Nor is it just in terms of wages that there is this elasticity of the limits. As previously described, it applies, also, to the length and intensity of the working-day. Capital may push towards its absolute limit, but comes up against these material constraints.
“However, as I said, this limit is very elastic. A quick succession of unhealthy and short-lived generations will keep the labour market as well supplied as a series of vigorous and long-lived generations.” (p 86)
But, again, as described earlier, in modern societies where each generation of workers must be educated and trained, and this period of education and training becomes more extended, even this is not true for capital. If workers require, on average, 15 years of education and training, during which time they are consumers of value, not producers of it, as they must eat, be clothed, sheltered and so on, it makes considerable difference whether they live for 40 years, or 70 years.
In the first case, they only have 25 years, during which they are producers of new value, whereas in the latter case, they have 55. In the former case, the new value produced constitutes 166% of the value they consume, whereas in the latter case, it constitutes 366%. So, its no wonder that, having invested all of this produced value in educating and training workers, capital, now, seeks to maximise its use of that labour, which requires the worker to live longer, requiring better levels of diet, shelter, and healthcare.
Capital may, in various circumstances, reduce these historical and social components, down towards the physical minimum. Certainly, in the age of imperialism, as capital establishes production in developing economies, it will view the value of labour-power, there, differently. And, as this process leads to the averaging out of these differences, it may be that, whilst that means a movement away from the physical minimum in those developing economies, it will mean a movement towards it, or at least a slower movement away from it, for workers in developed economies.
“The English standard of life may be reduced to the Irish standard; the standard of life of a German peasant to that of a Livonian peasant.” (p 86)
In fact, Marx notes that, during the anti-Jacobin wars, English farmers depressed agricultural wages, even below that physical limit. To prevent them being wiped out, these wages were supplemented via the Poor Laws, but that was financed via Parish taxes, which fell on the Yeoman farmers, driving them out, and facilitating a concentration of capital. The equivalent, today, would be the expansion of welfarism and benefits, financed by higher taxes on the petty-bourgeoisie, and better paid workers.
“This was a glorious way to convert the wages labourer into a slave, and Shakespeare's proud yeoman into a pauper.” (p 87)
Even if there is no change in productivity, driving a reduction in the value of wage goods, and so of the value of labour-power, there is, then, over time, changes in the value of labour-power/wages, and consequent movement in profits. The physical minimum establishes the lower bound for wages, and consequent upper bound for profits, but, again confounding the claims of those who believe that it is tiny changes caused by The Law of the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall that causes crises, Marx notes that there is no maximum for wages, and so, no minimum for profits.
“We cannot say what is the ultimate limit of their decrease. And why cannot we fix that limit? Because, although we can fix the minimum of wages, we cannot fix their maximum.” (p 87-8)
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