Labour-saving technology: a source of wealth?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think that a lot of clarification needs to be made in regards to the assertion that human labour is the sole non-natural source of value production (contrary to the strawman vulgar "Marxism" - in actual fact Lassalleanism - attacked by mainstream economists). Marx elaborated on "labour-saving machinery." Would this also be a second non-natural source of value production?

[apathy maybe]

Considering that an apple is valuable even if it has grown on a wild tree and ripened and fallen without intervention by a person, I would suggest that the notion that value comes only from labour is a lot of bollocks.

However, I just re-read your post, and you did specify 'non-natural', so my point isn't really relevant.

To more specifically address your post then, yes machinery can make "value". If I use a rice cooker, then a lot of the hassle and stress that potentially comes with making rice is removed. Or, to use my favourite example, a washing machine saves a shit load of human energy and time to wash clothing.

That time can be used in a productive manner (in which case the machine is enabling one person to do more work, augmenting that person), or for leisure.

Machinery that is specifically built to build things does even more then just save time. It creates. Take a factory for example, the "robots" (they aren't really robots, but whatever) in a car factory are producing something, thus creating "wealth".

[JazzRemington]

Labor isn't the sole source of wealth. Nature contributes as much to the production of a thing as labor does.

[Demogorgon]

Yes, but labour saving technology is itself produced by labour.

[trivas7]

I think that a lot of clarification needs to be made in regards to the assertion that human labour is the sole non-natural source of value production (contrary to the strawman vulgar "Marxism" - in actual fact Lassalleanism - attacked by mainstream economists). Marx elaborated on "labour-saving machinery." Would this also be a second non-natural source of value production?
Of exchange value for the capitalist, yes. Machinery is part of the constant capital included in the outlay of money on (1) fixed assets, i.e. plant, machinery, land and buildings, (2) raw materials and ancillary operating expenses (including services purchased), and (3) certain faux frais of production (incidental expenses).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant_capital

[Charles Xavier]

Who picks the apple and sells it? Do you pick it and sell to yourself? Labour is used to pick the apple. sorry to inform you. The problem with Labour-saving technology is that it is a source of wealth for those who own it. Unless its production was put forward for the public good it is not a source of wealth for the working class. The labour saving technology though is built by the working class.

[Lynx]

The efficient use of energy by technology is a source of wealth. The ability to efficiently process raw materials into end products contributes to our standard of living. All of these sources should be taken into consideration and used as measurement. However, in order to build an egalitarian economy, human labour must be the basis for developing policies and incentives.

[ckaihatsu]

Considering that an apple is valuable even if it has grown on a wild tree and ripened and fallen without intervention by a person, I would suggest that the notion that value comes only from labour is a lot of bollocks.



Who picks the apple and sells it? Do you pick it and sell to yourself? Labour is used to pick the apple. sorry to inform you. The problem with Labour-saving technology is that it is a source of wealth for those who own it. Unless its production was put forward for the public good it is not a source of wealth for the working class. The labour saving technology though is built by the working class.


On the subject of *all* natural resources, it has to be said that they cannot even be *considered* to be natural resources unless someone expends the *intellectual* labor to think of them that way in the first place, and someone to expend the *physical* labor to go and pluck the natural resource out of its natural environment.

We can also look to the *emotional* labor required to keep civilized societies together, without which we would be as individualistic and non-cooperative as turtles.



The efficient use of energy by technology is a source of wealth. The ability to efficiently process raw materials into end products contributes to our standard of living. All of these sources should be taken into consideration and used as measurement. However, in order to build an egalitarian economy, human labour must be the basis for developing policies and incentives.


Capital is nothing but the accumulation of past labor, so the successful construction of an egalitarian economy depends on the coordination of capital (all assets) as a public good itself.

Privately-held assets is just the balkanization of (labor-created) wealth, which must always be fought against, in the interests of worker-run administration, from local to global.


Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends [one-page illustration]
http://tinyurl.com/6bs6va


Chris




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[kingmob68]

labour-saving technology...well technological advances are utilized when viable. that is, if its going to be more profitable to get up to date or state of the art technology that (without it being too expensive of course! that fixed capital departs value via the labourer over a period of time, during which a variety of things can happen) can outdo socially necessary labour time to produce more efficiently than the competition. the problem is that efficiency means more output per hour or whatever time unit. that means the value in commodities is spread thin.

This combined with other factors introduces a tendency for the rate of profit to fall as contradictorily, the means to extract more surplus via technology paves the road to the cheapening of labour and goods, a diminishing of value. The capitalists do a lot to counter-act this, credit, finance and fictitious captial helping facilitate the process, so its not necessarily a firm law that always holds true but a sure tendency.

So technology can be profitable in certain circumstances, its a powerful lever for getting ahead of the game and making more money not to mention generating that good ol reserve army by laying off workers (labour saving) to reduce wages. But in the end technology as a means of accumulation is not always great for the capitalists and exposes one of the main contradictions in capitalism. the way to get more money besides extending the working day generates the nasty side effect of lowering the rate of profit.

