Class 5 Georgian

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Class 5

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(intro music)

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Okay, so, I thought we would maybe just

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start off this week with a résumé
of the story so far and the

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paper I've handed out.

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But, I just want to go over it

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because I think it
demonstrates the sort of

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interesting way in which Marx constructs his
argument and tells us something about

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his way of thinking.

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As you'll recall (and you'll probably get
tired of this in the initial stages)

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Marx started with the commodity,

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which is a unitary concept.

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But he then says

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there's a differentiation
within that unity.

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And that differentiation is around
use-value and exchange-value.

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And then he argued that

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the commensurability of
all of those different

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kinds of use-values
had to be located somewhere.

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So he locates the
commensurability in labour,

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and in particular, labour value,

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labour values, or socially
necessary labour time.

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And obviously the labour
time expended on something

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was irrelevant if it was not a use-value.
So he links it back to use-values.

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So he did this, then

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the next step is to ask
some questions about labour.

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And so we get this discussion of
the difference between concrete labour,

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the actual making of use-values,
and the abstract labour.

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So the abstract and
concrete is then discussed

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as these work in
relationship to each other.

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And of course, these
two elements come together

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in the moment of exchange
when a form of value

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is arrived at.
So we get a form of value, which arises.

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And then he subjects that to

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interrogation and comes up
again with an internal differentiation

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between equivalent
and relative forms of value,

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which of course,
at the end of the day,

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produce (or crystallize out)
a money form.

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And that money form is

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a representation of value.
It's not value itself.

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It's a representation of this.

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So here we have the real thing
and here we have the representation.

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And this then induces Marx to talk about

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the fetishism that arises out of this,

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so that we get
material relations between persons,

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which contrast with the social relation,

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given by prices, between things.

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This, of course, then brings us back

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to the question of the market.
How does the market work?

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How does market fetishism -
how does the market hide social relations?

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So we come back into
the question of the market and exchange,

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and we look more concretely

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again at a bifurcation between
buyers and between sellers.

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And again this relationship
is looked at

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and clearly in a complicated
exchange economy,

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that relation has to be
mediated through money.

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So we get the last link in this part.

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But then what Marx does is to say, 'Well
we also have to look at money, so if we go

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back over here and say, 'Okay let's look at
this continuation of this chain,

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what do we say about money?'
Well money has again

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a dual aspect to it.

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Money is a measure of value,

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and it is also a means of circulation.

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But then, at the end of this,

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we get Marx saying, 'But at the end of it,
there's only one kind of money

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and that's world money.'

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So we have to look at the universal

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form of money, or world money.

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And that universal form of money contains,

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again, a very interesting relationship
between debtors and creditors.

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The only way this
universal form of money can

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bridge this distinction between
money as a means of circulation

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and as a measure of value is by

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there being a hoard,

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there being lending

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and.. So this
relationship emerges

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and out of this
relationship there crystallizes

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a circulation process of capital.

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But that circulation process
of capital presupposes that

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somebody's going to get more money at the
end of the day than they started out with.

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And this then poses a contradiction

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between the equivalents of exchange

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and the non equivalents

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of profit or surplus value.

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How is that going to be resolved?
That's going to be resolved

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by finding a commodity in the market

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that can bridge that problem.

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So we go to the buying
and selling of labour power,

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the commodity that can
do this, labour power.

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The buying and selling of
labour power in the market

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allows capitalists to purchase
a commodity that has the capacity

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to produce more value
than it itself has.

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And, of course, what this does

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is to immediately introduce the whole

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class relation between capital and labour.

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Now this is Marx's method

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of representation and one
of the most important things

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to remember about it is:
this is not a causal chain;

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this is an expansion of an argument,

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starting with the unitary concept of
the commodity, moving and expanding step by

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step by step.
And his aim is, of course,

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to enlighten us as to the nature

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of a capitalist mode of production.

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So each one of these

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steps takes you a bit deeper inside of

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understanding how capitalism works.

