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» SMITH: Μου φαίνεται ότι το 10ο κεφάλαιο ξεκινά
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να εγείρει το ερώτημα του ιστορικού πλαισίου και της ιστορικής ιδιαιτερότητας του καπιταλισμού
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γύρω από την εργάσιμη μέρα στο κεφάλαιο 10, αλλά στο πλαίσιο of machinery, στο πλαίσιο της εργασίας
around the working-day in Chapter Ten, but in the context of machinery, in the context of labor
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στο πλαίσιο της σχέσης με τη φύση και με πολλούς άλλους τρόπους
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Μέχρι φυσικά να φτάσουμε
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στη γενική θεωρία της κεφαλαιοκρατικής συσσώρευσης, όπου
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δε θα μπορούσε να υπάρχει αυτό το επιχείρημα χωρίς αυτή την ιστορική
you couldn't have that argument without that historical
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contextualization, μαζί με την αναλυτική δουλειά που έγινε στα πρώτα κεφάλαια.
contextualization, together with the analytical work that went into the early chapters.
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Μου φαίνεται ότι αυτό το κεφάλαιο
It seems to me that that chapter
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είναι το κρίσιμο κεφάλαιο του 1ου τόμου
is the crucial chapter in Volume One.
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» HARVEY: Ναι, είναι το αποκορύφωμα του επιχειρήματος του 1ου τόμου
Yeah, it's the culmination of the argument of Volume One,
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Αυτό που λες είναι πραγματικά
What you're saying is really
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ενδιαφέρον και σημαντικό να κατανοήσουμε, τη σχέση σε αυτό το βιβλίο
interesting and important to grasp, which is the relationship in this book,
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μεταξύ της θεωρητικής λογικής και των ιστορικών συνθηκών,
between the theoretical logic and the historical circumstances,
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και τον διάλογο που υπάρχει μεταξύ των δύο.
and there's a dialogue that goes on between the two.
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Και κάποιες φορές μπορείς να μπερδευτείς λίγο όσον αφορά
το αν εκφέρει ένα ιστορικό επιχείρημα
And sometimes you get a little bit confused as to
whether he's making a historical argument
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ή ένα λογικό επιχείρημα, ή κάποιες φορές και τα δύο μαζί
or a logical argument, sometimes he's making both together.
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Οπότε υπάρχει ένας ενδιαφέρων διάλογος,
διαλεκτικός, αν θες, μεταξύ των δύο.
So there's an interesting dialogue,
dialectic, if you like, between that.
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Στο κεφάλαιο για την εργάσιμη μέρα, αυτό που βλέπουμε
In the chapter on the working-day, what you see
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είναι η αντιμετώπιση με πραγματικές περιστάσεις,
is a confrontation with actually existing circumstances,
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είναι πολύ ιστορικό.
it's very historical.
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Αλλά δε θα μπορούσες να το κατανοήσεις αν δεν έχεις πραγματικά καταλάβει τα θεωρητικά
But you couldn't understand it unless you really understood the theoretical
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θεμέλιά του, τα οποία είναι: γιατί
underpinning of it, which is: why is it
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οι καπιταλιστές έχουν τέτοια εμμονή με το χρόνο των ανθρώπων;
that capitalists are so obsessed with other people's time?
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και τι σημαίνει αυτή η κατάσταση: είμαι εργάτης και έχω
and what does it mean to be in a situation: I am a worker and have
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κάποιον άλλο που έχει τέτοια εμμονή
somebody else totally obsessed
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να κυριαρχούν πάνω στο χρόνο μου και κάθε δευτερόλεπτό του; οπότε, σε αυτό το σημείο
with commanding my time and commanding every second of it? So, at that point
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και τα δύο ενώνονται, τόσο το θεωρητικό όσο και το ιστορικό.
the two really merge together, both the theoretical and the historical.
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Τώρα, όταν φτάνουμε στο
Now, when you get to
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γενικό νόμο της κεφαλαιοκρατικής συσσώρευσης, υπάρχουν μια σειρά από περίπλοκα πράγματα που συμβαίνουν,
the general law of capitalist accumulation, there are number of complicated things going on,
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υπάρχει το θεωρητικό επιχείρημα,
there's the theoretical argument,
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που φτάνει μέχρι την αρχή του βιβλίου,
which actually stretches right back to the beginning,
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όπου πρέπει να θυμηθούμε ότι αυτό το βιβλίο αφορά
where you have to remember that this book is about
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μια κριτική της πολιτικής οικονομίας.
a critique of political economy.
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Και τι είναι αυτό που λέγανε οι οικονομολόγοι;
And what was it that the political economists were saying?
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Οι οικονομολόγοι λέγανε, εν το συνόλω τους:
The political economists were saying, in aggregate:
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αφήστε την ελεύθερη αγορά να κάνει τη δουλειά της
και όλα θα είναι εντάξει.
let the free market do its work and
everything will be okay.
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Δεν το λέγαν όλοι αυτό αλλά υπήρχε
ένας ουτοπισμός της ελεύθερης αγοράς περίπου
They weren't all saying that but there
was a free market utopianism around
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την εποχή του Μαρξ, και ο Μαρξ είπε: ωραία,
ας υποθέσουμε ότι φτιάχνουμε την ουτοπία
in Marx's time, and Marx said: alright,
let's assume that you constructed your utopia
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- και είναι ενδιαφέρον ότι αυτό το ουτοπικό όραμα με την αγορά που κάνει τη δουλειά της έχει εμφανιστεί
- and it's interesting that that utopian vision of the market doing its work has been around
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ξανά τα τελευταία 20-30 χρόνια,
us over the last 20-30 years,
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καθώς μας λένε ξανά και ξανά και ξανά: αφήστε την αγορά να λειτουργήσει και όλα θα είναι OK -
as we're told again and again and again: let the market do its work and everything will be okay-
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αυτό που ο Μαρξ κάνει σε αυτό το κεφάλαιο είναι να πει,
what Marx does in this chapter is to say,
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τι θα συμβεί αν αφήσουμε την αγορά να κάνει τη δουλειά της;
what will happen if we let the market do its work?
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Το πρώτο που θα συμβεί είναι ο σχηματισμός όλο και περισσότερων μονοπωλίων που υποτίθεται ότι δεν προκύπτουν.
The first thing is that you get more and more monopoly, which you're not supposed to have.
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Η ιδέα ότι ο καπιταλισμός πρέπει να είναι ανταγωνιστικός, ο Μαρξ δείχνει ότι στην ουτοπική
The idea is that capitalism should be competitive, what Marx is showing is in the utopian kind
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ελεύθερη αγορά, στο τέλος
οι μεγάλοι θα επικρατήσουν.
of free market, what you get is in
the end the big ones dominate.
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Φυσικά, ένα από τα ενδιαφέροντα πράγματα
που μπορεί να δει κανείς στην ιστορία μας τα τελευταία
Of course, one of the things that's interesting
to look at in our own history over the last
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30 χρόνια είναι ο βαθμός στον οποίο
30 years is the degree to which
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έχουμε ακούσει πολλά κυρήγματα για την ελεύθερη αγορά.
αλλά την ίδια στιγμή
we've been preached a lot about free market,
but at the same time
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συμβαίνει μια απίστευτη ενοποίηση από την άποψη
the incredible consolidation that's going on in terms of
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του σχηματισμού ολιγοπολίων, στις φαρμακευτικές εταιρίες στην ενέργεια κτλ
oligopolies, in terms of pharmaceuticals and energy and all the rest of it.
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Οπότε είναι αυτοκαταστροφικό, [ο Μαρξ] λέει ότι
είναι ένα αυτοκαταστροφικό ουτοπικό όραμα.Είναι ασταθές και
So it's self-destructive, he says this is a self-destructive utopian vision. It's unstable and
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πάντα θα καταλήγει στο σχηματισμό μονοπωλίων.
Το δεύτερο σημείο είναι:
it's always going to end up in monopoly.
The second thing is:
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θα δουλέψει προς όφελος του εργάτη;
Γιατί αυτό μας λένε,
will it work to the benefit of the worker?
Because that's what we've been told,
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ότι αν αφήσουμε την ελεύθερη αγορά να δουλέψει, ο εργάτης θα επωφεληθεί. Αλλά ο Μαρξ
that if you let the free market do its work then, you, the worker will benefit. But what Marx
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δείχνει ότι όχι, δε θα συμβεί καθόλου αυτό,
shows is: no, that's not going to happen at all,
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αυτό που συμβαίνει σε μια κοινωνία της ελεύθερης αγοράς,
αν ωθηθούμε προς τα εκεί, είναι ότι οι πλούσιοι θα γίνουν απίστευτα
what happens in a free market society, if you push it that way, is that the rich get incredibly
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πλουσιότεροι και οι φτωχοί απίστευτα φτωχότεροι.
richer and the poor get incredibly poorer.
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Και φυσικά τι συνέβη τα τελευταία 30 χρόνια;
And of course what's happened over the last 30 years?
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Οι πλούσιοι έγιναν απίστευτα πλουσιότεροι και οι φτωχοί απίστευτα φτωχότεροι
The rich have gotten incredibly richer and the poor have gotten incredibly poorer.
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Αλλά αυτό που κάνει ο Μαρξ είναι να αποδείξει,
με αυστηρότητα, ότι πράγματι,
But what Marx does is to prove,
rigorously, that actually
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αυτό είναι το αποτέλεσμα του καπιταλισμού της ελεύθερης αγοράς.
this is what the free-market capitalism will produce.
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Όλο και περισσότερα μονοπώλια και όλο και περισσότερη κοινωνική ανισότητα.
More and more monopoly and more and more social inequality.
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Και πιστεύω ότι αυτές οι δύο προτάσεις που προκύπτουν από το κεφάλαιο 25,
And I think that these two propositions that came out of Chapter 25,
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ήταν προβλέψεις του τι θα συνέβαινε
αν πηγαίναμε προς αυτή την κατεύθυνση.
were predictions of what would happen
if you went in that direction.
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Φυσικά, στις δεκαετίες του 50 και του 60 ο καπιταλισμός δεν ήταν οργανωμένος
Of course, in the 1950s-60 capitalism was not organized
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με βάση αυτό το άκρως ανταγωνιστικό μοτίβο,
ενώ από τη δεκαετία του 1970 λειτουργεί με βάση αυτό.
along this highly competitive rat race kind of line, since the 1970s it has.
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Και αυτό που έχουμε δει είναι η επιστροφή σε μια κατάσταση όλο και πιο κοντινή στην πρόβλεψη του Μαρξ,
And so what we've seen is coming back closer and closer to Marx his prediction,
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και πιστεύω ότι αυτό είναι ένα κρίσιμο κεφάλαιο
and I think this is a crucial chapter
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για την κατανόηση και του θεωρητικού επιχειρήματος
to understand both the theoretical argument
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και σε σχέση με αυτό , και του πρακτικού επιχειρήματος.
and relationship with that, and the practical argument.
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Αλλά το πρακτικό επιχείρημα είναι ενδεχομενικό: δε λέει
But the practical argument is contingent: it doesn't say
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ότι ο καπιταλισμός είναι προορισμένος να καταλήξει έτσι, λέει : ο καπιταλισμός θα καταλήξει έτσι
capitalism is bound to end up this way, it says: capitalism will only end up this way
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αν πιστέψουμε το μύθο ότι η ελεύθερη αγορά είναι
if you believe that myth about the freedom of market being
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ο θεός τον οποίο πρέπει να προσκυνήσουμε και να υποκλιθούμε.
the gods to which we have bow down and to whom we have to pay obeisance.
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Οπότε, θεωρώ ότι είναι ένα εξαιρετικό κεφάλαιο , και αυτή την περίοδο, πιστεύω ότι είναι καταστροφικά
So, I think it's a brilliant chapter in that way, and right now, I think it's devastatingly
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σωστό και τόσο εμφανώς αληθές
right and it's so obviously true
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όσον αφορά στο τι συνέβη και τι συμβαίνει. Οπότε πάντα βρίσκω
that this is what has happened and this is what's going on. So I always find
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αυτό το κεφάλαιο μια σπουδαία στιγμή στο Κεφάλαιο, για να πω ότι αυτό είναι το αποκορύφωμα του επιχειρήματος
that chapter a great moment in Capital, to say this is a culmination of his argument
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του 1ου τόμου
of Volume One
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και ότι εδώ είναι που θα καταλήξει κανείς
αν ακολουθήσει αυτό το μονοπάτι
and this is where you're going to
get to if you go this path,
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και wow! όλοι το καταλαβαίνουν αμέσως,
and wow! everybody gets it immediately,
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ναι, μπορούμε να καταλάβουμε πώς συνέβη!
yeah, we can see how that's happened!
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Αυτό που κάνει ο Μαρξ είναι ότι προσπαθεί να φτιάξει
What Marx does is to try to put together
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ένα σύνθετο μοντέλο, αν θέλεις , για το πώς λειτουργεί το καπιταλιστικό σύστημα,
a synthetic model, if you like, of how a capitalist system works,
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και πως είνια οι δυναμικές του.
and what its dynamics are like.
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Στο κεφάλαιο 23,
In chapter 23,
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το βλέπει από τη σκοπιά της αναπαραγωγής της ταξικής
he looks at that from the standpoint of the reproduction of the class-
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σχέσης μεταξύ κεφαλαίου και εργασίας.
Και παρατηρούμε
relation between capital and labor.
And you notice
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ότι ο Μαρξ ενδιαφέρεται πολύ περισσότερο για το ζήτημα της κοινωνικής αναπαραγωγής από
Marx is much more interested in the question of social reproduction than he is
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ότι για το ζήτημα των τεχνικών μέσων με τα οποία αυτή γίνεται.
in the question of the technical means by which it is done.
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Το κεφάλαιο 24 εξετάζει τις
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τις επιπτώσεις της συσσώρευσης κεφαλαίου από τη σκοπιά του καπιταλιστή
Chapter 24 looks at
the implications of capital accumulation from the standpoint of the capitalist,
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έτσι για μια φευγαλέα στιγμή στο κεφάλαιο 24
νιώθει κανείς άσχημα για τους καπιταλιστές που έχουν πιαστεί
so for a fleeting moment in chapter 24
you feel sorry for the capitalists caught
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σε αυτό το φαουστικό δίλημμα του να πρέπει
να καταναλώσουν ή να επανεπενδύσουν.
in this Faustian dilemma of having to
consume or having to reinvest.
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Και βλέπει κανείς επίσης ότι,
And you also see that,
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δεδομώνων των αναγκαστιών νόμων του ανταγωνισμού,
given the coercive laws of competition, that
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οι καπιταλιστές δεν είναι απαραίτητα ελεύθεροι να επιλέξουν, όπως
capitalists are not necessarily free to choose, as
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ο Φρίντμαν ήλπιζε ότι θα μπορούσαν,
Milton Friedman would hope they would be,
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αλλά ότι πρέπει να επανεπενδύσουν είτε τους αρέσει είτε όχι,
that they have to reinvest whether they like it or not,
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και ότι ως εκ τούτου υπάρχει συσσώρευση για χάρη της συσσώρευσης, παραγωγή για χάρη της παραγωγής.
and that therefore there is accumulation for accumulation's sake, production for production's sake.
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Το θέμα του κεφαλαίου 25 είναι να δει κανείς
The topic of chapter 25 is to look at
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τι σημαίνουν όλα αυτά από τη σκοπιά του εργάτη,
what this all means from the standpoint of the labourer,
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και τι συνεπάγεται για την τύχη της εργατικής τάξης.
and what it implies for the fate of the working class.
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Εδώ θα παρατηρήσεις
Here you will notice
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ότι μία από τις προϋποθέσεις με τις οποίες ξεκινήσαμε, ότι οτιδήποτε αναταλάσσεται στην αξία του,
that one of the assumptions we've started out with, that everything was traded at its value,
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ισχύει εκτός από την περίπτωση της εργατικής δύναμης.
still holds except in the case of labor-power.
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Θα το εξετάσουμε σαν κάτι
το οποίο είναι σχετικά ευέλικτό.
