Tuesday 10 February 2009

Chapters 7-9

Discussion

chapter 7:

- first the labour process is considered isolated from particular social conditions. as such it is the application of the forces of nature against nature, the materialisation of humanities will and intellect. to do this requires close attention by the worker so that the work is in consonance with his purpose. the less attractive the nature and mode of the work, the more forced is this attention.

- the 3 elementary factors of the labour process are then 1) the personal activity of man (work); 2) the subject of that work; 3) the instruments used. the subjects of work can be further divided into those spontaneously provided by nature - virgin forest, wild fish, ore yet to be dug out etc. anything that has been filtered through previous labour is raw material - extracted ore, etc. all raw material is a subject of labour, not all subjects of labour are raw material. it may be the main substance of the product or an accessory such as coal burnt to power a boiler, oil on a wheel, chlorine added to linen, lighting in a workshop etc. instruments are things interposed between the labourer and the subject of labour. they're important for investigating old economic forms and their accompanying social conditions, mechanical ones being most important and those for the production of luxury items the least important. under instruments we can also include things which enable production: land, workshops, canals, roads, etc.

- the labour process then alters material according to a previous design, the process disappearing in the product. use-values enter the process to come out as new use-values, to then enter a new labour process as means of production or to be consumed. therefore products are the results and essential conditions of labour process. whether any one use-value is considered a raw material, instrument of labour or product is determined by its function in the particular process - as this varies, so does its character. though the labour that created the product is not palpable, an unused product is useless, so only by being brought into contact with living labour can it retain it's character of use-value.

- the labour process is a process of consumption where the product is distinct from the consumer - in individual consumption the product is the consumer.

- then consider the valorisation process, the labour process under capitalism. now the labourer works under the control of the capitalist and the product belongs to the capitalist. the capitalist wants to produce use-values, with value in exchange, and wants more value than he put in - surplus value.

- to find the value of the product, the capitalist needs to calculate how much social labour is in it. 1st, raw materials: their value is already calculated in their price, say $10. 2nd, wear of instruments: also calculated in their price, as the fraction of it that is on average used up in the production of an average one of whatever the product is - say $2. if 24hrs are required to produce $12 of gold, we have 2 working days already in the product. but the value of the means of production transfered to the product is only that value which represent the labour embodied in average means of production for this product - if gold spindles are used instead of the social average of steel, not greater value is transferred than if they were steel, if cotton is below average quality resulting in above average waste, the value of the cotton going into waste is lost.

- at the end the total quantity of labour time is represented by a deffinite quantity of the commodity (only the socially necessary labour-time counting of course), the raw material having acted as an absorbent of the labour. if the labourer is paid the value of his labour-power, which is the value of all the things he needs to reproduce it each day, costing $3, embodying 6 hours of social labour time, then if it take 6hrs to produce the product, the value of the product is $10+$2+$3=$15, the price paid for its production. but the capitalist paid for the use of the labour power for a whole day, which is consumed by being put to work as labour, so he can make the labourer work for another 6 hrs, using up the same amount of means of production as before, but now the value of the product is 2 x ($10+$2+$3) = $30, whereas the cost of production was $27, and taadaa!, surplus value. any extra expended either by the labourer or more than average consumption of the means of production in the process does not count in the value of the product and will be a loss for the capitalist, so he ensures that no more waste of time, instruments or materials occurs other than those socially necessary.

- so in summary, the process of producing value past the point at which the value paid by the capitalist is replaced by its equivalent is the process of producing surplus value. in the simple labour process it is the quality of the labour that is important, in the valorisation process, it is quantity. the process of production as the unity of the labour process and the production of value is the process of the production of commodities. the process of production as the unity of the labour process and the production of surplus-value is the process of the capitalist production of commodities. finally, skilled labour is just considered as simple labour multiplied as the labour put into training etc. is counted.

chapter 8:

- since the value of the means of production (instruments and raw materials) are preserved and transferred to the finished product as they are consumed, never transferring more than their total value, the capital put into them is called constant capital. that put into labour power on the other hand creates new value, consisting on the equivalent of that which it cost plus an increment of surplus value which varies, so it is variable capital.

- the quality of the labour preserves the old value, the quantity adds the new value. the value preserved is directly proportional to the value created, and is equal to the amount of value lost by the means of production. changes in the quantitative ratio between the two types of capital does not alter their qualitative differences.

chapter 9:

- the surplus value created in the production process over the value of labour power gives us the degree of exploitation of labour power.

- this ratio is reflected in the working day, where first the labour creates the value necessary to reproduce his labour power, so is necessary labour since he would have to do this regardless of social conditions, and after that point all labour is surplus labour. so the surplus labour time to necessary labour time is equal to the ratio represented by the degree of exploitation.

- in the same way we can have fun splitting up the total time spent creating a product (or indeed the product itself) into sections during which a partial product was produced (or in which the value is embodied) with the value of the constant capital advanced, the variable capital advanced and the surplus value created. but of course this does not mean that in that time all that value was created, as a portion of that value will have been preserved from the means of production. marx then pulls apart some daft argument claiming all profit comes from the last hour so if you reduce the working day by an hour the capitalist loses all his profit.

- the portion of the total product that represents surplus value is surplus produce. under capitalism then wealth should be represented by the relative magnitude of the surplus produce to the portion of the total produce representing necessary labour.

- the sum of necessary and surplus labour in a day is the working day, to be investigated in the next chapter.

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