In the examples he has given, and which I have represented here, the basis has been that the technical composition of capital remains constant. In other words, if 50 units of material require 50 units of labour to process them, this relation remains constant. It is only because wages rise, as Marx says, that the value-composition, of v:c, rises. Even if the consequence is that less c and v can then be employed, as in (3), the ratio of v:c rises. Because the rate of surplus value falls, the mass of surplus value falls relative to the constant capital. So, originally,
c 50 + v 50 + s 50. Here s represents 100% of c.
c 40 + v 60 + s 20. Here s represents only 50% of c.
In other words, c has fallen because higher wages mean that the £100 of capital can now employ only 40 units of c, and 40 units of v. The 40 units of v now cost £60, and as they only create the same £80 of new value, surplus value drops to £20. Had the rate of surplus value remained constant, then s would also have been £40, and still represented 100% of c. But, the rate of surplus value has fallen due to the rise in wages, which causes a squeeze on profits. The mass of surplus value has consequently fallen to 20, which is only 50% of c.
This squeeze on profits due to a rise in costs, particularly of wages, is the explanation for the law of falling profits developed by Marx's predecessors, such as Smith, Ricardo and Malthus. They explain this squeeze in different ways. For Smith, it is the fact that capital accumulates faster than the supply of labour, so the relative oversupply of labour disappears causing wages to rise. For Ricardo and Malthus it is that industrial capital accumulates faster than agricultural capital, and diminishing returns in agriculture, thereby causes agricultural prices and rents to rise, which leads to rising wages, and a squeeze on profits. Marx demonstrates that whilst all of these things may arise as a temporary phenomena, which can lead to a crisis of overproduction, they are not the explanation for the long-term tendency for the rate of profit to fall. Quite the opposite, Marx says. All of these factors, which cause a profits squeeze are the result of a fall in social productivity, and a reduction in the rate of surplus value. By contrast, the law of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall is driven by rising social productivity, an increase in the rate of surplus value, and an increase in the mass of surplus value. It arises, because capital seeks to address the problems of a squeeze on profits caused by falling social productivity, and reduction in the rate of surplus value, by engaging in technical innovation, of intensive accumulation in new labour-saving technologies that create a relative surplus population, and so cause lower wages, that raise the rate and mass of surplus value, and that reduce the value of circulating constant capital, and a large moral depreciation of the fixed capital stock.
“These variations in the value therefore always affect the surplus-value itself, whose absolute amount decreases in both cases because either one or both of its two factors fall. In one case it decreases because the number of workers decreases while the rate of surplus-value remains the same, in the other, because both the rate decreases and the number of workers employed by a capital of £100 decreases.” (p 283)
If the change in price affects only the constant capital, the effect is the same as a rise in the organic composition, Marx says. In other words, even if the mass of surplus value remained the same, as a result of increasing the capital, so as to employ the same quantity of labour and material, the ratio of the surplus value to constant capital would fall, so the rate of profit would fall. If it affects only the variable capital, less workers and material can be employed, and so the mass of surplus value would fall. But, even if the mass of capital is increased so that the same mass of labour and materials are employed, a greater portion of the new value created by labour goes to reproducing the labour-power, and less goes to surplus value, so the rate of surplus value falls. So, this surplus value falls relative to both c and v, causing the rate of profit to fall again.
No comments:
Post a Comment