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| Until societies reach a minimum level of development of the productive forces their members can only produce enough to just about sustain themselves - and often not even that. Unless productivity rises to a level where each person can produce more than is required for their own reproduction, no society can sustain non productive members. Therefore, everyone must work. There can be no exploiting class. For example, there is no point having slaves, because all the slaves' production is required for their own reproduction. |
“If
the labourer wants all his time to produce the necessary means of
subsistence for himself and his race, he has no time left in which to
work gratis for others. Without a certain degree of productiveness in
his labour, he has no such superfluous time at his disposal; without
such superfluous time, no surplus-labour, and therefore no
capitalists, no slave-owners, no feudal lords, in one word, no class
of large proprietors.” (p 479)
Marx
echoes Engels from
Origin Of The Family, Private Property & The State
where he describes how class society i.e. slavery could only arise
when society had developed its productive ability to a certain level,
whereby one individual could produce more than was required for their
own reproduction. Prior to that, there was no point having slaves,
because they could produce no surplus.
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| Raising productivity through the development of socialised labour is a process that develops over millennia. |
A
requirement for this, is in fact, that labour has become socialised,
because without that, it cannot raise itself to the necessary level
of productivity.
“Along
with the progress in the productiveness of labour, that small portion
of society increases both absolutely and relatively. Besides,
capital with its accompanying relations springs up from an economic
soil that is the product of a long process of development. The
productiveness of labour that serves as its foundation and
starting-point, is a gift, not of nature, but of a history embracing
thousands of centuries.” (p 479-80)
 |
| One of the main reasons that Britain had its Industrial Revolution first was the existence of large quantities of reasonably accessible coal, which fuelled the steam engines, which powered the factories. |
The
productiveness of labour besides the development of social
production, is limited by physical factors. These, Marx says, divide
into two categories. Firstly, natural – the fertility of the soil
and water – and secondly natural instruments of labour –
waterfalls, navigable rivers, wood, metal, coal etc.
“At
the dawn of civilisation, it is the first class that turns the scale;
at a higher stage of development, it is the second. Compare, for
example, England with India, or in ancient times, Athens and Corinth
with the shores of the Black Sea.” (p 480)
Marx
then refers to the advantages of ancient Egypt in these regards, that
facilitated its development.
“Nevertheless
the grand structures of ancient Egypt are less due to the extent of
its population than to the large proportion of it that was freely
disposable. Just as the individual labourer can do more
surplus-labour in proportion as his necessary labour-time is less, so
with regard to the working population. The smaller the part of it
which is required for the production of the necessary means of
subsistence, so much the greater is the part that can be set to do
other work.
Capitalist production once assumed, then, all
other circumstances remaining the same, and given the length of the
working day, the quantity of surplus-labour will vary with the
physical conditions of labour, especially with the fertility of the
soil.” (p 180-1)
But,
for stimulating capitalist development, it is not the most fertile
soil that provides the best conditions. Where nature provides its
gifts too freely and abundantly, there is no imperative to develop
Man's own productive powers.
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| It was the uneven nature of fertility of land in Britain that led to the development of technologies and techniques to improve it. Ultimately, that leads to the Agricultural Revolution of the 18th Century, and the Enclosure Acts that swept peasants from the land in order to create large farms, where more productive methods could be introduced. It creates the basis for the Industrial Revolution. |
“It
is not the tropics with their luxuriant vegetation, but the temperate
zone, that is the mother-country of capital. It is not the mere
fertility of the soil, but the differentiation of the soil, the
variety of its natural products, the changes of the seasons, which
form the physical basis for the social division of labour, and which,
by changes in the natural surroundings, spur man on to the
multiplication of his wants, his capabilities, his means and modes of
labour. It is the necessity of bringing a natural force under the
control of society, of economising, of appropriating or subduing it
on a large scale by the work of man’s hand, that first plays the
decisive part in the history of industry.” (p 481)
Marx
cites the irrigation works necessary in Egypt, Lombardy, Holland,
India and Persia. The need to predict the rise and fall of the Nile
is what led the Egyptians to develop the science of astronomy. It
was the need to conduct hydraulic works on a large scale in places
like India and China, which could only be done by the State, which
led to the development of the Asiatic Mode of Production. Marx
writes,
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| Melotti gives a good account of Marx's writings on the Asiatic Mode of Production, and how the need for large scale hydraulic projects required a large bureaucratic state to undertake them. |
“One
of the material bases of the power of the state over the small
disconnected producing organisms in India, was the regulation of the
water supply. The Mahometan rulers of India understood this better
than their English successors. It is enough to recall to mind the
famine of 1866, which cost the lives of more than a million Hindus in
the district of Orissa, in the Bengal presidency.” (Note 3, p 481)
A good account of Marx’s analysis of
the Asiatic Mode of Production is provided in “Marx and the
Third World” By Umberto Melotti.
“Favourable natural conditions
alone, give us only the possibility, never the reality, of
surplus-labour, nor, consequently, of surplus-value and a
surplus-product. The result of difference in the natural conditions
of labour is this, that the same quantity of labour satisfies, in
different countries, a different mass of requirements, consequently,
that under circumstances in other respects analogous, the necessary
labour-time is different. These conditions affect surplus-labour only
as natural limits, i.e., by fixing the points
at which labour for others can begin.” (p 482)
Marx also quotes Joseph Massie in this regard,
““There are no two countries
which furnish an equal number of the necessaries of life in equal
plenty, and with the same quantity of labour. Men’s wants increase
or diminish with the severity or temperateness of the climate they
live in; consequently, the proportion of trade which the inhabitants
of different countries are obliged to carry on through necessity
cannot be the same, nor is it practicable to ascertain the degree of
variation farther than by the degrees of Heat and Cold; from whence
one may make this general conclusion, that the quantity of labour
required for a certain number of people is greatest in cold climates,
and least in hot ones; for in the former men not only want more
clothes, but the earth more cultivating than in the latter.” (An
Essay on the Governing Causes of the Natural Rate of Interest. Lond.
1750. p. 60.) The author of this epoch-making anonymous work is J.
Massie. Hume took his theory of interest from it.” (Note 1, p 482)
But, the fact that under certain
conditions, Men's needs are easily met does not mean that this
automatically results in a large surplus. It only creates the
potential. Marx cites the example of natives able to live by working
just 12 hours a week, and living off a Sago tree.
“Nature’s direct gift to him is
plenty of leisure time. Before he can apply this leisure time
productively for himself, a whole series of historical events is
required; before he spends it in surplus-labour for strangers,
compulsion is necessary. If capitalist production were introduced,
the honest fellow would perhaps have to work six days a week, in
order to appropriate to himself the product of one working day. The
bounty of Nature does not explain why he would then have to work 6
days a week, or why he must furnish 5 days of surplus-labour. It
explains only why his necessary labour-time would be limited to one
day a week. But in no case would his surplus-product arise from some
occult quality inherent in human labour.” (p 482-3)
It is only on the basis of this
historical development that when we arrive at capitalism “...
the idea easily takes root that it is an inherent quality of human
labour to furnish a surplus-product.” (p 482)
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