We're going to look at that now as
something which is a bit flexible
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Όπως συχνά συμβαίνει με τον Μαρξ, και το είδαμε αυτό στο κεφάλαιο για την εργάσιμη μέρα,
and alike. As often happens with Marx, we've seen this in the chapter on the working-day,
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αλλά και στα αποσπάσματα για τις μηχανές και τη βιομηχανία μεγάλης κλίμακας,
but also in the passages on machinery and large-scale industry,
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αφού έχει πάρει μια θεωρητική θέση,
is that having derived a theoretical positionality,
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αυτό που κάνει ο Μαρξ είναι να πει: μπορούμε να δούμε πραγματικά να συμβαίενει αυτό
what Marx then wants to do is to go out and say: can you see this actually at work in
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στον κόσμο γύρω μας;
the world around you?
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Οπότε το τελευταίο μέρος αυτού του κεφαλαίου, στο 5ο τμήμα,
So the last part of this chapter, section five,
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αφορά πολύ το ναι, εδώ είναι η θεωρία, τώρα
is very much about 'yeah, here's the theory, now
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όταν βγαίνουμε εκεί έξω τι βλέπουμε;
when we go out there what do we see?'
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Η θεωρία λέει ότι
The theory says that
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είναι απόλυτα ουσιώδες, για τη λειτουργία του καπιταλισμού, η ύπαρξη ενός εφεδρικού βιομηχανικού στρατού,
it's absolutely essential, for capitalism to function, that there be an industrial reserve army,
0:08:42.820,0:08:45.930
ένα πλεόνασμα εργατικού δυναμικού,
a surplus of labor-power
0:08:45.930,0:08:49.110
και ότι αυτό το πλεόνασμα δε ζει
and that the surplus of labour-power would not be kept
0:08:49.110,0:08:52.010
σε μια κατάσαση ευημερίας αλλά
in a condition of great affluence but that
0:08:52.010,0:08:56.610
θα βρίσκεται σε μια θέση σχετικής εξαθλίωσης.
it'd be in a position of relative impoverishment.
0:08:56.610,0:09:02.860
Έτσι κοιτώντας τις συνθήκες των εργατών στις
So by looking at the conditions of labor power in
0:09:02.860,0:09:08.310
πόλεις αλλά κυρίως στην ύπαιθρο της Μ. Βρετανίας,
cities but also more importantly in terms of rural areas of Britain,
0:09:08.310,0:09:15.170
και κοιτώντας ύστερα τις συνθήκες των Ιρλανδών σε σχέση με τη Βρετανική βιομηχανία,
and then looking at the condition of the Irish in relationship to British industry,
0:09:15.170,0:09:20.840
μπορεί κανείς να λάβει μια εξήγηση γιατί αυτές οι
you get some explanation why those
0:09:20.840,0:09:25.420
δομές στον πλυθησμό, οι οποίες μπορούν προσδιοριστούν ιστορικά εκείνη την περίοδο,
structures in the population, which can be identified historically at that time,
0:09:25.420,0:09:27.510
υπήρξαν.
existed.
0:09:27.510,0:09:32.790
Οπότε η θεωρία συνδέεται με την ιστορική πραγματικότητα
So the theory is connected to the historical realities
0:09:32.790,0:09:35.070
σε αυτό το κεφάλαιο.
in this chapter.
0:09:35.070,0:09:40.250
I'm going to largely be concerned with the theory, but again I want to remind you
0:09:40.250,0:09:45.280
that the theory that Marx is going to lay out here
0:09:45.280,0:09:48.760
is not a theory devoid of assumptions.
0:09:48.760,0:09:51.519
The assumptions he started out with, that
0:09:51.519,0:09:54.580
there is no problem in the market,
0:09:54.580,0:10:01.880
the way in which the surplus gets divided up between interested and rent,
0:10:01.880,0:10:04.270
the profit of merchants capital,
0:10:04.270,0:10:07.140
taxes and all the rest of it, have no relevance
0:10:07.140,0:10:11.850
for the argument. In other words, we're just simply going to look at the relationship
0:10:11.850,0:10:18.440
between the capitalist class totality, and the working class.
0:10:18.440,0:10:19.820
And that is
0:10:19.820,0:10:24.870
an assumption which is not really warranted, in terms of what actually goes on
0:10:24.870,0:10:26.700
and what actually exists,
0:10:26.700,0:10:30.000
but it nevertheless is one which will help
0:10:30.000,0:10:34.930
us identify some of the basic dynamics with which Marx is concerned, as will
0:10:34.930,0:10:38.230
the assumption that there is no problem in the market.
0:10:40.930,0:10:53.080
Marx starts off, with introducing three concepts.
0:10:53.080,0:10:54.800
We've encountered
0:10:54.800,0:10:58.920
the concept of the organic composition of capital once before in Capital, but this is
0:10:58.920,0:11:04.900
the first time that they're being laid out in general.
0:11:04.900,0:11:07.380
And i have to say, actually you could
0:11:07.380,0:11:09.880
construct this argument here
0:11:09.880,0:11:15.020
without these three concepts if you really needed to.
0:11:15.020,0:11:18.010
But they're crucial to Marx's thinking,
0:11:18.010,0:11:21.950
particularly when it comes to Volume Three of Capital
0:11:21.950,0:11:24.290
and they have been crucial
0:11:24.290,0:11:28.490
in a lot of the argument that is going on as to how to understand
0:11:28.490,0:11:32.750
Marx his general theory of dynamics of capitalism.
0:11:32.750,0:11:37.760
So, we need to spend just a little bit of time on them.
0:11:37.760,0:11:43.630
He starts off by saying:
0:11:43.630,0:11:47.830
“The composition of capital is to be understood in a twofold sense.”
0:11:47.830,0:11:52.490
The trouble is he then goes on immediately to identify it in a threefold sense.
0:11:52.490,0:11:55.410
The twofold sense: “As value, it is
0:11:55.410,0:11:59.210
determined by the proportion in which it is divided into constant capital,
0:11:59.210,0:12:01.410
or the value of the means of production,
0:12:01.410,0:12:06.460
and variable capital, or the value of labour-power, the sum total of wages.”
0:12:06.460,0:12:09.900
He then goes on
0:12:09.900,0:12:14.350
to talk about the physical composition of capital
0:12:14.350,0:12:18.420
which he calls the “technical composition of capital”.
0:12:18.420,0:12:22.000
And he insists, he says, “There is a close correlation between the two.
0:12:22.000,0:12:25.300
To express this, I call the value-composition of capital,
0:12:25.300,0:12:30.440
in so far as it is determined by its technical composition and mirrors the changes in the latter,
0:12:30.440,0:12:33.810
the organic composition of capital.
0:12:33.810,0:12:37.230
Wherever I refer to the composition of capital, without further qualification,
0:12:37.230,0:12:43.090
its organic composition is always understood.”
0:12:43.090,0:12:46.170
Now, what does this really amount to?
0:12:46.170,0:12:50.120
We have, first of all,
0:12:50.120,0:12:57.120
technical composition,
0:13:00.970,0:13:11.140
the technical composition is
the physical productivity of labour.
0:13:11.140,0:13:18.390
And it's typical measure would be
0:13:18.390,0:13:23.090
the number of widgets produced per worker-hour,
0:13:23.090,0:13:25.810
tons of steel produced per worker-hour,
0:13:25.810,0:13:28.140
a very physical thing.
0:13:28.140,0:13:30.120
And obviously
0:13:30.120,0:13:35.170
technological change alters these physical ratios,
0:13:37.630,0:13:41.760
increasing productivity means that the number of widgets per hour increases,
0:13:41.760,0:13:46.920
so it's a physical thing.
0:13:46.920,0:13:53.920
The value composition,
0:13:55.660,0:14:05.310
how much the capitalist lays out for means of production versus labor power.
0:14:05.310,0:14:07.480
And the value of composition
0:14:07.480,0:14:12.040
is really equivalent to 'C over V'.
0:14:12.040,0:14:20.400
That is, if 'C' is the total amount of value, which you have to lay out in terms of
0:14:20.400,0:14:24.120
gaining access to means of production,
0:14:24.120,0:14:29.190
the raw materials, machinery and all the rest of it.
0:14:29.190,0:14:32.270
And 'V' is the variable capital
0:14:32.270,0:14:39.190
which you have to lay out, which depends on the value of labor power.
0:14:39.190,0:14:51.130
The organic composition is this value composition
0:14:51.130,0:15:02.340
insofar as it is affected by changes
in physical productivity.
0:15:02.340,0:15:04.190
Now, let us
0:15:04.190,0:15:11.840
indicate straight-out that there
are some problems with this idea.
0:15:11.840,0:15:13.610
First:
0:15:13.610,0:15:28.460
is this an internal measure, or an internal
effect within the firm?
0:15:28.460,0:15:30.340
Within the firm,
0:15:30.340,0:15:34.770
I change my productivity i.e. my technical composition,
0:15:34.770,0:15:37.570
I therefore
0:15:37.570,0:15:42.230
have to go out into the market and I have to buy more means of production and maybe
0:15:42.230,0:15:45.900
less labour-power. So,
0:15:45.900,0:15:51.740
as a particular entrepreneur in a particular industry,
0:15:51.740,0:15:54.480
that ratio 'C over V'
0:15:54.480,0:16:01.040
that I'm utilizing, may change for that reason.
0:16:01.040,0:16:15.590
But then there are external measures, external effects,
0:16:15.590,0:16:17.660
let's suppose that
0:16:17.660,0:16:20.950
there's technological change going on
0:16:20.950,0:16:25.670
in the production of intermediate inputs,
0:16:25.670,0:16:28.900
production of means of production.
0:16:28.900,0:16:32.080
That will mean
0:16:32.080,0:16:37.220
that I have to lay out less in the way of 'C' because the value of 'C' is falling, because of
0:16:37.220,0:16:42.170
the rising productivity in the industries that are producing
0:16:42.170,0:16:45.040
cotton thread, for example.
0:16:45.040,0:16:48.490
The industries that are producing cotton thread become much more productive, cotton
0:16:48.490,0:16:50.180
thread becomes much cheaper,
0:16:50.180,0:16:53.980
i have to lay out less in the way of 'C'.
0:16:53.980,0:16:57.450
Similarly, remember what happens to 'V',
0:16:57.450,0:17:01.930
as industries which are producing wage goods
0:17:01.930,0:17:06.450
increase in productivity, 'V' goes down.
0:17:06.450,0:17:10.640
So there are all kinds of interactive market effects
0:17:10.640,0:17:13.050
which could also go on
0:17:13.050,0:17:16.480
as a result of these technical changes,
0:17:16.480,0:17:20.130
changing the technical composition of capital
0:17:20.130,0:17:22.130
in a given industry
0:17:22.130,0:17:27.740
which is producing means of production for another industry,
0:17:27.740,0:17:31.490
these are going to affect the 'C over V' ratio.
0:17:31.490,0:17:34.530
Now, it's not clear
0:17:34.530,0:17:38.990
from Marx' presentation in this chapter
whether he's talking about
0:17:38.990,0:17:42.950
internal measures only,
0:17:42.950,0:17:48.000
that is, not including all of these interaction effects, or whether he's
0:17:48.000,0:17:52.660
also including all of these interaction effects. In fact,
0:17:52.660,0:17:53.570
he does
0:17:53.570,0:17:56.320
at some point indicate
0:17:56.320,0:18:02.630
he understands there may be interaction effects, but these interaction effects
0:18:02.630,0:18:05.880
are in his view relatively muted, for reasons that we'll
0:18:05.880,0:18:08.170
come back to.
0:18:08.170,0:18:11.410
Now, there is a third possibility,
0:18:11.410,0:18:16.730
that is the value composition of capital, 'C over V',
0:18:16.730,0:18:21.820
is subject to all kinds of other influences.
0:18:21.820,0:18:29.549
For example the discovery of a new set of resources (new oil wells),
0:18:29.549,0:18:33.320
so that suddenly the cost of acquiring
0:18:33.320,0:18:36.620
a raw material goes down,
0:18:36.620,0:18:40.630
bad harvests over a series of years
in which case the value of
0:18:40.630,0:18:43.230
cotton rises,
0:18:43.230,0:18:46.870
the value of wheat is rising right now
0:18:46.870,0:18:49.010
for those kinds of reasons.
0:18:49.010,0:18:52.880
But we also saw in the chapter
0:18:52.880,0:18:57.460
earlier where there are all sorts of other ways in which capitalists can gain surplus-
0:18:57.460,0:18:59.800
value:
0:18:59.800,0:19:02.679
Free goods,
0:19:02.679,0:19:04.630
second-hand machinery, for example,
0:19:04.630,0:19:08.630
or machinery which is out outdated but which you can continue
0:19:08.630,0:19:12.179
to employ for free, so there's all sorts of other
0:19:12.179,0:19:16.360
elements in here that can affect the value composition.
0:19:16.360,0:19:17.790
So we can
0:19:17.790,0:19:22.280
actually suggest that there is a good reason why Marx distinguished between value composition
0:19:22.280,0:19:25.990
and organic composition.
0:19:25.990,0:19:28.529
Because he wants to talk about the value composition
0:19:28.529,0:19:31.720
in so far as it's affected by
0:19:31.720,0:19:35.340
technical changes and organizational changes
0:19:35.340,0:19:39.650
that affect physical productivity.
So the organic composition
0:19:39.650,0:19:41.680
refers to -that-,
0:19:41.680,0:19:43.550
the value composition
0:19:43.550,0:19:46.940
as it is affected by -this -.
0:19:46.940,0:19:48.750
But as I suggested
0:19:48.750,0:19:51.100
there's this ambiguity -here-
0:19:51.100,0:19:56.610
as to whether we should be concerned with
0:19:56.610,0:20:00.610
examining what happens in a given line of production or in a given firm,
0:20:00.610,0:20:03.000
or whether we're actually going to be looking at
0:20:03.000,0:20:06.530
the aggregate in the economy.
0:20:06.530,0:20:09.380
His view,
0:20:09.380,0:20:13.200
he says, is this:
0:20:13.200,0:20:18.080
“The many individual capitals invested in a particular branch of production
0:20:18.080,0:20:23.450
have compositions which differ from each other to a greater or lesser extent.”
0:20:23.450,0:20:26.559
Some lines of production are capital intensive,
0:20:26.559,0:20:30.030
or 'C' intensive, if you want to call it that,
others are labour intensive
0:20:30.030,0:20:32.410
or 'V' intensive.
0:20:32.410,0:20:36.130
“The average of their individual compositions gives us the composition of the total capital
0:20:36.130,0:20:40.470
in the branch of production under consideration.
0:20:40.470,0:20:45.160
Finally, the average of all the average compositions in all branches of production gives us
0:20:45.160,0:20:47.950
the composition of the total social capital of a country…”
0:20:47.950,0:20:52.110
-notice: this is a country, it's not over the world-
0:20:52.110,0:20:57.770
"…and it is with this alone that we are
concerned here in the final analysis.”
0:20:57.770,0:21:00.520
It seems like he's saying
0:21:00.520,0:21:07.520
both the internal and external after
they're all taken into account
0:21:08.940,0:21:10.440
run together,
0:21:10.440,0:21:13.140
that those should be
0:21:13.140,0:21:17.790
what I understand by organic composition.
0:21:17.790,0:21:23.030
At this point he just lays out these questions,
0:21:23.030,0:21:28.300
before he then goes on to talk through
0:21:28.300,0:21:31.080
what in effect is
0:21:31.080,0:21:39.460
a simple first model of accumulation dynamics.
0:21:39.460,0:21:41.390
And the argument goes like this:
0:21:41.390,0:21:44.960
the capitalist has
0:21:44.960,0:21:49.440
surplus-value at the end of the day,
0:21:49.440,0:21:56.370
some of this surplus-value is going to be re-accumulated.
0:21:56.370,0:22:00.080
For the moment we're going to
assume there's no technical change,
0:22:00.080,0:22:05.450
no change in productivity .
0:22:05.450,0:22:11.760
If part of that surplus-value is going to
be reinvested then you need more labour,
0:22:11.760,0:22:14.680
therefore, says Marx,
0:22:14.680,0:22:20.870
accumulation of capital means, as he says on page 764:
0:22:20.870,0:22:23.470
“multiplication of the proletariat.”
