Do machines produce surplus value?

[robbo203]

This is an old objection to the Marxian labour theory of value and one that persists. I recently came across a peice by Steve Keen, the heterodox economist and scourge of mainstream neoclassical economists which raises again this objection. He is not alone. Others including some Marxists themselves regard exploitation theory and the LTV as mutually exclusive. The late G A Cohen held this view and argued that the position of workers under capitalism was much more like the position of serfs under feudalism. Workers dont and cannot produce value strictly speaking and therefore cannot produce surplus value since value is not determined at the point of production alone but also by market conditions. In other words the amount of past labour embodied in a commodity is irrelevant as far as that commodity's value is concerned

If Steve Keen's claim is correct then this undermines a huge swathe of Marxian economics. All the talk about the "falling rate of profit" and its relationship to capitalist crisis becomes irrelevant. The organic composition of capital would then have no bearing on the rate of profit. This does not mean workers are not still exploited but their exploitation takes, as I said, a more direct form analogous to that of a feudal serf


There are strong counter-arguments to Steve Keen's claim but I would like to hear your views on the subject. Here's the link

http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/papers/Jhet_use.PDF

[Let's Get Free]

I would say no. Various machines, if left to themselves, cannot produce anything of value. For a a machine to make something, it must be acted upon by human labor power. The machinery which are needed to produce are themselves merely the results of some prior expenditure of human labor power. All they do, and this only when set in motion by human workers, is transfer part of their own value (itself of course a past creation of the work of human beings) to the finished product.

[robbo203]

I would say no. Various machines, if left to themselves, cannot produce anything of value. For a a machine to make something, it must be acted upon by human labor power. The machinery which are needed to produce are themselves merely the results of some prior expenditure of human labor power. All they do, and this only when set in motion by human workers, is transfer part of their own value (itself of course a past creation of the work of human beings) to the finished product.

Yes but putting my devil's advocate's hat on, how does this get round the objection that past labour is strictly speaking irrelevant as far as value is concerned?

There is also the hypothetical prospect of self replicating machines and androids increasingly squeezing out human functions in the production process. How could capitalism survive in Marxian terms - that is, ensure the extraction of surplus value from living labour - were such developments to relentlessly work their way through to their logical outcome of a fully automated production system. Some Marxists pin their hopes on this happening in order to ensure the demise of capitalism

[Lowtech]

machines produce value.

However, surplus value is a term that comes out of the observation of how markets process value. If we define surplus value as the difference between production cost and price, essentially profit, you find that what you're observing is artificial scarcity.

so no, machines do not produce surplus value (artificial scarcity), the market as a social construct does.

However it is not generated, it is derived. e. g. The buyer pays three times the cost of production but receives only one unit of the product. The commodity has become three times scarcer artificially.

additionally, this process is completely unnecessary and serves only to facilitate retention of value; essentially allowing one to consume more than he produces, or more simply, to become rich.
a fully automated production system. Some Marxists pin their hopes on this happening in order to ensure the demise of capitalismthis is true, however it comes from ignorance of exactly how capitalism fails. post scarcity will not bring about communism, rather post artificial scarcity will, as there is already enough value propagated in our economy to sustain everyone and there is no economic nor practical validation for artificial scarcity. these observations alone are enough to invalidate capitalism.

[black magick hustla]

the reason why marxists say machines/dead labor/constant capital doesn't produce surplus value is because if a machine is tweaked to produce more commodities for cheaper, the way the owner can curtail the market is thus by lowering down the price cuz' he is able to make cheaper commodities. however, sooner or later other capitalists will either find a way to produce commodities at a similar value or will be uprooted from the game. so sooner or later the market will reach an equilibrium where the value of commodities will be the same as the value invested on the machines and production of commodities where no surplus is gained. however, capitalists can exploit more workers and therefore get some surplus by paying them less of the labor power they applied on the production of commodities. or at least his is how i understood the argument.

[Green Girl]

Yes but putting my devil's advocate's hat on, how does this get round the objection that past labour is strictly speaking irrelevant as far as value is concerned?

Sorry I don't buy the past labour argument, as workers or workers operating machines are the ONLY ones who produce labour value as a product or service doesn't exist until it is manufactured, thus the only value it could have is a vision in someone's head.


There is also the hypothetical prospect of self replicating machines and androids increasingly squeezing out human functions in the production process. How could capitalism survive in Marxian terms - that is, ensure the extraction of surplus value from living labour - were such developments to relentlessly work their way through to their logical outcome of a fully automated production system. Some Marxists pin their hopes on this happening in order to ensure the demise of capitalism

Well, we better hope for a worldwide communist revolution before robots and androids begin doing all the work. Otherwise the capitalists will keep all the stuff the machines produce for themselves after all they "own" the machines and let the workers starve to death until the capitalists are the only ones left. Make no mistake capitalists are that evil that they would let 99% of the worlds population starve and die rather than sharing what their machines produce. However we do outnumber them so if they try, I guess we could kill the capitalists instead. What do you think?

If the world was communist and robots and androids did all labour, mankind would be free to explore the vistas of their minds, write books, compose music, play instruments, act, have fun, maybe explore the galaxy and basically enjoy life to the fullest. However the robots and androids must serve all of mankind equally not a select few.

[Zulu]

What a silly notion.

Machines work, but don't labor. Just like horses. They are means of production, end of story.

The really weak point of Marxism is that the ingenuity of the inventors of those machines does create enormous amounts of surplus value and it is labor. This is consistent with the Marxian LTV, but kind of punches a hole in the notion that the proletariat is solely responsible for the creation of social wealth.

[Dave B]

To be pedantic; I think the real question is; can machines produce ‘exchange value’.

As value by Marxist “definition” is expended labour time embodied in a commodity.

I suppose we are talking about a scenario were an old familiar use value can be reproduced by new machines and technology with essentially no labour.

We could look at books.

They used to be quite expensive to produce even after the advent of the printing press.

( Apparently in ancient Egypt ‘paper’ grade Papyrus was even used as a money commodity)

If we take out of consideration copyright laws and the labour time of the author etc and just look at the ‘physical’ use value of the book itself.

They now cost nothing; so you can download an out of copyright book and have the use value of it for free, eg;

http://www.marxists.org/archive/deville/1883/peoples-marx/index.htm

I think I can say I have some intimate knowledge of the process and how it works, having access to a scanner for £60 and free online OCR software helps of course.

Just as a minor point the product of machines can and does include ‘Marxist’ labour value as it is transferred into the product as the machine ‘deteriorates’.

Factored in by the capitalists as capital depreciation; as a rule of thumb, 10% per annum when I last asked the bean-counters at the factory I work at.

Although there can be a fuzzy line when it comes to ‘technology’ that has labour embodied in it.

