The working-day, is the hours
actually worked by individual workers, in a day. The social
working-day is the total amount of hours provided in a day by the
working-class as a whole.
The working-day, consists of
the normal working-day, plus any overtime worked by the individual
worker, whether paid or unpaid. The working day can only
be increased, by increasing the amount of time the individual worker
works (or what is the same thing, increasing the intensity of the
working-day, though as Marx describes this is limited, and tends to
move in the opposite direction to the extension of the working-day).
The social working-day, however, can be increased simply by
employing more workers. If the working-day is 10 hours, and 1
million workers are employed, the social working-day is 10 million
hours, but if 2 million workers are employed, the social working-day
rises to 20 million hours.
The working-day is divided into
necessary labour and surplus labour. The necessary labour, is the
amount of labour that the worker must undertake to produce an amount
of new value, sufficient to buy the commodities (wage goods)
required to reproduce their labour-power. The surplus labour is the
amount of labour undertaken in addition to that, which thereby
creates surplus value. The social working-day similarly comprises
an amount of necessary labour, and surplus labour. For the social
working-day, the necessary labour also divides into a necessary
product, equal to the products produced by the total amount of
necessary labour, and a surplus product, equal to the products
produced by the surplus labour. If, the rate of surplus value is
25%, and the working-day divides into 8 hours necessary labour, and
2 hours of surplus labour, then if 1 million workers are employed
the social working day divides into 8 million hours of necessary
labour, and 2 million hours of surplus labour. The 8 million hours
of necessary labour, produces a necessary product (wage goods)
required for the reproduction of the workers, whilst the 2 million
hours of surplus labour produces a surplus product, which provides a
revenue consumed by non-workers. That is it goes as profit of enterprise, rent, interest and taxes, which are spent to buy
consumption goods comprising part of the surplus product, as well as
to provide the revenue that is converted into new capital, as a
result of accumulation. The necessary product comprises the use values that make up the variable-capital, which are bought with the
money wages paid to workers, the surplus product comprises the use
values that are bought from surplus value, i.e. the necessaries
bought by non-workers, the luxuries bought by non-workers, and the
means of production accumulated as additional capital.
As social productivity rises,
the amount of necessary labour declines, which means that the amount
of surplus labour rises. For example, if 1 million people comprise
the workforce, and they are employed in agriculture, working a 10
hour day, divided into 8 hours necessary labour, and 2 hours surplus
labour, the social working-day divides into 8 million hours of
necessary labour, and 2 million hours of surplus labour, with the
total social product being divided into a necessary product and
surplus product, in the same proportion. Another way of viewing
this is that 0.8 million workers are employed producing nothing
other than wage goods, whilst 0.2 million workers are employed
producing the goods consumed by non-workers. If social productivity
rises, so that only 6 hours of necessary labour is required, this is
equivalent to 0.2 million workers employed in necessary production
being released for other production. They may produce additional
luxury goods consumed by non-workers, or they may be employed in
some totally new type of production. When productivity in
agriculture rose, it meant that not everyone needed be employed
totally in providing food, required to feed the total population.
It released labour, which could then be employed in other types of
production, such as producing clothing, or tools etc.
If social productivity rises,
alongside a rise in population, it is similarly possible for the
same number of workers to be employed in necessary labour (0.8
million), but for them to produce a larger surplus product. If the
total working population rises from 1 million to 2 million, but it's
now possible to provide the necessaries required by these 2 million,
using only the labour of the same 0.8 million, then surplus labour
rises from 0.2 million, to 1.2 million hours.
If social productivity remains
constant, so that the rate of surplus value remains constant, the
mass of surplus value, and the size of the surplus product rises, in
proportion with the rise in the social working-day. In other words,
if 1 million workers work a 10 day, the social working-day is 10
million hours. If the rate of surplus value is 25%, the surplus
product/value is equal to 2 million hours. If 2 million workers are
employed, it rises to 4 million hours.
In the industrial revolution,
the male heads of households initially provided the majority of paid
labour. Their wages had to provide for the needs of the whole
family. As the industrial revolution proceeded, and the demand for
labour-power rose sharply, capital responded by lengthening the
working-day. It rose to extreme and unsustainable lengths. There
are physical limits to the lengthening of the individual
working-day. But, capital responded, by increasing the length of
the social working-day. It brought the workers' family into the
labour process. The necessary working-day (required to reproduce
the worker and his family) did not change, but now the actual social
working-day rose, because his wife and children also provided
labour. If the necessary labour, remained, as above 8 million
hours, but, as above, by bringing in the labour of women and
children, the workforce goes from 1 million to 2 million workers, so
that the social working-day rises from 10 million to 20 million
hours, the surplus labour/product/value rises to 1.2 million hours.
