What does Marx mean by "Reserve army of labour"?

[ComradeYoldas]

Lately, I've been reading Das Kapital, and upon crossing the notion of "Reserve army of labour", I can't fully comprehend its meaning. By my understanding, it refers to a group of unemployed individuals who are looking for work. But my principle question is, where did this army come from? and what exactly is its function in a capitalist society? I have vague answers for both due to my limited understanding, but I'd like to be elaborated on both subjects.

From what I understand, the first question is due to an overpopulation, and as for the second one, the army in question, functions through a low demand in labor while keeping the supply high. (I need elaboration on both of these questions, if possible.)

Thank, Comrades!

[Prinskaj]

The reserve army of labour is basically just a term for the mass of the unemployed. This group is essential to the workings of the capitalist mode of production, since they are very effective in keeping wages and worker demands in check, basically creating a certain level of job insecurity.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Lately, I've been reading Das Kapital, and upon crossing the notion of "Reserve army of labour", I can't fully comprehend its meaning. By my understanding, it refers to a group of unemployed individuals who are looking for work. But my principle question is, where did this army come from? and what exactly is its function in a capitalist society? I have vague answers for both due to my limited understanding, but I'd like to be elaborated on both subjects.

From what I understand, the first question is due to an overpopulation, and as for the second one, the army in question, functions through a low demand in labor while keeping the supply high. (I need elaboration on both of these questions, if possible.)

Thank, Comrades!

Overpopulation really has nothing to do with the reserve army of labor or the historical creation of people into proletarians. In England, for example, the pool of laborers was created through a process of encolosing peasant and common lands. First landowners bagan to sell their peasant lands creating privite farms. Pesants were left to farm their plots and use the commons but then began to have to work for wages sometimes too. As capitalist relations and interests solidified in England the rich passed laws banning feudal customary rights to gather food and graze animals in common land. With fewer and fewer non-market options for securing a living, people would become wandering workers or hide out in remote areas to eek out a living and the ruling class responded with increasingly harsh penalties and restrictions on vangabonds and not having wage employment. People caught begging or without employment would be sent into forced labor and later workhouses.

So this creates a situation in which there is a monopoly on the means of production by the rich and people have to work for wages. The reserve labor, the unempolyed or marginally emplyed, is not the result of overpopulation in the sense of wealth and resources or space in society, but overpopulation relative to the need of capital. It is a condition dependant on capitalist wage-labor because if it wasn't for the elimination of the commons, then the "reserve" labor, at the time of the construction of the proletariet, would have just gone out to common land and eeked out a modest living not too differently than people had in that region for ages.

In addition, the capitalists generally favor this reserve army because it creates a downward pressure on wages. When the capitalists want it, there is full unemployment - such as in a mobilization for war - so there are no "natural" barriers that cause this, just the needs of the system to maximize profit and part of that process creates unemployment.