Marx uses as his example the work of John Francis Bray, Labour's Wrongs and Labour's Remedy, Leeds 1839. In it, Bray sets out the Ricardian theory that it is only labour that creates new value, and so draws the conclusion from that that it is only the labourer that has a right to the proceeds of that labour. Its on this basis that all utopian socialist principles of the sort that the workers should obtain “the full fruits of their labour” is based, as set out by the Lassalleans, for example, or the Fabians as contained in Labour's old Clause IV, Section 4 of its Constitution.
Bray correctly describes the way that it is the forms of property established upon the relations between capital and labour that determines the nature of the society and state, and the exploitation of the labourer that results from it. But, like all moral socialism, Bray's programme is based upon a series of moral pronouncements of “what ought” to be rather than “what is”, or what can be, given any set of existing material conditions.
Bray correctly identifies that the labourer creates, say, 40 hours of new value, during the week, embodied in the commodities they produce, but is paid wages, which amount to only 20 hours, the value of the commodities required for their own reproduction. If we were to take the working class as a whole, as a single collective labourer, it would work for 400 million hours a week with the capitalists taking possession of this total product, and then handing back to workers commodities with a value of 200 million as wages.
But, Bray, like Proudhon and other utopians mistakes this for a system of unequal commodity exchange that could be remedied by insisting upon equal exchanges of commodities. The error, as Marx sets out, is that what workers sell is not labour, but labour-power, and capital does, indeed, buy this commodity at its value, i.e. the current cost of reproducing the worker. The surplus value arises because this value of labour-power is less than the new value created by the exercise of that labour-power, and which is only set in motion by the grace of the capital that employs it.
Bray recognised that such a condition of equal exchange was not possible under capitalism, and was only conceivable in a system of universal labour, but also envisaged a transitional form of society – essentially social-democracy – based upon collective ownership, and co-operative production.
“We now only need to reply in a few words to Mr. Bray who without us and in spite of us had managed to supplant M. Proudhon, except that Mr. Bray, far from claiming the last word on behalf of humanity, proposes merely measures which he thinks good for a period of transition between existing society and a community regime.” (p 71-2)
The basis of Bray's schema is, then, an hour of Peter's labour exchanges for an hour of Paul's labour. We have already seen the problems with that, as set out by Engels that these labours are not equal, may not be socially necessary, and so on, but Marx sets out a further problem. Suppose Peter works for 12 hours, whilst Paul works for 6 hours. Peter can only exchange half of their commodities with Paul. The alternatives are:
1. They hand over the other half gratis
2. They sit on their hands for 6 hours waiting for Paul to produce another 6 hours value of commodities, during which time their own commodities sit unsold and deteriorate
3. They consume their excess production themselves.
In other words, this regime would create a society in which people were encouraged to be idle, rather than productive. Peter would loaf around for six hours, doing nothing, because, having worked to excess, they now have to wait for Paul, who has worked at a more leisurely pace. It leads to the same kind of overproduction as seen in existing society, because, in order to dispose of their excess production, before it becomes unsellable, Peter must sell it below its value. And, finally, if Peter simply consumes the excess production, what does this amount to but a retreat from commodity production and exchange to the primitive direct production and consumption?
“... the whole hypothesis of a society founded on the exchange and division of labour will fall to the ground. Equality of exchange will have been saved by the simple fact that exchange will have ceased to be: Paul and Peter would arrive at the position of Robinson.” (p 73)
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