Indeed, this concept, described above by Marx, is also what led the Physiocrats to believe that only agricultural labour was productive. They were right, Marx says, to recognise that it is only when agricultural labour is sufficiently productive as to be able to overproduce, i.e. to produce a surplus product that this enables some labour to be devoted to the production of other, industrial commodities, but wrong to think that the labour then involved in this industrial production was not itself productive. The same mistake is made today, by those who now think that it is only labour involved in the production of material products that is productive, as opposed to the labour involved in the production of services, which now comprises 80% of all new value and surplus value production.
So, once we have identified, for Robinson, what constitutes his basic requirements, given the reality of his condition, and need to be able to reproduce his labour-power, we can identify any surplus labour-time he has. This surplus labour must initially take the form of absolute surplus value. In other words, he must choose to actually engage in labour for the rest of his available working-day, beyond the time required as necessary labour. Again, here, we find the materialist basis of Marx's theory of historical materialism, as also utilised by Engels in “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”. What is it that objectively drives Robinson on to extend his working-day beyond that required purely as necessary labour? It is his precarious condition. He cannot know if tomorrow he will catch sufficient food, or if he might be caught out by severe weather, or be attacked by wild animals, and so he must be able to provide protection for himself against all these eventualities. And, Marx and Engels explain that these same considerations lead to different behaviours of human beings facing different material conditions across the globe. Humans in the climes of Northern Europe, are led to ensure that they devote labour-time to the production of adequate shelter and clothing, for example. In North America, the vast plains providing adequate supplies of food, and ability to migrate away from over-harsh weather, means that the Native Americans were not led to the need to develop settled agriculture of create permanent shelter.
It is the need to provide first of all excess production, as stocks/savings, that leads to surplus labour being undertaken. This overproduction then means that labour-time can be used to produce other products – means of production. Robinson, uses some of his labour-time now to produce a fishing rod, or nets, so that he can catch more fish in the same amount of labour-time. The value of the fish now incorporates a portion of the value of his fishing rod, or nets – their wear and tear – because in order to keep catching fish on this basis, he must replace them when they wear out. A portion of his total output must now comprise a fund set aside for the physical replacement of these means of production, as well as the fund for the reproduction of his labour-power. But, even accounting for this additional value, the actual value of the fish falls, because he now spends less labour-time in total on their production. The same applies to traps he produces to catch rabbits, and he is now able to not eat all the rabbits he catches, but keep some to breed, so that he has a constantly expanding supply of rabbits, without needing to catch them. He can do the same by catching goats, so as to obtain milk, and he can gather seeds so as to be able to grow cereals, and other crops.
By all these means, he expands the quantity and range of means of production at his disposal, and these means of production enable him to produce all of his basic requirements in less time. In other words, even as he expands his range of basic requirements, his necessary product, the time required to produce them continually declines, even though he works no additional hours in the day. He expands his surplus product/value, not by working longer or harder (absolute surplus value), but simply by making his labour more productive, and so being able to reduce the time spent in necessary labour. He creates relative surplus value.
But, a part of his working-day, is now also involved not in producing his means of consumption, but in reproducing and replacing these means of production that have enabled him to increase the productivity of his labour. He must spend a certain time each week or month, repairing or replacing fishing nets, traps, or stock compounds and so on. And, the more he raises the productivity of his labour, by producing these additional means of production, the greater the proportion of available labour-time he has to devote to that function, rather than actual labour in producing his means of consumption, i.e. reproducing his labour-power. This is the fundamental material basis for Marx's Law of the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall. It means that, even as Robinson's productivity continually rises, even as the amount and value of his surplus product rises, that surplus product/value forms a continuously falling share of his total output/value, because an increasing share of that output has to go simply to replace his consumed means of production, and likewise, an increasing proportion of the value of that output is comprised not of his current labour, but of the past labour, congealed labour, embodied in the means of production consumed in its production. Indeed, an increasing proportion goes into replacing not the means of production consumed in producing his means of consumption, but in replacing the means of production consumed in producing the means of production themselves. For example, the larger the stock pens he has, the more time must be devoted to cutting down wood, simply to repair fences and so on to those pens. This is why, in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 21, Marx explains that Department I (c), means of production consumed in production of means of production grows fastest, then Department I (v + s), means of production (intermediate production) consumed in production of means of consumption, grows second fastest, and finally Department I (v + s) production of means of consumption, grows slowest.
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