Most computers are still using dead labour that was expended almost 50 years ago.

If you can think of machine and assembler code, as a freely reproducible or copied ‘machine’ in and of itself.

The idea of other things, apart from expended labour, creating or being the source of exchange value is an old one.

It probably first appeared in the so called 18-19th century ‘wheat theory of value’.

Whereby, without wanting to trivialise it too much, the ultimate source of all exchange value was sunshine and water shining down on God’s green earth and ‘value’ grew on trees and arable land.

Popular with the landowning class economists.

The idea that capital, or ‘Stock’, itself of itself produced value or at least surplus value was also current at the time, as well as now apparently.

The labour theory of value needs to be credited to Benjamin Franklin I think;


It is a man of the New World – where bourgeois relations of production imported together with their representatives sprouted rapidly in a soil in which the superabundance of humus made up for the lack of historical tradition – who for the first time deliberately and clearly (so clearly as to be almost trite) reduces exchange-value to labour-time. This man was Benjamin Franklin, who formulated the basic law of modern political economy in an early work, which was written in 1729 and published in 1731. He declares it necessary to seek another measure of value than the precious metals, and that this measure is labour.



"By labour may the value of silver be measured as well as other things. As, suppose one man is employed to raise corn, while another is digging and refining silver; at the year’s end, or at any other period of time, the complete produce of corn, and that of silver, are the natural price of each other; and if one be twenty bushels, and the other twenty ounces, then an ounce of that silver is worth the labour of raising a bushel of that corn. Now if by the discovery of some nearer, more easy or plentiful mines, a man may get forty ounces of silver as easily as formerly he did twenty, and the same labour is still required to raise twenty bushels of corn, then two ounces of silver will be worth no more than the same labour of raising one bushel of corn, and that bushel of corn will be as cheap at two ounces, as it was before at one, caeteris paribus [other things being equal]. Thus the riches of a country are to be valued by the quantity of labour its inhabitants are able to purchase"



(op. cit., p. 265).



From the outset Franklin regards labour-time from a restricted economic standpoint as the measure of value. The transformation of actual products into exchange-values is taken for granted, and it is therefore only a question of discovering a measure of their value.
To quote Franklin again:


“Trade in general being nothing else but the exchange of labour for labour, the value of all things is, as I have said before, most justly measured by labour”



(op. cit., p. 267).





http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/ch01a.htm

[Vanguard1917]

There is also the hypothetical prospect of self replicating machines and androids increasingly squeezing out human functions in the production process. How could capitalism survive in Marxian terms - that is, ensure the extraction of surplus value from living labour - were such developments to relentlessly work their way through to their logical outcome of a fully automated production system.

Yes, exactly - such a society could no longer be capitalist. As Marxists have pointed out, this is one of the 'proofs' of the truth of the labour theory of value. In the hypothetical scenario that labour is made wholly redundant by automation, value has ceased. If no one works, no one has an income with which they can buy goods and services. Thus commodities would not be in existence - there would be no market for goods and services. Products would have no value.

[prolcon]

I think assigning the creation of surplus value to machines doesn't really benefit human workers in anyway; it's just taking the result of human effort and attributing it to the tools used.

That said, if what you're suggesting is that we should consider robots as part of the proletariat, I know my Osamu Tezuka well enough to know that this is never not a good idea.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Others including some Marxists themselves regard exploitation theory and the LTV as mutually exclusive. The late G A Cohen held this view and argued that the position of workers under capitalism was much more like the position of serfs under feudalism. Workers dont and cannot produce value strictly speaking and therefore cannot produce surplus value since value is not determined at the point of production alone but also by market conditions. In other words the amount of past labour embodied in a commodity is irrelevant as far as that commodity's value is concerned

Either I'm ignorant, and your (or the named economists') point goes over my head, or there's a confusion of price and value here. You write that according to G A Cohen "workers don't and cannot produce value", althoug Marx in Capital claims that the labour process/labour is the producing of value. So, following Cohen's claim and Marx's definition of labour, workers don't produce/labour under capitalism - then who does the labouring?

Value isn't created at the market, price is.

EDIT: The above statement is false too. Price is created before the seller reaches the buyer - price is realised at the market.

[Die Neue Zeit]

machines produce value.

However, surplus value is a term that comes out of the observation of how markets process value. If we define surplus value as the difference between production cost and price, essentially profit, you find that what you're observing is artificial scarcity.

so no, machines do not produce surplus value (artificial scarcity), the market as a social construct does.

A slight correction to what is otherwise a good post: machines produce use-value.

[robbo203]

Either I'm ignorant, and your (or the named economists') point goes over my head, or there's a confusion of price and value here. You write that according to G A Cohen "workers don't and cannot produce value", althoug Marx in Capital claims that the labour process/labour is the producing of value. So, following Cohen's claim and Marx's definition of labour, workers don't produce/labour under capitalism - then who does the labouring?

Value isn't created at the market, price is.

EDIT: The above statement is false too. Price is created before the seller reaches the buyer - price is realised at the market.

G A Cohen 's argument is basically that the "relationship between the labour theory of value and the concept of exploitation is one of mutual irrelevance" (ed Ian Steedman "The Labour Theory of Value and the Concept of Exploitation" , The Value Controversy, Verso, London 1981, P202-223). As he sees it, past labour - that is, the amount of time actually spent on producing a commodity - is not strictly relevant as a guide to what is currently socially necessary labour time and which is what constitutes that commodity's value in Marxian terms. SNLT is in fact a constantly shifting potentiality which therefore cannot be meaningfully be said to "embodied" in a commodity in the way that actual (past) labour may be said to be thus embodied. What is socially necessary labour only becomes apparent a posteriori through market competition and is determined by conditions subsequent to the actual production of commodities themselves. So for example commodities that cannot be sold do not possess value though labour went into producing them. In effect, what that means is that workers in capitalism do not, and cannot logically, actually "produce" value as such and hence, cannot be said to "produce" surplus value either. What they produce are the commodities that contain value - a subtle but important distinction. It is because they, and not the capitalists, manifestly, produce what has value (rather than produce value as such) that the workers are exploited by the capitalists in the sense that the capitalists appropriate part of the value of what has been produced but without actually contributing to the production of what has been produced . This, according to Cohen makes the exploitation of the proletarian "more similar to the exploitation of the serf than traditional marxism says" (ibid p.222)

[Lowtech]

The really weak point of Marxism is that the ingenuity of the inventors of those machines does create enormous amounts of surplus value and it is labor.

referring to their "ingenuity" as a kind of labor sounds far too much like the capitalist contention that "organizational" skills of an inventor, engineer, entrepreneur etc not only should be appreciated but also considered labor. this contention is false. this assumption allows them to create an abstract role that alienates "workers" from the organizational process. economics should be based on the best means of utilizing everyone's participation for the benefit of everyone as a whole, not designing the system in reverse to justify retention of value, e. g. "paying inventors more" because they create "surplus value" or are regarded as more important, more intelligent than others. elitism is not an economic factor.

surplus value isn't a kind of value, in fact it is not value at all. it is simply a term used in the observation of the transient nature of value within a market. the market itself being a social construct. this is like arguing the rules of monopoly while alternatively we can simply not play the game.