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But you can see it's going to go on,
in other words, it doesn't stop here.

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We've got class struggle,

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we have a huge bifurcation coming up,

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much of capital between
absolute and relative surplus value.

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And then we start to
turn this into a dynamic.

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Now this is, if you like, the way
in which Marx is telling the story

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or telling his story about
how to understand capitalism.

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And, like I say, it is
an expansionary argument

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through a series of
internal differentiations

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- new problem -

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- more internal differentiations.

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And so the argument grows organically.

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It doesn't sort of building block on
building block, or causal bit by causal bit.

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It grows, and I think it's
very interesting how well it grows.

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The first time I figured out
what was going on I found it

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pretty convincing. After a while this
is very helpful to expand in this way.

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And it is a very distinctive method

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which is partially reflective
of his inquiry but not entirely.

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It's partially reflective of

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the subject matter,

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but it's primarily
a technique of representation.

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It's a way of communicating

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to an audience how to understand

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a capitalist mode of production.

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So you don't get into a
language of causality that says:

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'This is caused by this,
and that is caused by that.

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You get into understanding it

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as a totality, as a unity.

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And as he says about it
in various other places:

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We have to understand it

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as an organic system.

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And understanding it organically requires

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that we inquire into it

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and we represent it in this

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particular kind of way.

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Now these are the steps
that he's gone through

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in the first couple of parts of Capital

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where he is mainly looking
at the exchange process.

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But as we now know we're going to leave

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that noisy sphere where
everything is sort of obvious.

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We're going to leave that world

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of equality, property, Bentham
and all the rest of it.

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And we're going to go inside
the production process,

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and look what happens inside of production.

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Again what you'll find Marx doing

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is something a bit unusual

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in this chapter on the labour process.

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Almost invariably in

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the chapters before he's
talked about the categories saying:

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'These are distinctively bourgeois categories'.

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labour value for example
is a bourgeois category.

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It's not an universal category.

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Aristotle couldn't see it
because in the world of slave labour

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the labour theory of value
couldn't possibly work.

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So he couldn't see it.

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So the labour theory of value is

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a conceptual apparatus which arises out
of the practices of the bourgeois era.

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And again, and again he emphasizes

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that the categories of political
economy are the categories generated out of

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bourgeois practices.
They're not universal categories,

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and should not be treated
as universal categories

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common to all modes of production.

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But here he's going to make
a very singular and important

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exception to that argument.

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And this was foretold earlier in Capital.

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Back on page 133 he says:

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"Labour…" two-thirds the way down "…as

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the creator of use-values, as useful labour,

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is a condition of human existence which is
independent of all forms of society;

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it is an eternal natural necessity which
mediates the metabolism between man and nature,

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and therefore human life itself."

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Then he goes on a bit further and says: "When man
engages in production, he can only proceed as nature

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does herself i.e. he can only
change the form of the materials."

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And the like.

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What he's doing in this
chapter on the labour process

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on about the first ten pages

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is to talk about this
universal condition of existence.

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We have to be very careful

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in reading this, not to read it
through bourgeois categories.

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Bourgeois categories

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effectively separate:

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historically it was man and nature.

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Nature and society, nature and
culture, natural and artificial.

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But that is a bourgeois conception.

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And Marx is setting up his
argument about the labour process…

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he's doing the same thing as he did with the
commodity. He's treating it as a unity.

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And so the first question
you have to ask yourself:

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'Is the labour process natural or social?'

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Marx's answer is: 'The labour
process is the labour process.'

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It's both, simultaneously.

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So we have to start from
the proposition of a unity.

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That metabolic moment
which is always there

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is where the labour process operates.

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And it is a naturally
imposed necessity.

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We can't get away from it.

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We alter things around
us in order to live.

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In so doing we develop all
kinds of social ways and social aspects.

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But for Marx in the first instance

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we have to think of this
in this unitary way.

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So he says:

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"labour is first of all a process between man and
nature, a process by which man through his own

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actions mediates, regulates,
and controls the metabolism

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between himself and nature."

