[b) Jones on the Influence Which the Capitalist Mode of Production Exerts on the Development of the Productive Forces. Concerning the Conditions for the Applicability of Additional Fixed Capital]
Marx cites a long passage from Jones where he describes the difference between the labourers in China, who ply their wares or services on the streets, as against those employed as wage labourers. The former cannot work continuously. They move around the town looking for customers. But, employed by capital, the capitalist provides the customers that keep them continually employed. But, the capitalist, who has bought their labour-power, also has an incentive to ensure, by their superintendence, that they are continually employed. This is one way that capitalism raises the productivity of labour by reducing “down-time”, and so continually raising the intensity of labour. The other form of precapitalist labour, described by Jones, is that of say the tailor, employed in private homes, to make and repair clothes.
Marx notes,
“The transition from labourers who perform casual services—making clothes, coats, trousers, etc., in the landowner’s house—to workers employed by capital, is already very well described by Turgot.” (p 433)
Marx also notes that whilst capitalist production is distinguished from the kind of precapitalist artisan or peasant production by the greater intensity of labour, it is not distinguished from slave labour, in that respect. Jones is wrong to identify the longer working day or greater intensity of the working-day as representing a greater productive power of labour, Marx says, because this productive power is manifest in a greater output from a given quantity of labour. A worker who produces 100 units of output in 5 hours labour does not become more productive if they work for 8 hours and produce 160 units of output. Their productivity level remains 20 units per hour. The productive power of their labour only increases if their output per hour rises, for example, to 30 units per hour. But, this is notably a function of the use of fixed capital. It is the difference between the production of absolute surplus value, via the lengthening of intensification of the working day, as against producing relative surplus value, as a consequence of rising social productivity.
“Furthermore, Jones correctly emphasises that the continuous labour of the non-agricultural labourers lasting from morning to night is by no means something which arises spontaneously, but is itself a product of economic development. In contrast to the Asiatic form and to the Western form of labour (prevailing in former times, partly even today) in the countryside, the urban labour of the Middle Ages already constitutes a great advance and serves as a preparatory school for the capitalist mode of production, as regards the continuity and steadiness of labour.” (p 434)
No comments:
Post a Comment