A few themes from Das Kapital

1. A few themes from Das Kapital Marx’s most famous work

2. Historical Perspective • During foundations of Economic Theory (born 1818 in Germany) • Same period as David Ricardo’s The Principles of Economic Economy • Middle of Industrial Revolution – where machines were making dramatic increases in factory production and could only be afforded by the rich. (Watt invented the steam engine in 1769). • Doctorate in philosophy, then turned to revolutionary in an age of revolutionaries

3. Historical perspective (Cont) • Kicked out of Germany, then France • Ended in England • Moved on from Revolution, as it did not catch on apart from the foreigners, and focussed on his journalism • Worked with Engels in this, son of a capitalist. • Thus a mixture of high level analysis and the bitternesses of a revolutionary.

4. Central Conviction • The working class can - and must – abolish production for profit and build instead a society based on freely associated labour engaging in production “for use”.

5. Understand the idea of commodities (Adams Smith) The commodity is an oddity • Anything with a price tag is a commodity. • Because it leads a double life • Use - it is - an object • A rose is a rose is a rose – Gertrude Stein • Exchange – it has a worth – an object with a price – use-value. • A rose = a handful of chocolates

6. Production for use • Aristotle in defining economics as the name for “production for use”. • Until the industrial revolution dresses were made to be worn not sold, chocolates were made to be eaten not exchanged for roses • Only with the industrial revolution did production for exchange become prevalent. • Producing to sell for profit was considered immoral. • Goods now have a double life – use value and use

7. Marx: Alienation of Use Value • The double life of a commodity is neither peaceful nor harmonious. Value and Use-Value clash. The capitalist quest for profit (ever greater sums of value) clashes with human desires for food, shelter and other use-values. • Thus Value is alienated from Use Value • A commodity must have some use –value to sell. But it is the SALE OF the COMMODITY, the exchange that is important. • Thus does “Alien exchange dominate natural use”

8. Result of Conflict: Overproduction • Commodity values are at odds with use: • Food full of carcinogens sells, • as does poisonous baby formulas, • and unsafe cars, • medicine that kills • An excess of commodities • Hence prices fall. • Business destroys some of its production to raise prices. • During the great depression when unemployed were starving, there was an excess of pigs which were destroyed to safeguard profits. • Much capacity is left idle.

9. Aristotle & Marx: The Meaning of Exchange • Aristotle concluded that real equality between commodities is impossible. • Five beds are not = one house in value, different qualities. People simply decide to exchange unequal things. • Marx solves this. • The object has a particlar form to which is added labour • The principle that regulates systematic commodity exchanges is “labour-time” • E.g If it takes seven days to catch a deer and one to catch a beaver, then seen beaver are worth one deer.

10. The Crux of Marx: the Nature of Labour • Abstract labour: though different kinds of labour are not materially equal, they can be regarded as such • Useful labour can be treated as abstract labour.

11. Alienation of Useful Labour • Socially Standard labour – abstract labour – needed to produce. • E.g. the power loom when introduced into England halved the time to produce cloth, thus the standard labour value was halved. • “Equal labour” is not real material labour but” socially abstract labour” • Alienation • Exhange is an act of human relations • Can never find the labour that is in the commodities.

12. Money & the Growth of Capitalism • Commodities are use-values produced for exchange • Money is the universal commodity • Marx: Money is the standard measure of the values of all commodities. It emerges as the universe of commodities grows, with the growth of capitalism. • In a trading society this is guesswork • As more and more commodities are exchanged, value relationships increase and can become more standardised • One coat = 20 meters of linen = 10 kilos of tea = 40 kilos of coffee = 20 grammes of gold • Capital is money invested to produce more money • Finally a system of commodity production arises in which the relative values of the different commodities are systematically fixed.

13. Gold Standard • Gold became the standard with paper representing it. • Then the US made its $ the standard • With an eventually collapsing US$ a global unit will be called for.

14. The Second Crux of Marx’ Analysis: The Accumulation of Capital • When we speak of capitalism we speak not just of money but of money gain, of money invested as capital to generate profit. • Where does the surplus value come from to increase that money? • The self employed or employed direct producers sell in order to buy: (the tailor (sells the ability to make coats), the owner of the tailors shop (sells to buy linen) C-M-C • The Capitalist (Mr Moneybags) buys in order to sell. M-C-M • “More money for less” – that is his motto

15. M-C-M’ • But to the original M is added some surplus value, some profit: • Interest – pays off the interest on the orignal money, since some of it is likely borrowed • Rent –of land or equipment • Profit – after interest and rent • Marx: Capital accumulation is the defining principle of capitalism, the economic goal • Buy cheap , sell dear

16. Labour-Power • But between buying and selling there must be a process of production, of value added. • Where to get that extra value, what can produce this surplus value? • Human labour-power, the super-commodity – the free worker available on the market as the seller of labour – power • Here Marx analyses European and particularly British history (though we can aply this to the excess free labour pouring into the slums as the rural peasant is disposessed.

