Capital Volume 1, Chapter 18: Different Formulae for the Rate of Surplus-Value

The defect in the formulae of classical political economy is the underestimation of the rate of exploitation which occurs as a consequence of the way in which surplus-value and the value of labour-power are treated as fractions of the value-product. To the classical political economists, the ‘specific character of the capital relation, namely the fact that variable capital is exchanged for living labour-power, and that the worker is accordingly excluded from the product’, is concealed. In its place, ‘they show us the false semblance of a relation of association, in which worker and capitalist divide the product in proportion to the different elements which they respectively contribute towards its formation.’

But we need to remember: the capitalist buys not labour, but labour-power. The labour-power she buys at its value (or, if its price diverges from its value, at its price) as if it were another commodity. But in the period for which the labour-power is bought, for which the capitalist has it in his power and can put it to work, the worker both labours to the value of her labour-power, and then labours some more

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Capital Volume 1, Chapter 17: Changes in Magnitude in the Price of Labour-Power and in Surplus-Value

What determines the value of labour-power? The value of the means of subsistence habitually required by the average worker. Let us ignore for the moment changes in the quantity of the goods necessary for subsistence, something which will vary according to historical epoch. Let us also ignore variations in the cost of developing labour-power, which will vary according to mode of production, and differences arising from the diversity of labour, from the different sorts of labour-power used (in turn conditioned by mode of production). And let us assume that (1) commodities are sold at their values, and (2) that the price of labour-power may occasionally rise above its value but never fall below it. We arrive at the following law: that the relative magnitudes of surplus-value and price of labour-power are determined by three factors: (1) the length of the working day; (2) the intensity of labour; (3) the productivity of labour. Of the many possible combinations of variations of these factors, we are now going to consider the most important.

1  The Length of the Working Day and the Intensity of Labour Constant; the Productivity of Labour Variable

In these conditions the value of labour-power and the magnitude of surplus-value are governed by these three laws.

1  The working day will produce a constant value. Changes in productivity result in more or less commodities over which this value is spread, but not in the total value itself.

2  The value of labour-power, and the surplus-value, move in opposite directions. If the productivity of labour increases, the value of labour-power falls, and the magnitude of surplus-value rises. The inverse is also true.

We should note, however, that while the while the value of labour-power and the magnitude of surplus-value move in opposite directions by the same quantity, they do not so proportionally.

If, for example, a working day of 12 hours produces a value of 6 shillings, 4 shillings of which represents necessary labour-time, and 2 shillings (or 4 hours) surplus labour-time, and if, owing to a rise in the productivity of labour, necessary labour-time falls to 3 shillings (or 6 hours), and surplus-labour rises to 3 shillings (or 6 hours), the value of labour-power will have fallen by 1 shilling,  the same amount by which the surplus-value will have risen, but the value of labour-power will have fallen by 25 %, from 4 to 3 shillings, while the surplus-value will have risen 50 %, from 2 to 3 shillings.

3  Since it is only through an increase in the productivity of labour that the value of labour-power may fall, it follows that a rise or fall in surplus-value is always the consequence, and never the cause, of the corresponding fall or rise in the value of labour-power.

Since we have allowed that the price of labour-power may rise above its value, it may here be the case that other factors – the pressure of capital, the resistance of the workers – come into play, allowing for a discrepancy between the value and price of labour-power, and offsetting the rise in surplus-value.

Imagine a working day of 12 hours, 6 of which represent necessary labour and 6 surplus labour. Were the productivity of labour to double, without any change in the relative proportions of necessary and surplus labour, what would occur would be a fall in the value of labour-power without a concomitant fall in price. But if the price of labour-power were to fall, but not as far as its new value, it would be possible for the price of labour to fall and for the means of subsistence available to the worker to rise simultaneously, despite the widening relative gap between the worker and the capitalist.

The chief defect of Ricardo in this field is his failure to investigate surplus-value as such, independently of its form, i.e. profit, ground-rent, etc. He is thus unable to see that the laws governing the rate of surplus-value, and those governing the rate of profit, are quite different.

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Capital Volume 1, Chapter 16: Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value

Our historical survey completed, we can now return to some of the theoretical issues related to the labour process in a more concrete way, so as to develop them.

1  Individual and social labour

Earlier, we defined productive labour abstractly, independently of its historical forms: abstractly, because individualised. But human production is only exceptionally individual: the preceding historical account has precisely been an account of the increasingly social complexity of the labour process, within which the direction is that in which ‘the product is transformed from the direct product of the individual producer into a social product, the joint product of a collective labourer’. We should note here the non-antagonistic nature of solitary labour: ‘just as head and hand belong together in the system of nature, so in the labour process mental and physical labour are united.’ The socialisation of production brings, increasingly so, antagonism, as mental labour becomes separated from physical labour, and as the product is transformed from the direct product of an individual producer into the joint product of a collective of workers.

2  The notion of productive labour

All this supposes both a broadening and a narrowing of the concept of productive labour. The broadening arises from the understanding that ‘in order to work productively, it is no longer necessary for the individual himself to put his hand to the object; it is sufficient for him to be an organ of the collective labourer, and perform any one of its subordinate functions.’ The narrowing from the fact that, under capitalist production, which is not merely the production of commodities but the production of surplus-value, the productive worker, who produces not for herself but for capital, is productive only insofar as she produces surplus-value, i.e. ‘contributes to the self-valorisation of capital.’ Thus what determines whether or not labour is productive or not is the structure of social relations within which that labour is carried out. ‘The concept of a productive worker therefore implies not merely a relation between the activity of work and its useful effect, between the worker and the product of his work, but also a specifically social relation of production, a relation with a historical origin which stamps the worker as capital’s direct means of valorisation.’

3  Absolute and relative surplus-value: formal and real subsumption of labour

This point made Marx now returns in more detail certain concrete features of the historically specific character of capitalist production. He begins with the concepts of absolute and relative surplus-value. He notes that the existence of the latter logically presupposes the prior existence of the former: the possibility of cheapening labour-power by cheapening the commodities consumed by the labourer presupposes that that the working day is already divided into necessary and surplus-labour, i.e. that surplus-value is already being produced. In fact, while it is the production of absolute surplus-value which forms the general foundation of the capitalist system, it is the production of relative surplus-value which ‘completely revolutionises the technical process of labour and the groupings into which society is divided.’ The production of relative surplus-value requires a ‘specifically capitalist mode of production’, which arises spontaneously on the basis of the formal subsumption of labour under capital. This formal subsumption is then replaced by a real subsumption.’

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