There will be impediments to labour-saving technology as ultimately in the end they're no good for capitalists. We have patents that could rid our dependence on a variety of 'natural resources' and are revolutionary compared to even hydrogen engine, I mean water powered engines, etc. The problem is their feasibility economically and their danger to lines of production that have a lot to loose in fixed capital if they were to somehow all of a sudden shift to the production of cars that will destroy the oil companies.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Labor isn't the only source of wealth, but it's the only source of wealth dependent of the individual. How anyone could argue it's non-natural is beyond me.

[ckaihatsu]

labour-saving technology...well technological advances are utilized when viable. that is, if its going to be more profitable to get up to date or state of the art technology that (without it being too expensive of course!


Yes.



that fixed capital departs value via the labourer over a period of time, during which a variety of things can happen) can outdo socially necessary labour time to produce more efficiently than the competition. the problem is that efficiency means more output per hour or whatever time unit. that means the value in commodities is spread thin.


Or, rather, that the return on investment thins out -- this is Marx's Declining Rate of Profit, which you're describing. The pricing of commodities tends to go downward, too, because the increasing efficiency of production (due to investment in labor-saving technology) creates an oversupply of products, far exceeding the demand for them.



This combined with other factors introduces a tendency for the rate of profit to fall as contradictorily, the means to extract more surplus via technology paves the road to the cheapening of labour and goods, a diminishing of value.


No, the rate of profit falls because the businesses *can't* extract more surplus via technology, because all of their competitors are using the same approach, *and* the overproduction of products is causing a glut in the market that exceeds demand. Because their investments in productive technology aren't paying off, capital runs straight into the biggest expense left -- labor. Labor costs do *not* cheapen in this environment -- labor becomes more expensive *because* the technology cannot be relied on to be productive anymore. Likewise, labor finds itself strengthened in this environment, since it is more in demand and can also organize collectively more easily for higher wages and benefits.

This is what bourgeois economists mean when they speak of "inflation" -- it means that capital is finding its investment power weakened in relation to the spending power of labor. Capital *hates* this condition, and they freak out, cutting labor costs with layoffs, calling for austerity measures to cut government benefits to workers, and anything else -- including violence -- that will quell the workers' ability to enjoy higher wages from the labor market and their collective organizing power.



The capitalists do a lot to counter-act this, credit, finance and fictitious captial helping facilitate the process, so its not necessarily a firm law that always holds true but a sure tendency.


The capitalists *wish* they had access to more credit -- but these days it just ain't so. The U.S. has lost geopolitical ground to China because of its balance-of-trade deficit, and worldwide businesses are running aground on exposed energy (and other raw materials) costs. Credit is like jumping in the air or using drugs -- you can get high, but the effort has to come from somewhere, it's not permanent without long-term support, and sooner or later you're going to have to come down.



So technology can be profitable in certain circumstances, its a powerful lever for getting ahead of the game and making more money not to mention generating that good ol reserve army by laying off workers (labour saving) to reduce wages. But in the end technology as a means of accumulation is not always great for the capitalists and exposes one of the main contradictions in capitalism. the way to get more money besides extending the working day generates the nasty side effect of lowering the rate of profit.

There will be impediments to labour-saving technology as ultimately in the end they're no good for capitalists. We have patents that could rid our dependence on a variety of 'natural resources' and are revolutionary compared to even hydrogen engine, I mean water powered engines, etc. The problem is their feasibility economically and their danger to lines of production that have a lot to loose in fixed capital if they were to somehow all of a sudden shift to the production of cars that will destroy the oil companies.


Right -- in a bad economy, especially, those interests that *do* have a foothold will be even less likely to want to give it up.

[Junius]

I think that a lot of clarification needs to be made in regards to the assertion that human labour is the sole non-natural source of value production

Human labor is the sole source of value.

But value =/= wealth.


Marx elaborated on "labour-saving machinery." Would this also be a second non-natural source of value production?

I am confused by what you mean by 'non-natural' source of value production.

Labor power creates surplus because of the difference between the value which it creates and the value which it costs to reproduce itself; i.e. labor creates 10 pots, but only needs 5 pots to live...

It is also unclear by what you mean by labor-saving machinery, since machinery which is introduced is often as labor intensive! Machinery, as Marx pointed out, will only be employed if its value is less than the value it can potentially save. E.g if a machine costs $5,000 yet only saves $2500, then the capitalist will stick with the manual labor...there is no moral initiative to introduce machines...however, since machines increase the speed of production, and hence reduce the labor time, they are often introduced. But a capitalist, clearly, is not going to introduce a five million dollar machine when he can simply employ 10 cheap laborers (of course, this also depends on how fast the machine reduces the labor time)

How does a machine help create capital? Well, if you formerly produced 10 pots a day, and now can produce 20 pots a day, then the rational capitalist would not simply halve the prices of the pots, but bring them down so as to beat competition and gain an 'ephemeral' or a supra profit. But competition will fight back, and so the race begins again.