A slight correction to what is otherwise a good post: machines produce use-value.

I can agree with that, and I appreciate the compliment! although, I find the distinction being made between use value and exchange value is within the context or paradigm of a market. Without the market, exchange value is no longer a variable to consider.

we should move from the paradigm of exchange and into the paradigm of participation as our public utility (the economy) already has the capacity to meet global need, yet cannot be realized until we abolish artificial scarcity.

[robbo203]

Sorry I don't buy the past labour argument, as workers or workers operating machines are the ONLY ones who produce labour value as a product or service doesn't exist until it is manufactured, thus the only value it could have is a vision in someone's head.

This is not really the point though is it? It is not disputed that workers are the one who produce the product or indeed the machine that produces the product. The point is does their actual labour - which is past labour embodied in the product - constitute value?

Well, no, it doesnt - not according to Marxian theory. It is only socially necessary labour time, a kind of industry-wide average, which constitutes value - not past labour. And SNLT is constantly changing. Workers using outdated technology and bestowing more labour on average on a product are not thereby producing a greater value. Not only that, commodities that cannot be sold in the market, despite the past labour embodied in them, have no value in Marxian terms

This is why as Michel De Vroey perceptively notes, the creation of value is to be located "not in production but at the articulation of production and circulation" ("Value, Production and Exchange" M de Vroey, The Value Controversy, NLB, London, 1981, p.173)

Has anyone read the Steve Keen link I posted in the OP , BTW?

[Zulu]

referring to their "ingenuity" as a kind of labor sounds far too much like the capitalist contention that "organizational" skills of an inventor, engineer, entrepreneur etc not only should be appreciated but also considered labor. this contention is false. this assumption allows them to create an abstract role that alienates "workers" from the organizational process. economics should be based on the best means of utilizing everyone's participation for the benefit of everyone as a whole, not designing the system in reverse to justify retention of value, e. g. "paying inventors more" because they create "surplus value" or are regarded as more important, more intelligent than others. elitism is not an economic factor.

Labor is conscious mental-muscular efforts aimed at creation of use-values. So, capitalists and their hired "captains of industry" do labor to. The trick is that their labor consists of basically packing orders at other people, which isn't that hard to do actually, after you've had a little practice, but gives you an edge if you want to secure a bigger chunk of social wealth for yourself (private property). That's kind of labor the workers will need to learn to do themselves - from the capitalists - without learning to do the latter part of it. Just like Lenin said during the NEP.

The labor of scientists differs from this because new inventions and discoveries create really huge amounts of value which under capitalism becomes part of the constant capital and is transfered onto countless items of means of production and items of consumption. Of course, science is part of the general process of the social production, but still scientific breakthroughs are worth millions if not billions of new man-hours of work each.

The scientific kind of labor also stands out because the manual kind of labor and organizing kind of labor are both socially necessary at any given technological level just to upkeep the society and maintain its reproduction. Science is not necessary for that and is almost universally regarded as a major revolutionary/destabilizing factor.

The matter of "paying more" is a whole another matter, I am just pointing out here where new value and surplus value come from.

[Lowtech]

Labor is conscious mental-muscular efforts aimed at creation of use-values. So, capitalists and their hired "captains of industry" do labor to.i'm not blaming them for it, but thier skill set is unecissary. Management structures are an implied parctical hierarchy. However, they are not practical at all, and no matter thier usefulness, do not validate artificial scarcity.
The trick is that their labor consists of basically packing orders at other people, which isn't that hard to do actually, after you've had a little practice, but gives you an edge if you want to secure a bigger chunk of social wealth for yourself (private property). That's kind of labor the workers will need to learn to do themselves - from the capitalists - without learning to do the latter part of it. Just like Lenin said during the NEP. you just explained why it is widely understood Lenin was a capitalist, he shares the capitalist belief that the majority of people lack the ability to organize and work efficiently without the guidence of a "great man" as he saw himself.


The labor of scientists differs from this because new inventions and discoveries create really huge amounts of value "value" without physicality is no value at all from an economic stand point. a capitalist is not the same as a scientist or engineer, and even if he were, a blueprint is worthless without materials and labor used to realise the design, therefore any attempt to attribute the entrepreneur's role as one that produces value is invalidated.
which under capitalism becomes part of the constant capital and is transfered onto countless items of means of production and items of consumption. Of course, science is part of the general process of the social production, but still scientific breakthroughs are worth millions if not billions of new man-hours of work each. again, scientific breaktrhoughs have no value on thier own, they provide nothing without materials and labor to realize them. To over compensate a scientist or engineer or blood sucking capitalist is to erroneously inflate production cost, causing artificial scarcity. Ultimately defending capitalism means defending artificial scarcity.


The scientific kind of labor also stands out because the manual kind of labor and organizing kind of labor are both socially necessary at any given technological level just to upkeep the society and maintain its reproduction. skill sets in capitalism are not condusive to minimizing waste. Also these managment structures are only necissary in support of vast menial jobs that themselves only exist because their profitability increases with volume. In a sense, managment structures are policing the wage slaves, enforcing compliance.
Science is not necessary for that and is almost universally regarded as a major revolutionary/destabilizing factor. interesting point and I would enjoy reading your elaboration on the suject


The matter of "paying more" is a whole another matter, I am just pointing out here where new value and surplus value come from. value only enters the economy in the form of a usable commodity. the value disapates once that commodity is consumed and nolonger able to be transfered. Much like value only enters a combustion engine as fuel and it is lost as it is expended.

[Luís Henrique]

Machines work, but don't labor. Just like horses. They are means of production, end of story.

There are two different kinds of commodities - or three if you include money. First there are those commodities that capitalists produce and sell for a profit: sausages, machine guns, busses, sandwiches, luxury yachts, funeral services, bankrupcy counseling, and strings to hang capitalists. Second there is labour power, that capitalists do not produce at all, because it cannot be sold for a profit.

Typically, machines belong to the first kind of commodities. They don't earn wages, and they don't go to the market to buy toothpicks, automobiles, movie tickets, books, vegetables or licquor. Or any other shit workers may buy at the market.

If capital manages to produce machines that make things without human help, who is going to buy those things? If capital manages to produce machines that earn wages and buy thingies at the market, who is going to produce such machines? Labour power is a commodity that cannot be sold for a profit, so what capitalist would be willing to build it in the form of worker-machines? And if capital manages to produce machines that (re)produce themselves, how does it avoid those machines revolting against it after reading Das Kapital? How does capital avoid Robolution?

