First, one doesn't need a Ph. D from York University or anywhere else to read the Grundrisse. All that is required is the price of the book and the ability to read. Second, the Grundrisse wouldn't help all that much in understanding the distinction between the real and formal subsumption of labor, since that is not where it is mainly elaborated. The exposition of this distinction rather occurs in a Marx manuscript entitled Results of the Immediate Process of Production, probably intended by Marx as a Part Seven of Vol. I of Capital, written some time between 1863 and 1866, and first published in 1933. (A Ph.D is not required to read it, either.)
Third, no subtleties of Hegelian dialectic are necessary to grasp the distinction itself. A formal subsumption is one in which a capitalist employs wage labor in a labor process that is not determined by capital, but carried on in traditional, pre-capitalist ways (albeit now for the purpose of producing surplus value). An example would be weavers with their looms. The weavers are now employed as wage laborers by the capitalist, and their looms have now been assembled by the employer under a single roof. The weaving, however, is still done in the same way it was when the weaver owned his loom and worked in his cottage. Under a formal subsumption, the only way the capitalist can increase the rate of surplus value is by extending the length of the working day (i. e. increasing absolute, as opposed to relative, surplus value). A real subsumption of labor under capital, on the other hand, is one in which the capitalist also controls and determines the content of the work process. An example would be the assembly line. Under a real subsumption, the capitalist is able to extract surplus value, not only by extending the working day, but also by improving the productivity of labor (i.e, by increasing the amount of surplus value generated in the same length of time through the introduction of machinery, reorganization of the labor process, etc.) Hope I have helped to clarify things. Jim Creegan **************** Message: 10 Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2016 14:54:21 -0500 From: Louis Proyect <[email protected]> Subject: [Pen-l] Fwd: Anglocentrism and the real subsumption of labor | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist Yesterday an old friend from my misspent Trotskyist youth sent me an excerpt from Harry Harootunian?s ?Marx After Marx? that he described as ?a further contribution to the transition debates and a polemic against Western Marxism, stagist theories, and by implication some aspects of Political Marxism (but no index entries for Brenner or Wood).? He warned me, however, that before tackling it I review Marx?s discussion of formal vs. real subsumption at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02a.htm#469. I did know that Marx wrote about subsumption in the Grundrisse, a ?classic? that I confess never having read. I suppose if you are going to be a professional Marxist qualified to speak at HM plenaries, you need to have read the Grundrisse and earned a PhD from York University or some other top-drawer institute. Poor me to have no such qualifications. Charles Post was someone who obviously had read his Grundrisse on the evidence of having uttered the sacred words ?real subsumption? in his speech at the Ellen Meiksins Wood Symposium where he took on the ?critics of Political Marxism? who harped on ?the persistence of legally coerced labor under capitalism.? He referred them to Mike Zmolek?s recently published book on the history of capitalism in England from a Brennerite perspective, where the ?the state plays a crucial role? in primitive accumulation by using ?legal-juridical forces was necessary to ensure the sale of labor-power.? Once the state has finished playing this role by kicking the workers in the teeth, the markets can kick in after ?capital has achieved real subsumption of labor.? Now, anybody who has not read Marx might scratch his or her head about this ?real subsumption? business? What was it while the state was still a player? Unreal subsumption? No, Marx called it formal subsumption. Don?t ask me why. I have trouble enough with Hegel. full: http://louisproyect.org/2016/01/21/anglocentrism-and-the-real-subsumption-of-labor/
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