Considering that an apple is valuable even if it has grown on a wild tree and ripened and fallen without intervention by a person, I would suggest that the notion that value comes only from labour is a lot of bollocks.

Apples trees need to be planted, watered, cared for, the apples picked and then transported. We call this labor.

Anyway, Marx clearly stated that labor is not the only form of 'wealth' - virgin forests, natural lakes, diamond deposits etc.


Yes, but labour saving technology is itself produced by labour.

Indeed, and if it costs more labor then it will replace, in the long term, then it will be useless to the capitalist - since, after all, machines lose their own value (or more correctly, transfer it) when used in the production process.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Apples trees need to be planted, watered, cared for, the apples picked and then transported. We call this labor.

Anyway, Marx clearly stated that labor is not the only form of 'wealth' - virgin forests, natural lakes, diamond deposits etc.

Technically, there is natural "value production" associated with environmental changes, plate tectonics, etc. ;)

[Drace]

Considering that an apple is valuable even if it has grown on a wild tree and ripened and fallen without intervention by a person, I would suggest that the notion that value comes only from labour is a lot of bollocks.You need to pick up that apple first, then its your wealth :p:p

LABOR!!!

[Junius]

Technically, there is natural "value production" associated with environmental changes, plate tectonics, etc. ;)

I don't take your meaning.

How does environmental change produce value? The creation of value is a social process...

Marx, Capital:


Let us now consider the residue of each of these products; it consists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere congelation of homogeneous human labour, of labour power expended without regard to the mode of its expenditure. All that these things now tell us is, that human labour power has been expended in their production, that human labour is embodied in them. When looked at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are – Values.

Are you trying to say that environmental change affects value? No argument there - a drought would increase the amount of socially necessary labor to harvest a portion of wheat, an exceptionally good rain season would reduce the socially necessary labor required to harvest a portion of wheat.

Yet wheat still does not harvest itself; it requires labor, and hence, it is labor which creates value, not the environmental change.

Marx, Capital:


The value of a commodity would therefore remain constant, if the labour time required for its production also remained constant. But the latter changes with every variation in the productiveness of labour. This productiveness is determined by various circumstances, amongst others, by the average amount of skill of the workmen, the state of science, and the degree of its practical application, the social organisation of production, the extent and capabilities of the means of production, and by physical conditions. For example, the same amount of labour in favourable seasons is embodied in 8 bushels of corn, and in unfavourable, only in four. The same labour extracts from rich mines more metal than from poor mines. Diamonds are of very rare occurrence on the earth’s surface, and hence their discovery costs, on an average, a great deal of labour time. Consequently much labour is represented in a small compass. Jacob doubts whether gold has ever been paid for at its full value. This applies still more to diamonds. According to Eschwege, the total produce of the Brazilian diamond mines for the eighty years, ending in 1823, had not realised the price of one-and-a-half years’ average produce of the sugar and coffee plantations of the same country, although the diamonds cost much more labour, and therefore represented more value. With richer mines, the same quantity of labour would embody itself in more diamonds, and their value would fall. If we could succeed at a small expenditure of labour, in converting carbon into diamonds, their value might fall below that of bricks. In general, the greater the productiveness of labour, the less is the labour time required for the production of an article, the less is the amount of labour crystallised in that article, and the less is its value; and vice versâ, the less the productiveness of labour, the greater is the labour time required for the production of an article, and the greater is its value. The value of a commodity, therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productiveness, of the labour incorporated in it.

This is not particularly controversial...

[Lynx]

Yes, but technological and environmental change affects the productivity of labour. That, in turn, affects its value (or potential output value). Consider thousands of workers pulling carrots out of the ground by hand because of a lack of technology. If we accept that the supply of labour is limited, then a significant portion of value creation will be forfeited simply because those workers are busy with the harvest and can't be in two places at the same time.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I've found this "fundamental Marxian theorem" - a formula - to be interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobuo_Okishio#Value_and_Exploitation_Theory

[Junius]

Yes, there is an interesting paper (http://www.econ.kobe-u.ac.jp/katudou/publication/review/pdf/51/nakatani.pdf) on the controversies surrounding the definitions employed in measuring value. See this (http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/2620/1/MPRA_paper_2620.pdf) too.

[Die Neue Zeit]

On the other hand, one Andrew Kliman has argued against the "Fundamental Marxian Theorem" in order to prove that Marx's value theory is internally consistent.

[Lynx]

I've found this "fundamental Marxian theorem" - a formula - to be interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobuo_Okishio#Value_and_Exploitation_Theory
The article is badly translated, but it is interesting.

Okishio’s tentative conclusion on this problem is that competition can drive the economy to zero-profit equilibrium unless there exist no continuous technical innovations or an increase in labor supply or independent capitalist consumption. This investigation is still under way.