When capital accumulates at a
more rapid pace, its first response is always to look for additional
labour by this increase in the individual and social working-day.
Firstly, individual workers are encouraged to work longer hours,
either with the inducement of overtime pay, or where possible
without. Alternatively, the same effect is achieved by increasing
the intensity of labour, via piece-work schemes, speed-up and so on.
This type of surplus value is called absolute surplus value, it
results from an absolute increase in the length of the individual or
social working-day. Other means of increasing absolute surplus
value are, as above, to bring additional workers into the workforce.
That can be women and children, or peasants and self-employed
labourers, or it can come from immigrants, or simply population
growth. Marx describes this in Capital III, Chapter 15,
"Given the necessary means of production, i.e. , a sufficient accumulation of capital, the creation of surplus-value is only limited by the labouring population if the rate of surplus-value, i.e. , the intensity of exploitation, is given; and no other limit but the intensity of exploitation if the labouring population is given. And the capitalist process of production consists essentially of the production of surplus-value, represented in the surplus-product or that aliquot portion of the produced commodities materialising unpaid labour."
When the social-working day
cannot be expanded further, the potential to create additional new
value, and thereby additional new absolute surplus value is
exhausted. Any additional capital accumulation, represents
over-accumulation, because it cannot produce any additional surplus
value. The additional capital does not act as capital. i.e.
self-expanding value. The mass of capital employed increases, but
the mass of surplus value, can no longer be increased, so the rate
of surplus value, and the rate of profit fall, as profits are
squeezed.
When the social-working day can
no longer be expanded, so that no new absolute surplus value can be
produced, but capital continues to accumulate, this additional
demand for labour-power causes wages to rise. This causes a further
squeeze on the rate of surplus value, and rate of profit. This is
what Marx defines as a crisis of overproduction. This squeeze on
profits arising from the inability to increase the rate of surplus
value, and the rise in wages, is the opposite of the conditions that
Marx defines as characterising his Law of the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, where, by contrast, the rate and mass of surplus
value rises, due to rising social productivity, and a relative
decline in the proportion of employed labour. The conditions which
lead to a crisis of overproduction, due to the inability to expand
the social-working day, and social surplus product, and the squeeze
on profits, this and the rise in wages cause, are described by Marx in Capital III, Chapter 15.
“There
would be absolute over-production of capital as soon as additional
capital for purposes of capitalist production = 0. The purpose of
capitalist production, however, is self-expansion of capital, i.e.,
appropriation of surplus-labour, production of surplus-value, of
profit. As soon as capital would, therefore, have grown in such a
ratio to the labouring population that neither the absolute
working-time supplied by this population, nor the relative surplus
working-time, could be expanded any further (this last would not be
feasible at any rate in the case when the demand for labour were so
strong that there were a tendency for wages to rise); at a point,
therefore, when the increased capital produced just as much, or even
less, surplus-value than it did before its increase, there would be
absolute over-production of capital; i.e.,
the increased capital C + ΔC would produce no more, or even less,
profit than capital C before its expansion by ΔC. In both cases
there would be a steep and sudden fall in the general rate of profit, but this time due to a change in the composition of capital
not caused by the development of the productive forces, but rather
by a rise in the money-value of the variable capital (because of
increased wages) and the corresponding reduction in the proportion
of surplus-labour to necessary labour.”
As
Marx says, in the above quote, the crisis of overproduction can only
be avoided, where the potential to expand the social-working day,
and absolute surplus value is exhausted, where the amount of
relative surplus value can be increased, i.e. by raising social
productivity, so as to reduce the size of the necessary working-day.
Crises of overproduction, are a feature of periods of boom, and the
period of exuberance that follows them, when capital has expanded
mostly on the basis of extensive accumulation, and during which the
benefits of previous labour-saving technologies have also been
exhausted, as a means of raising productivity. It drives a new
round of innovations to produce the new labour-saving technologies
required to reduce the length of the necessary working-day, and
thereby raise relative surplus value. It is that which leads to the
conditions, whereby the rate of surplus value rises, the mass of
surplus value rises, but the amount of labour employed relatively
declines, which creates the conditions for Marx's law of the
tendency for the rate of profit to fall, as the means by which
crises of overproduction are resolved.
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