Capital , Chapter 12:

1. Capital, Chapter 12: The Concept Of Relative Surplus Value

2. Response to Crisis • The success of the working class in reducing the working day causes a crisis for business • Ceteris Paribus, less work time = less surplus value, lower profit rates. • I.e., a defeat of absolute surplus value strategy • Two possible responses: • Lower wages to reduce value of LP • Lower value of means of subsistence

3. Lower Wages? • Lowering wages will reduce value of labor power and costs to business, thus raising surplus value/profits • But: reduction below subsistence means failure to reproduce LP, death, crisis in labor force • This happens, but Marx assumes away

4. Lower Value of MS • If value of MS is reduced, an equal reduction in wages reduces the value of LP and raises S raised, with NO reduction of real value of wages. • How to do this? • Temp: cheap corn imports • Long term: Raise productivity in production of MS

5. New Strategy • From longer work to more productivity! • More output for same labor time input gives lower per unit value • When productivity rises in MS industry, V falls and S rises, S/V rises. • Indirect effects from other industries • Shift from "formal" subsumption of labor to capital to "real" subsumption (read "6th Chapter", I.e., appendix to Vol I.

6. Simple Example • Agriculture, output = bushels of wheat • Time 1: assume s/v = 1/1, output = 100b = 50b (for V) + 50b (for S) • Time 2: assume productivity doubles but work time remains the same, so value the same • Time 2: output = 200b = 50b(V) + 150b(S) • The value of V has been halved, but real wage remains the same, share of S increased

7. Micro level • For the firm, raising productivity cuts costs • In neoclassical theory reduced costs increases profits, shifts MC/supply curve down and right • So, increased productivity shifts surplus value from other firms to this firm • As new techniques circulate via competition and supply grows, price falls, profits return to normal.

8. Macro level • As improvement in productivity circulate and become general, value of MS falls for all workers so value of LP falls • General fall in LP raises S for capital and raises S/V as well, as seen previously

9. Productivity Deals • So, to the degree that capital is able to capture the fruits of productivity grow for itself its share of value and relative power grows • But productivity fruits can be shared between the classes via "productivity deals" • E.g., Keynesianism: wage growth linked to productivity growth in contracts (micro level) and government policy (macro level) • Wage struggles became motor of growth & fruits of growth shared

10. Competition? • Competition key mechanism in circulation of productivity raising technological change • But what is competition? • Usual view: intercapitalist rivalry, each seeks "competitive advantage" to gain bigger share of S, working class irrelevant, victims • Alternative view: success in competition function of class relations

11. Competition & Class Struggle • Competition via lower costs function of control • Control can mean ability to lower wages or other benefits • Control can mean ability to induce cooperation and creativity and innovation • Competition via product differentiation • Ability to produce competitive new products function of ability to induce or harness creativity among designers (e.g., Jill in Jack & Jill sitcom) • Winner = capitalist with best "control" of workers

12. Productivity & Work • Note: fruits of productivity can be taken either in the form of higher wages/profits OR in the form of less work OR both • Doubling productivity could double real wage • Doubling productivity could halve work time with same real wage • Doubling productivity could increase real wage by 50% and cut work by 25%, etc.

13. Capital, Chapter 13: Co-operation

14. Co-operation • Co-operation predates capitalism • tribal hunting, collective farming, fishing, trade • Egyptian pyramids, Gothic cathedrals, castles • Comes with many workers collaborating • either in same process • or, in different but connected processes • Co-operation creates a “social force” • a “new power” • realizes the “capabilities of their species”

15. Sources of “New Productive Power” • makes workers more efficient • extends sphere of action over a greater space • contracts and concentrates field of production • excites rivalry between individuals • creates continuity and manysidedness • economizes means of production by common use • timeliness (e.g., harvests)

16. Co-operation & “Authority” • large numbers must be co-ordinated to “secure harmonious co-operation” • co-ordination can = domination = “authority” • e.g., capitalism where relations are antagonistic • co-ordination can ≠ domination • e.g., where workers choose their own co-ordinators to help them achieve collective goals

