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:
1. 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?
2. 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
1)
control of capitalist over the labor process (p. 291)
2)
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.
1)
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.
2)
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
The
surplus labor time (B-C) is again 4 hours.
This is called the production of relative surplus value.
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).
·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.