0:22:23.470,0:22:32.270
An increase in the number of the wage labourers.
0:22:33.060,0:22:37.429
Where does this labour surplus come from?
0:22:37.429,0:22:43.100
So he then goes through scurrilous
views of Mandeville and others,
0:22:43.100,0:22:45.730
and suggests that Mandeville was more
honest than some of the people
0:22:45.730,0:22:48.730
who came after him, in recognizing
0:22:48.730,0:22:55.250
that what is necessary for such a
system to work is that there be a pool
0:22:55.250,0:22:59.610
of impoverished non-workers
0:22:59.610,0:23:04.300
to be absorbed into it,
0:23:04.300,0:23:11.300
thus continuing the expansion of capital.
0:23:12.310,0:23:16.600
He says on page 765: “What Mandeville,
an honest man with a clear mind,
0:23:16.600,0:23:21.220
had not yet grasped was the fact that the mechanism of the accumulation process itself
0:23:21.220,0:23:25.690
not only increases the amount of capital but also the mass of the 'labouring poor'
0:23:25.690,0:23:27.750
i.e. the wage-labourers,
0:23:27.750,0:23:34.750
who turn their labour-power into a force for increasing the valorization of the growing capital…”
0:23:37.600,0:23:43.039
This then leads Marx into
0:23:43.039,0:23:45.710
the beginnings of a discussion of Malthus
0:23:45.710,0:23:48.810
and of course,
0:23:48.810,0:23:55.810
the long footnote six on p.766 is given over to
0:23:56.790,0:24:05.480
the superficial plagiarism of Malthus
and the like in terms of his theory
0:24:05.480,0:24:09.160
of population and how “the hour of
the Protestant parsons struck”.
0:24:14.080,0:24:16.760
He then comes back on p.768,
0:24:18.410,0:24:25.740
to say this: “Under the conditions of accumulation
we have assumed so far…"
0:24:25.740,0:24:28.350
-notice 'assumed '-
0:24:28.350,0:24:31.440
"…conditions which are the most favourable to the workers,
0:24:31.440,0:24:33.460
their relation of dependence on capital
0:24:33.460,0:24:40.190
takes on forms which are endurable or,
as Eden says, 'easy and liberal'.”
0:24:40.190,0:24:42.890
That it can, in fact,
0:24:42.890,0:24:47.059
as this accumulation process goes on at the time,
0:24:47.059,0:24:50.380
absorb the surplus labour and start lead to
0:24:50.380,0:24:56.650
conditions of rising wages, so on p.769 he says:
0:24:56.650,0:25:00.230
there can be “A rise in the price of labour,
0:25:00.230,0:25:04.080
as a consequence of the accumulation
of capital, only means in fact that
0:25:04.080,0:25:08.900
the length and weight of the golden chain the wage-labourer has already forged for himself
0:25:08.900,0:25:15.779
allow it to be loosened somewhat.”
0:25:15.779,0:25:21.700
At the bottom he makes this other point:
“it is clear that at the best of times
0:25:21.700,0:25:26.670
an increase in wages means only a quantitative reduction in the amount of unpaid labour
0:25:26.670,0:25:29.110
the worker has to supply.
0:25:29.110,0:25:37.140
This reduction can never go so far
as to threaten the system itself.”
0:25:37.140,0:25:38.430
Then he mentions
0:25:38.430,0:25:41.040
“Apart from violent conflicts…” and so on.
0:25:41.040,0:25:42.470
And he says this,
0:25:42.470,0:25:47.230
on p.770: “Either the price of labour
keeps on rising, because its rise
0:25:47.230,0:25:53.680
does not interfere with the progress of accumulation.”
0:25:53.680,0:25:54.620
About ten lines down:
0:25:54.620,0:25:59.210
“Or, the other alternative, accumulation
slackens as a result of the rise
0:25:59.210,0:26:02.950
in the price of labour, because
the stimulus of gain is blunted.
0:26:02.950,0:26:06.320
The rate of accumulation lessens;
but this means that
0:26:06.320,0:26:10.220
the primary cause of that
lessening itself vanishes,
0:26:10.220,0:26:13.820
i.e. the disproportion between capital
and exploitable labour-power.
0:26:13.820,0:26:17.160
The mechanism of the capitalist production process
0:26:17.160,0:26:21.830
removes the very obstacles it temporarily creates.
0:26:21.830,0:26:24.630
The price of labour falls again to a level
0:26:24.630,0:26:29.830
corresponding with capital's requirements for self-valorization,…”
0:26:35.270,0:26:37.470
We can diagram this
0:26:37.470,0:26:41.170
in this way:
0:26:41.170,0:26:48.170
there's a certain accumulation of capital,
0:26:52.310,0:26:56.240
accumulation of surplus-value,
0:26:56.240,0:27:13.429
part of that surplus-value is capitalized, that is, it's converted back into capital.
0:27:19.110,0:27:38.029
This generates an increase in the
demand for labour for labour-power.
0:27:38.029,0:27:45.029
Where is that increased demand going to come from? It's going to come from surplus population.
0:27:57.220,0:28:02.430
Over time, what will happen is there will be
0:28:02.430,0:28:08.610
an absorption
0:28:08.610,0:28:11.779
of this surplus population
0:28:11.779,0:28:17.420
and as the surplus population is increasingly absorbed,
0:28:17.420,0:28:26.930
so we will get rising wages,
0:28:28.090,0:28:31.059
which either does not interfere at all
0:28:31.059,0:28:38.059
with the accumulation process, or if it does,
0:28:38.230,0:28:50.850
means less surplus-value for the capitalist.
0:28:50.850,0:28:51.919
Which means
0:28:51.919,0:28:56.070
less surplus-value gets accumulated,
which means there's less surplus-value
0:28:56.070,0:28:58.570
for reinvestment and capitalization.
0:28:58.570,0:29:00.610
To say nothing of the fact that,
0:29:00.610,0:29:05.230
capitalists looking at a situation of this kind will say: What's the point of me
0:29:05.230,0:29:08.830
going back into the market, paying all of that for labour? I'm not going to get much profit out
0:29:08.830,0:29:12.570
of it or surplus-value out of it so i'm not going to even bother. So the stimulus
0:29:12.570,0:29:20.270
to gain is blunted by the fact that wages have risen so high.
0:29:20.270,0:29:23.540
How could a situation of rising wages
0:29:23.540,0:29:31.470
not interfere with the accumulation of capital?
0:29:31.470,0:29:33.159
Can you remember
0:29:33.159,0:29:37.360
a situation where we discussed
0:29:37.360,0:29:43.070
that could happen?
0:29:43.070,0:29:49.170
In the theory of relative surplus-value,
0:29:49.170,0:29:54.750
where we argued, in a situation of increasing productivity gains
0:29:54.750,0:30:00.430
some of the productivity gains can to the worker in terms of an increased
0:30:00.430,0:30:03.000
standard of living.
0:30:03.000,0:30:06.529
So that you can get an increasing standard of living for the worker,
0:30:06.529,0:30:09.370
i.e. an increase in the value of labour-power
0:30:09.370,0:30:13.020
which is consistent with
0:30:13.020,0:30:18.820
an increasing rate of exploitation of labour.
0:30:18.820,0:30:20.809
So if there is
0:30:20.809,0:30:25.260
rising productivity going around this system then,
0:30:25.260,0:30:28.950
alright, wages can rise a little bit
but we've still got plenty of (…)
0:30:28.950,0:30:32.210
in other words you don't get less surplus-value, you get more surplus-value
0:30:32.210,0:30:35.049
even though wages are rising.
0:30:35.049,0:30:38.260
But notice what this does,
0:30:38.260,0:30:42.170
it basically says that
0:30:42.170,0:30:47.460
inherent in capitalism is a kind of homeostatic adjustment mechanism
0:30:47.460,0:30:54.570
of the rate of accumulation and the wage rate.
0:30:54.570,0:30:59.330
That, if we looked at it
0:30:59.330,0:31:00.640
like this,
0:31:00.640,0:31:04.289
the wage rate is doing something like this, it's rising,
0:31:04.289,0:31:07.100
then,
0:31:07.100,0:31:10.960
as the rate of accumulation is falling so reinvestment diminishes
0:31:10.960,0:31:12.660
and so the demand for labour slackens and so
0:31:12.660,0:31:15.150
wage rates come down,
0:31:15.150,0:31:21.940
this goes up. And you could imagine a situation of this kind,
0:31:21.940,0:31:24.800
that they just simply oscillate
0:31:24.800,0:31:30.419
in this kind of fashion, a homeostatic adjustment mechanism,
0:31:30.419,0:31:33.680
wages rise, rate of accumulation slackens,
0:31:33.680,0:31:37.050
demand for labour falls off,
0:31:37.050,0:31:38.920
the labour surplus reappears.
0:31:38.920,0:31:40.680
Now, clearly,
0:31:40.680,0:31:46.480
this surplus population depends upon
0:31:46.480,0:31:49.120
the rate of population growth,
0:31:49.120,0:31:51.169
where the population is
0:31:51.169,0:31:55.630
relative to all of this.
0:31:55.630,0:31:58.120
So where the surplus population is
0:31:58.120,0:32:03.610
also matters. So what Marx does here is to say:
0:32:03.610,0:32:07.200
you might notice
0:32:07.200,0:32:09.430
historical situations in which wage rates and
0:32:09.430,0:32:15.100
and profit rates will be going opposite to each other.
0:32:15.100,0:32:19.680
And what would a bourgeois economist read into this?
0:32:19.680,0:32:24.610
they're going to look at it and say 'it's greedy workers',
0:32:24.610,0:32:29.460
greedy unions or something like that, they're always wanting
more wages and the wage rate goes up and
0:32:29.460,0:32:34.130
if the wage rate goes up then, sorry, you're going to get stagnation.
0:32:34.130,0:32:36.210
I'm sure you've heard that argument, right?
0:32:36.210,0:32:41.280
If you push the wage rate too high,
then you're just gonna get stagnation.
0:32:41.280,0:32:42.769
So, if we get a crisis it's not our fault it's
0:32:42.769,0:32:44.720
the labourer's fault.
0:32:44.720,0:32:49.080
So if you get a crisis it's not our fault, it's the labourers' fault,
0:32:49.080,0:32:52.230
they push the wage rate too high.
0:32:52.230,0:32:53.739
What Marx does is to
0:32:53.739,0:32:55.610
point out that in this system,
0:32:55.610,0:33:01.090
he says the bottom of p.770:
0:33:03.210,0:33:08.810
“To put it mathematically: the rate of accumulation is the independent,
0:33:08.810,0:33:11.390
not the dependent variable;
0:33:11.390,0:33:15.899
the rate of wages is the dependent, not the
independent variable.” In other words
0:33:15.899,0:33:19.490
what Marx is insisting is that it is capital
0:33:19.490,0:33:24.040
and capital accumulation that is driving this,
0:33:24.040,0:33:29.380
its capitalists who are making the decisions, it's capitalists who are pushing the system.
0:33:29.380,0:33:34.280
So if you do see fluctuations of this kind it's because that's the way
0:33:34.280,0:33:41.280
capitalism is pushing it.
0:33:46.520,0:33:51.910
This then leads Marx into a consideration
0:33:51.910,0:33:53.950
of what he calls
0:33:53.950,0:33:58.780
the so-called “natural law of population”.
You can tell this is coming
0:33:58.780,0:34:06.610
given his stuff about Malthus.
0:34:06.610,0:34:11.000
He really describes exactly what we've just gone through very succinctly, in the middle
0:34:11.000,0:34:13.710
of p.771:
0:34:13.710,0:34:17.859
“If the quantity of unpaid labour supplied by the working class
0:34:17.859,0:34:20.359
and accumulated by the capitalist class
0:34:20.359,0:34:22.119
increases so rapidly
0:34:22.119,0:34:26.690
that its transformation into capital requires an extraordinary addition of paid labour,
0:34:26.690,0:34:30.179
then wages rise and, all other circumstances remaining equal,
0:34:30.179,0:34:34.139
the unpaid labour diminishes in proportion.
0:34:34.139,0:34:37.730
But as soon as this diminution touches the point at which the surplus labour that nourishes capital
0:34:37.730,0:34:43.289
is no longer supplied in normal quantity, a reaction sets in:
0:34:43.289,0:34:47.419
a smaller part of revenue is capitalized, accumulation slows down,
0:34:47.419,0:34:51.849
and the rising movement of wages comes up against an obstacle.
0:34:51.849,0:34:56.049
The rise of wages is therefore confined within limits that not only leave intact the foundations
0:34:56.049,0:34:59.430
of the capitalist system, but also secure its reproduction
0:34:59.430,0:35:04.389
on an increasing scale.”
0:35:04.389,0:35:05.739
So, this is if you like
0:35:05.739,0:35:18.629
the description of a simple model of the dynamics of accumulation.
0:35:18.629,0:35:22.299
Which takes us into part two.
0:35:22.299,0:35:26.809
p.772
0:35:26.809,0:35:29.159
What Marx wants to do here is to say, well
0:35:29.159,0:35:32.279
this argument we just made
0:35:32.279,0:35:34.669
pays absolutely not mind
0:35:34.669,0:35:37.239
to technological change. That is,
0:35:37.239,0:35:42.019
you're assuming the technology remains constant
0:35:42.019,0:35:46.249
in this first version.
0:35:46.249,0:35:50.499
He says: “So far, we have considered only one special phase of this process, that in which
0:35:50.499,0:35:52.859
the increase of capital occurs
0:35:52.859,0:35:58.419
while the technical composition of capital remains constant.”
0:35:58.419,0:36:02.109
But we know it does not remain constant from
0:36:02.109,0:36:07.369
the theory of relative surplus-value.
0:36:07.369,0:36:11.390
He then goes on: “Given the general basis of the capitalist system, a point is reached
0:36:11.390,0:36:13.519
in the course of accumulation
0:36:13.519,0:36:18.189
at which the development of the productivity of social labour
0:36:18.189,0:36:25.189
becomes the most powerful lever of accumulation.”
0:36:26.769,0:36:32.209
So, we're now going to look at
0:36:32.209,0:36:35.299
this model when we introduce into it
0:36:35.299,0:36:40.579
the dynamics of relative surplus-value
0:36:40.579,0:36:48.170
seeking, and technological and organizational change.
0:36:48.170,0:36:52.109
He starts off by going a little bit over the technical
0:36:52.109,0:36:54.339
composition of capital, going back over
0:36:54.339,0:36:57.369
-this- argument and we're going to see this
0:36:57.369,0:37:02.699
developed even further now in this section.
0:37:02.699,0:37:08.939
As far as the technical conditions are concerned, there are both causes and consequences,
0:37:08.939,0:37:15.640
he says, of changing value-composition.
0:37:15.640,0:37:33.269
Causes, those which arise out of the need to buy new machinery,
0:37:33.269,0:37:40.239
new means of production. So he talks about buildings and furnaces and means of transport etc.
0:37:41.249,0:37:48.509
The consequence is that you need more means of production;
0:37:48.509,0:37:54.609
so, sorry, it's not a cause, its a condition
0:37:54.609,0:37:58.759
of this, you buy a new machine,
0:37:58.759,0:38:00.269
more 'C'
0:38:00.269,0:38:01.609
in the form of the machine.
0:38:01.609,0:38:03.789
But then the machine also
0:38:03.789,0:38:06.789
has a consequence, which is that you now need more
0:38:06.789,0:38:12.679
raw materials.
0:38:12.679,0:38:19.450
Bottom of p.773 he says: “This change in the technical composition of capital,
0:38:19.450,0:38:22.799
this growth in the mass of the means of production,
0:38:22.799,0:38:26.099
as compared with the mass of the labour-power that vivifies them, is reflected
0:38:26.099,0:38:30.339
in its value-composition by the increase of the constant constituent of capital
0:38:30.339,0:38:36.839
at the expense of its variable constituent.”
