In the Penny Magazine of 1837, the amount of capital rendered useless was given as 100 pounds, not 100,000! Marx's irony here, though, has to be handled carefully. He is, after all, ridiculing Senior's credulity, not citing an authoritative account. Senior was the butt of several such sarcasms.
I take there to be an important distinction between the production of surplus value and the direct expenditure of labor time. Surplus value is produced retroactively, in effect, when it is realized in circulation. That is to say the labor time expended must be "socially necessary" and that can only be determined at the completion of the M - C - M circuit. The "rendering useless" argument is, in short, total bullshit. The machinery in question (along with the worker) could be more productive, rather than less, in a shorter working day. Thus, it needs to be considered that the employer's motive for a longer working day could be to render useless a part of the excess capacity while shifting the cost of that idleness onto the overworked operatives and their unemployed colleagues. It seems to me that Marx half-grasped a key analytical point in all this -- that in the absence of government or collective intervention, the hours of work would tend to be overly long from the standpoint of total output, not only from that of worker well being. I say he "half-grasped" it because some but not all of his analysis indicates he understood this point. Nevertheless, he seems to me to have well understood its implications -- particularly in the Fragment on Machines in the Grundrisse. Sydney Chapman, who articulated the point with great precision seems not to have quite comprehended the enormity of its implications. On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 2:14 PM, michael perelman < [email protected]> wrote: > 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 > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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