Parts 2, 3, and 4 (original) (raw)
Capital, Volume 1: Parts 2, 3, and 4
This section of the text contains the one move of economic theory at the heart of the whole project, and I want to be sure it's clear to everyone.� Part 2 really belongs with Part 1 in the sense that they are both written from the perspective of exchange and circulation.� Part 3 will bring the shift of perspective that will condition the rest of the book.
Part 2 asks on the basis of Part 1 (commodity, circulation of commodities, money), what is capital?� We will find that from this perspective we can't answer the question adequately; Part 2 exhausts this perspective.
I�ll organize the whole explanation around three definitions of capital
Chap 4: General Formula of Capital
�nb: previously Marx gave us in the 1844 ms the two-part definition: capital is (a) stored-up labor and (b) domination over labor.
�What is capital?� We use "capital" to refer to commodities or land that are of value, but here we get a different defintion.
1st definition: money is the first form of capital (p. 247).�Money is the expression of capital.�This is what is revealed in exchange and circulation.
� circulation of commodities:� C-M-C
� circulation of money: M-C-M
. M-C-M is an absurd tautology, why would anyone do that.� The difference between paths is that C-M-C refers to the same quantity but different qualities; but M-C-M refers to the same quality and thus must have different quantities.� �One sum of money is distinguishable from another only by its amount� (251).
�M-C-M' is the general formula of capital where Delta M is surplus value (p. 251).� Note: this is really industrial capital. - Merchant's capital M-C-M (p. 256, 266-67) � or should it be M-C-M� where the commodity is not transformed?
Interest-bearing capital or usurers' capital M-M' (p. 257, 267)
These others are criminal (theft or cheating); industrial capital is productive if montrous (self-creation).
�valorization is the addition of value (p. 252), but we'll get a better definition later with respect to labor. - p. 255 note Say: "It is not the material which forms capital but the value of that material."
2nd definition: capital is self-valorizing value, "value in process", value as the subject of the process.� Read p. 257.
Chap 5: Contradictions in the general formula of capital
�In circulation only things of equivalent value are exchanged, and yet after the process the capitalist comes out with more than he put in.�Where does this increase in value come from?�
Surplus cannot arise from circulation.��Circulation, or the exchange of commodities, creates no value� (266)
Read pp. 268-69.� �Hic Rhocus, hic salta.�� Put up or shut up.� Understand what is not what ought be.
Chap 6: Sale and Purchase of labor-power
The paradox will be resolved by anayzing the special properties of labor as a commodity.� (p. 270)� Selling labor power in the capitalist system is predicated on the freedom of labor in two senses:
freely in possession of the labor-power to sell (not slave) and therefore formally equal to the capitalist in the exchange. (read p. 271).� In other words, the worker is the free bearer of labor-power.� (C.B. MacPherson, Possessive Individualism).�Note the shift from the bearer of a commodity to the bearer of labor-power.� What is the subject that is separate from its labor power?
�has nothing to sell but his or her labor-power. (read 272).
�Summary, read pp. 272-73.
� Aside: you might be wondering how did these conditions come about?� Capitalist cares little and we are sticking to the capitalist point of view.�Historical description of primitive accumulation to come later (p. 273).
�What is the value of labor-power?� It is determined like every other commodity by the quantity of abstract labor to make it, that is, by the value of the reproduction of the worker for a given period (p. 274 middle).� What counts as reproduction varies according to social and historical circumstances, but appears as fixed in any given social formation (English workers need beer as French workers need wine).� This makes good on the labor theory of value; this is its real importance.
�It also begins to make good on the use value/exchange value distinction.
- labor power is exchange value (the value of which is equal to the labor that went into it).� "the value of labor-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of its owner" (p. 274).
- labor is use-value.� "labor power becomes a reality only by being expressed; it is activated only� through labor" (p. 274).� Or more clearly, "The use of labor-power is labor itself." (p. 283).
���� Two ways of thinking about it:
���� 1 - Expression / bearer : the abstract expressed in the concrete.
���� 2 - potential / actual: Aristotle Metaphysics.� �By working, the [seller of labor-power] becomes in actuality what previously he wonly was potentially, namely labor-power in action, a worker� (283).
�Summary: Freedom, equality, property, and Bentham (egoism).� The glory of capitalist ideology.
�Movement from circulation to production.� Read p. 279 and p. 280.� In the hidden abode of production the two actors no longer appear equal.� This shift in perspective is the central move in the book.� Parts 1 and 2 have only been in the realm of circulation.
Part 3
Chap 7: The Labor Process
�definition: means of production = instruments and objects of labor (p. 287).
�characteristics of labor under capitalist production
control of capitalist over the labor process (p. 291)
capitalist owns product (p. 292)
�What happens in labor process?� What is labor?� Worker changes nature and self (p. 283); living labor awakens things from the dead (p. 289); labor is the fermentation that transforms things (p. 292); "fire that bathes things".� Relation to Hegelian notion of labor in Phenomenology (in master/slave passage).
�Labor=value tautology: What is value? Accumulated labor-time.� What is labor? Value creating activity, activity that produces value.� The interesting point is that value and labor are socially determined.�What is labor and what is valued is a site of political struggle.� In effect the lack of ground, the tautology is what opens up the side of political struggle.