0:38:36.839,0:38:40.130
He then uses the phrase which
0:38:40.130,0:38:43.519
created quite a lot of problems:
0:38:43.519,0:38:48.009
“This law of the progressive growth of the constant part of capital
0:38:48.009,0:38:49.539
in comparison with the variable part
0:38:49.539,0:38:52.069
is confirmed at every step (as already shown)
0:38:52.069,0:38:55.160
by the comparative analysis of the prices of commodities,
0:38:55.160,0:38:57.160
whether we compare different economic epochs
0:38:57.160,0:38:58.369
or different nations in the
0:38:58.369,0:39:03.579
same epoch.”
0:39:03.579,0:39:07.569
There is, he says,
0:39:07.569,0:39:09.049
a tendency for
0:39:09.049,0:39:21.339
the organic composition of capital to increase over time.
0:39:33.449,0:39:37.549
He's proposing that we think in terms of the law
0:39:37.549,0:39:41.949
of the increase of the 'C over V' ratio,
0:39:41.949,0:39:43.959
that is,
0:39:43.959,0:39:47.609
you need to buy less and less labour
0:39:47.609,0:39:54.609
and you need to buy more more means of production.
0:39:55.539,0:40:02.209
Interestingly
0:40:02.209,0:40:05.579
he then introduces on the middle of p.774
0:40:05.579,0:40:10.139
the possibility that
0:40:10.139,0:40:11.759
'C' could also diminish
0:40:11.759,0:40:17.400
through technological change.
0:40:17.400,0:40:21.989
But he simply treats it here
0:40:21.989,0:40:25.309
as something that restraints what would otherwise be
0:40:25.309,0:40:28.599
a very rapid increase
0:40:28.599,0:40:33.499
in the 'C over V' ratio, in the organic
composition of capital.
0:40:33.499,0:40:37.059
Here he's saying
0:40:37.059,0:40:41.079
middle of p.774: “The reason is simple: with the increasing productivity of labour,
0:40:41.079,0:40:46.109
the mass of the means of production consumed by labour increases,
0:40:46.109,0:40:50.489
but their value in comparison with their mass diminishes.
0:40:50.489,0:40:54.890
Their value therefore rises absolutely,
but not in proportion to the increase
0:40:54.890,0:40:57.619
in their mass.
0:40:57.619,0:41:01.670
The increase of the difference between constant and variable capital is therefore much less than
0:41:01.670,0:41:06.619
that of the difference between the mass of the means of production into which the constant capital,
0:41:06.619,0:41:10.619
and the mass of the labour-power into which the variable capital, is converted.
0:41:10.619,0:41:17.489
The former difference increases with
the latter, but in a smaller degree.”
0:41:17.489,0:41:20.029
In other words,
0:41:20.029,0:41:25.769
yes, you can get constant capital saving innovations
0:41:25.769,0:41:29.989
which reduce the value of constant capital, but this simply
0:41:29.989,0:41:35.299
holds down what Marx sees as an inexorable law
0:41:35.299,0:41:43.989
of the rising organic composition of capital.
0:41:43.989,0:41:45.589
That, in short,
0:41:45.589,0:41:47.789
capitalism is going to become
0:41:47.789,0:41:55.809
increasingly capital-intensive over time
0:41:55.809,0:42:00.059
as opposed to labour-intensive.
0:42:00.059,0:42:08.430
He then uses some examples.
0:42:08.430,0:42:11.499
What this means,
0:42:11.499,0:42:17.559
is that the mass of surplus-value
0:42:17.559,0:42:21.339
that the capitalist can gain diminishes,
0:42:21.339,0:42:30.069
unless you can raise the rate of exploitation.
0:42:30.069,0:42:33.660
This is a problem.
0:42:33.660,0:42:41.859
And in the third volume of Capital, he'll argue
0:42:41.859,0:42:46.939
roughly in the following way:
0:42:46.939,0:42:49.739
The rate of profit (P)
0:42:49.739,0:42:57.359
is equivalent to 'S over (C + V)',
0:42:57.359,0:43:03.189
The surplus over the total capital advanced.
0:43:03.189,0:43:07.209
Now, by a little bit of algebraic manipulation,
0:43:07.209,0:43:09.390
you could turn this into…
0:43:09.390,0:43:14.459
that this is equivalent to the rate of exploitation
0:43:14.459,0:43:23.140
over (1 + the organic composition of capital).
0:43:23.140,0:43:27.259
From which you would see immediately that,
0:43:27.259,0:43:31.170
if the rate of exploitation remains constant,
0:43:31.170,0:43:39.169
then the law of the rising organic composition of capital gives you
0:43:39.169,0:43:46.169
a falling rate a profit.
0:43:48.709,0:43:53.519
-this- quantity becomes larger and larger and larger,
0:43:53.519,0:43:57.309
-this- remains constant,
0:43:57.309,0:44:01.880
therefore the profit rate must fall.
0:44:01.880,0:44:08.859
This is the simplest version
0:44:08.859,0:44:16.559
of Marx his falling profit-rate argument.
0:44:16.559,0:44:19.389
In order to sustain that however,
0:44:19.389,0:44:22.149
you have to do two things,
0:44:22.149,0:44:27.630
one is, you have to keep the rate of exploitation constant
0:44:27.630,0:44:31.039
and the second is, you have to assume
0:44:31.039,0:44:36.479
that all of -these- interactions which are going on in the economy
0:44:36.479,0:44:47.779
are actually leading to an increasing organic composition of capital.
0:44:47.779,0:44:51.859
There are lots of reasons why,
0:44:51.859,0:44:59.109
as subsequent theorists have shown, this is not necessarily so.
0:44:59.109,0:45:04.880
Situations can arise in which it actually goes in the other way,
0:45:04.880,0:45:08.879
that you get a falling organic composition of capital
0:45:08.879,0:45:11.699
simply because of the nature of the interaction effects.
0:45:11.699,0:45:19.249
Whether there's a falling or a rising, really depends.
0:45:19.249,0:45:21.829
On the other hand, if you
0:45:21.829,0:45:25.969
dare to gain say, in certain circles,
0:45:25.969,0:45:29.119
the theory of the falling rate a profit,
0:45:29.119,0:45:35.329
Marxists come down on you like a ton of bricks,
0:45:35.329,0:45:39.899
because, as I think Marx
0:45:39.899,0:45:45.249
himself suggested, this is one of the main ways in which you can see how
0:45:45.249,0:45:50.079
technological innovations i.e. the search for relative surplus-value,
0:45:50.079,0:45:53.489
creates a contradiction
0:45:53.489,0:45:57.419
because you're displacing labour out of production,
0:45:57.419,0:46:10.569
and as you displace labour out of production, you're displacing the source of surplus-value.
0:46:10.569,0:46:13.339
My own view of it, for what it's worth, is that
0:46:13.339,0:46:15.689
technological dynamism is indeed
0:46:15.689,0:46:21.169
a potent source of contradictions within this system,
0:46:21.169,0:46:28.979
but you cannot assume that there is a law of rising organic composition,
0:46:28.979,0:46:32.809
that it's always going to be there,
0:46:32.809,0:46:36.609
nor can you necessarily assume that there is
0:46:36.609,0:46:42.529
a law of falling rates of profit.
Situations arise in which, yes indeed
0:46:42.529,0:46:49.319
rising organic composition gets turned into falling profit rates.
0:46:49.319,0:46:51.880
But it's perfectly possible
0:46:51.880,0:46:54.379
for other patterns of innovation to
0:46:54.379,0:47:03.859
enter into the picture which reverse that process.
0:47:05.949,0:47:11.099
This is the reason these concepts are important and why you have to think about them,
0:47:11.099,0:47:14.779
because they're foundational for what happens
0:47:14.779,0:47:21.279
in Volume three of Capital and parts of Marx his argument there.
0:47:21.279,0:47:27.329
But what is brilliant about the argument is that
0:47:27.329,0:47:34.949
most of the classical political-economists, including Ricardo,
0:47:34.949,0:47:41.019
believed in a falling rate of profit.
0:47:41.019,0:47:46.219
Many of them thought in terms of
0:47:46.219,0:47:48.809
capitalism in the end winding down.
0:47:48.809,0:47:51.769
Ricardo, for example, talks about
0:47:51.769,0:47:55.640
the inevitable demise of a capitalist
system because it will not be able to
0:47:55.640,0:47:59.769
sustain itself.
0:47:59.769,0:48:07.099
But all of them actually appealed to Malthus
0:48:07.099,0:48:11.279
and the idea of resource constraints,
0:48:11.279,0:48:16.899
and what is known as diminishing returns in agriculture.
0:48:16.899,0:48:23.899
That there would be an inherent barrier to increasing productivity in agriculture,
0:48:24.899,0:48:29.899
and that therefore the end of capitalism was essentially
0:48:29.899,0:48:36.400
legislated in terms of its relation to nature.
0:48:36.400,0:48:38.499
What Marx says
0:48:38.499,0:48:44.179
is: No, there is a way you can talk about a falling rate of profit
0:48:44.179,0:48:47.759
which has nothing to do with nature.
0:48:47.759,0:48:54.759
It has to do with the internal contradictions of capitalism.
0:48:54.799,0:48:58.019
As he says of Ricardo,
0:48:58.019,0:49:05.859
he says, Ricardo when faced with the idea of a crisis took refuge in organic chemistry.
0:49:05.859,0:49:07.949
Marx says you can't do that,
0:49:07.949,0:49:11.849
if there is going to be a crisis of capitalism, it's going to be a crisis which is generated
0:49:11.849,0:49:14.519
by its own internal contradictions.
0:49:14.519,0:49:19.239
And I think his intuitions are absolutely correct.
0:49:19.239,0:49:25.949
That one of the centerpieces of those contradictions lies in the dynamic and trajectory
0:49:25.949,0:49:30.640
of technological and organizational changes,
0:49:30.640,0:49:35.049
and that these technological and organizational changes are highly disruptive,
0:49:35.049,0:49:41.269
in some instances, of the capacity to gain surplus-value.
0:49:41.269,0:49:46.889
The trouble is here is he has put it in this law form.
0:49:46.889,0:49:57.179
And the law form is where we hit some of the problems.
0:49:59.630,0:50:02.039
This then leads him to say that,
0:50:04.929,0:50:08.719
this rising organic composition of capital doesn't mean
0:50:08.719,0:50:14.509
less surplus-value for the capitalist, provided
0:50:14.509,0:50:22.089
that you actually expand your labour force dramatically.
0:50:22.089,0:50:27.660
That is, by increasing production you accelerate accumulation.
0:50:27.660,0:50:35.759
As he says on p.774:
0:50:35.759,0:50:40.709
“The progress of accumulation lessens the relative magnitude of the variable part of capital,
0:50:40.709,0:50:47.709
but this by no means thereby excludes the possibility of a rise in its absolute magnitude.”
0:50:48.149,0:50:50.069
Then he goes through this example:
0:50:50.069,0:50:54.189
let's suppose the 'C over V' ratio rises,
0:50:54.189,0:50:59.449
but “If, in the meantime, the original capital, say £6,000, has increased to £18,000,
0:50:59.449,0:51:04.079
its variable constituent has also increased, in fact by 20 percent.
0:51:04.079,0:51:08.579
It was £3,000, it is now £3,600.”
0:51:08.579,0:51:12.579
Out of eighteen-thousand.
0:51:12.579,0:51:16.149
“But whereas formerly an increase of capital by 20 percent would have sufficed to raise the demand
0:51:16.149,0:51:20.279
for labour by 20 percent, now the original capital needs to be tripled
0:51:20.279,0:51:27.680
to secure an increase of 20 percent in the demand for labour. ”
0:51:27.680,0:51:30.569
This then immediately raises the question:
0:51:30.569,0:51:36.869
where is the surplus capital gonna come from to increase from 6,000 to 18,000?
0:51:36.869,0:51:40.539
How are you going to get that?
0:51:40.539,0:51:45.949
That leads him immediately to the idea
0:51:45.949,0:51:52.329
that there is an original accumulation which goes on,
0:51:52.329,0:51:54.619
and he introduces
0:51:54.619,0:51:59.319
this idea of primitive accumulation on p.775.
0:51:59.319,0:52:03.859
The capitalists go out and they rob people,
0:52:03.859,0:52:11.949
to get the extra 12 thousand pounds they need.
0:52:11.949,0:52:17.179
Somehow or other they accumulate it. He says we're going to look at this historically in part 8,
0:52:17.179,0:52:24.429
so we'll do that next week.
0:52:24.429,0:52:27.769
Then, on p.776-777
0:52:27.769,0:52:32.569
he says, maybe there's another way in which capitalists can do this,
0:52:32.569,0:52:40.849
and he introduces the distinction between concentration and centralization.
0:52:40.849,0:52:45.479
Concentration of capital arises in -this- model in the following way:
0:52:45.479,0:52:49.859
each time you increase the amount of capital that's circulating,
0:52:49.859,0:52:52.099
so you go around this system again,
0:52:52.099,0:52:57.439
and you get more capital … more capital,
so concentration means: over time,
0:52:57.439,0:53:02.029
bit by bit, increment by increment, you're increasing your capital, so capital is becoming
0:53:02.029,0:53:09.029
concentrated.
0:53:09.190,0:53:13.430
He then introduces something which I think is always important, because sometimes people
0:53:13.430,0:53:20.430
talk about the law of increasing concentration and centralization.
0:53:22.269,0:53:26.319
He suggests that at the bottom of p.776 that not only are you going to get concentration
0:53:26.319,0:53:31.279
of capital, but you could also get something else going on
0:53:31.279,0:53:40.019
right at the bottom of p.776 he says, concentration that accompanies accumulation,
0:53:40.019,0:53:44.319
is not only “scattered over many points, but the increase of each functioning capital is thwarted
0:53:44.319,0:53:48.089
by the formation of new capitals and the subdivision of old.
0:53:48.089,0:53:51.019
Accumulation, therefore, presents itself on the one hand
0:53:51.019,0:53:53.849
as increasing concentration of the means of production,
0:53:53.849,0:53:55.880
and of the command over labour;
0:53:55.880,0:54:00.399
and on the other hand as repulsion of many individual capitals from one another.”
0:54:00.399,0:54:04.859
Then he talks about the fragmentation of the total social capital.
0:54:04.859,0:54:08.150
What in effect is going on here is this:
0:54:08.150,0:54:12.689
Why would you put your surplus-value back into the same production system?
0:54:12.689,0:54:19.129
What happens if I took a part of my surplus-value and spawned it off into a new line of production?
0:54:19.129,0:54:24.029
And I opened up a small factory making something else?
0:54:24.029,0:54:26.519
So, capitalism
0:54:26.519,0:54:32.019
is not only about increasing concentration,
it's also about increasing diversification,
0:54:32.019,0:54:33.689
increasing fragmentation.
0:54:33.689,0:54:38.899
And what he's suggesting here is that there is some sort of relationship between concentration
0:54:38.899,0:54:42.199
and dispersal,
0:54:42.199,0:54:45.749
concentration and fragmentation.
0:54:45.749,0:54:47.509
And that therefore
0:54:47.509,0:54:55.899
you cannot necessarily look to concentration of capital,
0:54:55.899,0:54:59.509
to do what you wanted to do in terms of increasing
0:54:59.509,0:55:03.279
the amount of 'V' which is available to you
0:55:03.279,0:55:10.279
at a given rate of exploitation.
0:55:10.479,0:55:12.859
So there is something else,
0:55:12.859,0:55:17.869
he introduces centralization of capital.
0:55:17.869,0:55:24.419
Centralization is effectively taking people over,
0:55:24.419,0:55:37.799
takeovers, merges, driving people out of competition, taking over their businesses,
0:55:37.799,0:55:43.369
hostile takeovers, and the like.
0:55:43.369,0:55:46.179
And what he's pointing to here is
0:55:46.179,0:55:51.309
a very important process which goes on in capitalism,
0:55:51.309,0:55:54.090
which is about centralization. And we
0:55:54.090,0:55:58.299
start to see how it works, and he introduces at the bottom of p.777
0:55:58.299,0:56:00.849
a very important idea which he's not going to take up,
0:56:00.849,0:56:05.449
which is the role of the credit system in doing this.