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And as he said in the preceding paragraph:

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"We shall therefore have
to consider the labour process

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independently of any specific social formation.

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Independently of how it
is evolved under capitalism."

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So he then describes
in very general terms

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how he construes this labour process.

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"He confronts the materials
of nature as a force of nature.

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He sets in motion the natural forces which
belong to his own body, his arms, legs, head,

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and hands in order to appropriate the
materials of nature in a form adapted

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to his own needs.

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Through this movement he acts
upon external nature and changes it.

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And in this way he simultaneously
changes his own nature."

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A very dialectical proposition which says:

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You cannot change yourself without
changing the world around you.

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And you cannot change the world around you
without simultaneously changing yourself.

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In other words: The unitariness of it,

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even though there is an opposition emerging

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as with use-value and exchange-value,

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the unitariness of it
can never ever be displaced.

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And that dialectic of changing
oneself through changing the world

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and vice versa, that dialectic
is fundamental to how Marx sees

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the evolution of human society through

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transformations of nature.

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It would lead me to make very strong

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propositions of the sort that says:

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Any ecological project is
always a social project.

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All social projects are ecological projects.

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You cannot view them as somehow
or the other separate from each other.

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One of the big problems
that's arisen in the bourgeois era

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has been precisely the way in which

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conceptually and also through
practices in social institutions

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we've increasingly seen

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nature as something over there
and society something over here.

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Then we get into all kinds of crazy things and
try to draw causal arrows from one to the other.

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Does nature cause human beings to do this?

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Do human beings cause nature to do that?

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Again Marx would want to approach
this in a unitary manner,

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an organic manner, to try to say:

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'Look, this world of the labour process

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is wholly natural and
wholly social at the same time.'

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And it's transformative, and
in so far as it's transformative

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it's transformative
of self and of society,

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and transformative of that
other world we call nature.

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"Through this movement…" he goes on to say
"…he acts upon external nature and changes it,

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and in this way he simultaneously
changes his own nature. He develops

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the potentialities slumbering within nature."

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This is Marx talking about the
way in which we actually produce nature.

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We make a new nature by what we do.

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Things happen there by virtue
of what we do in the same way

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the things happen there by virtue
of what beavers do, and ants do,

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and all kinds of organisms do.

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"He develops the potentialities slumbering
within nature, and subjects the of play its

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forces to his own sovereign power."

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Sounds a bit Promethean.

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We could dominate it.

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But sovereign power, I think here means

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that we can make decisions about this.

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We decide to do this or not to do this,

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and how we decide has crucial meaning.

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We all decide to drive
SUVs we know what happens

0:21:15.100,0:21:20.559
to the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere…
we know those things.

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But we still decide to drive SUVs.

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If we decide not to drive SUVs then
maybe we would have a different outcome.

0:21:29.970,0:21:34.570
So here we have what Marx
is talking about by saying:

0:21:34.570,0:21:41.570
'There's a sovereign moment', and we'll
come back to that in a second.

0:21:42.050,0:21:46.770
"We presuppose labour…",
he says, "…in a form

0:21:46.770,0:21:53.110
in which it is an
exclusively human characteristic."

0:21:53.110,0:21:57.520
Now, in his earlier writings
Marx frequently appealed to

0:21:57.520,0:22:04.490
an idea called 'species being'
(Gattungswesen), which was about

0:22:04.490,0:22:07.090
who we are as a species.

0:22:07.090,0:22:10.080
What can we say about that?

0:22:10.080,0:22:13.070
Almost certainly he took that idea from Kant

0:22:13.070,0:22:21.340
who also wrote at some length on
the concept of species being in his anthropology.

0:22:21.340,0:22:28.620
And of course it was there in
Feuerbach's anthropology as well.

0:22:28.620,0:22:31.340
So the question is:

0:22:31.340,0:22:36.490
Are we different as a species from other species,
and if so how? We know that ants are different

0:22:36.490,0:22:40.060
from beavers and bees and all the rest of it.