The Valorization Process
�Definition: Valorization is value creation in excess.�Read p. 302.� It is not just creating value.
�Secret is that the cost of the reproduction of the worker (the value of labor) is not equal to the value created in the labor process.� The difference between these two is surplus value.� Read p. 300.
�Let's look at the difference between the value of labor-power (which will later be represented in the wage) and the value added to the product by labor.� "The only thing that interests the capitalist is the difference between the price of labour-power and the value which its function creates" (p. 682).
�How is the value of labor-power determined?� Costs of reproduction.� How are the costs of reproduction determined?� Social, historical. In order for there to be surplus value, the costs of reproduction of the worker must be less than the value created by the worker in the production process.� The process of creating more value than the cost of the labor-power is capitalist valorization.
. Why is it possible for the capitalist to pay the worker only the costs of reproduction and not the full value of what is produced?� Because labor-power is treated as a commodity. �Since it is a commodity, the capitalist only has to pay for the abstract labor objectified in it, that is, its costs of (re)production.� It is a special commodity, a living commodity, that creates more than it costs.� The capitalist buys labor-time (for a fair price) and all the value created during that time belongs to the capitalist, which the capitalist subsequently sells.�Each is a fair exchange, just on different scales.� This is how waged labor is the central element of capitalism.� (Or you might say surplus labor or surplus value or valorization or exploitation is the key to capitalism.)� �The trick has at last worked: money has been transformed into capital� (301).
�Here is where we really make good on use/exchange values.�The capitalist pays for the exchange value of labor-power, but he gets back its use-value.
�Now what is capital?� More than M-C-M'(that was only how it was seen from circulation).� It is a social relation, the social relation embodied in the system of waged labor.
3rd definition: capital is self-valorizing value, or rather it is the social relation that produces surplus value.� Vampire, read p. 342 (also p. 367).
Chap 8
Definition: Constant capital and variable capital: read p. 317. - only the human creates value; machines and raw materials only transfer their value (the labor that went into them) to the product.� Means of production absorb a certain amount of labor.�
This is important for Senior�s fallacy.�Senior thinks that the work day cannot be reduced one hour because all the profit is produced in that last hour (333).�He doesn't distinguish betweeen constant and variable capital so he doesn't understand that:
���� 1) if work less, less means of production (cotton) used;
���� 2) value of means of production doesnt' have to be reproduced, it is simply transfered to the product.
Chap 9: Rate of Surplus Value:
A series of definitions:
�C=c+v and C'=c+v+s
�Put this back in M-C-M'� (M-C-C'-M' or M-c+v-c+v+s-M')
�surplus is solely the result of the labor process s=delta v, p. 322.
�rate of surplus value = s/v, p. 324
�necessary labor is that necessary for reproduction (teminological confusion, p. 325).
�surplus labor is the excess.
�degree of exploitation is the rate of surplus value, p. 326.
�the quantitative form of this is setting up a political argument about the length of the working day in England (surplus labor -> surplus labor time).
�for Wednesday: How is "exploitation" different from "domination" or "oppression"?
Absolute and Relative Surplus Value:
These are two capitalist strategies for increasing surplus value.
�A----B----C�� AB=necessary labor-time, BC=surplus labor-time
Imagine in a certain historical and social situation 8 hours is required to produce the value of reproduction of the worker (neccesary labor time) and the worker works a 10 hour day.
���� 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
���� A-------------B----C
The surplus labor time is 2 hours and the value created during that period is the surplus value that the capitalist gets.�Now there are two ways this surplus value can be increased.
- Lengthen the working day to 12 hours.
���� 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
���� A-------------B----------C
The surplus labor time (B-C) would then be 4 hours.� This is called the production of absolute surplus value.
- Increase the productivity of labor so that the costs of reproduction can be accomplished in 6 rather than 8 hours.
���� 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
���� A---------B--------C
The surplus labor time (B-C) is again 4 hours.�This is called the production of relative surplus value.
Absolute
In absolute surplus value the working day is the object of political struggle.� Should read factory legislation for Wednesday (Chap 10, part 6, pp. 389- 410).� Two things are particularly interesting here:
���� 1) role of State: capital needs aid of the State when economic power is not developed enough (382).
���� 2) result of class struggle (read p. 395).
�� Debate over New Deal legislation (8 hour day).
Relative
�increase of productivity (p. 431) leads to fall in value of labor-power (432).
�law of value at work / productivity (p. 436-37)
�riddle: Why does capitalist work to bring down price of commodities? (437)� Really, the capitalist�s aim is to maximize surplus labor time.� He doesn�t want to bring down the price of commodities � that is an unintended consequence.
Chap 13: Cooperation
Three periods of capitalist development
�handicraft industries
�manufacture: based on division of labor
�large-scale industry: based on machines
Capitalism proper begins from large-scale industry, but quantitative become
qualitative (with increased productivity):
1. Average social labor
2. Joint use of means of production
3. Cooperation
- increased productivity
- socialization and capabilities of the species (p. 447)
Increased cooperation is perhaps the most progressive aspect of capital, and the one that points beyond it.
�Role of capitalist (p. 448-49) general, conductor.
�despotism, hiring supervisors, now purely parasitic (p. 450)
Capital is an impersonal form of domination, p. 247 note and p. 381.