0:56:05.449,0:56:11.809
He talks about various mechanisms whereby larger capitals could take over smaller,
0:56:11.809,0:56:16.219
through competition and alike, but then he says: “Apart from this, an altogether new force
0:56:16.219,0:56:21.679
comes into existence with the development of capitalist production: the credit system.
0:56:21.679,0:56:24.089
In its first stages, this system
0:56:24.089,0:56:29.469
furtively creeps in as the humble assistant of accumulation,
0:56:29.469,0:56:33.019
drawing into the hands of individual or associated capitalists by invisible threads
0:56:33.019,0:56:34.619
the money resources,
0:56:34.619,0:56:38.769
which lie scattered in larger or smaller amounts over the surface of society;
0:56:38.769,0:56:42.439
but it soon becomes a new and terrible weapon in the battle of competition
0:56:42.439,0:56:52.249
and is finally transformed into an enormous social mechanism for the centralization of capitals.”
0:56:52.249,0:56:58.549
One of the main businesses of Wall Street these days is asset merger activity,
0:56:58.549,0:57:02.879
the centralization of capital that's been going on under neo-liberalism
0:57:02.879,0:57:06.889
has been absolutely astonishing.
0:57:06.889,0:57:13.549
Oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, telecommunications companies,
0:57:13.549,0:57:18.869
are constantly merging into each other, asset merger activities is
0:57:18.869,0:57:23.390
one of the big businesses of Wall Street, and of course this is about precisely the centralization
0:57:23.390,0:57:25.599
of capital.
0:57:25.599,0:57:30.179
And what does the centralization of capital do to the workers?
0:57:30.179,0:57:33.799
Well, it doesn't do them any good that's for sure.
0:57:33.799,0:57:35.529
It usually destroys
0:57:35.529,0:57:39.729
worker organization and worker contracts,
0:57:39.729,0:57:44.909
increases the rate of exploitation and the like.
0:57:44.909,0:57:50.079
So, what Marx is onto here is the beginnings of
0:57:50.079,0:57:53.920
a centralization process in which the credit system starts to play
0:57:53.920,0:57:57.630
a central role. And we would argue,
I think, today that this is of course
0:57:57.630,0:58:01.769
one of the huge drivers of the economy.
0:58:01.769,0:58:04.169
and Marx is seeing its potential here,
0:58:04.169,0:58:06.009
but having said that
0:58:06.009,0:58:08.739
all he does then is to say
0:58:08.739,0:58:14.709
that these levers of centralization,
which are competition and credit,
0:58:14.709,0:58:19.209
draw together individual capitals and
deals with this problem of how to get the
0:58:19.209,0:58:27.929
extra 12,000 pounds: you get it through centralization.
0:58:27.929,0:58:33.099
As he says at the bottom of p.779:
0:58:34.829,0:58:38.849
“Capital can grow into powerful masses in a single hand in one place…
0:58:38.849,0:58:43.589
…In any given branch of industry centralization would reach its extreme limit if all
0:58:43.589,0:58:48.229
the individual capitals invested there
were fused into a single capital.”
0:58:48.229,0:58:50.559
i.e. monopoly.
0:58:50.559,0:58:54.660
“In a given society this limit would be reached only when the entire social capital was united in
0:58:54.660,0:59:01.539
the hands of either a single capitalist or a single capitalist company.
0:59:01.539,0:59:06.019
Centralization supplements the work of accumulation by enabling industrial capitalists to extend
0:59:06.019,0:59:08.049
the scale of their operations.”
0:59:08.049,0:59:14.559
Increasing scale of organization.
0:59:14.559,0:59:21.559
And centralization, he says, is much more dramatic, as he says on p.780:
0:59:22.149,0:59:25.819
"accumulation, the gradual increase of capital by reproduction as it passes from the circular
0:59:25.819,0:59:31.339
to the spiral form, is clearly a very slow procedure compared with centralization…”
0:59:31.339,0:59:35.880
Centralization is much faster.
0:59:35.880,0:59:38.419
Then he goes on to point out: “The world would still be without railways
0:59:38.419,0:59:41.419
if it had had to wait until accumulation had got
0:59:41.419,0:59:46.189
a few individual capitals far enough to be adequate for the construction of a railway.”
0:59:46.189,0:59:55.839
So, it's consortia, business consortia and things like that, that start to move into the picture.
0:59:55.839,1:00:01.359
He then says: “centralization … thereby becomes the new and powerful lever
1:00:01.359,1:00:04.359
of social accumulation.
1:00:04.359,1:00:08.389
Therefore, when we speak of the progress of social accumulation, we tacitly include —
1:00:08.389,1:00:15.389
these days — the effects of centralization.”
1:00:16.799,1:00:23.799
But this doesn't necessarily solve the problem of less and less labour being employed,
1:00:24.659,1:00:28.079
as he says right at the end: “On the one hand, therefore, the additional capital formed in
1:00:28.079,1:00:32.309
the course of further accumulation attracts fewer and fewer workers in proportion to its magnitude.
1:00:32.309,1:00:36.549
On the other hand, the old capital periodically reproduced with a new composition
1:00:36.549,1:00:43.549
repels more and more of the workers formerly employed by it.”
1:00:43.569,1:00:46.839
So what's coming out here is,
1:00:46.839,1:00:51.579
these processes of transformation,
1:00:51.579,1:00:57.409
both in organizational form of capital but also in technological
1:00:57.409,1:01:00.509
forms, are diminishing the demand
1:01:00.509,1:01:05.039
for labour-power in the labour market.
1:01:05.039,1:01:08.819
The consequences for that are taken up in the next section, but we should probably
1:01:08.819,1:01:15.069
break here five minutes and than do the next two sections.
1:01:15.069,1:01:19.769
The next section, what we get is
1:01:19.769,1:01:27.379
another version of this model but with technological change
1:01:27.379,1:01:32.489
incorporated. This system really
1:01:32.489,1:01:36.929
looks something like this:
1:01:36.929,1:01:43.929
You start with accumulation,
1:01:46.630,1:01:53.099
but in this instance, we're gonna talk about reinvestment
1:01:53.099,1:02:00.099
of capitalized surplus-value,
1:02:07.650,1:02:17.709
which in this instance is invested in new technologies,
1:02:22.499,1:02:36.789
which reduces the demand for labour;
1:02:44.579,1:02:54.499
produces a surplus population
1:03:02.839,1:03:15.129
which gives you a high rate of exploitation, which gives you more accumulation.
1:03:30.699,1:03:34.759
So, he starts off by again
1:03:34.759,1:03:48.779
assuming a rising organic composition of capital,
1:03:49.339,1:03:58.869
but now we're looking at this dynamic
1:03:58.869,1:04:05.869
in which technological change is becoming central.
1:04:06.239,1:04:08.439
The demand for labour, he says at the bottom of p.781:
1:04:11.519,1:04:16.619
“is determined not by the extent of the total capital but by its variable constituent alone,
1:04:16.619,1:04:21.629
that demand falls progressively with
the growth of the total capital…
1:04:21.629,1:04:25.630
…and at an accelerated rate, as this magnitude, increases.”
1:04:25.630,1:04:32.059
So the variable capital becomes a constantly diminishing proportion.
1:04:32.059,1:04:37.259
The consequence is, on p.782 in the middle, he says:
1:04:37.259,1:04:41.609
“in fact, it is capitalist accumulation itself
1:04:41.609,1:04:45.959
that constantly produces, and produces indeed in direct relation with its own energy and extent,
1:04:45.959,1:04:49.569
a relatively redundant working population,
1:04:49.569,1:04:53.499
i.e. a population which is superfluous to capital's average requirements for
1:04:53.499,1:05:00.499
its own valorization, and is therefore a surplus population.”
1:05:03.309,1:05:12.819
Then he talks, p.782-3, on what we now colloquially call downsizing.
1:05:17.639,1:05:21.069
The consequence, as he points out on p.783 at the bottom:
1:05:21.069,1:05:25.489
“The working population therefore produces both the accumulation of capital
1:05:25.489,1:05:30.679
and the means by which it is itself made relatively superfluous;
1:05:30.679,1:05:35.859
and it does this to an extent which is always increasing.”
1:05:35.859,1:05:41.079
There's a lot of discussion these days about disposable labour
1:05:41.079,1:05:45.329
and the idea of disposable labour-forces.
1:05:45.329,1:05:50.699
This is exactly what Marx is talking about, how do we get to a point
1:05:50.699,1:05:57.489
where we can talk about massive disposal working populations?
1:05:57.489,1:06:04.489
and how does that dynamic work?
1:06:04.609,1:06:09.910
This leads Marx then to point out,
1:06:09.910,1:06:14.199
at the bottom of p.783: “The working population therefore produces both the accumulation…”
1:06:14.199,1:06:15.529
…I've just read that…
1:06:15.529,1:06:20.209
“This is a law of population peculiar to the capitalist mode of production;
1:06:20.209,1:06:24.659
and in fact every particular historical mode of production has its own special laws of population,
1:06:24.659,1:06:28.729
which are historically valid within that particular sphere.
1:06:28.729,1:06:33.599
An abstract law of population exists only for plants and animals, and even then only in the absence
1:06:33.599,1:06:39.189
of any historical intervention by man.”
1:06:39.189,1:06:41.529
What he's saying here is that
1:06:41.529,1:06:46.629
Malthus had this law of population that explained poverty,
1:06:46.629,1:06:52.669
again, because of these two forces of
1:06:52.669,1:07:00.459
the tendency to increase the population,
on the part of the labouring classes,
1:07:00.459,1:07:05.549
in relationship to scarcities in nature.
1:07:05.549,1:07:08.200
So, the problem of poverty
1:07:08.200,1:07:11.989
for Malthus had everything to do with
1:07:11.989,1:07:16.779
natural proclivities of the working class to reproduce
1:07:16.779,1:07:23.049
too fast, versus scarcity in nature,
1:07:23.049,1:07:27.249
therefore: poverty is natural.
1:07:27.249,1:07:29.739
Marx is saying: that's nonsense!
1:07:29.739,1:07:33.019
Poverty is actually produced,
1:07:33.019,1:07:36.430
this is his point,
1:07:36.430,1:07:40.539
going back to the 'Fable of the bees' and Mandeville,
1:07:40.539,1:07:48.189
Poverty is actually produced by the capitalist dynamic,
1:07:48.189,1:07:52.229
and he says in next paragraph:
1:07:52.229,1:07:56.679
“But if a surplus population of workers is a necessary product of accumulation
1:07:56.679,1:07:59.019
or of the development of wealth on a capitalist basis,
1:07:59.019,1:08:04.339
this surplus population also becomes, conversely, the lever of capitalist accumulation,
1:08:04.339,1:08:08.489
indeed it becomes a condition for the existence of the capitalist mode of production.
1:08:08.489,1:08:13.489
It forms a disposable industrial reserve army, which belongs to capital just as absolutely
1:08:13.489,1:08:19.129
as if the latter had bred it at its own cost.
1:08:19.129,1:08:25.830
Independently of the limits of the actual increase of population, it creates a mass of human material
1:08:25.830,1:08:30.079
always ready for exploitation by capital in the interests of capital's own changing
1:08:30.079,1:08:35.079
valorization requirements.”
1:08:38.819,1:08:41.769
Then he talks about the varying phases of
1:08:41.769,1:08:45.169
re-absorption of some of this surplus that is thrown out of work,
1:08:45.169,1:08:52.679
and then throwing them out of work by another round of technological change.
1:08:52.679,1:08:54.529
And as he says,
1:08:54.529,1:09:01.529
this sophisticated system was not really possible in capitalism's infancy.
1:09:02.259,1:09:09.960
Again he comes back to the irony, on p.786, when he says:
1:09:09.960,1:09:17.620
“This increase [of the surplus population] is effected by the simple process that constantly
1:09:17.620,1:09:21.750
'sets free' a part of the working class…”
1:09:21.750,1:09:25.069
It 'sets them free' by
1:09:25.069,1:09:31.489
engaging technologically induced unemployment.
1:09:31.489,1:09:37.529
Some kind of freedom that is!
1:09:37.529,1:09:42.869
He says, again and again,
1:09:42.869,1:09:49.869
that the existence of a surplus population is absolutely crucial.
1:09:52.059,1:09:53.130
p.788:
1:09:53.130,1:09:59.909
“Capitalist production can by no means content itself with the quantity of disposable labour-power
1:09:59.909,1:10:01.959
which the natural increase of population yields.
1:10:01.959,1:10:05.849
It requires for its unrestricted activity an industrial reserve army
1:10:05.849,1:10:08.349
which is independent of these natural limits.”
1:10:08.349,1:10:08.869
In other words:
1:10:08.869,1:10:14.489
it wouldn't matter what the rate of population increase was,
1:10:14.489,1:10:17.969
you'd still have poverty,
1:10:17.969,1:10:20.940
even if Malthus was all wrong
1:10:20.940,1:10:27.940
about working-class reproducing, and being too fecund and all of that.
1:10:28.040,1:10:30.589
It wouldn't matter because capitalism would simply
1:10:30.589,1:10:37.380
go ahead and produces its surplus population in this kind of way.
1:10:37.380,1:10:42.749
And this has a number of effects,
1:10:42.749,1:10:46.840
one is: it allows the capitalist to
1:10:46.840,1:10:49.499
discipline the labour-force.
1:10:49.499,1:10:51.779
In other words, it's a constant threat
1:10:51.779,1:10:53.460
which the capitalist has of
1:10:53.460,1:10:58.719
forcing unemployment upon the working-class.
1:10:58.719,1:11:04.349
And one of those threats to be exercised
1:11:05.779,1:11:10.459
with the purpose of deskilling, as he says on p.788 at the bottom,
1:11:10.459,1:11:20.969
the displacement of more skilled labour-power by inferior labour-power.
1:11:22.039,1:11:33.139
It also allows, as he says on the next page:
1:11:33.559,1:11:37.460
“If the means of production, as they increase in extent
1:11:37.460,1:11:39.439
and effective power, become to a lesser extent means for employing workers,
1:11:39.439,1:11:43.439
this relation is itself in turn modified by the fact
1:11:43.439,1:11:48.120
that in proportion as the productivity of labour increases, capital increases its supply of labour
1:11:48.120,1:11:50.619
more quickly than its demand for workers.
1:11:50.619,1:11:57.619
The over-work of the employed part of the working class swells the ranks of its reserve…
1:11:57.800,1:12:02.010
The condemnation of one part of the working class to enforced idleness by the over-work
1:12:02.010,1:12:06.469
of the other part, and vice versa, becomes a means of enriching the individual capitalists,
1:12:06.469,1:12:09.479
and accelerates at the same time the production of the industrial reserve army on a
1:12:09.479,1:12:13.339
scale corresponding with the progress of social accumulation.”
1:12:13.339,1:12:19.570
Now, there's a very interesting thing that's been going on over the last 30 years,
1:12:19.570,1:12:23.739
which is we've seen extensive structural unemployment,
1:12:23.739,1:12:28.849
at the same time as the existing employed working class,
1:12:28.849,1:12:35.849
in many instances has been forced to do over-time,
1:12:36.119,1:12:40.929
has been forced by the threat of unemployment
1:12:40.929,1:12:44.300
to intensify their efforts.
1:12:44.300,1:12:46.659
So in other words,
1:12:46.659,1:12:51.909
this mechanism of capital is not simply about
1:12:51.909,1:12:54.780
unemploying people,
1:12:54.780,1:13:03.170
it's also about exercising a political power over the workers.
1:13:10.039,1:13:18.599
The result, he says (p.790), is that the general movement of wages in turn
1:13:18.599,1:13:22.969
“are exclusively regulated by the expansion and contraction of the industrial reserve army,
1:13:22.969,1:13:32.309
and this in turn corresponds to the periodic alternations of the industrial cycle.”
1:13:32.309,1:13:36.619
On p.792 in the middle:
1:13:36.619,1:13:40.719
“The industrial reserve army, during the periods of stagnation and average prosperity, weighs down
1:13:40.719,1:13:44.370
the active army of workers;
1:13:44.370,1:13:49.599
during the periods of over-production and feverish activity, it puts a curb on their pretensions.