Luís Henrique

[Lucretia]

People who argue that machines produce "value" are people who reject Marx's labor theory of value. So the first thing to keep in mind is that the disagreement isn't as narrowly confined as it might otherwise appear to be, but rather spills over to the very fundamentals of value theory.

The reason machines couldn't produce surplus value, according to Marx was that the owners of said machines would effectively be appropriating value from the manufacturers of the machines -- who, for obvious reasons of competitiveness, would not sell their machines below the cost of the capitalized expected return.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The really weak point of Marxism is that the ingenuity of the inventors of those machines does create enormous amounts of surplus value and it is labor. This is consistent with the Marxian LTV, but kind of punches a hole in the notion that the proletariat is solely responsible for the creation of social wealth.

Are you repeating classical economics adages here? You know, the "factors of production" being land, labour, and capital? :confused:

What you're saying is no different from the "Businesses Create Jobs" mantra, an indirect capital theory of value, but it doesn't hold water, since without the labour supply or labour market the so-called “innovative entrepreneurs” who still need to hire for a profit cannot realize their innovations.


I can agree with that, and I appreciate the compliment! although, I find the distinction being made between use value and exchange value is within the context or paradigm of a market. Without the market, exchange value is no longer a variable to consider.

I'm not sure about that. Exchange value isn't the same thing as price, and wage labour can exist without labour markets.


we should move from the paradigm of exchange and into the paradigm of participation as our public utility (the economy) already has the capacity to meet global need, yet cannot be realized until we abolish artificial scarcity.

Indeed.


Second there is labour power, that capitalists do not produce at all, because it cannot be sold for a profit.

[...]

Labour power is a commodity that cannot be sold for a profit, so what capitalist would be willing to build it in the form of worker-machines?

Sure it can be bought and sold for profit. Just look at sex workers.

[black magick hustla]

machines can't produce surplus value because you can't exploit a machine. anyway land has a price but doesn't have "value". value only comes from human labor. idle land has no use-value whatsoever, and something can't have value without use-value. marxist critique of political economy is supposed to follow the fundamental dynamics of capitalism, not the dynamics of price or whatever.

[Lowtech]

I'm not sure about that. Exchange value isn't the same thing as price, and wage labour can exist without labour marketsi see. although, what i meant by exchange value not being factor is that exchange value is only a property of a market not an axiom of economics. and it is a critical observation that demand does not equate to need.
There are two different kinds of commodities - or three if you include money.money is not a commodity. it has no physical utility. it is a social construct that is an insufficient means of measuring value. so insufficient that it allows for abuse of our economic system.
Second there is labour power, that capitalists do not produce at all, because it cannot be sold for a profit.capitalists produce no value, however they retain vast amounts of it via the profit mechanism.
If capital manages to produce machines that make things without human help, who is going to buy those things? If capital manages to produce machines that earn wages and buy thingies at the market, who is going to produce such machines? Labour power is a commodity that cannot be sold for a profitactually yes, labour can be sold for a profit, via exploitation; mathematically by devaluing labor; by paying the worker less than the value of his labor.
machines can't produce surplus value because you can't exploit a machine.perhaps, however capitalists also exploit the buyer by selling above production cost.
something can't have value without use-value. marxist critique of political economy is supposed to follow the fundamental dynamics of capitalism, not the dynamics of price or whatever. you are absolutely right that something cannot have value without use-value. however price, exchange value, market value, capital, surplus value, profit are market dynamics and capitalism is a market and the social construct of commodities in exchange. marxism is an observation of these dynamics.

and has been the most honest observation until this: price, market value, surplus value, capital and profit are all simply artificial scarcity. they have no other physicality. their distinction from one another only exists in our mind.

in the mind of capitalists, machines are workers that you don't need to feed or house. they will make no hesitation in replacing us with machines. however, even with all labor mechanized, this will not bring about modern communism, as artificial scarcity will also be applied to the robots themselves, meaning some will be shared with all people, however most of the benefit of mechanized labor will be utilized by the rich. they will use patents to maintain the social construct of commodities for as long as they can, they will control the use of materials just as they do now.

increased abundance will simply produce wonders like giant ring worlds for the pleasure of the plutocratic class as the basic dynamic of capitalism will not be affected. without revolution, in the future workers will simply become the designers and handlers of the machines just as middle management are the handlers of wage slaves today.

[Zulu]

What you're saying is no different from the "Businesses Create Jobs" mantra

I can't see how what I say is no different from this mantra, because all I say here is that scientists in a lab do create new value with their brains just like assembly line workers do with their hands. The so called "entrepreneurial spirit" has obviously nothing to do with invention, and entrepreneurs may go to hell for all I care.

[robbo203]

I think the discussion so far has not quite dealt with the specific argument raised by Steve Keen. I would urge people to read that article. the link to which I posted in the OP.

My own take on it is this. I think Keen is mistaken for these reasons

Firstly, the claim that machines produce surplus value is, I think, based on a superfical reading of what is actually going on in the capitalist economy. It confuses use value and exchange value. Machines certainly increase the productivity of labour and thereby create additional use values. However material production and the production of surplus value are two quite different and distinct processes. Machines enable workers to produce more in a physical sense but do not, and cannot, in themselves produce value. They only transfer the value embodied in them over the lifetime of the machine itself. Indeed, with more goods - commodities - now being produced thanks to the introduction of machinery the exchange value of each individual commoditiy will decline inasmuch as it contains less labour time than before. In the long run this will be reflected in a fall in the prices of commodities. This reduction in the prices of commodities also reduces the amount of time that the worker requires to reproduce the value of her own labour power and so increases the share of her labour time that is appropriated by the capitalist in the form of unpaid labour and it is this rather than the introduction of machinery itself that makes for the increase in surplus value. In other words the idea that machines can create surplus value is only an illusion. It is only living labour that can do that and all machinery does is to enable workers to devote more of their time to the production of surplus value.

Secondly, it has to be born in mind that when we are talking about labour time here, we are referring to socially necessary labour time which is a kind of industry-wide social average. An individual capitalist enterprise can indeed realise increased profits through the introduction of more productive machinery and thereby reducing units costs. This would appear to suggest that machines directly contribute to, or create, surplus value of which profits is a monetary expression. However, this is misleading. Production is a socialised process and the amount of surplus value available for capitalist appropriation might more usefully be looked upon as something that is collectively pooled, so to speak, and from which pool individual capitalists draw their share. Seen from this perspective, there is a zero sum game at work in respect of how such individual capitalists relate to one another. The higher than average profits enjoyed by one as a result of the introduction of new machinery must logically presuppose lower than average profits going to another. The initial advantage that one capitalist enjoys though the introduction of machinery which enables him to hold his production costs below that of the social average will over time come to be eroded by the forces of market competition and the tendency for profit rates to equalise across industry. In due course the spread of such new technologies throughout industry will undermine that initial advantage and exert a restaining influence on profits levels. A good example of this is the effect of computerisation on industry in the post era. This has greatly increased labour productivity but has not resulted in an commensurate increase in profit levels which, at the end of the 20th century, were significantly below those prevailing in the early post war boom period and this despite the reduced bargaining power of the working class and the waning influence of the trade union movement in the meanwhile.

