The question becomes does capital accumulate at a rate fast enough that the absolute increase in employment exceeds the relative decrease in employment. In other words, if a capital of £1,000 employs 10 workers, whilst a capital of £2,000 employs 18 workers, this second capital employs 10% fewer workers relatively, but still employs 80% more workers absolutely. Ricardo says,
““If these views be correct, it follows,
“1st. That the discovery, and useful application of machinery, always leads to the increase of the net produce of the country, although it may not, and will not, after an inconsiderable interval, increase the value of that net produce” (l.c., p. 474).” (p 570)
But, Marx says, it will always increase the value of the net produce, i.e. the surplus value, where that machinery reduces the value of labour-power. In other words, it will increase the rate of surplus value. The reason is simple. The new value that labour produces in 10 hours is always equal to 10 hours, no matter how productive it is, i.e. no matter what quantity of use values this 10 hours represents. The lower the value of labour-power, the smaller the proportion of this 10 hours of new value is required to reproduce that labour-power, and so the greater the proportion of surplus value. However, Marx seems to miss a point here. Suppose the machine reduces the value of labour-power from 5 hours to 4 hours, in a ten hour working day. For each employed worker, the value of the net produce, i.e. the surplus value rises from 5 hours to 6 hours. So, if 100 workers are employed, the gross product is 1,000 hours, the necessary product is 400 hours, and the net product/surplus value is 600 hours. However, if the consequence is also that, say, only 80 workers are employed, because these now produce as much as did previously 100 workers, then the gross output value is 800 hours, the necessary product 320 hours, and the surplus product 480 hours. In that case, the value of the net product has fallen from 500 hours to 480 hours.
Ricardo continues,
“2dly. That an increase of the net produce of a country is compatible with a diminution of the gross produce, and that the motives for employing machinery are always sufficient to insure its employment, if it will increase the net produce, although it may, and frequently must, diminish both the quantity of the gross produce, and its value.” (p 570)
As Marx says in Capital III, firms never introduce machines or techniques that are less profitable than those they already use. A requirement for that is that a machine must require less labour for its own production than the paid labour its application replaces. The necessary immediate consequence of that is that the machine results in labour becoming redundant. As Ricardo puts it,
“3dly, That the opinion entertained by the labouring class, that the employment of machinery is frequently detrimental to their interests, is not founded on prejudice and error, but is conformable to the correct principles of political economy.” (p 570)
But, that the immediate consequence is that labour is made redundant is not at all the same thing as saying that labour in the medium or longer-term is made redundant. For the reasons described, that such machinery also cheapens labour-power (and elements of constant capital) as well as raising the rate of surplus value, and rate of profit, and facilitates greater accumulation, the result is that more labour is employed absolutely, even as less labour is employed relatively.
“4thly. That if the improved means of production, in consequence of the use of machinery, should increase the net produce of a country in a degree so great as not to diminish the gross produce, (I mean always quantity of commodities and not value,) then the situation of all classes will be improved. The landlord and capitalist will benefit, not by an increase of rent and profit, but by the advantages resulting from the expenditure of the same rent, and profit, on commodities, very considerably reduced in value” (p 570)
However, Marx points out that,
“this sentence contradicts the whole of Ricardo’s doctrine, according to which the lowering in the price of necessaries, and therefore of wages, raises profits, whereas machinery, which permits more to be extracted from the same land with less labour, must lower rent”. (p 570)
And, even where the consequence of machinery is to create more favourable conditions for workers, Marx says, it does so in a way that only once again emphasises the nature of the proletariat as a slave class. For example, to the extent that a greater surplus product is produced, alongside a surplus population, the capitalists and landlords utilise some of their increased revenue to employ some of these surplus workers as menial servants. And, even in so far as the revenue is turned into capital, that employs productive-labour, it only emphasises once more that this labour is employed as wage labour, and thereby becomes even more enslaved to capital. The bourgeois apology for machinery does not deny that it causes, here and there, redundancy of labour, which acts to depress wages,
“not because the population grows more rapidly than the means of subsistence, but because the rapid growth in the means of subsistence, due to machinery, enables more machinery to be introduced and therefore reduces the immediate demand for labour. This comes about not because the social fund diminishes, but because of the growth of this fund, the part of it which is spent in wages falls relatively.” (p 571)
No comments:
Post a Comment