17. Expropriation = Dispossession • Production is the combination of • human resources=labour-power and • production resources = means of production • When production is controlled by direct producers, labour power and and production combine organically leading to independence and self-sufficiency. • But take away the land - the livestock - the energy resources, wrench the tools form the producers hands and what is left? An uprooted vagabond whose only possession is labour-power

18. From owners of production to the “for sale” proletariat • The former producer to survive must sell his or her labour-power, as a proletarian, abjectly dependent on the capitalist who now owns the means of production. • Though the proletarian does all the productive labour, the capitalist alone controls production – simply by owning the means of production, which allows him to buy and thus own the labour-power.

19. Historical Expropriation in England • Exploitation is the control of surplus labour by an armed oppressor class. • By the end of the 14th century English serfdom had practically disappeared as most were free peasants • The King disempowered the nobles creating unemployed aides de camp. The feudal Lords responded by forcibly siezing peasant holdings in order to magnify their power. • They enclosed the common lands of sheep grazing in order to make money from wool in Flanders. • The expropriation process continued with the theft of Catholic church lands (during the Protestant Revolution). Beggars, unemployed over 14 were flogged (Elizabethan law, 1542). • Thus were the farming folk of England expropriated, chased from their homes, turned into vagabonds, and then whipped, branded and tortured by grotesquely terroristic laws into accepting the discipline necessary for the system of wage labour. • The discovery of gold and silver in America, the elimination, enslavement and entombment in mines of the original American population, the beginning of the conquest and plunder of India, and the conversion of Africa into a preserve for the commercial hunting of Black skins – these are the idyllic proceedings that characterised the dawn of production.

20. The Making of the Working Class • Surplus labour is extracted from the proletariat in the form of surplus labour • The immesne majority of the English population became proletarians (except thoose who fled to New Zealand, who set up a society of self-employed entrepreneurs…) • “Now the silent compulsion of economic relations sets the seal on the domination of the capitalist over the worker. Direct extra-economic force is still of course used, but only in exceptional cases. In the ordinary run of things, workers can safely be left to the gentle mercy of production relations – to fears of joblessness, to hunger and need…”

21. Alienation of Labour • Because they possess no means of production, the workers have no option but to “freely” sell their labour-power. • Differ from slaves • Free to sell labour • Free to starve – can choose to be unemployed!! • Free of the means of production • The worker loses all control over what is produced and how, and the methods of labour – these are the questions the capitalist only may answer • The motives of the workers are entirely discounted in production for the profit motive. • Resisting Moneybags is possible buyt difficult for one who is dependent. And Moneybags has the law on his side. After all he buys your labour.

22. Marx Breakthrough 3: Surplus value = variable capital = proletariat • Alienation of labour is the prerequisite for exploitation of labour. • Overcharingfor commodities does not create surplus value: exploiting the working class does. • The value of labour power < the value of labour product • This difference is the secret of surplus value • Produce more in less time • E.g. Recent Time article indicating some US businesses have become fifty times more productive over the last decade – indidcating the basic cause of massive unemployment increase is the increased efficiency of the US worker. But not all workers can work at this level so many have become alienated from an increasingly educated requirement in the work context. • The machines cost, so that is a constant factor, but the variable is the worker-power

23. Opposing the Exploitation • Only the workers organised for their own ends can resist this kind of process. • When the working class is strong they can enforce a relatively higher standard of living. • A serch for a abalance of power between capitla and labour • Forced to pay high wages in one place, Moneybags will relocate production elsewhere to secure cheap labour. • Results in wars etc. when such assets are threatened. Calls on the poor of their own country to combat the threatening insurgency. Fear and dislike of eh foreign poor must be cultivated. • Only a global alliance of workers can put a stop to predatory capitalism.

24. Abolition of Wage Labour • Why should workers not rule themselves? • Work does not have to be a commodity with a particular exchange value • Real working people may unite for democratic, nationless, sexually equal cooperative production for shared use = communism – producing for use not for exchange and profit. • Abolition of the wages system, not just reforms or higher wages seeking a fair wage. The search for a fair wage masks the underlying exploitation. • In reality workers are not paid for their labour nor is there such a thing as a fair wage. Capitalist production is based on exploitation

25. The Expropriators are Expropriated. • It is not natural for workers to be divorced from the means of production. This has been the result of a long process of expropriation. • Without capital, - without bosses empowered by the possession of money to buy and control labour power – workers could be genuinely free. • It would be possible to combine labour power and the means of production organically, directly. • Democracy between workers rather than the tyranny of capital over workers would become possible. • This requires the self – organization of the working class for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism – for an end of commodity production – for the defeat of imperialism and the capitalist state – for the creation of anew and truly free system. • A global struggle.

26. Readings • Marx, Karl & Friedrich Engels. (1867). Das Kapital: A Critique of Political Economy. (99c on Kindle). • Marx, Karl & Friedrich Engels. (2008) Communist Manifesto. Wordsworth Classics of World Literature. Free on Kindle.