Marx turns to the question of the working-day, and production of absolute surplus value. In the analysis, so far, it has been assumed to be fixed at 12 hours. But, as previously described, there is no reason for it to be so. It could be more or less than 12 hours. The longer it is extended beyond 12 hours, the more new value is created, and so the more surplus value is produced, subject to the provisos previously outlined. In condition of significant excess labour supply, capital may exceed those limits, for a long time. During such periods, competition, between workers, will be intense, putting them in a weak position, relative to capital, as the competition between firms, for labour, will be greatly reduced.
Marx summarises some of the points made in Capital I. In the early days of capitalist production, capital found it difficult to recruit labour. Many workers still had ties to the countryside, and they had access to small plots on which to produce food for themselves. If they needed to sell their labour-power, it was to obtain money to pay taxes and rents. Once they had that amount, they did not need to work for longer. This constrained labour supply put workers in a relatively strong position. Marx notes the various commentaries of the time bemoaning the inability to get workers. Indeed, the early laws passed attempted to set not a maximum working-day, but a minimum. Such was the problem of employing labour. Lenin sets out similar conditions in Russia, as capitalist development arose, and a similar condition existed, in the United States with labour shortages producing high wages, which workers quickly accumulated to then use to buy land, and turn themselves back into peasant producers.
“During the seventeenth and even the first two thirds of the eighteenth century a ten hours' working day was the normal working day all over England.” (p 78)
At the start of the Industrial Revolution, in 1765, one rabid enemy of the workers, decrying this inability to recruit labour, wrote in “An Essay On Trade” of the need to create workhouses in which to imprison workers, and to impose on them the terror of a 12 hour working-day. Yet, within a few decades, during the anti-Jacobin wars, as machinery was introduced into factories, and a large surplus population was created, a 12 hour day would have seemed a boon to workers who saw an 18 hour day imposed on them, not in such “houses of terror”, but as normal in every factory. In some cases, workers even worked for 36 hours non-stop, which, in the case of train drivers led to serious accidents.
The twelve hours that was seen as terror, in 1765, was the same as the time, in 1832, which “capitalists, political economists, and ministers” declared “to be not only the existing but the necessary time of labour for a child under twelve years.” (p 79) But, as described earlier, the worker sells labour-power, at its value to capital, which is then free to utilise it, but only within the rational limits previously described.
“He sells his labouring power in order to maintain it, apart from its natural wear and tear, but not to destroy it.” (p 79)
Marx compares excessive use of the worker to the excessive use of a machine. If a machine has a value of £1,000, and a normal lifespan of 10 years, it transfers £100 of its value to output, each year, and the capitalist must put this £100 aside, each year, to create the fund for its replacement. If the machine is used at twice its normal rate, so that it wears out in just 5 years, it transfers £200 per year to output, and the capitalist must put this £200 away to replace the machine.
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