17. Co-operation and Class Struggle • In capitalism co-ordination • not just for efficiency • but for control, minimize costs, maximize profits • Gathering of workers and oversight gives more control • But, it also results in collective and greater resistance and struggle, e.g., unions • Thus comment in Chap 32 about “gravediggers”

18. Capitalist Authority • Capitalist PLAN organization of labor to insure control of workers, their reduction from working class to mere labor force. • Plan and control are “despotic” • sometimes by controling every gestrure, e.g., Taylorism • sometimes by controling framework within which workers have some leaway • Despotism requries managers, foremen, overseers separate from workers

19. Workers under Capitalism • Gathered together by capital, enclosure herds them into factories • older forms of co-operation destroyed or taken over • Control seeks to keep them as units of capital • The “productive power of co-operation” appears as a “power of capital”, rather than that of labor • But that “power” can survive death of capital, just as it survived death of earlier forms • Marx was no pastoralist but saw transcendence

20. Capital, Chapter 14: Manufacturing and the Division of Labor

21. “Manu”- facturing • particular sort of co-operation • large number of workers • workers’ hands (“manu-”) using tools to make (“facturing”) things • Period: mid-16th to last of 18th Century

22. Collective Worker • With a complex division of labor each worker only makes a element of the final product • So, final product is product of ALL the workers, working together • Thus, the “collective” worker • Collective worker = component element of “working class” = of class composition • Hierarchy: of skills, of values of labor power, of wages, of perks. Divided to conquer

23. Dual Origin • bringing together: • large numbers of different kinds of skilled workers • large numbers of same kind of skilled workers • Skilled workers = handicraft artisans with knowledge of whole processes • Manufacturing decomposes skills & organizes a new division of labor, increases specialization

24. Specialized Workers • one-sided work productivity • repetition  reduced gaps,productivity • specialized workers use specialized tools, often simplified, which prepares way for mechanization • narrowing, repetition fi crippling • recognized by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations • recognized by Marx in Capital • Jack London’s bottle worker (p.22 in SG III)

25. 2 Forms of Manufacturing • 1. Parts made separately then assembled, • e.g., watches, automobiles, computers • 2. Production through a series of sequential operations • e.g., steel products, pencils, paper

26. Division of Labor • Division of Labor in detail, in factory, school (I) • despotism of capital, details planned • Division of labor in particular, academy (P) • e.g., among industries • Division of labor in general (U) • e.g., agriculture vs manufacturing, rural vs urban • waged vs unwaged, • Division of labor on all levels are interelated, or mediated as in syllogism (see chaps 1, 3)

27. Despotism vs Anarchy • Despotism in factory: capitalist planning • Anarchy of market: no planning, direction of development chaotic, costly through crises But • Working class political recomposition implies not only changes in K plans, but expansion to new levels • Anarchy of market reduced through oligopoly, monopoly, state regulation • Planning can reach national, international levels

28. Resistance • The negative effects of specialized labor • The emergence of collective worker or recomposition • The defense of skill by handicraft workers gathered together • All contribute to resistance within manufacture • Leads to introduction of machinery to decompose worker resistance via greater/new div. of labor

29. Capital, Chapter 15: Machinery & Modern Industry

30. Section 1: Dev. of Machinery

31. Development of Machinery • Conversion of tools into machines • Machine ≠ complex tool driven by humans • Machine = motor mechanism + transmitting mechanism + tool or working mechanism • Machine = mechanism that performs work previously done by worker • Machinescomplex system of machinery

32. Complex System of Machinery • connected series of processes carried out by complementary machines • co-operation of workers replaced by co-operation of machines • automatic system, automaton • machines required to produce machines • humans moved from center to margins of production process

33. Displacement of Labor • Grundrisse: “Labor no longer appears so much to be included within the production process; rather , the human being comes to relate more as watchman and regulator . . . He steps to the side of the production process instead of being its chief actor. “

34. Extension of Analysis • Marx’s focus is on factory • He extends this analysis to communication and transport which complemented increased factory production: “river steamers, railways, ocean steamers and telegraphs” • WE need to analyze introduction of machines more broadly into all of social life, into the sphere of reproduction as well as that of production

