This question of productivity, of the total volume of output, is significant for Marx's next point, in this regard, because, in addition to the new value created by labour, in the production of a commodity, there is also the question of the value of all those other commodities – materials, machines, buildings – used in its production, whose value is transferred, in whole or in part, to the value of the end product. As productivity rises, the proportion of the value of the end product consisting of raw material rises, whilst the proportion consisting of wages, and of wear and tear of fixed capital falls. This is the basis of The Law of the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, because it is only the current labour that produces surplus value.
In fact, as I have set out, elsewhere, in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 23, Marx explains that this tendency for the rate of profit to fall, is very small, and detectable only over long periods, if at all. It depends on production being material production, and on the rising social productivity bringing a greater proportional rise in the quantity of material processed (technical composition) than the fall in its unit value (value composition). There is no reason for that to be the case, and certainly not where the majority of production is services not manufactures.
The other objection that subjectivists raise is that if the value of commodities is determined by the amount of labour-time required for production, then, that would encourage producers to be lazy, so as to raise the value of their commodities. Such an argument is itself clearly lazy, and nonsensical, because it forgets that these producers are in competition with each other, and so each has an incentive to reduce the individual value of their production compared to that of other producers, because, in that way, they make surplus profits, and grab extra market share. The competition, thereby, reduces the labour required for production down to the minimum currently required, the amount of average, socially necessary labour-time.
“In saying that the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour worked up or crystallized in it, we mean the quantity of labour necessary for its production in a given state of society, under certain social average conditions of production, with a given social average intensity, and average skill of the labour employed. When, in England, the power-loom came to compete with the hand-loom, only half the former time of labour was wanted to convert a given amount of yarn into a yard of cotton or cloth. The poor hand-loom weaver now worked seventeen or eighteen hours daily, instead of the nine or ten hours he had worked before. Still the product of twenty hours of his labour represented now only ten social hours of labour, or ten hours of labour socially necessary for the conversion of a certain amount of yarn into textile stuffs. His product of twenty hours had, therefore, no more value than his former product of ten hours.” (p 47-8)
If the value of commodities, i.e. the labour-time required for production remains constant, then, their exchange-value, their proportional relation, one to another, remains constant. However, because social productivity constantly changes, on average, progressively rising, the value of commodities does not remain constant, and so their exchange-values also constantly change. But, even if the value of any given commodity remains constant, its exchange-value will change, as the values of other commodities change. If the value of a kilo of cotton is 10 hours, of a litre of wine 20 hours, and a loaf of bread 5 hours, the kilo of cotton will exchange for 2 loaves of bread, and the litre of wine for 4 loaves of bread. The litre of wine will also exchange for 2 kilos of cotton.
If the value of bread remains constant, but the value of wine rises to 30 hours, and of cotton to 15 hours, the wine will still exchange for 2 kilos of cotton, their exchange values to each other remaining constant, but cotton will now exchange for 3 loaves, and wine for 6 loaves. In other words, although the value of bread remains constant, its exchange value has fallen, because the value of wine and cotton has risen.
“If, for example, in the progress of population it should become necessary to cultivate less fertile soils, the same amount of produce would be only attainable by a greater amount of labour spent, and the value of agricultural produce would consequently rise. On the other hand, if, with the modern means of production, a single spinner converts into yarn, during one working day, many thousand times the amount of cotton which he could have spun during the same time with the spinning wheel, it is evident that every single pound of cotton will absorb many thousand times less of spinning labour than it did before, and consequently, the value added by spinning to every single pound of cotton will be a thousand times less than before. The value of yarn will sink accordingly.” (p 49)
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