[Lucretia]

In fairness to the posters here, robbo203, I think the reason many of them chose not to engage extensively with the piece you reference is that it's not really a new argument. Capitalist apologists have a long track record of making this argument that technological innovation can offset the decline in the rate of profit, and they invariably do so by premising their argument on a rejection of Marx's labor theory of value -- the idea that value is a relation between units of production that are producing privately but are trying to reproduce themselves socially through exchange those private labors.

To attempt to reject this argument by referring to increased productivity brought about by advances in automation just ignores the entire point of the labor theory of value -- you can have more productive machinery, but the people using it will still relate to each other the same way -- as private units of production attempting to coordinate private labors socially through exchange, and where those directly doing the labor don't own the means of production. As you note, twice as many coats being produced in the same period of time doesn't mean you have twice as much "value" -- though you certainly have twice as much use value.

[Comrade #138672]

I can't see how what I say is no different from this mantra, because all I say here is that scientists in a lab do create new value with their brains just like assembly line workers do with their hands. The so called "entrepreneurial spirit" has obviously nothing to do with invention, and entrepreneurs may go to hell for all I care.I've created a new topic, using a part of your dialogue, if that's OK with you. http://www.revleft.com/vb/do-inventors-and-t177076/index.html?p=2549852#post2549852

[Luís Henrique]

Sure it can be bought and sold for profit. Just look at sex workers.

The income from sexual services is profit? To me, it is the equivalent of a wage.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

idle land has no use-value whatsoever,

Of course idle land has a use value; use value is a potential to be used, not the actual use. Otherwise commodities before beind sold would have no use value, and, since, as you say,


something can't have value without use-value.they would have no value and would be unsellable.

Luís Henrique

[Delenda Carthago]

(http://books.google.gr/books?id=uhtYhPvU0kUC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=george%20caffentzis%20machines&source=bl&ots=aWO9l9jam5&sig=R1iikhuC0Qato455n5CZ9RSG2Dw&hl=el&sa=X&ei=l8NkT7CLH9CX8gP6_KCACA&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA)Karl Marx - 'Fragment on Machines' (http://www.anonym.to/?http://thenewobjectivity.com/pdf/marx.pdf)

George Caffentzis - Why machines cannot create value (http://books.google.gr/books?id=uhtYhPvU0kUC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=george%20caffentzis%20machines&source=bl&ots=aWO9l9jam5&sig=R1iikhuC0Qato455n5CZ9RSG2Dw&hl=el&sa=X&ei=l8NkT7CLH9CX8gP6_KCACA&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA)

[Lowtech]

Of course idle land has a use value; use value is a potential to be used, not the actual use. Otherwise commodities before beind sold would have no use value, and, since, as you say,

they would have no value and would be unsellable.

Luís Henrique

exchange value gives say, a DVD far more market value than it would have out of use value, outside of a market, alone. Within a marketless economy, a DVD disc would have no more value than the cost of it's phyiscal production.

Market or echange value, being a social construct, is a delusion of the psychological design of market economics; it has no physicality, therefore value cannot be defined by a market.

Value must be defined as the economic viability of a commodity, based on need and the amount of materials and labor logistically required to meet that need while minimizing waste. as waste increases, value decreases; while materials and labor required increases, value decreases. more simply put, the more logistically efficient a commodity is at meeting a need, the more economic value it has.

[Alekséi]

In response to this question -very interesting- I will borrow Marx's theory of machinery and Relative Sur-plus value from Capital, Book I, Part 4, Chapter 15, section 3, B. Prolongation of the Working-Day:

Marx Says:
"
B. Prolongation of the Working-Day

If machinery be the most powerful means for increasing the productiveness of labour [the italics are mine] — i.e., for shortening the working-time required in the production of a commodity [the underlying is mine], it becomes in the hands of capital the most powerful means, in those industries first invaded by it, for lengthening the working-day beyond all bounds set by human nature. It creates, on the one hand, new conditions by which capital is enabled to give free scope to this its constant tendency, and on the other hand, new motives with which to whet capital’s appetite for the labour of others.

In the first place, in the form of machinery, the implements of labour become automatic, things moving and working independent of the workman. They are thenceforth an industrial perpetuum mobile, that would go on producing forever, did it not meet with certain natural obstructions in the weak bodies and the strong wills of its human attendants. The automaton, as capital, and because it is capital, is endowed, in the person of the capitalist, with intelligence and will; it is therefore animated by the longing to reduce to a minimum the resistance offered by that repellent yet elastic natural barrier, man. [61] This resistance is moreover lessened by the apparent lightness of machine work, and by the more pliant and docile character of the women and children employed on it. [62]

The productiveness of machinery is, as we saw, inversely proportional to the value transferred by it to the product [the italics are mine]. 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.

The wear and tear of a machine is not exactly proportional to its working-time. And even if it were so, 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. But in the first case the value of the machine would be reproduced twice as quickly as in the latter, and the capitalist would, by this use of the machine, absorb in 7½ years as much surplus-value as in the second case he would in 15.

The material wear and tear of a machine is of two kinds. The one arises from use, as coins wear away by circulating, the other from non-use, as a sword rusts when left in its scabbard. The latter kind is due to the elements. The former is more or less directly proportional, the latter to a certain extent inversely proportional, to the use of the machine. [63]

But in addition to the material wear and tear, a machine also undergoes, what we may call a moral depreciation. It loses exchange-value, either by machines of the same sort being produced cheaper than it, or by better machines entering into competition with it. [64] In both cases, be the machine ever so young and full of life, its value is no longer determined by the labour actually materialised in it, but by the labour-time requisite to reproduce either it or the better machine. It has, therefore, lost value more or less. The shorter the period taken to reproduce its total value, the less is the danger of moral depreciation; and the longer the working-day, the shorter is that period. When machinery is first introduced into an industry, new methods of reproducing it more cheaply follow blow upon blow, [65] and so do improvements, that not only affect individual parts and details of the machine, but its entire build. It is, therefore, in the early days of the life of machinery that this special incentive to the prolongation of the working-day makes itself felt most acutely. [66]