35. Machines in Reproduction • Mechanical transportation organizes reproduction, e.g., bedroom communities vs work places  commuting and urban structure • Machines in housework • sought to reduce work, e.g., washing machines • increased demand for cleanliness can mean NO reduction, even an increase • Machines in schoolwork • from pencils thru sliderules to computers,work

36. Section 2Value Transferred

37. “Transfer of Value” • Same basic message as Chapter 8’s discussion of constant capital • Remember: “gradual transfer” means little by little the work that produced the machine turns out to also contribute to the final product produced by the machine.

38. Cost Calculation • Value of machines must be less than value of displaced labor per unit of production for surplus value to be raised • Or, introduction of machinery requires reduction in costs such that profits will be increased • So, Marx’s analysis of the impact of relative costs is reproduced years later in neoclassical theory of factor substitution.

39. Factor Substitution Qk WAGE  QL, Qk O QL

40. Tech  = f(class struggle) • So, this can be read dynamically as a theory of how capital responds to working class struggle that reduces the working day or raises wages, (anything that raises the cost of labor) by substituting machines for workers. • Thus, weak working class  low incentive for technological change; strong working class  greater incentive for technological change. • So, reduction of absolute surplus value mach.

41. Section 3: Immediate Effects on Worker

42. Immediate Effects I • Machinery reduces need for brute strength: • easier to use women and children • whole family enters the factory • reduces time for reproduction: cooking, infant care • male labor devalorized, “family wages” • This undermines family & its reproduction • Undermines children’s health • physically (thru work, neglect) • psychologically & intellectually (neglect, no schooling)

43. Immediate Effects II • Machinery prolongs working day • work organized around machinery, cheaper to keep it running 24hrs a day • pitting women & children against men decomposes class, increases capital’s power to impose 24hr work day • Paradox: most powerful instrument for reducing work, increases it instead

44. Forget Dreams • p. 532: “‘If’, dreamed Aristotle, the greatest thinker of antiquity, ‘if every tool, when summoned, or even by intelligent anticipation, could do the work that befits it, just as the creations of Daedalus moved of themselves, or the tripods of Hephaestus 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 craftsmen, or of slaves for the lords”

45. Immediate Effects III • Machinery intensifies labor • rhythm of machines determine rhythm of labor • rhythm of machines constant  “filling up pores in the working day” •  “heightened tension of labor power” -- “Speed-up” • Speed-up is achieved by: • running machines faster, e.g., assembly line • having workers tend more than one machine,e.g., girls who fixed broken threads in textile industry

46. Speed-up in School • Engineering last year: increased minimum # hours per semester • Move to tax extra hours, move students through and out as fast as possible. • Lip-service to “education”, job training to the fore • Advisors always recommend speediest track through the program, don’t “waste time” on other stuff

47. Machines in Reproduction • Television, arcade computer games • said to inculcate passivity, thoughtlessness • typical critical theory critique: society of the spectacle • song “Machines” in study guide • But:” theory of reception” suggests intended consumption not always actual consumption,  critical consumption • Also  intelligent computer games, programming, creativity by those who take over technology

48. Intensity & LTV - I • With intensity now variable, we must consider consequences for the labor theory of value • Apparent contradiction: before, an hour of labor = an hour of labor, now: ≠ • Increased intensity means more value “produced” in an hour, not just more product/productivity • Results: we must differentiate sources of increase in productivity, more efficiency vs more intensity

49. Intensity & LTV - II • Contradiction? No, change in intensity forces us to see that “time” was a convenient measure of “life” • Speed-up means life energy sucked up (vampire like) more quickly, a working day of the same length is more exhausting, less life energy left over • Emphasizes basic thrust of theory: that capitalism involves subordination of life to work, not just life time but all of its dimensions

50. Intensity & LTV - III • Question: Does increases in intensity means more absolute surplus value (more work) or more relative surplus value (smaller % of V)? • Answer: both • assuming V remains constant, S increases • assuming V remains constant, S/V increases