Ricardo is correct that natural agents, such as wind, water-power, the sun and so on reduce rather than raise the value of commodities, because they raise the productivity of labour. In so doing, they increase use value. Wealth (use value) and riches (value) move inversely to each other, and this is a contradictory unity at the heart of the commodity that creates the possibility of crisis. Ricardo says,
““In contradiction to the opinion of Adam Smith, M. Say, in the fourth chapter, speaks of the value which is given to commodities by natural agents, such as the sun, the air, the pressure of the atmosphere, etc., which are sometimes substituted for the labour of man, and sometimes concur with him in producing. But these natural agents, though they add greatly to value in use, never add exchangeable value, of which M. Say is speaking, to a commodity: as soon as by the aid of machinery, or by the knowledge of natural philosophy, you oblige natural agents to do the work which was before done by man, the exchangeable value of such work falls accordingly” (l.c., pp. 335–36).” (p 552)
In reducing the value of commodities, the effect of these natural agents is thereby to raise surplus value, and the rate of surplus value.
“The machine costs [labour]. Natural agents as such cost nothing. They cannot, therefore, add any value to the product; rather they diminish its value in so far as they replace capital or labour, immediate or accumulated labour. In as much as natural philosophy teaches how to replace human labour by natural agents, without the aid of machinery or only with the same machinery as before (perhaps even more cheaply, as with the steam boiler, many chemical processes etc.), it costs the capitalist, and society as well, nothing and cheapens commodities absolutely.” (p 553)
As Ricardo puts it,
““If ten men turned a corn mill, and it be discovered that by the assistance of wind, or of water, the labour of these ten men may be spared, the flour which is the produce partly of the work performed by the mill, would immediately fall in value, in proportion to the quantity of labour saved; and the society would be richer by the commodities which the labour of the ten men could produce, the funds destined for their maintenance being in no degree impaired” (l.c., p. 336).” (p 553)
There are two possible effects, Marx says. Either as a result of the reduced price of flour, society would consume more flour, or else society would consume the same amount of flour, but use the labour saved on its production to produce more of some other commodity, or to start production of some entirely new commodity. But, there is an important point here that distinguishes Marx's position, on the effects of machinery, and that of Ricardo. Marx points out that there are two different, and separate funds involved here.
On the one hand, there is the fund in the hands of the consumers of corn. Suppose there are only two commodities, flour and linen. The linen producers perform say 100 hours of labour and produce 100 metres of linen. They keep 50 metres for themselves, and exchange the other 50 metres for say 50 kilos of flour, also with a value of 50 hours. Now, as a result of the use of a windmill, the value of 50 kilos of flour falls to just 20 hours. The fund in the hands of consumers of flour is enhanced. The linen producers could now buy the 50 kilos of flour for just 20 metres of linen, equal to 20 hours of labour. They have had 30 hours of value for consumption, i.e. their revenue, released. They could use it to create a demand for an additional 75 kilos of flour, or they could use it to create a demand for some completely new commodity.
But, there is a second fund involved, and that is the fund in the hands of the flour producing capitalists. They had capital in the form of variable-capital, used to employ workers. Suppose the capitalist has £100 of capital to pay wages. Now they introduce the windmill, and say the windmill costs £40, whilst wages are reduced to £10. The capitalist has now saved £50 of capital. The point is, Marx says, that this saved £50 of capital, has no necessary connection to the workers who have been displaced by this machine. The money that was in the revenue fund of linen producers was destined for flour consumption. That was determined on the basis of the existing conditions of supply and demand, arising from the exchange-value of flour, and the set of existing consumer preferences. When the price of flour fell, that money, in that fund, was thereby released.
But, the money in the fund of the flour producer has no relation to the workers released. For example, if he also engaged in windmill building, he does not have to use that money to employ the released workers to build the windmill, nor, were he to lend it to some other windmill builder, would it thereby employ those released workers, though it would be employed to employ some group of workers. Moreover, if the linen producers, with their released revenue, equal to 30 metres of linen, decided to use it to create demand for some other commodity, say bread, there is no reason why the released capital of the flour producer would be used to employ their released workers in bread production, though capital employed in that industry would employ some additional labour.
No comments:
Post a Comment