Given the length of the working-day, all other circumstances remaining the same, the exploitation of double the number of workmen demands, not only a doubling of that part of constant capital which is invested in machinery and buildings, but also of that part which is laid out in raw material and auxiliary substances. The lengthening of the working-day, on the other hand, allows of production on an extended scale without any alteration in the amount of capital laid out on machinery and buildings. [67] Not only is there, therefore, an increase of surplus-value, but the outlay necessary to obtain it diminishes. It is true that this takes place, more or less, with every lengthening of the working-day; but in the case under consideration, the change is more marked, because the capital converted into the instruments of labour preponderates to a greater degree. [68] 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. “When a labourer,” said Mr. Ashworth, a cotton magnate, to Professor Nassau W. Senior, “lays down his spade, he renders useless, for that period, a capital worth eighteen-pence. When one of our people leaves the mill, he renders useless a capital that has cost £100,000.” [69] Only fancy! making “useless” for a single moment, a capital that has cost £100,000! It is, in truth, monstrous, that a single one of our people should ever leave the factory! The increased use of machinery, as Senior after the instruction he received from Ashworth clearly perceives, makes a constantly increasing lengthening of the working-day “desirable.” [70]

Machinery produces relative surplus-value [the bold is mine]; not only by directly depreciating the value of labour-power, and by indirectly cheapening the same through cheapening the commodities that enter into its reproduction, but also, 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, and the capitalist endeavours to exploit thoroughly “the sunny time of this his first love,” by prolonging the working-day as much as possible. The magnitude of the profit whets his appetite for more profit. [the underlying is mine]

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, and we saw that the amount of surplus-value depends on two factors, viz., the rate of surplus-value and the number of the workmen simultaneously employed. Given the length of the working-day, the rate of surplus-value is determined by the relative duration of the necessary labour and of the surplus-labour in a day. The number of the labourers simultaneously employed depends, on its side, on the ratio of the variable to the constant capital. Now, however much the use of machinery may increase the surplus-labour at the expense of the necessary labour by heightening the productiveness of labour, it is clear that it attains this result, only by diminishing the number of workmen employed by a given amount of capital. It converts what was formerly variable capital, invested in labour-power, into machinery which, being constant capital, does not produce surplus-value [the bold is mine]. It is impossible, for instance, to squeeze as much surplus-value out of 2 as out of 24 labourers. If each of these 24 men gives only one hour of surplus-labour in 12, the 24 men give together 24 hours of surplus-labour, while 24 hours is the total labour of the two men. Hence, the application of machinery to the production of surplus-value implies a contradiction which is immanent in it, since 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; and it is this contradiction, that in its turn, drives the capitalist, without his being conscious of the fact, [71] 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.

If, then, the capitalistic employment of machinery, on the one hand, supplies new and powerful motives to an excessive lengthening of the working-day, and radically changes, as well the methods of labour, as also the character of the social working organism, in such a manner as to break down all opposition to this tendency, on the other hand it produces, partly by opening out to the capitalist new strata of the working-class, previously inaccessible to him, partly by setting free the labourers it supplants, a surplus working population, [72] which is compelled to submit to the dictation of capital. Hence that remarkable phenomenon in the history of modern industry, that machinery sweeps away every moral and natural restriction on the length of the working-day. Hence, too, the economic paradox, that the most powerful instrument for shortening labour-time, becomes the most unfailing means for placing every moment of the labourer’s time and that of his family, at the disposal of the capitalist for the purpose of expanding the value of his capital. “If,” dreamed Aristotle, the greatest thinker of antiquity, “if every tool, when summoned, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it, just as the creations of Daedalus moved of themselves, or the tripods of Hephaestos went of their own accord to their sacred work, if the weavers’ shuttles were to weave of themselves, then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers, or of slaves for the lords.” [73] And Antipatros, a Greek poet of the time of Cicero, hailed the invention of the water-wheel for grinding corn, an invention that is the elementary form of all machinery, as the giver of freedom to female slaves, and the bringer back of the golden age. [74] Oh! those heathens! They understood, as the learned Bastiat, and before him the still wiser MacCulloch have discovered, nothing of Political Economy and Christianity. They did not, for example, comprehend that machinery is the surest means of lengthening the working-day. They perhaps excused the slavery of one on the ground that it was a means to the full development of another. But to preach slavery of the masses, in order that a few crude and half-educated parvenus, might become “eminent spinners,” “extensive sausage-makers,” and “influential shoe-black dealers,” to do this, they lacked the bump of Christianity."


Here ends point B, Marx continues explaining Machinery and Modern Industry -and Relative Sur-plus value- in his chapter 15:
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#S3 (see Marxist Internet Archive)

I will explain paraphrasing Marx what is seems to be a contradiction in terms (contradictio in subjecto) about Machinery and Sur-plus Value (but Relative Sur-plus Value) if I'm asked by many to do it because it may be found not understandable.

I hope it to be useful for you. It is for me. Happy new year!

[Lucretia]

exchange value gives say, a DVD far more market value than it would have out of use value, outside of a market, alone. Within a marketless economy, a DVD disc would have no more value than the cost of it's phyiscal production.

Market or echange value, being a social construct, is a delusion of the psychological design of market economics; it has no physicality, therefore value cannot be defined by a market.

Value must be defined as the economic viability of a commodity, based on need and the amount of materials and labor logistically required to meet that need while minimizing waste. as waste increases, value decreases; while materials and labor required increases, value decreases. more simply put, the more logistically efficient a commodity is at meeting a need, the more economic value it has.

Huh? In a socialist/non-market economy, there would be no commodity production and hence no "value" at all. Your attempt to talk about "value" in such an economy, by relating it to use value, is simply weird.

I suppose you can have value if you want to redefine the term into something that has nothing to do with Marx's value theory, which is what you seem to be doing in the second paragraph, wherein you write "value must be defined as the economic viability of a commodity, based on need."

The fact that a commodity has value has nothing to do with its "viability" in the market, notwithstanding the obvious fact that commodities are only produced if a producer thinks that the value of said commodity can be realized through sale in a market (in other words, the commodity is produced, is given value, because of the expectation that the commodity will be viable in the market). Rather, a commodity has value because it was created (whether sold or not!) by a producer who can reproduce himself only by exchanging that commodity with other independent producers. In a "non-market" society, planning of production will aim to meet need, but this doesn't entail commodity production in any way -- and in fact, social planning negates commodity production because the latter presupposes independent producers *not* joining together to plan, entails waste, entails a highly indirect and inefficient way of meeting need.

In other words it seems you are conflating value with use value, and not at all understanding the crucial distinction Marx makes between the two.

[Lowtech]

Huh? In a socialist/non-market economy, there would be no commodity production and hence no "value" at all. Your attempt to talk about "value" in such an economy, by relating it to use value, is simply weird.