1:13:49.599,1:13:53.510
The relative surplus population is therefore the background against which the law of the demand
1:13:53.510,1:13:55.719
and supply of labour does its work.
1:13:55.719,1:14:00.829
It confines the field of action of this law to the limits absolutely convenient to capital's drive
1:14:00.829,1:14:04.489
to exploit and dominate the workers.”
1:14:04.489,1:14:06.259
Here we're taking up
1:14:06.259,1:14:09.930
the idea of technological change,
1:14:09.930,1:14:12.749
organizational changes, as a weapon of class struggle
1:14:12.749,1:14:14.110
with a vengeance.
1:14:14.110,1:14:16.269
You've come across it
1:14:16.269,1:14:21.229
in the chapter on machinery.
1:14:21.229,1:14:25.399
and the oddity of this, he then remarks on p.793,
1:14:25.399,1:14:29.889
is that “The demand for labour is not identical with increase of capital,
1:14:29.889,1:14:32.979
nor is supply of labour identical with increase of the working class.
1:14:32.979,1:14:37.460
It is not a case of two independent forces working on each other.
1:14:37.460,1:14:40.760
Capital acts on both sides at once.”
1:14:40.760,1:14:44.719
Capital, in fact, controls the demand for labour,
1:14:44.719,1:14:48.469
at the same time as it also controls the supply
1:14:48.469,1:14:51.530
of a surplus population,
1:14:51.530,1:14:58.530
a relative surplus population, an industrial reserve army.
1:14:58.929,1:15:02.780
He then goes on to say: "If its accumulation on the one hand increases the demand for labour,
1:15:02.780,1:15:03.949
it increases on the other hand
1:15:03.949,1:15:07.849
the supply of workers by 'setting them free',
1:15:07.849,1:15:10.549
while at the same time the pressure of the unemployed compels those
1:15:10.549,1:15:12.949
who are employed to furnish more labour,
1:15:12.949,1:15:19.949
and therefore makes the supply of labour to a certain extent independent of the supply of workers.
1:15:21.440,1:15:24.320
The movement of the law of supply and demand of labour on this basis completes
1:15:25.320,1:15:27.219
the despotism of capital.”
1:15:29.219,1:15:32.010
Capital works on both sides,
1:15:32.010,1:15:37.610
it has control of both sides.
1:15:37.610,1:15:39.119
The answer, of course,
1:15:39.119,1:15:42.140
is for workers to organize, so Marx here,
1:15:42.140,1:15:45.889
for the first time introduces the idea
1:15:45.889,1:15:49.969
of trade-unions and labour organization.
1:15:49.969,1:15:53.780
“as soon as the workers learn the secret of why it happens that the more they work,
1:15:53.780,1:15:55.979
the more alien wealth they produce,
1:15:55.979,1:16:00.249
and that the more the productivity of their labour increases, the more does their very function
1:16:00.249,1:16:04.059
as a means for the valorization of capital become precarious…
1:16:04.059,1:16:08.949
…as soon as, by setting up trade unions, etc., they try to organize planned co-operation
1:16:08.949,1:16:11.369
between the employed and the unemployed
1:16:11.369,1:16:15.579
in order to obviate or to weaken the ruinous effects of this natural law of capitalist production
1:16:15.579,1:16:16.579
on their class,
1:16:16.579,1:16:20.630
so soon does capital and its sycophant, political economy, cry out
1:16:20.630,1:16:25.400
at the infringement of the 'eternal' and so to speak 'sacred' law of supply and demand.
1:16:27.630,1:16:34.059
Every combination between employed and unemployed disturbs the 'pure' action of this law.”
1:16:34.059,1:16:40.460
Then Marx introduces the idea of colonies and so on,
1:16:40.460,1:16:49.110
"…will prevent the creation of an industrial reserve army…”
1:16:50.340,1:16:52.459
So the point here is that,
1:16:52.459,1:16:55.679
in this model of accumulation,
1:16:55.679,1:17:01.639
what we see is the utilization of capital's command over
1:17:01.639,1:17:04.860
organizational forms and technologies,
1:17:04.860,1:17:06.679
centralization,
1:17:06.679,1:17:08.940
new technological forms,
1:17:08.940,1:17:10.339
organizational forms,
1:17:10.339,1:17:12.739
as a weapon in class struggle
1:17:12.739,1:17:20.409
which actually regulates both the demand and supply of labour.
1:17:20.409,1:17:21.959
This is, if you like
1:17:21.959,1:17:25.739
the more sophisticated version
1:17:25.739,1:17:28.889
of the model of capital accumulation
1:17:28.889,1:17:31.150
which Marx constructs.
1:17:31.150,1:17:34.619
And as we'll see in the next section,
1:17:34.619,1:17:38.179
this leads him to the construction of production
1:17:38.179,1:17:45.179
of a relative surplus population, so Marx then talks about that.
1:17:45.689,1:17:48.909
But I'd just like to pause here and ask if you've got any kind of questions
1:17:48.909,1:17:53.409
about these two models and the bit in between about
1:17:53.409,1:17:59.989
organic, and value, and technical composition.
1:17:59.989,1:18:03.989
Or is it all clear?
1:18:05.989,1:18:10.339
» STUDENT: You said that there could be some factors that go against
1:18:10.339,1:18:12.339
the idea of a falling rate of profit?
1:18:12.339,1:18:15.570
» HARVEY: Well, one would be, for example, a pattern of
1:18:15.570,1:18:18.459
technological change which is capital saving,
1:18:18.459,1:18:22.520
which is not labour saving at all, but capital saving.
1:18:22.520,1:18:28.010
I.e: the means of production become cheaper faster.
1:18:28.010,1:18:32.610
Out of that comes…
1:18:32.610,1:18:37.620
Marx mentions foreign trade, and while he doesn't mention the word 'imperialism',
1:18:37.620,1:18:43.309
you could also introduce into this, imperialist domination
1:18:43.309,1:18:49.340
of raw material sources to make them extremely cheap,
1:18:49.340,1:18:50.690
so that
1:18:50.690,1:18:57.690
raw materials become cheaper and cheaper and cheaper because of imperialist domination.
1:19:01.529,1:19:06.429
As I already mentioned, there are patterns of technological change,
1:19:06.429,1:19:10.039
which would not give you a rising organic composition of capital at all,
1:19:10.039,1:19:11.939
but a stable organic composition of capital,
1:19:11.939,1:19:16.799
and in certain instances you might even get a declining organic composition of capital.
1:19:16.799,1:19:23.369
It really depends upon what kind of technological change you're talking about.
1:19:23.369,1:19:27.999
Now, I think there's no question that Marx' intuition that a lot of
1:19:27.999,1:19:31.339
capitalist technological change is about labour-saving,
1:19:31.339,1:19:33.190
is correct.
1:19:33.190,1:19:34.530
And to the degree that it
1:19:34.530,1:19:38.999
is biased towards labour saving, it would indeed produce
1:19:38.999,1:19:42.590
some of the difficulties that Marx is pointing to,
1:19:42.590,1:19:46.249
but there's no necessity for that,
1:19:46.249,1:19:48.869
you could imagine something else. In other words,
1:19:48.869,1:19:52.979
there are people who now would argue that actually you can set up a dynamic model
1:19:52.979,1:19:54.669
of this kind
1:19:54.669,1:19:58.389
with a pattern of technological change which is
1:19:58.389,1:20:00.519
going to equilibrate the system,
1:20:05.099,1:20:07.579
and give you a stable rate of profit over time.
1:20:07.579,1:20:13.689
The difficulty is to define exactly what the pattern of technological changes is that does that.
1:20:13.689,1:20:19.429
And so people talk for example about a knife-edge,
1:20:19.429,1:20:22.719
the appropriate technological change which is going to keep you in balance, you move too far
1:20:22.719,1:20:24.480
in one direction,
1:20:24.480,1:20:26.090
you get a crisis
1:20:26.090,1:20:29.409
of the sort that Marx is talking about,
you move to far in the other direction,
1:20:29.409,1:20:35.199
you've got another kind of crisis.
1:20:35.199,1:20:38.290
And in any case,
1:20:38.290,1:20:43.639
don't forget the assumptions we started out with,
1:20:43.639,1:20:49.520
for instance, if there is a serious problem in the market
1:20:49.520,1:20:51.899
then you may want to employ more workers and
1:20:51.899,1:20:57.809
you might want to give them more purchasing power because they've become an important part
1:20:57.809,1:21:04.570
of the consumerism that is going to mob up the surplus-value.
1:21:04.570,1:21:08.209
We ruled that out by assumption,
1:21:08.209,1:21:11.929
so far, we assume that's not a problem, but you see that could
1:21:11.929,1:21:14.129
indeed be a problem,
1:21:14.129,1:21:17.639
in which case you wouldn't want to go this way anyway.
1:21:17.639,1:21:21.480
The social system would have to go in another direction, that is to try to
1:21:21.480,1:21:24.060
employ more workers,
1:21:24.060,1:21:28.000
as a way of consuming the capitalist product,
1:21:28.000,1:21:34.409
otherwise you got a problem of
1:21:34.409,1:21:38.229
to whom do capitalists market their product?
1:21:38.229,1:21:41.389
Actually, it's very interesting,
1:21:41.389,1:21:42.849
Marx himself
1:21:42.849,1:21:48.440
at various points, both in the Grundrisse
and in Volume 3 of Capital, talks about
1:21:48.440,1:21:49.849
counter-acting influences,
1:21:51.299,1:21:54.070
and he changes his language in Volume 3:
1:21:54.070,1:21:57.019
The falling rate of profit goes from being a law,
1:21:57.019,1:21:59.050
to being a law of a tendency,
1:21:59.050,1:22:02.800
to being a tendency.
1:22:02.800,1:22:06.559
So, you see he's beginning
1:22:06.559,1:22:08.849
to see that there may be some problems with it.
1:22:08.849,1:22:10.289
And at various points,
1:22:10.289,1:22:12.620
both in Capital and the Grundrisse, he talks about
1:22:12.620,1:22:15.150
the factors that can offset
1:22:15.150,1:22:19.049
the law of the tendency of the falling rate of profit.
1:22:19.049,1:22:23.660
And by the time to go through all of those factors, you say to yourself 'well,
1:22:23.660,1:22:26.349
if you add all of these up,
1:22:26.349,1:22:30.619
this law of the falling rate of profit is no law,
1:22:30.619,1:22:34.119
it's a tendency which you can see there, it has
1:22:34.119,1:22:38.059
elements of truth to it but
1:22:38.059,1:22:41.329
you can't call it a mechanical law,
1:22:41.329,1:22:46.169
and it's very dangerous, i think, to do that.
1:22:46.169,1:22:50.059
And after all, if Marx was correct
1:22:50.059,1:22:50.719
in saying that there's
1:22:50.719,1:22:56.869
a law of rising organic composition of capital,
1:22:56.869,1:23:00.300
and there's a falling rate of profit, we should have been having a falling rate of profit since
1:23:00.300,1:23:03.389
1850 at least.
1:23:03.389,1:23:07.089
And we should be closer and closer to zero, but we are not closer and closer to zero,
1:23:07.089,1:23:08.530
we plainly are not.
1:23:08.530,1:23:11.469
And this is then one of the things
1:23:11.469,1:23:18.469
he mentions, is opening up new sectors of production which are labour intensive.
1:23:19.179,1:23:21.060
Now think of that.
1:23:21.060,1:23:25.010
Think about what global capitalism has been doing,
1:23:25.010,1:23:27.640
a lot of the sectors of production which have opened up
1:23:27.640,1:23:31.469
has been labour intensive,
1:23:31.469,1:23:34.109
and in fact the proletariat has increased
1:23:34.109,1:23:38.019
by about two billion people over the last thirty years.
1:23:38.019,1:23:40.139
China,
1:23:40.139,1:23:41.999
Indonesia, so
1:23:41.999,1:23:47.209
new lines of production have opened up, many of which are labour intensive.
1:23:47.209,1:23:51.090
And actually, interestingly, in China
1:23:51.090,1:23:56.139
they're even in some instances dismantling these new technologies,
1:23:56.139,1:24:00.389
which are highly capital-intensive because they're so expensive.
1:24:00.389,1:24:04.530
They can buy these new technologies from the United States, very expensive,
1:24:04.530,1:24:06.280
which are labour saving,
1:24:06.280,1:24:09.869
or they can actually reinvent the production process
1:24:09.869,1:24:11.429
which is labour-intensive.
1:24:11.429,1:24:14.179
And in many instances they've done that, they've gone back to labour intensive,
1:24:14.179,1:24:15.179
and say 'why should we
1:24:15.179,1:24:18.019
buy this expensive piece of machinery,
1:24:18.019,1:24:19.749
when we have
1:24:19.749,1:24:26.590
these incredible available labour resources around?
1:24:26.590,1:24:28.300
Which then, by the way,
1:24:28.300,1:24:31.420
brings back one point of limitation on this
1:24:31.420,1:24:33.969
new technology stuff,
1:24:33.969,1:24:35.409
can you remember
1:24:35.409,1:24:42.409
what it is that puts a limitation on the employment of new machines?
1:24:43.299,1:24:46.690
STUDENT: Not until everyone catches up and gets…
HARVEY: Well, yes, but the other
1:24:46.690,1:24:47.940
is that the machine,
1:24:47.940,1:24:53.739
the value of the machine has to be less than the labour that's saved by it.
1:24:53.739,1:24:57.550
So, when you get to the point where the demand for labour
1:24:57.550,1:24:59.790
and
1:24:59.790,1:25:05.510
the wage rate has gone down so much because you have such a massive surplus population,
1:25:05.510,1:25:10.989
at some point or other there's no point in
1:25:10.989,1:25:13.839
continuing technological innovation.
1:25:13.839,1:25:16.849
So -that- cycle will go on until such point,
1:25:16.849,1:25:19.119
as you remember the case in Britain,
1:25:19.119,1:25:22.589
which did not employ the technologies which was employed in the United States because
1:25:22.589,1:25:26.259
there was such a surplus of labour in Britain, that it didn't make
1:25:26.259,1:25:28.999
economic sense to employ those technologies.
1:25:28.999,1:25:33.139
So what you may get is a situation where you produce such a surplus of population
1:25:33.139,1:25:35.889
at a given place,
1:25:35.889,1:25:41.819
that therefore there's no incentive for technological innovation, and you go back, in effect,
1:25:41.819,1:25:47.579
you switch back into this model 1 situation.
1:25:47.579,1:25:50.849
So again there are many situations where
1:25:50.849,1:25:55.059
you can imagine this,
1:25:55.059,1:26:01.639
if you emphasize the fluid possibilities of this,
1:26:01.639,1:26:08.479
and that's why this language of a law strikes me as a bit odd. Marx
1:26:08.479,1:26:12.879
generally speaking is always talking about the fluidity and the process
1:26:12.879,1:26:15.319
and the capacity. And then
1:26:15.319,1:26:17.170
turned up with
1:26:17.170,1:26:21.110
a pretty rigid statement about the law of rising organic composition of capital as he
1:26:21.110,1:26:22.079
does here.
1:26:22.079,1:26:24.840
He clearly thought
1:26:24.840,1:26:27.869
that he'd cracked the problem
1:26:27.869,1:26:31.099
of the falling rate of profit.
1:26:31.099,1:26:35.340
And that was to come in Volume Three of Capital,
1:26:35.340,1:26:36.829
and he felt
1:26:36.829,1:26:42.139
it very important to insert into Volume One of Capital his arguments about organic
1:26:42.139,1:26:47.030
value composition and technical composition, as a foundation for the Volume 3 argument.
1:26:47.030,1:26:50.530
He never completed the Volume 3 argument,
1:26:50.530,1:26:54.969
it's a bit all over the place and as i've suggested to you, the language there switches from
1:26:54.969,1:26:57.320
law to law of a tendency to tendency,
1:26:57.320,1:27:03.389
and in any case, there are all these counteracting forces which exist.
1:27:03.389,1:27:08.359
But I think as always with Marx, he's onto something which is important
1:27:08.359,1:27:13.559
by the way he has voiced it here is in this seemingly rigid
1:27:13.559,1:27:19.550
form which as many subsequent
1:27:19.550,1:27:23.559
theorists have suggested, doesn't really work.
