The Working Day
1) The Limits of The Working Day
The working
day, Marx says, is determinable but not determinate. In other words,
it is of no fixed length, but we can know how long it is at any one
time. The period of the day the worker has to work to cover their
wages, i.e. to reproduce themselves, is fixed by the labour-time
required for the production of the necessaries required for the
reproduction of Labour-power. The number of hours required for that
will vary in accordance with what those necessaries are, and the
levels of productivity in producing them.
But, in
addition to this period of Necessary Labour, we have the period of
Surplus Labour. The ratio of Surplus Labour to Necessary Labour, the
Rate of Exploitation, is also the same as the Ratio of Surplus
Production/Value to Necessary Production/Value – the Rate of
Surplus Value.
Knowing this
rate doesn't, on its own, tell us the length of the working day. A
100% rate can apply as much to a 2 hour day, 4 hour day, or 24 hour
day. It only tells us that in each of these variants, an equal
portion of the day is devoted to creating Surplus, as to reproducing
the Labour Power consumed.
The other
limit Marx identifies here are that, in relation to Concrete Labour,
it is impossible to work more than 24 hours in a day. In fact, as he
says, a horse can only be worked 8 hours in a day. So too, humans
require a portion of the day to sleep, eat, learn, procreate and in
general reproduce their Labour-power. So, the actual limit must
always be less than 24 hours – at least on an average, because Marx
himself gives examples of people working 36 hour shifts. Likewise,
because the aim of capitalist production is profit, the period of
Surplus Labour cannot be on average zero, because, if it were,
Capital could make no profit.
There is a
point to be made here that I have made elsewhere. Marx, in
discussing these limits is talking about the limits of Concrete
Labour-time. However, as he earlier demonstrated, the relevant
measure for Value is not Concrete but Abstract Labour-time. It is
Abstract Labour, not Concrete Labour, which is the essence of Value,
which creates Value, and which is its measure. There is for that
reason, in practice, no limit to the number of Abstract Labour Hours
in a day, because Concrete Labour can, and frequently is Complex
Labour, not Simple Labour, and each hour of Complex Labour represents
several hours, and potentially many, many hours of Simple Abstract
Labour.
Marx, in
discussing the difference between Abstract Labour and Concrete
Labour, earlier, illustrated that the multiple of Complex Labour to
Simple Abstract Labour is decided in the market by what consumers are
prepared to pay for the product of that Complex Labour, compared to
the product of Simple Labour. So, for example, consumers are
prepared to pay huge amounts of money, individually and collectively,
to enjoy the product of 1 hour's Concrete Labour by a Robbie
Williams, or a David Beckham, or indeed of a top clothing designer,
computer games programmer, and so on. Its that Complex Labour,
rather than the Labour-time that actually goers into physically
producing a CD, creating the football stadium, the suit, or DVD,
which is responsible for their high value. In fact, the more
technology has developed the less of this Constant Capital is
actually required for modern production, and the greater proportion
of it is made up of Labour Power/Variable Capital. The consequence
of this, in reducing what Marx calls the Organic Composition of
Capital, and increasing the Rate of Profit, will be dealt with in
Vol. III. (For more on this point see my blog post - The Tendency For The Rate Of profit To Rise! and also A Reply To Dr. Paul Cockshott).
On that
basis, the Complex Labour Hour of David Beckham might equal 1000
hours of Abstract Labour-time. Could he work for 24 hours (and the
reproduction of his Labour-power on various forms of digital,
electronic media, that can be viewed around the globe, 24 hours a
day, is an attempt to achieve that), then in a single day, he might
be capable of working for 24,000 hours, whereas a nurse, even if they
were physically able to do it, might only be able to work for 24
hours. It can be seen why, on a Capitalist basis, such grotesquely
different wages can be earned, and yet why Capital might still make a
hugely bigger profit from the Labour-Power of a David Beckham, or a
Robbie Williams, than out of that of a nurse. Its one reason we
don't have TV Talent Shows to recruit Nurses.
“Capital
is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living
labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during
which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist
consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him.” (p 224)
 |
| The Complex Labour of a surgeon is capable of creating more Surplus Value than that of a nurse, despite the high wages of surgeons. But, Capital, to avoid paying those high wages, tries to replace the surgeon with robots. In doing so the new Value created by the surgeon, including the Surplus Value, disappears too. |
Within a
single day, Capital can suck in absolute terms more from a single
worker, providing Complex Labour, than a single worker providing
Simple Labour. Yet, Capital seeks continually to reduce what it pays
for the Labour Power, which means it continually tries to reduce the
Complex Labour to Simple Labour, to mechanise it and so on.
Once again,
the contradiction at the heart of every commodity, including
Labour-power, between Use Value and Exchange Value, is expressed.
The more Complex the Labour, the higher the Value it produces, i.e.
the more skilled the Use Value, the more Value it creates in a given
time, and, therefore, the more potentially profitable it is. The
more Capital tries to reduce the cost of purchasing that Use Value,
the more it reduces the Complex nature of the Labour provided, and,
thereby reduces its potential profitability!
On the one
hand, the individual Capitalist has an incentive in trying to have
workers work as long as possible, because with the Necessary
Labour-time fixed, the longer the working day, the longer the period
of Surplus Labour.
Marx then
presents the workers argument against such an extension.
Later, in
Capital, Marx does indeed refer to the speech in Parliament of
William Ferrand MP, who complained that three generations of workers
had been used up in in the space of one generation. The consequence
was that the workers were being used up. Again, as Marx sets out
later, in Capital, some of the more forward thinking Capitalists,
like Wedgwood, recognised that, and supported legislation to limit
the working day. Engels, also in “The Condition Of The Working
Class” details how the Big Capitalists abandoned these kinds of
penny-pinching methods of extracting Surplus Value. There are lots
of examples that demonstrate this.
In 1974,
during the Three day Week, it was found that many firms were
producing as much in three days as they normally did in five.
France, with far more holidays, and a shorter working week, has
better rates of productivity per hour, than the US's most productive
state, California. The lesson being that, when workers are not
worked so hard, they frequently work more productively.
Marx is
wrong then when he says,
“There
is here, therefore, an antinomy, right against right, both equally
bearing the seal of the law of exchanges. Between equal rights force
decides. Hence is it that in the history of capitalist production,
the determination of what is a working-day, presents itself as the
result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e.,
the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e.,
the working-class.” (p 225)
In reality,
the question of the length of the working-day is inseparable from the
question of the reproduction of labour-power, and the Value of
Labour-power. In the end, as he and Engels write elsewhere, it comes
down to a question of demand and supply, which, in turn, is
inseparable from the accumulation of Capital. If Capital burns out
the available supply of Labour Power then wages must rise – which
may indeed take the form of a reduction in hours worked – but also,
Capital will recognise the importance of wise husbandry of that
Labour-power. The real reason ultimately that restrictions on the
working day were introduced and enforced, was that the Big
Capitalists recognised it was in their interests. That didn't mean
that individual Capitalists did not try to subvert those laws, of
course.
However, we
should remember Marx's historical and logical approach in writing
Capital. For the period he is writing about, the inception of
industrial production, his argument is correct. It is the basis of
capital Accumulation on the basis of Absolute Surplus Value, which he
in the process of explaining.
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