Capital, Chapter 8:

1
Capital, Chapter 8

• Constant Variable Capital

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Constant Capital

• Money invested in MP (means of production)
• MP as embodiment of value invested
• MP in value terms
• Constant because value contribution to final
  product C is given by amount of past labor

3
Variable Capital

• Money invested in LP (labor power)
• LP as embodiment of value invested
• LP in value terms
• Variable because the amount of new value
  contributed by living labor can vary

4
Language Problems

• Marx uses as misleading language
• labor preserves value
• labor creates value
• labor transfers value
• All these are transitive verbs
• But the substance of value is work, or abstract
  labor

5
Preservation of Value

• Labor in this period
• performed such that labor in previous time
• (which created MP)
• Actually contributes to the value of C
• Preserves the value created in the earlier
  period, or transfers it from the past to the
  present, from the MP to the C

6
Creation of Value

• Substance of value abstract labor
• Labor which is accomplished in accord with the
  rules of capital
• i.e., produces a product which is sold, and on
  which a profit is realized,
• creates value indeed it IS value

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Repairing Constant Variable Capital

• Marx considered labor that repairs a machine as
  part of the labor that produces a functioning
  machine, thus part of C
• We can apply the analysis to repair of LP
• housework repairs LP, physically, psychologically
• but what is impact on value of LP?

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Housework Value of LP

• LP - M - C(MS)...P(2)...LP. LP - M - C(MS)
• M - LP M - LP
• ...P(1)... C - M.
  . . . P . . .
• M - MP M - MP
• P(2) influences LP
• more repair work can reduce value K must lay out
• less need for eating out
• less need for shrinks or prostitutes, etc.

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Capital, Chapter 9

• The Rate of Surplus Value

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Surplus Value

• Surplus value (S) excess beyond V
• Old labor C
• New Labor V S
• S that part of the labor workers do which goes
  beyond what is needed for their reproduction and
  is appropriated by K
• V all the labor that produces MS
• S all the labor that produces MP

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Rate of Profit

• Capitalist preoccupation
• Rate of profit S/(C V) ?
• ? ratio of net revenue to investment
• ? rate of return on investment
• The above is in value terms
• In money terms there are many ways to measure the
  rate of return on investment

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Rate of Surplus Value

• Workers preoccupation
• Rate of Surplus Value, Rate of Exploitation S/V
• S/V is ratio between two parts of V S or the
  new value
• S/V is ratio of workers labor given over to
  capital to that which they do for themselves

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Seniors Last Hour

• Nassau Senior economist and apologist for
  business against Factory Acts
• Argued if working day was reduced one hour, all
  profit would be wiped out
• Marx shows fallacy of argument how Senior
  ignores material structure of working day and
  constant using up of C
• Marx shows drop from 9.5 to 8.5, not 0

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Ure Idleness

• Andrew Ure, in his Philosohy of Manufactures
  warned against reducing work for children
• He argued they would be corrupted by idleness
• Nice expression of fundamental capitalist belief
  that work is salvation of individual and social
  life

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--End--

16
Capital, Chapter 10

• The Working Day

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Work TIME

• Chapter 10 on Working Day because that was
  common measure in Marxs era
• Today, we think more in terms of the working
  week, or working year
• These measures defined
• by periods of waged work
• by periods free of waged work (weekend,
  vacations)
• In all cases we hold intensity constant

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Sec 1 Limits of Working Day

• Length of working day (week, year) is variable
• A . . . . B . . . . C
• A - C total length of working day
• A - B V
• B - C S
• So, capitalists try to maximize B - C

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Limits

• Limit of A - C physical limits of workers
• Lower Limit of A - B minimal requirement of LP
• Upper Limit of A - B A -C? No, ave. B-C
• Limit of B - C (S) function of
• total time of work
• time which must be given over to LP

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Determinant of Actual Times

• Marx Between equal rights force decides. Hence
  it is that in the history of capitalist
  production, the determination of what is a
  working day, presents itself as the result of a
  struggle, a struggle between collective capital,
  i.e., the class of capitalists and collective
  labor, i.e., the working class.

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Struggle

• Capitalists try to lengthen working time
• Workers try to shorten working time
• During rise of capitalism (Prim.Accum) the
  capitalists succeeded in extending working day
  (see sec 5)
• Later, workers suceeded in stopping expansion and
  then in reducing working time (see sec 6) --at
  least until recently

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The Real Working Day

• Marxs analysis focuses on waged day
• We must extend that analysis to unwaged working
  day, e.g., struggle over time in
• housework (women fight for less)
• schoolwork (kids fight for less)
• unemployment (workers search less)
• leisure (real or re-creation of labor power?)

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Sec. 2 Voracious Appetite

• Marx Capital did not invent surplus labor
• also in slavery, feudalism, etc.
• Ques So what did it invent?
• Ans Endlessness of work
• Work determined by use-values (limited)
• Work determined by value/? (unlimited)
• K life organized around work (endlessly)

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Redefinition of Surplus Value

• Objection to usual definition of S S today is MP
  tomorrow which produces C(MS) so S is just V with
  a time-lag
• Sec 2 shows understanding of S is dynamic
• In capitalism S ? f(V) but V f(S), i.e.,
  necessary labor time is subordinated to surplus
  labor time
• Post-capitalist society would reverse this

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Nibbling Cribbling

• Capitalist try to maximize work get workers to
  start early and end late, minimize breaks time
  clocks
• Workers try to start late and end early,
  maximize breaks
• Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times
• never buy a car made on Monday or Friday
• playing on job rod-blowing, surfing internet
• Struggle over leisure time, school, etc.