1:27:26.209,1:27:30.139
And these kinds of models by the way have now being worked out mathematically,
1:27:30.139,1:27:31.559
so if you want
1:27:31.559,1:27:37.170
a good mathematical version of all of this, you go read somebody like Morishima,
1:27:37.170,1:27:39.710
'Marx's economics'.
1:27:39.710,1:27:42.799
Morishima is a first-rate mathematician,
1:27:42.799,1:27:46.739
and works all these things out mathematically, and basically says: there are instances
1:27:46.739,1:27:49.329
where a falling rate of profit could occur,
1:27:49.329,1:27:53.619
but there are plenty of instances where it won't.
1:27:53.619,1:27:59.599
But what Morishima emphasizes is the destabilizing role of technological change.
1:27:59.599,1:28:02.449
Which I think is right.
1:28:02.449,1:28:05.190
and if you look at our own society and we look at
1:28:05.190,1:28:08.069
the patterns of technological change,
1:28:08.069,1:28:11.389
and its relationship to worker control,
1:28:11.389,1:28:14.199
and the production of a relative surplus population and
1:28:14.199, 1:28:16.199
the role that that relative surplus population
1:28:16.199,1:28:17.019
has played,
1:28:17.019,1:28:18.839
say in Europe in particular,
1:28:18.839,1:28:22.519
has been particularly strong.
1:28:22.519,1:28:27.650
I mean, the structural unemployment in Europe is going on now for about twenty years,
1:28:28.860,1:28:33.540
and this is one of the ways in which you try to discipline the labour force all of the time,
1:28:33.540,1:28:35.260
hasn't worked too well,
1:28:35.260,1:28:38.360
but that's part of the dynamics of it.
1:28:38.360,1:28:40.749
In this country, of course, we've had
1:28:40.749,1:28:45.659
no need for that, the dynamics have gone on,
1:28:45.659,1:28:49.320
the insecurity generated amongst the working-class,
1:28:49.320,1:28:58.780
labour organization has not been that strong, labour organizations being effectively minimized,
1:28:58.780,1:29:04.239
the powers of technological change are not resisted,
1:29:04.239,1:29:07.380
and so capitalists can pretty much have it their own way,
1:29:07.380,1:29:11.569
and in addition if they can't have it their own way here, they go to China or
1:29:11.569,1:29:13.820
maquila zones or whatever.
1:29:13.820,1:29:17.080
But again, I think it's very important to recognize,
1:29:17.080,1:29:19.999
i think i mentioned this before,
1:29:19.999,1:29:28.300
that one of the biggest sources of insecurity in the labour force
1:29:28.300,1:29:35.300
and loss of jobs in this country is technological change, not outsourcing.
1:29:36.019,1:29:38.840
So, again, I think Marx is correct
1:29:38.840,1:29:42.650
very much to talk about the power of technological change
1:29:42.650,1:29:46.199
to structure an industrial reserve-army,
1:29:46.199,1:29:48.420
and create an industrial-reserve army,
1:29:48.420,1:29:58.010
and to put pressures on workers so that they don't create a problem.
1:29:58.010,1:30:00.859
As we've seen over the last 30 years,
1:30:00.859,1:30:03.469
capitalists have not shared with the workers any
1:30:03.469,1:30:09.730
of the gains that have been had from rising productivity, capitalists have taken it all.
1:30:09.730,1:30:15.840
Workers essentially won nothing
1:30:15.840,1:30:19.679
in terms of the benefits that come from rising productivity, which was not true in
1:30:19.679,1:30:25.369
the 1950s-60s, was not even true in the 1920s.
1:30:25.369,1:30:28.540
So that, this is a very unique period in
1:30:28.540,1:30:38.829
US history where none of those gains have been shared.
1:30:42.469,1:30:48.599
Ok, so if there are no more questions, lets go on to look at section 4.
1:30:48.599,1:30:51.879
We get three forms of
1:30:51.879,1:30:53.639
an industrial reserve army:
1:30:53.639,1:30:58.919
floating, the latent and the stagnant.
1:31:03.400,1:31:10.400
The floating, essentially are
1:31:11.210,1:31:15.760
workers who've been fully proletarianized,
1:31:15.760,1:31:22.590
fully integrated into the commodification of labour-power
1:31:22.590,1:31:29.230
and have been employed but were thrown out by these
1:31:29.230,1:31:34.210
waves of technological innovation which create unemployment.
1:31:34.210,1:31:38.699
They are people who are in the workforce and out of the workforce, depending upon
1:31:38.699,1:31:41.959
the industrial cycle.
1:31:41.959,1:31:47.619
They are typically registered as unemployed,
1:31:47.619,1:31:50.150
people seeking employment,
1:31:50.150,1:31:53.690
who've got unemployed.
1:31:53.690,1:31:56.170
So you can get a measure of the floating population in this country
1:31:56.170,1:31:58.940
by looking at data on the unemployed,
1:31:58.940,1:32:03.920
the data is not that great,
1:32:03.920,1:32:07.519
and the category of the 'discouraged worker' ought to be in there,
1:32:07.519,1:32:09.229
as well, which is
1:32:09.229,1:32:14.139
workers who have just given up trying to get a job.
1:32:14.139,1:32:17.840
So, you've got a floating population.
1:32:17.840,1:32:22.449
The latent population
1:32:22.449,1:32:29.449
are groups in the population who have not yet been fully proletarianized.
1:32:29.639,1:32:37.889
Marx frequently mentions the way in which women and children were drawn into
1:32:37.889,1:32:40.749
the labour force.
1:32:40.749,1:32:47.599
In his time one of the biggest reserves was of course the peasant, agrarian population
1:32:47.599,1:32:51.119
increasingly thrown off the land.
1:32:51.119,1:32:53.640
And that has not gone away,
1:32:53.640,1:32:56.530
if you look at
1:32:56.530,1:33:01.019
Mexico or India and so on, you'll find an agrarian population that's increasingly being forced off
1:33:01.019,1:33:05.449
the land into the cities as a latent reserve.
1:33:05.449,1:33:11.250
Now, the point about the latent reserve is they have to be mobilized in some way.
1:33:11.250,1:33:14.729
By what processes are they going to be mobilized?
1:33:14.729,1:33:18.409
But there are other latent reserves also,
1:33:18.409,1:33:23.570
there is the petit-bourgeoisie, an independent petit-bourgeoisie.
1:33:23.570,1:33:27.669
An artisan and self-employed population
1:33:27.669,1:33:33.070
that can be forced into the labour force.
1:33:33.070,1:33:38.480
So that, when we start to talk about latent reserves,
1:33:38.480,1:33:47.169
we're talking about a wide range of population possibilities.
1:33:47.169,1:33:54.859
And as soon as we start to think of it geographically,
1:33:54.859,1:33:56.689
then we would say,
1:33:56.689,1:34:03.080
the floating reserve is usually around where capital is,
1:34:03.080,1:34:08.639
the latent reserve is all over the world and can be mobilized.
1:34:08.639,1:34:14.260
In the 19th century you would mobilize coolie labour and take it to South-Africa,
1:34:14.260,1:34:17.090
Fiji or whatever.
1:34:17.090,1:34:23.590
You'd mobilize Indian labour and take it to Trinidad,
1:34:23.590,1:34:27.400
those kinds of things. So the surplus population can be
1:34:27.400,1:34:35.179
global, and increasingly we saw them within Europe,
1:34:35.179,1:34:42.379
in the late 1960s, there was a labour shortage in Europe, and labour was well-organized,
1:34:42.379,1:34:44.679
strongly unionized,
1:34:44.679,1:34:50.559
socialist parties, communist parties,
1:34:50.559,1:34:54.570
and how was the shortage of labour addressed? Well, the French government
1:34:54.570,1:35:03.090
went out and organized a massive importation of labour from the Maghreb.
1:35:03.090,1:35:06.909
This was official government policy in the 1970s,
1:35:06.909,1:35:13.820
they brought them into the car industry and many other areas,
1:35:13.820,1:35:18.479
Maghrebians came into the factories,
1:35:18.479,1:35:21.880
it was a the government policy, which of course it's not anymore,
1:35:21.880,1:35:24.880
now they want to send them back (!)
1:35:24.880,1:35:30.619
but at that time there was a mobilization of this labour-surplus
1:35:30.619,1:35:33.059
from the Maghreb. And look at
1:35:33.059,1:35:37.209
the incredible significance of Mexico
1:35:37.209,1:35:41.449
to the economy of this country, in terms of the labour surplus in Mexico.
1:35:41.449,1:35:44.400
And it's not only in Mexico it's elsewhere, much of Latin-America,
1:35:44.400,1:35:47.400
but the Mexican labour-surplus
1:35:47.400,1:35:52.719
is absolutely crucial as a threat against American labour.
1:35:52.719,1:35:56.630
But also, it has to be mobilized, which is why all this stuff about immigration is getting
1:35:56.630,1:36:01.860
so interesting, because the more you
keep Mexican labour out, the less
1:36:01.860,1:36:06.699
the threat that labour surplus becomes,
1:36:06.699,1:36:10.500
and if you really shut it all out,
1:36:10.500,1:36:16.250
and we already see in agribusiness they're already hurting, they haven't got the labour-surplus.
1:36:16.250,1:36:20.780
Strawberries are rotting in the fields and apples aren't being picked of the trees because
1:36:20.780,1:36:25.439
the labour surplus isn't available.
1:36:25.439,1:36:29.449
Immigration stuff is there.
1:36:29.449,1:36:33.969
So the whole question of 'where is the labour surplus?'
1:36:33.969,1:36:38.369
and how it is mobilized,
1:36:38.369,1:36:40.939
the history of
1:36:40.939,1:36:45.909
where that latent surplus is and how it gets mobilized in relationship to the dynamics
1:36:45.909,1:36:53.769
of capital accumulation, is in itself a very fascinating history.
1:36:53.769,1:36:57.789
Countries like Sweden maintain full employment, and everybody says see:
1:36:57.789,1:36:59.739
you can have full employment,
1:36:59.739,1:37:05.780
in a country like Sweden and this, what Marx is talking about, doesn't work.
1:37:05.780,1:37:11.369
And the answer to that is: there are all these labourers coming from
1:37:11.369,1:37:14.699
Yugoslavia, Turkey, etc.
1:37:14.699,1:37:19.399
There was a labour-surplus available to the Swedes and they used it,
1:37:19.399,1:37:23.249
both as labour-control but also as
1:37:23.249,1:37:26.179
the necessary labour-surplus in order to fuel
1:37:26.179,1:37:31.940
accumulation of capital.
1:37:31.940,1:37:36.179
Now, the latent category…
1:37:36.179,1:37:39.900
or rather stagnant category,
1:37:39.900,1:37:45.170
is different from the latent,
1:37:45.170,1:37:48.360
in many way it's…
1:37:48.360,1:37:52.280
Marx says of it, this is about…
1:37:52.280,1:37:54.879
he's not very kind to groups of this sort
1:37:54.879,1:37:57.159
this is the lumpenproletariat,
1:37:57.159,1:38:01.750
the almost unemployable population.
1:38:01.750,1:38:08.109
In some cases you can have sympathy, because as he says, this is the hospital
1:38:08.109,1:38:12.280
of the reserve army.
1:38:12.280,1:38:15.920
And they're people who are so destroyed
1:38:15.920,1:38:19.820
mentally or physically, that it's very hard to mobilize them
1:38:19.820,1:38:22.489
into the population. You can in extremis,
1:38:25.139,1:38:30.459
I guess it's what William Julius Wilson liked to call the 'underclass',
1:38:30.459,1:38:32.219
a term I don't like,
1:38:32.219,1:38:36.479
anymore than I like the term 'lumpenproletariat', but what Marx is talking about is that
1:38:36.479,1:38:40.839
there's a group in the population that has
1:38:40.839,1:38:46.699
been in the proletariat but which can no longer function,
1:38:46.699,1:38:57.920
for a variety of reasons, as part of that proletariat.
1:38:57.920,1:39:06.349
This then leads into the production of pauperism,
1:39:09.819,1:39:12.719
and as he says on p.798:
1:39:12.719,1:39:15.290
“The more extensive, finally,
1:39:15.290,1:39:19.330
the pauperized sections of the working class and the industrial reserve army,
1:39:19.330,1:39:26.150
the greater is official pauperism. This is the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation.”
1:39:26.150,1:39:28.389
Again this is strong language,
1:39:28.389,1:39:33.469
"the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation",
1:39:33.469,1:39:36.090
but then of course,
1:39:36.090,1:39:37.580
he introduces his modifier:
1:39:37.580,1:39:40.580
“like all other laws it is modified in its working by many circumstances,
1:39:40.580,1:39:43.969
the analysis of which does not concern us here.”
1:39:43.969,1:39:52.809
Nevertheless, it's a very strong statement but its got its modifier.
1:39:52.809,1:39:56.880
So, “The first word of this adaptation is the creation of a relative surplus population,
1:39:56.880,1:39:59.139
or industrial reserve army.
1:39:59.139,1:40:05.970
Its last word is the misery of constantly expanding strata of the active army of labour,
1:40:05.970,1:40:12.709
and the dead weight of pauperism.”
1:40:12.709,1:40:16.369
He says right at the bottom: “We saw in Part IV, when analysing the production of relative
1:40:16.369,1:40:19.419
surplus-value,
1:40:19.419,1:40:24.549
that within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productivity of labour
1:40:24.549,1:40:29.550
are put into effect at the cost of the individual worker;
1:40:29.550,1:40:33.940
that all means for the development of production undergo a dialectical inversion
1:40:33.940,1:40:38.350
so that they become means of domination and exploitation of the producers;
1:40:38.350,1:40:42.139
they distort the worker into a fragment of a man,
1:40:42.139,1:40:45.480
they degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine,
1:40:45.480,1:40:50.219
they destroy the actual content of his labour by turning it into a torment;
1:40:50.219,1:40:52.789
they alienate [entfremden] from him
1:40:52.789,1:40:55.479
the intellectual potentialities of the labour process
1:40:55.479,1:41:01.149
in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power;
1:41:01.149,1:41:04.179
they deform the conditions under which he works,
1:41:04.179,1:41:08.629
subject him during the labour process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness;
1:41:08.629,1:41:12.729
they transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife and child
1:41:12.729,1:41:15.449
beneath the wheels of the juggernaut of capital.
1:41:15.449,1:41:18.369
But all methods for the production of surplus-value are at the same time
1:41:18.369,1:41:20.369
methods of accumulation,
1:41:20.369,1:41:23.459
and every extension of accumulation becomes, conversely,
1:41:23.459,1:41:26.459
a means for the development of those methods.
1:41:26.459,1:41:30.260
It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates,
1:41:30.260,1:41:36.269
the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse.
1:41:36.269,1:41:38.629
Finally, the law which always holds the relative surplus population
1:41:38.629,1:41:41.629
or industrial reserve army in equilibrium
1:41:41.629,1:41:46.429
with the extent and energy of accumulation rivets the worker to capital more firmly
1:41:46.429,1:41:50.529
than the wedges of Hephaestus held Prometheus to the rock.
1:41:50.529,1:41:58.369
It makes an accumulation of misery a necessary condition,
1:41:58.369,1:42:03.489
corresponding to the accumulation of wealth.
1:42:03.489,1:42:07.989
Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery,
1:42:07.989,1:42:14.989
the torment of labour, slavery, ignorance, brutalization and moral degradation at the opposite pole,
1:42:15.079,1:42:26.409
i.e. on the side of the class that produces its own product as capital.”
1:42:28.909,1:42:31.479
This is of course the famous thesis
1:42:31.479,1:42:36.579
of the increasing immiseration of the proletariat,
1:42:36.579,1:42:44.280
which is a necessary condition of capitalist accumulation.
1:42:44.280,1:42:47.829
And you'll find people saying immediately: 'well that's not true, let's face it,
1:42:47.829,1:42:52.840
the working-class in this country is much better off than it was a 100 years ago.
1:42:52.840,1:42:59.389
And yeah, okay some of this stuff may be going on in China, Bangladesh, Indonesia etc.
