillings belong to the value of the means of production, a value that merely re-appears. There remain eight shillings, which are the expression in money, of the value newly created during the working day. This sum is greater than the sum in which average social labour of the same kind is expressed: twelve hours of the latter labour are expressed by six shillings only. The exceptionally productive labour operates as intensified labour; it creates in equal periods of time greater values than average social labour of the same kind. But our capitalist still continues to pay as before only five shillings as the value of a day’s labour-power. Hence, instead of 10 hours, the labourer need now work only 7½ hours, in order to reproduce this value. His surplus-labour is, therefore, increased by 2½ hours, and the surplus-value he produces grows from one, into three shillings. Hence, the capitalist who applies the improved method of production, appropriates to surplus-labour a greater portion of the working day, than the other capitalists in the same trade. He does individually, what the whole body of capitalists engaged in producing relative surplus-value, do collectively. On the other hand, however, this extra surplus-value vanishes, so soon as the new method of production has become general, and has consequently caused the difference between the individual value of the cheapened commodity and its social value to vanish. The law of the determination of value by labour-time, a law which brings under its sway the individual capitalist who applies the new method of production, by compelling him to sell his goods under their social value, this same law, acting as a coercive law of competition, forces his competitors to adopt the new method. The general rate of surplus-value is, therefore, ultimately affected by the whole process, only when the increase in the productiveness of labour, has seized upon those branches of production that are connected with, and has cheapened those commodities that form part of, the necessary means of subsistence, and are therefore elements of the value of labour-power [as otherwise the change is only temporary].

The value of commodities is in inverse ratio to the productiveness of labour. And so, too, is the value of labour-power, because it depends on the values of commodities. Relative surplus-value is, on the contrary, directly proportional to that productiveness. It rises with rising and falls with falling productiveness. The value of money being assumed to be constant, an average social working day of 12 hours always produces the same new value, six shillings, no matter how this sum may be apportioned between surplus-value and wages. But if, in consequence of increased productiveness, the value of the necessaries of life fall, and the value of a day’s labour-power be thereby reduced from five shillings to three, the surplus-value increases from one shilling to three. Ten hours were necessary for the reproduction of the value of the labour-power; now only six are required. Four hours have been set free, and can be annexed to the domain of surplus-labour. Hence there is immanent in capital an inclination and constant tendency, to heighten the productiveness of labour, in order to cheapen commodities, and by such cheapening to cheapen the labourer himself.

The value of a commodity is, in itself, of no interest to the capitalist. What alone interests him, is the surplus-value that dwells in it, and is realisable by sale. Realisation of the surplus-value necessarily carries with it the refunding of the value that was advanced. Now, since relative surplus-value increases in direct proportion to the development of the productiveness of labour, while, on the other hand, the value of commodities diminishes in the same proportion; since one and the same process cheapens commodities, and augments the surplus-value contained in them; we have here the solution of the riddle: why does the capitalist, whose sole concern is the production of exchange-value, continually strive to depress the exchange-value of commodities? A riddle with which Quesnay, one of the founders of Political Economy, tormented his opponents, and to which they could give him no answer.

“You acknowledge,” he says, “that the more expenses and the cost of labour can, in the manufacture of industrial products, be reduced without injury to production, the more advantageous is such reduction, because it diminishes the price of the finished article. And yet, you believe that the production of wealth, which arises from the labour of the workpeople, consists in the augmentation of the exchange-value of their products.”

The shortening of the working day is, therefore, by no means what is aimed at, in capitalist production, when labour is economised by increasing its productiveness. It is only the shortening of the labour-time, necessary for the production of a definite quantity of commodities, that is aimed at. The fact that the workman, when the productiveness of his labour has been increased, produces, say 10 times as many commodities as before, and thus spends one-tenth as much labour-time on each, by no means prevents him from continuing to work 12 hours as before, nor from producing in those 12 hours 1,200 articles instead of 120. Nay, more, his working day may be prolonged at the same time, so as to make him produce, say 1,400 articles in 14 hours. In the treatises, therefore, of economists of the stamp of MacCulloch, Ure, Senior, and tutti quanti [the like], we may read upon one page, that the labourer owes a debt of gratitude to capital for developing his productiveness, because the necessary labour-time is thereby shortened, and on the next page, that he must prove his gratitude by working in future for 15 hours instead of 10. The object of all development of the productiveness of labour, within the limits of capitalist production, is to shorten that part of the working day, during which the workman must labour for his own benefit, and by that very shortening, to lengthen the other part of the day, during which he is at liberty to work gratis for the capitalist.

Not sure what's hard to understand about this, per se.

[Broletariat]

Yo Zero, check out the libcom thread on this.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

In the time Marx was writing he was living in England (I believe, but even if not, then at least North-West Europe).

From the early-modern period onwards (say 16th-19th Centuries), England had the advantage of plentiful, cheap coal from coalfields in the country. This meant that, in fact, new inventions such as the spinning jenny meant that the relative price of cotton was pretty cheap, by any international comparison.

It was also the case, as with the steam engine, that the cheap price of energy, and the technical innovations of the time - such as the two i've already mentioned -, meant that a lot of Capitalist firms in the period of industrialisation (which Marx would have been writing about) used capital- and energy-intensive techniques, thereby saving labour time.

By the middle of the 19th Century, France and Germany had caught up with the UK (due to various factors, mostly 'catch-up and convergence', as France/Germany had previously relied on family farming instead of England's enclosure, Capitalist agri-production techniques, and probably had property rights/institutions that were too rigid to loosen the grip of the feudal-minded Lords on the economy. Thus, the falling rate of profit, in a UK context.

So, Marx was right.