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Sec 3 No Legal Limits

• Industries with no legal limits show essense of
  capitalism what it does when it has the power to
  do so
• Horror stories of overwork under deadly
  conditions (women, children, Karoshi)
• Farmworkers, sweat shops everywhere today
• The Jungle provides vivid illustration of these
  things in US stockyards in 1906

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• Stockyards

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Adulteration

• Marx e.g., chalk in bread
• Today wood cellulose in bread
• The Jungle rotten meat, rats in sausage
• Todays toxic foods
• 30 chicken w/ salmonella
• e-coli in hamburgers
• pesticides in fruit and vegetables

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Salmonella

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Working Class Response

• Protests of poor quality consumer goods
• The Jungle led to regulation of meat packing
  industry
• Whisle - blowing by workers in industry
• Consumer movement, Naderites, check up on and
  fight for quality of MS
• Resistance to de-regulation to increase ?

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Sec. 4 Day Night Work

• Marx In the factory
• Extension in unwaged work

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Day Night in Factory

• Machines need no rest, high start up costs
• Fit workers to endless rhythm of machines to
  maximize capacity utilization and minimize costs
  (for business)
• Night work raises costs to workers
• bad for health, violates biological rhythms
• screws up social life
• gender, age hierarchies

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Day Night Outside

• Since LP f(life), work of producing can go on
  continuously
• e.g., mothers
• night early morning meals, washing
• evening homework supervision
• morning truant officer work
• no retirement
• e.g., students who work at all hours
• at home
• in libraries
• especially graduate students

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Sec. 5 Struggle Over Extension

• Methodology of Sections 5 6
• classes as subjects
• language of personification, e.g., capital
  attacks
• antagonism class struggle produce patterns
• sections trace historical patterns of struggle,
  back and forth with one side or the other having
  the initiative
• Sec 5 (capitals initiative) Sec 6 (workers)

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Sec 5 Pattern
Length of working day

t1
t2
t3
t4
1. capitalist initiative expand, expand,
expand 2. workers resist, but in general, they
lose
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Marx Quote

• The establishment of the normal working day is
  the result of centuries of struggle between the
  capitalist and the worker . . .Centuries are
  required before the free worker owing to the
  greater development of the capitalist mode of
  production, makes a voluntary agreement, i.e., is
  compelled by social conditions to sell the whole
  of his active life, his very capacity for labour,
  in return for the price of his customary means of
  subsistence, to sell his birthright for a mess of
  potage.

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Resistance

• Gauchos subordinated interaction with market to
  autonomous needs
• Freed slaves in Jamaica content themselves with
  producing only what is strictly necessary i.e.,
  MS
• Jack Londons Johnny
• Upton Sinclairs Jurgis

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Colonization of Free Time

• The W.C. successes in reducing the working day
  (described in Sec 6) led to K attempts to convert
  free time to work time
• Method structuring the time to guarantee that
  what was done in it would contribute to the
  re-creation of life as labor power
• Homework, looking for jobs, job-related study,
  etc

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Struggle for Free Time

• Such efforts to colonize free time led,
  inevitably, to workers struggles to defend their
  free time as such
• Refusal of homework, not looking for work,
  refusing to take work home in evenings, etc.
• Collectively struggle for free spaces for free
  time, parks, natural areas, social centers

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Sec. 6 Struggle for Limitation of hours

• Spontaneous resistance absenteeism, sit-downs on
  payday, etc
• Collective resistance
• strikes for reduction of hours
• efforts to pass laws, e.g., Factory Acts in UK,
  hours and wages legislation in the US
• Capital resisted fiercely
• reduced hours would raise costs
• reduced hours undercut work civilization

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Shift in Initiative

• Before capitalist on offensive, increaseing hours
• Finally, workers on offensive, cutting them
• US 1880s (75-80hrs/wk), 1940 (40hrs/wk)

t2
t3
t4
t1
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Sec. 7 Intl Impact

• International circulation of struggle
• England to France to US
• Weakness of some workers means weakness of all
• e.g., US slavery undercut struggles of waged
  workers
• e.g., weakness of Mexican workers undercuts
  strength of US workers today

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International Workers Efforts

• Migration, immigration carries experience of
  struggle from place to place
• e.g., sailors, transported workers, political
  exiles (Owen Saro-Wiwa, Nigeria - US)
• Organized efforts
• 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Internationals
• multinational unions, anti-NAFTA coalition
• EZLN Intercontinental Network of Struggles

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Work Week Pop Music

• Popular Music repeatedly manifests anti-work
  sentiments
• E.Costello, Welcome to the Working Week
• Bangles, Manic Monday
• Boomtown Rats, I Dont Like Mondays
• D.Parton, 9 to 5
• Clash, The Magnificent Seven
• Kinks, Soap Opera (concept album)

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