1:42:59.389,1:43:04.310
but let's face it: there has been progress, for many of the workers of the world,
1:43:04.310,1:43:10.559
even when they weren't particularly united'.
1:43:10.559,1:43:13.039
So, this is one of Marx his
1:43:13.039,1:43:16.999
predictions, if you want to call it that, or statements,
1:43:16.999,1:43:21.329
which is often used
1:43:21.329,1:43:24.650
both in a dogmatic way on the part of some marxists, who say
1:43:24.650,1:43:28.530
'see this is what capitalism is bound to do',
1:43:28.530,1:43:30.550
and an equally dogmatic way by a lot of non-marxists
1:43:30.550,1:43:32.750
who say 'well this is what Marx says is bound to happen,
1:43:32.750,1:43:38.929
it didn't happen that way'.
1:43:38.929,1:43:45.050
I think here again it's very important to go back to the assumptions,
1:43:45.050,1:43:49.810
this statement is a statement which is contingent upon
1:43:49.810,1:43:55.219
the dynamics of accumulations as Marx has set this up.
1:43:55.219,1:43:57.959
This is Volume One of Capital,
1:43:57.959,1:44:02.610
we are simply looking at the dynamics of production,
1:44:02.610,1:44:07.829
what goes on within the realm of production
1:44:07.829,1:44:12.929
and within the realm of capital accumulation.
1:44:12.929,1:44:24.739
From that standpoint what we will find is that, at the end of Volume Two,
1:44:24.739,1:44:26.670
Marx will start to talk about
1:44:26.670,1:44:32.590
the problems of effective demand,
1:44:32.590,1:44:38.940
and that the only way which the effective demand problem could be solved
1:44:38.940,1:44:45.940
is by “rational consumption on the part of the working-class”.
1:44:46.510,1:44:52.669
And he means by “rational consumption on the part of the working-class”, two things.
1:44:52.669,1:44:56.679
First, that the working class should have sufficient resources
1:44:56.679,1:45:04.159
available to be able to consume the goods that capitalists produce,
1:45:04.159,1:45:09.340
and secondly, the working class will have acquired the consumption habits
1:45:09.340,1:45:17.099
whereby it will utilize its money incomes
1:45:17.099,1:45:23.409
in ways which fit with the dynamic of accumulation.
1:45:23.409,1:45:27.520
So at the end of Volume 2 we find bourgeois philanthropy is going in
1:45:27.520,1:45:30.709
and teaching the working class how to consume right.
1:45:30.709,1:45:34.949
So they can have a rational consumption from the standpoint
1:45:34.949,1:45:38.780
of the dynamics of accumulation process.
1:45:38.780,1:45:44.499
So the end of Volume 2 gives you a completely different story to this one.
1:45:44.499,1:45:49.739
This one says, if capitalism worked like this,
1:45:49.739,1:45:52.039
just like this,
1:45:52.039,1:45:57.019
then what what you get? You would get this.
1:45:57.019,1:46:01.399
Can we see some of this going on in the world economy?
1:46:01.399,1:46:05.409
The answer is 'yes'.
1:46:05.409,1:46:11.229
You go to China, or Indonesia or Bangladesh
1:46:11.229,1:46:13.899
and you'll see it,
1:46:13.899,1:46:17.869
appalling conditions of exploitation
1:46:17.869,1:46:22.449
you see people being forced off the land, forced into the cities
1:46:22.449,1:46:26.519
the latent reserves are being mobilized all over the place
1:46:26.519,1:46:28.789
by all kinds of mechanisms.
1:46:28.789,1:46:33.570
So yes, you'll see the latent reserves being mobilized.
1:46:33.570,1:46:35.659
And indeed you will see
1:46:35.659,1:46:42.659
agony and toil, and indeed you will see the accumulation of wealth at one pole,
1:46:43.260,1:46:48.119
right now I don't think anybody would deny that capitalism is about the accumulation of wealth,
1:46:48.119,1:46:53.319
at that pole, and there's huge accumulation of wealth going on.
1:46:53.319,1:46:57.949
But where is the production going on that backs up that huge accumulation of wealth
1:46:57.949,1:47:04.379
and what are the conditions of labour which exist?
1:47:04.379,1:47:09.369
Well, you can find out,
1:47:09.369,1:47:16.369
NGOs that have reports and Oxfam and others have reports on this sort of thing.
1:47:17.729,1:47:21.279
Labor organizations have reports on this kind of thing, you'll find reports of this sort
1:47:21.279,1:47:25.909
in UN reports and so on.
1:47:25.909,1:47:28.909
So, yes indeed, the accumulation of wealth at one pole,
1:47:28.909,1:47:32.909
and accumulation of misery at the other pole.
1:47:33.599,1:47:36.500
In many respects over the last thirty years
1:47:36.500,1:47:39.070
the accumulation of wealth at
1:47:39.070,1:47:43.649
one pole has gone astronomically high,
1:47:43.649,1:47:47.119
and the accumulation of misery at the other end has
1:47:47.119,1:47:49.989
gone very much in the other direction.
1:47:49.989,1:47:54.179
In other words, in many respects,
1:47:54.179,1:47:58.880
whereas in the 1950s-60s when you had strong labour organizations
1:47:58.880,1:48:03.199
and social democratic parties and
1:48:03.199,1:48:06.199
see a lot of political pressure
1:48:06.199,1:48:09.449
on the consumer side and all the rest of it,
1:48:09.449,1:48:13.419
you'd argue that in aggregate,
1:48:13.419,1:48:18.889
the whole question of rational consumption was crucial
1:48:18.889,1:48:21.090
to get the people to consume automobiles.
1:48:21.090,1:48:26.079
How do you do that? You build cities where the only way you can get around is with automobiles,
1:48:26.079,1:48:29.379
things of that sort.
1:48:29.379,1:48:33.679
which means that workers have to have money to buy automobiles
1:48:33.679,1:48:37.929
and buy the gasoline and all the things that go with it.
1:48:37.929,1:48:40.770
So, indeed,
1:48:40.770,1:48:43.310
this was not happening in the core
1:48:43.310,1:48:50.380
parts of the world where capitalism was very well-established,
1:48:50.380,1:48:54.299
but since the neo-liberal agenda has taken off,
1:48:54.299,1:48:59.699
since the 1970s or so this has increasingly been happening.
1:48:59.699,1:49:03.629
Working class in this country hasn't gone anywhere
1:49:03.629,1:49:06.300
but workers have been absorbed into,
1:49:06.300,1:49:09.919
about two billion of them since 1970,
1:49:09.919,1:49:16.079
have been mobilized in from the latent reserves into
1:49:16.079,1:49:18.360
active membership of the proletariat,
1:49:18.360,1:49:20.569
not least in China.
1:49:20.569,1:49:23.750
But also of course in the Soviet Union, the ex-Soviet Union,
1:49:23.750,1:49:26.519
and also in several of those countries like India
1:49:26.519,1:49:30.909
and so on which had large agrarian bases,
1:49:30.909,1:49:36.420
large agrarian bases sometimes in Latin-America too.
1:49:36.420,1:49:38.739
So that the latent reserves have been
1:49:38.739,1:49:45.439
really pulled in over the last thirty years
1:49:45.439,1:49:49.040
and you'd argue that you're pretty close,
1:49:49.040,1:49:52.380
you're much closer to this story that's told at the end of Volume One now,
1:49:52.380,1:49:55.380
than you were 30 years ago.
1:49:55.380,1:49:59.510
And that, in a curious kind of way, is predictable
1:49:59.510,1:50:03.300
you see, because what Marx has done, and remember this,
1:50:03.300,1:50:09.050
what Marx has done is to take
1:50:09.050,1:50:13.239
the words of the classical political-economists seriously
1:50:13.239,1:50:19.789
and imagined we are in a perfectly competitive market society.
1:50:19.789,1:50:24.219
In other words he's taken the utopian vision,
1:50:24.219,1:50:26.510
liberal vision,
1:50:26.510,1:50:28.880
taken it at its word
1:50:28.880,1:50:32.049
and then said 'what is the consequence
1:50:32.049,1:50:37.059
of trying to construct a society around that utopian vision?'
1:50:37.059,1:50:39.219
Adam Smith said what?
1:50:39.219,1:50:41.100
The consequence is
1:50:41.100,1:50:44.820
everybody's gonna be better off,
1:50:44.820,1:50:48.860
Marx's argument is: the closer you get to that utopian vision,
1:50:48.860,1:50:51.329
the closer you get
1:50:51.329,1:50:57.959
to accumulation of wealth at one pole, and accumulation of misery at the other pole.
1:50:57.959,1:51:04.959
And that's how it was working in the 19th century and that's what the neo-liberal
1:51:05.249,1:51:06.989
economic and political project
1:51:06.989,1:51:11.559
has yielded us over the last thirty years.
1:51:11.559,1:51:16.939
In other words, it's brought us back much closer to the Volume One analysis
1:51:16.939,1:51:28.079
to the degree that capitalism has changed its trajectory and moved back
1:51:28.079,1:51:31.489
towards that liberal utopian vision,
1:51:31.489,1:51:36.280
in neo-liberal guise.
1:51:36.280,1:51:39.779
So, Marx in a sense has
1:51:39.779,1:51:45.409
taken the classical political-economists seriously, at their word,
1:51:45.409,1:51:47.199
step-by-step shown us
1:51:47.199,1:51:51.309
how the dynamic of capitalism works and brought us to the point of saying:
1:51:51.309,1:51:53.389
if capitalism works this way
1:51:53.389,1:51:56.630
and under the assumptions we've already laid out at the beginning
1:51:56.630,1:52:00.050
then this is the result that's going to come out.
1:52:00.050,1:52:07.050
So why would anybody in their right mind take this particular path?
1:52:08.069,1:52:13.549
Well, the answer is obvious: it's obviously the wealthy.
1:52:13.549,1:52:17.900
And who put us on this path, this neo-liberal path?
1:52:17.900,1:52:20.989
Well, it was the wealthy,
1:52:20.989,1:52:25.630
who decided they weren't getting enough.
The wealthy
1:52:25.630,1:52:28.530
weren't getting enough surplus-value,
1:52:28.530,1:52:32.190
wages and real wages were going too high,
1:52:32.190,1:52:35.949
we have to do something about it.
What are we gonna do? We launch into
1:52:35.949,1:52:42.469
this version of the model, really push the technological change big time
1:52:42.469,1:52:47.669
at the same time as we discipline labour and we outsource and do all those other things,
1:52:47.669,1:52:50.349
mobilize the latent population.
1:52:50.349,1:52:53.789
That's what globalization has been about,
1:52:53.789,1:53:00.400
it's about creating the necessary conditions which allow
1:53:00.400,1:53:06.199
this result to be achieved, in which there's an immense accumulation of wealth at one pole.
1:53:06.199,1:53:11.939
With no mind as to what goes on at the other pole.
1:53:11.939,1:53:16.510
What Marx does in section 5, as I've suggested to you, it to talk about what's going
1:53:16.510,1:53:21.920
all over the place, in Britain at that time.
1:53:21.920,1:53:31.280
We could write section 5 about conditions of labour in Nike factories,
1:53:31.280,1:53:37.149
GAP factories, all the rest of it, in Guatamala, in maquila zones,
1:53:37.149,1:53:40.619
in China etc. We could write this stuff,
1:53:40.619,1:53:43.939
it's not hard to go the reports in the press and
1:53:43.939,1:53:48.599
to go to reports in the press and assemble it.
1:53:48.599,1:53:52.889
In fact, when I used to set exams on this class,
1:53:52.889,1:53:57.150
about six years ago, one of the exams I had set was:
1:53:57.150,1:54:01.019
imagine you've had a letter from your parents at home,
1:54:01.019,1:54:05.339
saying 'Oh, I hear you're taking a course on Marx's Capital,
1:54:08.339,1:54:10.769
I guess it's pretty interesting,
1:54:10.769,1:54:15.420
once upon a time capital worked like that but thank god it's no longer like that.
1:54:15.420,1:54:19.429
Then I gave them a great wadge of newspaper accounts, from respectable sources like the
1:54:19.429,1:54:23.599
New York Times, about Indonesian factories and
1:54:23.599,1:54:25.809
Vietnamese factories and what's going on in Guatemala,
1:54:25.809,1:54:27.409
and what happened to Kathie Lee Gifford when
1:54:27.409,1:54:31.579
she found out that all of her nice clothing system was
1:54:31.579,1:54:35.849
being produced in Guatemala by thirteen-year-old kids who hadn't been paid for 6 months,
1:54:35.849,1:54:38.799
all those kinds of things.
So I said,
1:54:38.799,1:54:44.379
why don't you construct a letter back to your parents explaining this.
1:54:44.379,1:54:47.859
So they did, and then I asked them: well, did you send it?
1:54:47.859,1:54:50.919
They said: No! No!
1:54:50.919,1:54:54.629
It's actually really quite shocking right now, when you go into that literature, you don't have
1:54:54.629,1:54:57.400
to go far to find a vast literature
1:54:57.400,1:55:02.239
from which you construct the equivalent of section 5 around this thesis and you'll just show
1:55:02.239,1:55:06.519
how this is going on globally without any difficulty whatsoever.
1:55:06.519,1:55:09.030
And that again, I think, is in part,
1:55:09.030,1:55:11.900
a tribute to Marx's strength in analysis.
1:55:11.900,1:55:15.899
That he brings you to the point where you can see
1:55:15.899,1:55:20.679
clearly that a free market system will produce this result
1:55:20.679,1:55:23.099
to the degree that it's followed.
1:55:23.099,1:55:27.579
Including, by the way, and this is interesting: including the increasing centralization of
1:55:27.579,1:55:35.940
capital, that the free market system
1:55:35.940,1:55:38.510
is going to disrupt and destroy its own conditions
1:55:38.510,1:55:44.510
by actually tending more and more to oligopoly and monopoly etc.
1:55:44.510,1:55:48.630
and the centralization of capital
will go on a pace as well,
1:55:48.630,1:55:52.769
and if you ask yourself the question:
has the centralization of capital
1:55:52.769,1:56:00.969
increased dramatically over the last thirty years? i think the answer is: oh yes!
1:56:00.969,1:56:05.469
So, in fact you can defend Marx in a conditional way,
1:56:05.469,1:56:12.589
you can defend Marx in this statement, by saying: we know that's not the whole story
1:56:12.589,1:56:16.599
“Like all other laws, it is modified in its working by many circumstances, the analysis
1:56:16.599,1:56:20.179
of which does not concern us here.”
1:56:20.179,1:56:23.150
You can introduce the qualifier. but
1:56:23.150,1:56:29.949
it certainly tells us something about one of the major trends within a free-market capitalism,
1:56:29.949,1:56:34.009
and where those kinds are directed and where they're likely to go
1:56:34.009,1:56:36.689
and to the degree that they've gone there,
1:56:36.689,1:56:39.280
gives you a great deal, I think, of
1:56:39.280,1:56:42.479
confidence in Marx' analysis,
1:56:42.479,1:56:47.550
that this is the way the system works.
1:56:47.550,1:56:52.819
And how it got there and how it all started
1:56:52.819,1:56:54.230
is of course one of the other
1:56:54.230,1:56:56.499
big questions which we'll
1:56:56.499,1:56:59.639
deal with next time.
1:56:59.639,1:57:01.030
We're out of time now,
1:57:01.030,1:57:03.059
next time
1:57:03.059,1:57:06.659
i want you to read the whole of part 8,
1:57:06.659,1:57:08.929
short chapters,
1:57:08.929,1:57:11.479
not too long,
1:57:11.479,1:57:14.829
and we need to talk through this.
1:57:14.829,1:57:18.759
This is of course the historical origins of this whole system.
1:57:18.759,1:57:23.259
This, if you like, is where it's going to,
1:57:23.259,1:57:26.649
what we've been looking at here is where it's going go, all other things being equal which
1:57:26.649,1:57:28.699
they never are.
1:57:28.699,1:57:31.619
What we're now going to look at is where it came from,
1:57:31.619,1:57:33.459
and how it originated.
1:57:33.459,1:57:40.649
okay, so next week we'll take up part 8.
