Marx now looks at the way Jones explores the role of technology in raising productivity. Jones essentially makes the distinction between extensive and intensive accumulation. The latter involves an increase in knowledge, Jones concludes.
Jones begins by looking at the way capitalist production makes possible a division of labour on a larger scale.
“… if he” (the capitalist) “employ more than one man, he can divide the task between them; he can keep each individual steadily at work at the portion of the common task which he performs the best… if the capitalist be rich, and keep a sufficient number of workmen, then the task may be subdivided as far as it is capable of subdivision. The continuity of labour is then complete… Capital, by assuming the function of advancing the wages of labour, has now, by successive steps, perfected its continuity. It, at the same time, increases the knowledge and skill by which such labour is applied to produce any given effect.” (p 436)
This also means, Jones says, that the capitalists themselves cease being workers, and concentrate solely on this task of increasing their knowledge as to how production can be increasingly undertaken by more efficient means. Jones, of course, was writing before the capitalists themselves were removed from that social function, and it became the preserve of professional managers and technicians whose work was itself systematised by the theorists of scientific management, such as Taylor.
Jones, here, then, also recognises the role of fixed capital in this process of raising productivity. He defines this fixed capital, which constitutes all constant capital, apart from raw material, as auxiliary capital.
““The national mass of auxiliary capital may, certain conditions being fulfilled, increase indefinitely: the number of labourers remaining the same. At every step of such increase, there is an increase in the third element of the efficiency of human labour, namely, its mechanical power… auxiliary capital thus increases its mass relatively to the population…”” (p 436)
He then sets out three conditions required for the accumulation of this auxiliary capital. The first, which applies to all capital accumulation, is that it must be possible to “save” the additional capital. In other words, there must be a surplus product that can be set aside from current production for this purpose. Secondly, there must be a will to actually save this surplus production rather than consume it unproductively. Thirdly, Jones says,
“Some invention by which it may be made possible, through the use of such capital, that the productive powers of labour may be increased; and increased to an extent which will make it, in addition to the wealth it before produced, reproduce the additional auxiliary capital used, as fast as destroyed, and also some profit on it…” (p 436)
This is confused, and Marx disentangles its contents, after citing the rest of Jones' comments on it. In these comments, Jones then sets out the difference between extensive accumulation where simply more of the same technology is employed, and intensive accumulation, where new technologies are introduced, which replace the old. The latter requires a development of knowledge itself, what would be termed today a new innovation cycle.
““When the full amount of auxiliary capital, that in the actual state of knowledge can be used profitably, has already been supplied … an increased range of knowledge can alone point out the means of employing more. Further, such employment is […] only practicable if the means discovered increase the power of labour sufficiently to reproduce the additional capital in the time it wastes away. If this be not the case, the capitalist must lose his wealth. But the increased efficiency of the labourers must, besides this, produce some profit, or he would have no motive for employing his capital in production at all…, all the while, that by employing fresh masses of auxiliary capital these two objects can be effected, there is no definite and final limit to the progressive employment of such fresh masses of capital. They may go on increasing co-extensively with the increase of knowledge. But knowledge is never stationary; and, as it extends itself from hour to hour in all directions, from hour to hour some new implement, some new machine, some new motive force may present itself, which will enable the community profitably to add something to the mass of auxiliary capital by which it assists its industry, and so increase the difference between the productiveness of its labour and that of poorer and less skilful nations” (loc. cit., pp. 38-41).” (p 436-7)
This, again, whilst representing a significant insight into the process of capital accumulation, is also confused in its formulation.
Marx notes,
“First, with regard to the statement that the inventions, or appliances or contrivances must be of such a kind, “that the productive powers of labour may be increased; and increased to an extent which will make it, in addition to the wealth it before produced, reproduce the additional auxiliary capital used, as fast as it is destroyed…”, or “reproduce the additional capital in the lime it wastes away”. This means nothing more than that the wear and tear is replaced as it takes place, or, that on the average the additional capital is replaced in the same period during which it is consumed. A portion of the value of the product, or, what amounts to the same thing, a portion of the product, must replace the consumed auxiliary capital, and, at such a rate that if, in a given period of time, it is wholly consumed, it is reproduced wholly, or that a new capital of the same kind takes the place of the capital used up. But what is the condition for this? The productivity of labour must rise to such an extent through the application of the additional auxiliary capital that a part of the product can be deducted to replace this component part either in kind or by exchange.” (p 437)
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