I suppose you can have value if you want to redefine the term into something that has nothing to do with Marx's value theory, which is what you seem to be doing in the second paragraph, wherein you write "value must be defined as the economic viability of a commodity, based on need."

The fact that a commodity has value has nothing to do with its "viability" in the market, notwithstanding the obvious fact that commodities are only produced if a producer thinks that the value of said commodity can be realized through sale in a market (in other words, the commodity is produced, is given value, because of the expectation that the commodity will be viable in the market). Rather, a commodity has value because it was created (whether sold or not!) by a producer who can reproduce himself only by exchanging that commodity with other independent producers. In a "non-market" society, planning of production will aim to meet need, but this doesn't entail commodity production in any way -- and in fact, social planning negates commodity production because the latter presupposes independent producers *not* joining together to plan, entails waste, entails a highly indirect and inefficient way of meeting need.

In other words it seems you are conflating value with use value, and not at all understanding the crucial distinction Marx makes between the two.

Marx is putting forward an analysis of capitalism and market dynamics. And up untill now, its been hard for anyone to contemplate economics outside the market paradigm. Also, Marx doesn't define two physical kinds of value, rather he's defining use value, which is physical, accountable value and then exchange value which is completely psychological. In reality there is only use value. As it is with a combustion engine, it takes an input, fuel, and it outputs force in the most efficient means possible (within our current level of enfineering of course). at no point does the engine attribute an abstract value to its fuel that it processes into a usable force, nor does it allow abstract measurement of value to interfere with its physical process of transfering force. Economy follows the exact same principle. it is a public utility who's intended purpose is to processes resources into usable commodities. forgive me if I am not using the terms you prefer. I am simply using the language better understood by people that are born into the market paradigm.

Do you find the principles I discuss to be incorrect, or are you arguing semantics?

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

I say yes. Surplus value is the amount of value labor power is able to create that exceeds its own value. There's nothing metaphysical about it. Anything that can create more value than its own value produces surplus value. If a machine were able to produce commodities entirely independent of human labor power, I see no reason why the value it produced in excess of its own value would not also be considered surplus value. Such automation isn't just limited to fantasy worlds, either. Nanobot technology is predicted to reach such a stage that nanobots could produce other nanobots as well as other goods without human interference.

[Lucretia]

Also, Marx doesn't define two physical kinds of value, rather he's defining use value, which is physical, accountable value and then exchange value which is completely psychological. In reality there is only use value.

This is a highly problematic formulation, and my disagreement with it is certainly not semantic. You are setting up this binary with use-value/natural/physical on one side, and value/artificial/mental on the other. What's wrong with this binary is that use value is not merely "physical," and certainly not natural. Usefulness is a quality ascribed to physical objects by social actors in response to a definite set of social relations. In early Mesopotamia, crude oil was *physically* the same, but did not have any use value -- and for obvious reasons.

Conversely value is not merely "psychological" or completely subjective. It reflects objective relations between people -- specifically a relationship of codependently exchanging objectified labor (in the form of commodities). If value were just psychological, and has no basis in objective reality, each individual person could employ his unique psychological make-up to transform value into whatever he or she wished. According to your formulation, destroying the law of value requires nothing more than thinking differently about things, not transforming social relations. An idealist fantasy if I ever heard one.

What is more, your position that value is only subjective very closely resembles the value-form theorists' belief that value is created - rather than realized and validated - by exchange. I don't have time to go into an in-depth critique here, but needless to say, it undermines the entirety of Marx's crisis theory and is not found anywhere in Marx's texts.

In closing I think you need to do a lot more reading in to Marx's value theory, and what exactly he was trying to capture in that theory.

[Lucretia]

I say yes. Surplus value is the amount of value labor power is able to create that exceeds its own value. There's nothing metaphysical about it. Anything that can create more value than its own value produces surplus value. If a machine were able to produce commodities entirely independent of human labor power, I see no reason why the value it produced in excess of its own value would not also be considered surplus value. Such automation isn't just limited to fantasy worlds, either. Nanobot technology is predicted to reach such a stage that nanobots could produce other nanobots as well as other goods without human interference.

There is a reason machinery is called constant capital and not variable capital. Can you guess what it is?

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

There is a reason machinery is called constant capital and not variable capital. Can you guess what it is?

Constant capital is utilized by living labor to produce new value. It cannot produce anything apart from its use by humans. Fully automated machines that were produced by fully automated machines that required no human interaction would be fundamentally different.

[Prettykewlguy]

Capital does not produce the marginal product of labor but rather it's labor that produces the marginal product of capital. In other words, capital is unproductive unless fertilized by labor.

Not only that, but ownership of capital alone does not merit an infinite reward because capital is only a finite investment. Capital does not make effort to produce or use the resource of time in production, but human labor does. Therefore, human labor merits a reward in proportion to what it contributes to production and mere ownership of capital does not.

[Lucretia]

Constant capital is utilized by living labor to produce new value. It cannot produce anything apart from its use by humans. Fully automated machines that were produced by fully automated machines that required no human interaction would be fundamentally different.

Fully automated machines produced by fully automated machines? Sounds like something from a sci-fi novel. In all seriousness, I explained on page one of this thread exactly why constant capital doesn't produce new value. You are making the very same mistake I explained in my follow-up post to robbo: you are mistakenly believing that value characterizes a relation between things and not a relation between people.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

Fully automated machines produced by fully automated machines? Sounds like something from a sci-fi novel. In all seriousness, I explained on page one of this thread exactly why constant capital doesn't produce new value. You are making the very same mistake I explained in my follow-up post to robbo: you are mistakenly believing that value characterizes a relation between things and not a relation between people.
Fair enough. And of course the example I am using is very isolated and not even possible yet -- nanobot technology is pretty primitive still. But if predictions are accurate, the technology will reach such a stage that nanobots will be able to produce other nanobots that can produce goods on their own. So grappling with that question is going to be important for Marxists in the relatively near future.

[Lowtech]

Usefulness is a quality ascribed to physical objects by social actors in response to a definite set of social relations.our current system of economics does not decide movement of resources based on some kind of 'consumer' nor exchange mentality. this is a myth. this mentality is also not an axiom of economics. skill sets and resources brought into the economy is what decides how well an economy functions. once established, to maintain functionality and a robust nature, economy must be based on accountable value, not subjective exchange value.
Conversely value is not merely "psychological" or completely subjective. It reflects objective relations between people -- specifically a relationship of codependently exchanging objectified labor (in the form of commodities)this opinion might have viability if a standard protocol were produced that ensured proper utilization of resources, but this is designing economy in reverse. asking the consumer his preference, then producing a commodity to meet that preference, then attempting to design these commodities with efficient use of labor and resources. economics in reverse is not only problematic, it is crudely insufficient
An idealist fantasy if I ever heard one. observing the reality of economics and designing a system scientifically is hardly idealist. what is idealist is assuming humanity will perpetually allow itself to be economically subjugated.

