I did not see what Skidelsky said, but Marx's words are excellent. I suspect that the fear of moral depreciation might also play a role, but the lust after greater relative surplus value is foremost in Marx's discussion here.
Marx, in a famour passage, cites an industrialist telling Nassau Senior that “if a labourer lays down his spade, he renders useless, for that period, a capital worth 18 pence. When one of our people leaves the mill, he renders useless a capital that has cost 1000,000 pounds.” Marx (1967, Vol. I, pp. 405-06). Joel Mokyr adds, "William Smith, a Glasgow cotton spinner, noted that “when a mantua maker [a typical domestic industry, employing at most 2-3 workers] chooses to rise from her seat and take the fresh air, her seam goes a little back, that is all; there are no other hands waiting on her . . . but in cotton mills all the machinery is going on which they must attend to . . . when there are a great number of people congregated together, there is a necessity for the rules of discipline being a little more severe . . . because the profits of the master depend upon the attention of those employed” Parliamentary Papers, 1831-32, p. 239. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
