Absolute surplus value relates to the extraction of surplus value by the extension or intensification of the working-day. For each labourer, the working-day is made up of a number of hours of necessary labour, and a number of hours of surplus labour. This is true in all modes of production, in which the productivity of labour has reached a level whereby the labourer can produce more in a day than is required for their own reproduction, i.e. where they can overproduce. As Marx says, therefore, at the heart of absolute surplus value is relative surplus value, the ability to raise productivity so that the amount of necessary labour required can be reduced.
If we take a solitary labourer, such as Robinson Crusoe, stranded on his island, then, as Marx says, in Capital I, he tells us all we need to know about value and The Law of Value, and, in this respect also, about absolute and relative surplus value. Because we are dealing with this one Robinson, the question of the distinction between his concrete labour and abstract labour, between his individual labour, and social labour disappears, and so does the distinction between the individual value of his output, and its social or market value. He is society, his individual labour is social labour, the individual value of his output is its social value.
“In spite of the variety of his work, he knows that his labour, whatever its form, is but the activity of one and the same Robinson, and consequently, that it consists of nothing but different modes of human labour.”
(Capital I, Chapter 1)
Robinson has a given amount of labour-time per day to produce all of the things/use values/products required for the reproduction of his labour-power. He knows, therefore, that he must apportion out his day so as to maximise the production of these use values, in order to ensure that his labour-power is reproduced.
“Necessity itself compels him to apportion his time accurately between his different kinds of work. Whether one kind occupies a greater space in his general activity than another, depends on the difficulties, greater or less as the case may be, to be overcome in attaining the useful effect aimed at. This our friend Robinson soon learns by experience, and having rescued a watch, ledger, and pen and ink from the wreck, commences, like a true-born Briton, to keep a set of books. His stock-book contains a list of the objects of utility that belong to him, of the operations necessary for their production; and lastly, of the labour time that definite quantities of those objects have, on an average, cost him.”
(ibid)
In other words, Robinson soon learns that each of the use values, required for the reproduction of his labour-power, which, here, is inseparable from the reproduction of himself, each day, as a human being, as well as having this use-value/utility, also has a value, i.e. it requires a definite quantity of his labour-time to produce. This value, as Marx says, may fluctuate, because, for example, it may take longer one day, as against another, to catch the fish or rabbits he requires, but, over a period, he can calculate an average value for each type of product. Moreover, contrary to the subjectivist theories of value, this value of each type of product is not arbitrary, or a matter of sheer whim or preference on Robinson's part, put is objectively determined by the material conditions that he finds himself confronted by. If rabbits are scarce on the island, it will require a lot of labour-time to catch the required amount. Their value will be high. If fish are plentiful, it will require less labour-time to catch the required amount. Their value will be lower.
So long, therefore, that Robinson allocates his available labour-time – his working-day – so that he can produce enough of the use values required to reproduce his labour-power, he can live again for another day, and begin again, the next day, the process all over again. What is true of this society of Robinson, is true for a society of 1 million, or 1 billion. What changes in different modes of production, is the way the production of these goods and services takes place, and how they are then distributed, and what also changes is how the surplus labour is pumped out of the labourers, and who appropriates it. This is the materialist foundation of Marx's theory of historical materialism, which explains the development of human societies as arising on the back of natural laws, such as The Law of Value, in the same way that Darwin explained the evolution of species on the basis of the same kinds of natural laws determined by material conditions.
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