[Raúl Duke]

I think this topic is probably way over my head...but I would like to ask something...

What about the sociological effects of increased mechanization and particularly automation?

This would cause more workers to 'redundant,' no?

Wouldnt this be problematic economically, perhaps leading to a decrease in consumers (since more workers may be unemployed plus the unemployment may induce a downward pressure to wages of those left who are employed) which might effect profit margins in the long run (rate of profits)?

[Psy]

Machines do produce value, what they can't produce is surplus value because you can't exploit machines. Machines can't be bribed or threatened, push machines too hard and they breakdown, cut back on their consumption and they breakdown.

[Alekséi]

Machines do produce value, what they can't produce is surplus value because you can't exploit machines. Machines can't be bribed or threatened, push machines too hard and they breakdown, cut back on their consumption and they breakdown.

In Marx's words machines do not produce value, they transfer its own (déchet) to the product. The only thing that produces value and moreover, sur-plus value "is human labour power in motion" (Capital, Book 1). If you ask me: So, how can machines can transfer value but cannot create it? The answer is this: Machines only transfer the value produced by human labour power in motion on them.

(Human labour power in motion = Labour force)

[Camaradus]

It seems as if we are now speaking of technological singularity theory.
Such a form of society would seem at least three dialectical steps distant from the present.
Indeed, approaching singularity would theoretically represent a most formidable threat to surplus appropriation of the means of production and generally speaking, capital itself. The paradox lies in the fact that the modern propertied classes, the ones which own the expanding productive forces which may theoretically yield technological singularity and thus, universal social prosperity to a given society; are every bit as capable and willing to theoretically comprehend the phenomenon as class conscious, propertyless workers. Both beneficiary and benefactor respectively.
The propertied classes, in spite of the general capitalistic laws of accumulation and concentration, will undoubtedly resort to methods of collusion in order to disallow the manifestation of such a society; for it would be, to a certain extent, no longer producing commodities; a form of production in which the bourgeoisie is dependent upon for its perpetuation in class supremacy.
One must surmise: The privately owned means of production would first have to be seized and collectively tenured by the whole of society, with the social objective of doing away with products in the commodity form, to effectively expand material forces of production in such a way as to genuinely pursue technological singularity theory in the firstplace.
Futher, it would seem singularity theory cannot so much as be pondered until the existing property relations are ruptured, for in the existing bourgeois form, science and technology do not yet possess a truly free exchange of ideas, which would seem compulsory in order to materially facilitate such a vastly unprecedented expansion in productive forces. Intellectual property has far too much invested in the particular commodity form, thus compromising and restricting an optimal social amalgamation of production.
Marx was clear, due to his theoretical foundation in dialectics, in stating that communist society was by no means to be the final form of human society.
"It cannot be otherwise, in a mode of production in which the laborer exists to satisfy the needs of self-expansion of existing values, instead of on the contrary, material wealth existing to satisfy the needs of development on the part of the laborer. As in religion, man in governed by the products of his own brain, so in capitalistic production, he is governed by the products of his own hand." -Marx
"Private property has made us so stupid and partial, that an object is only ours when we have it, when it exists for us as capital, or when it is directly eaten, drunk, worn, inhabited, etc., in short, utilized in some way. Though private property only conceives these various forms of possession as means of life, and the life for which they serve as means, is the life of private property. Labor and the creation of value."-Marx

[Camaradus]

"Money, inasmuch as it possess the property of being able to buy everything and appropriate all objects, is the object most worth possessing. The universality of this property is the basis of money's omnipotence; hence, it is regarded as an omnipotent being... Money is the pander between need and object, between human life and means of subsistence. But that which mediates my life also mediates the existence of other men for me. It is for me the other person.
.
That which exists for me through the medium of money, that which I can pay for, i.e., that which money can buy, that am I, the possessor of money. The stronger the power of my money, the stronger am I. The properties of money are my, the possessor's, properties and essential powers. Therefore, what I am and what I can do is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy the most beautiful woman. Which means to say that I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness, its repelling power, is destroyed by money. As an individual, I am lame, but money procurs me 24 legs. Consequently, I am not lame. I am a wicked, dishonest, unscrupulous and stupid individual, but money is respected, and so also is its owner. Money is the highest good, and consequently its owner is also good. Moreover, money spares me the trouble of being dishonest, and I am therefore presumed to be honest. I am mindless, but if money is the true mind of all things, how can its owner be mindless? What is more, he can buy clever people for himself, and is not he who has power over clever people cleverer than them? Through money, I can have anything the human heart desires. Do I not possess all human abilities? Does not money therefore transform all my incapacities into their opposite?
If money is the bond which ties me to human life and society to me, which links me to nature and to man, is money not the bond of all bonds? Can it not bind and loose all bonds? Is it therefore not the universal means of separation? It is the true agent of separation and the true cementing agent, it is the chemical power of society.

(1) It is the visible divinity, the transformation of all human and natural qualities into their opposites, the universal confusion and inversion of things; it brings together impossibilities.

(2) It is the universal whore, the universal pimp of men and peoples.
The inversion and confusion of all human and natural qualities, the bringing together of impossibilities, the divine power of money lies in its nature as the estranged and alienating species-essence of man which alienates itself by selling itself. It is the alienated capacity of mankind."

-Marx (EPM)

[Alekséi]

In Marx's words machines do not produce value, they transfer its own (déchet) to the product. The only thing that produces value and moreover, sur-plus value "is human labour power in motion" (Capital, Book 1). If you ask me: So, how can machines can transfer value but cannot create it? The answer is this: Machines only transfer the value produced by human labour power in motion on them.

(Human labour power in motion = Labour force)

I want to make a clarification paraphrasing Marx: Value is measured by the time needed for the production of a commodity, by Human labour power in general, by the time socially needed is determined. (Capital, book 1: The production of Capital)
And I want to make another clarification: I repeat machines never produce value -surplus value neither- (see above), and moreover, not every worker produces exchange-values and surplus value. See Productive and Unproductive labour (Capital, book 4) See: Unproductive labour in services. The only worker who is productive is the one who produces surplus value. Not every worker produces surplus value, much workers give services or sell their labour force to produce use-values but not exchange-values (as a prostitute who is unproductive unless she works for a pimp). The production of Surplus value is the condition to be Productive. Surplus value and productiveness are interrelated, they´re directly proportional. (Capital, book 4: Theories of Surplus Value) By the way, for Adam Smith also this was the condition to be productive but also -for him- is productive the worker who produces a commodity -Completly erroneous as Marx analised, criticised and prooved in his book 4- on this point Marx shares Ricardo's oppinions about productiveness.