Tuesday 3 December 2019

Theories of Surplus Value, Part III, Chapter 24 - Part 43

“If workers are simply replaced as motive power without [the machinery] itself being substantially altered, for example, if wind or water [now operate the machinery] where this was done previously [by workers], two lots of capital are freed, the capital previously spent on paying the workers and the capital for which their money income was exchanged. This is an example used by Ricardo.” (p 441) 

This is the point Marx discussed earlier, in relation to the two types of funds released, one relating to capital, the other relating to revenue. A part of the fund which produced the wage goods consumed by the workers laid off is now released. Instead of going to produce wage goods for those workers, it now goes to the production of machines. 

“A large part of the labour previously used directly in the production of means of subsistence is now used in the production of auxiliary capital. This too is in contradiction to Adam Smith’s view, according to which the accumulation of capital is synonymous with the employment of more productive labour. Apart from the examples considered above, the result may be merely a change in the application of labour and a withdrawal of labour from the direct production of means of subsistence and its transfer to the production of means of production, railways, bridges, machinery, canals and so on.” (p 441-2) 

Marx then sets out, using citations from Jones, why it is the mass of existing capital, and also, thereby, the mass of profit, not the rate of profit, that is most important for capital accumulation. Marx gives the following quote from Jones. 

““The astonishing expedition with which a great cotton factory, comprehending spinning and weaving, can be erected in Lancashire, arises from the vast collection of patterns of every variety from those of gigantic steam engines, water wheels, iron girders and joists, down to the smallest member of a throstle or loom in possession of the engineers, mill-wrights, and machine makers. In the course of last year Mr. Fairbairn equipped water wheels equivalent to 700 horses power and steam engines to 400 horses power from his engineer factory alone, independent of his mill-wright and steam-boiler establishment. Hence, whenever capital comes forward to take advantage of improved demand for goods, the means of fructifying it are provided with such rapidity, that it may realise its own amount in profit, ere an analagous factory could be set a-going in France, Belgium or Germany” (Andrew Ure, [Philosophy of Manufactures, London, 1835, p. 39,] Philosophie des Manufactures etc., tome I, Paris, 1836, pp. 61-62). “ (p 442) 

As Paul Mason has described in “Postcapitalism”, in modern economies where intellectual property has become increasingly significant, this is also manifest in the attempt to protect such intellectual property. Its manifestation, however, can be seen in something like the decoding of the human genome. When the first decoding was done, the cost was approximately $3 billion. Once the pattern was established, the cost of each subsequent sequencing became cheaper and cheaper. Together with further advances in computing power, the cost is now down closer to $100. What initially took years to achieve, can be done in hours, and, as AI is introduced that is being extended to ever wider areas of activity. 

“With development, machinery becomes cheaper, partly relatively—in comparison with its power—and partly absolutely; at the same time, however, a massive concentration of machinery takes place in the workshop, so that its value increases in proportion to the living labour employed, although the value of its individual components declines: 

The driving force—the machine which produces the motive power—becomes cheaper as the machinery which transmits the power and the machine which the power operates, are improved, as friction is reduced, etc.” (p 442) 

Even in relation to the value of the fixed capital, relative to labour, this is not necessarily true today. The cost of computing power has become so cheap that it is often the very complex labour that utilises this power that comprises the largest portion of value. However, AI is rapidly changing that too, in a range of occupations. 

Marx notes the significance of this, in relation to the fact, as Jones says, a majority of labourers, across the globe, had still not reached the level of becoming wage labourers. 

““Over by far the greater part of the globe, the great majority of the labouring classes do not even receive their wages from capitalists; they either produce them themselves, or receive them from the revenue of their customers. The great primary step has not been taken which secures the continuity of their labour; they are aided by such knowledge only, and such an amount of mechanical power as may be found in the possession of persons labouring with their own hands for their subsistence. The skill and science of more advanced countries, the giant motive forces, the accumulated tools and machines which those forces may set in motion, are absent from the tasks of the industry which is carried on by such agents alone” ([Richard Jones, Text-book of Lectures on the Political Economy of Nations,] p. 43).” (p 443) 

In fact, as Jones also says, that was still true in many of the agricultural districts of England itself, at the time he was writing. 

Marx notes, 

“Capitalist production leads to separation of science from labour and at the same time to the use of science in material production.” (p 443) 

No comments: