Karl Marx: "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sinks down to its individual value, and the law that surplus-value does not arise from the labour-power that has been replaced by the machinery, but from the labour-power actually employed in working with the machinery, asserts itself.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. 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]<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#n71>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]<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#n72>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]<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#n73>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]<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#n74>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" On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 9:09 AM, Lakshmi Rhone <[email protected]>wrote: > But the Skidelsky's, like JS Mill before them, seem surprised that the > most effective means devised for reducing work time become, inexplicably, > the most unfailing means for extending and intensifying the work day. But > Marx already answered this paradox raised by JS Mill. By means of the > introduction of new machinery an industrial capitalist can reduce unit > costs and get a leg up on his competitors. But at the same time the > machinery may suffer moral depreciation before it is amortized. Hence the > machine which allows for the same level of production to be attained with > less overall (indirect and direct) labor time actually demands its non-stop > utilization and thus becomes the most unfailing means for extending and > intensifying the working day. But here the explanation for the social > failure to translate machine production into reduced worker hours overall > is rooted in the social relations of capitalist production, not the > insatiability of the consumer. Only the enforced stupidity of bourgeois > ideology explains why the Skidelsky's would not even entertain Marx's > answer to JS Mill. Moreover, as the social relations of production > require that industrialists reduce unit costs, but this requires increasing > the scale of production. Which in turn requires the psycho-technics of > advertising to dispose of the increasing accumulation of commodities. > Limiting advertising works at the level of symptom, not in terms of > underlying cause. But again humanist neo-classical ideology based on the > putative sovereignty of the consumer explains why the Skidelsky's would > account for the increasing accumulation of commodities in terms of consumer > wants which are in fact shaped by the social relations of production. One > cannot begin the explanation with the human psychology of the consumer; it > begins with the social relations of production. Sociology has primacy over > psychology. Even Karl Popper accepted this aspect of the Marxist research > program. How many steps back will the Skidelskys take us? > LR >
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