Marx sets out two proofs that the labour of superintendence does not enter into the average rate of profit.
“1) That in co-operative factories, where the general manager receives a salary as in all other factories, and is responsible for the whole labour of superintendence—the overseers themselves are simply workers—the rate of profit is not below, but above, the average rate.
2) That where profit is continuously substantially above the average rate, as in individual, non-monopolised branches of business such as those of small shopkeepers, farmers, etc., this is correctly explained by the economists as being due to the fact that these people pay themselves their own wages. Where only the proprietor himself works, his profit consists of—1) the interest on his small capital; 2) his wages; 3) that part of the surplus time which, because of his capital, he is able to work for himself instead of for someone else; i.e., the part not already represented by interest. If, however, he employs workers, then their surplus labour has to be added.” (p 505)
Marx notes that when it comes to actual struggles between workers and capitalists this argument that the industrial profit is only wages of superintendence is dropped. Nassau Senior, in opposing the shortening of the working day, argued that it was only in the “Last Hour” of work that the labourers produced profit. So, here, the pretence that profit is only wages of superintendence is discarded and the true nature as unpaid labour has been admitted.
“It is incomprehensible how economists like John Stuart Mill, who are Ricardians and even express the principle that profit is equal to surplus-value, surplus labour, in the form that the rate of profit and wages stand in inverse ratio to one another and that the rate of wages determines the rate of profit (which is incorrect when put in this form), suddenly convert industrial profit into the individual labour of the capitalist instead of into the surplus labour of the worker, unless the function of exploitation of other people’s labour is called labour by them, the result of this is indeed that the wages of this labour are exactly equal to the amount of other people’s labour appropriated, in other words, they depend directly on the degree of exploitation, not on the degree of exertion that this costs the capitalist.” (p 506)
In reality, even this labour of exploitation, of ensuring that the maximum unpaid labour is squeezed out of the labourers is performed, increasingly, not by the capitalist but by general managers employed by them. Similarly, when the capitalists withdraw from the production process, and hand over the task of representing their interests, as shareholders, to boards of directors, it is not these directors that undertake the labour of superintendence but an expanded layer of professional managers, administrators and so on.
The position of John Stuart Mill, described in the quote above, is incomprehensible, because the idea that capital – interest, and industrial profit – wages of superintendence stands in complete opposition to Ricardo's analysis of value and profit. If we take capital as a thing or series of things, means of production, then the value of this “capital” is only equal to the value of these things/commodities, i.e. the value of the building, machine, materials etc. It is impossible, therefore, for this “capital” to create new value, and, thereby, to be self-expanding value. Taking a step backwards, and taking this capital value to be equal to an equivalent sum of money, advanced by a money-lending capitalist, does not change that. £1,000 loaned to an industrial capitalist to buy a machine with a value of £1,000 is no more able to become £1,200 of value than is the machine itself.
“Insofar as capital is value, its value is determined by the labour contained in it before it enters into the [production] process. Insofar as it enters the process as a thing, it does so as use-value, and as such, it can never create exchange-value, whatever its use.” (p 507)
The self-expansion of value occurs only in production itself, because the employed labour creates a greater quantity of new value than required for its own reproduction. It is only because of this labour process, organised and supervised by the industrial capitalist, that the surplus value is produced. It is not capital as a thing, or series of things/commodities that somehow results in a surplus value that can be divided into profit, interest, rents and taxes, but capital as a social relation. It does not require the owner of capital to be the representative of capital in this relation. That function can be undertaken by professional managers – functioning capitalists – who are wage labourers themselves.
“In relation to the moneyed capitalist, the industrial capitalist, who embodies functioning capital and therefore actually squeezes out surplus labour, is of course quite justified in pocketing a part of this surplus. In relation to the moneyed capitalist, he is a worker, but a worker who is a capitalist, in other words, an exploiter of other people’s labour. But in relation to the workers it is strange to plead that the exploitation of their labour costs the capitalist labour and that, therefore, they have to pay him for this exploitation; it is the plea of the slave-driver addressed to the slave.}” (p 507)
No comments:
Post a Comment