So long as no crisis exists, and the mass of profit expands, capital has no great incentive to engage in expensive technological innovation, and, even if it wanted to encourage workers to have more kids, to expand the workforce, that would require around 15-20 years, to bring about. Only immigration offers a more immediate solution, as was seen in the 1950's, and early 2000's. Even when capital faces crisis, and is led into technological innovation, as it did in the 1970's, and early 1980's, this requires around 12-13 years, to produce and introduce the labour-saving technologies, and produce the relative surplus population. That is why those conditions of unemployment and falling wages do not manifest until the mid-1980's. It is also those factors, outlined above, that set the parameters, and create the periodicity of the long wave cycle.
“By what contrivance is the capitalist enabled to return four shillings' worth for five shillings? By raising the price of the commodity he sells. Now, does a rise and more generally a change in the prices of commodities, do the prices of commodities themselves, depend on the mere will of the capitalist? Or are, on the contrary, certain circumstances wanted to give effect to that will? If not, the ups and downs, the incessant fluctuations of market prices, become an insoluble riddle.” (p 15)
Price is the exchange-value/price of production of commodities measured against money/standard of prices. If the latter does not change in value, then a rise in the price of any commodity can only arise from a fall in productivity, in its production, because competition between producers ensures that they will all sell at the exchange-value/price of production. The market price may fluctuate around this equilibrium price, but, thereby, these fluctuations cancel each other out. What applies to one commodity applies to all commodities, and so, for Weston to argue that capitalists could simply raise prices, for all commodities, in response to a rise in wages, requires that he argue that social productivity, as a whole, is reduced.
Whilst productivity in the production of some commodities may fall, because of say a crop failure, in general, social productivity rises, not falls. On average, it rises by around 2% p.a., with higher annual rises during periods of intensive accumulation, and lower rises during periods of extensive accumulation. Weston's error, as with that of Proudhon, was to equate labour with labour-power and so the new value created by labour with wages, when, in fact, these are two separate things. Weston concluded that a rise in wages was a rise in the social cost of production, rather than only a rise in the capitalists' cost of production.
If productivity remains constant, there is no change in the social cost of production of commodities, and so no basis for a change in their price. A rise in wages does not cause a rise in the social cost of production – no more labour is required than before – only a rise in the capitalists' cost of production, the consequence of which is, then, not a rise in prices, but a fall in profits, i.e. a fall in the amount of free labour they extract from workers.
The only change in prices would be a change in the market price of commodities, as a consequence of changes in the composition of demand and supply, resulting from these new proportions of wages and profits, i.e. as wages rise, demand for wage goods rises, but, as profits fall, demand for luxury goods falls. Marx sets out the chain of consequences from that.
“A general rise in the rate of wages would, therefore, produce a rise in the demand for, and consequently in the market prices of necessaries. The capitalists who produce these necessaries would be compensated for the risen wages by the rising market prices of their commodities.” (p 16)
That would not be the case for the producers of luxury goods. Marx notes that, in his day, this luxury production was no small amount. At that time, two-thirds of national product was consumed by just a fifth of the population. The concentration of wealth has increased considerably since then, meaning that the disproportion in distribution has grown. So, the fall in their profits, resulting from a general rise in wages could not be compensated by a rise in prices for those capitalists producing luxuries. On the contrary, the fall in their profits would result in a fall in demand for their output, and so lower market prices, whilst the profits of those capitalists producing necessaries, although not falling, would not have risen to compensate.
“In these branches of industry, therefore, the rate of profit would fall, not only in simple proportion to the general rise in the rate of wages, but in the compound ratio of the general rise of wages, the rise in the prices of necessaries, and the fall in the prices of luxuries.” (p 17)
No comments:
Post a Comment