0:22:40.060,0:22:42.920
So what he does is this, he says:

0:22:42.920,0:22:47.039
'Well, we have to recognize that all species

0:22:47.039,0:22:49.400
are engaging in this process of

0:22:49.400,0:22:52.130
production of nature' - if you
want to call it that,

0:22:52.130,0:22:55.670
production, transformative activities
in their environment.

0:22:55.670,0:23:00.060
But he says: "…what distinguishes the worst
architect from the best of bees is that

0:23:00.060,0:23:05.279
the architect builds the cell in
his mind before he constructs it in wax.

0:23:05.279,0:23:09.120
At the end of every labour process,
a result emerges

0:23:09.120,0:23:13.970
which had already been conceived
by the worker at the beginning,

0:23:13.970,0:23:18.780
hence already existed ideally."
That is mentally.

0:23:18.780,0:23:23.590
"Man not only effects change of form
in the materials of nature; he also realizes

0:23:23.590,0:23:39.170
his own purpose in those materials."
Human labour has, prior to its engagement,

0:23:39.170,0:23:47.540
a certain level of mental
calculation and purposive thinking.

0:23:47.540,0:23:52.570
Now again this seems to run against some of
the other quotes you've doubtless heard from

0:23:52.570,0:23:54.860
Marx, which say things like:

0:23:54.860,0:23:59.630
'Consciousness arises out
of material activity.'

0:23:59.630,0:24:02.160
But here he's saying:

0:24:02.160,0:24:13.080
The idea precedes the act,
the purpose precedes the act.

0:24:13.080,0:24:17.160
Again it's not hard to
reconcile those two positions

0:24:17.160,0:24:24.160
if you're prepared to think
dialectically rather than causally.

0:24:24.590,0:24:29.320
An architect doesn't start from nothing,

0:24:29.320,0:24:34.960
an architect starts from a particular situation,
from a particular history, from a particular

0:24:34.960,0:24:41.090
learning process, from a
particular material world.

0:24:41.090,0:24:45.340
So the imagination of the
architect is brought to bear

0:24:45.340,0:24:47.880
on a particular situation

0:24:47.880,0:24:52.690
given the wealth of experience
that has arisen out of

0:24:52.690,0:24:56.880
a lifetime of activity,

0:24:56.880,0:25:02.220
and a lifetime of learning,
and all the rest of it.

0:25:02.220,0:25:05.900
So it's not as if the
architect starts from nothing,

0:25:05.900,0:25:13.660
the architects starts -
but there is this mental moment

0:25:13.660,0:25:18.679
which is crucially important
in the labour process.

0:25:18.679,0:25:22.520
The moment of conception, design;

0:25:22.520,0:25:29.270
and we're going to see that
moment frequently referred to in what follows.

0:25:29.270,0:25:33.530
But that moment means nothing
unless it is translated into

0:25:33.530,0:25:35.780
something on the ground.

0:25:35.780,0:25:39.809
There are plenty of architects around
who dream about all kinds of fantastic things,

0:25:39.809,0:25:45.140
but Marx says: 'Well, that's irrelevant
until you actually make it on the ground.'

0:25:45.140,0:25:48.169
And it is the making of it on the ground,

0:25:48.169,0:25:55.169
where you go from that materialist
background through the mental moment into

0:25:55.370,0:26:04.430
this labour process on the ground
that is crucial for how we work.

0:26:04.430,0:26:08.740
He then goes on one step further.

0:26:08.740,0:26:11.980
"…this is a purpose" he says
"he is conscious of,

0:26:11.980,0:26:15.700
it determines the mode of his
activity with the rigidity of a law,

0:26:15.700,0:26:20.679
and he must subordinate his will to it.

0:26:20.679,0:26:26.130
This subordination is no mere momentary act.

0:26:26.130,0:26:30.929
Apart from the exertion of the working
organs, a purposeful will is required for the

0:26:30.929,0:26:34.240
entire duration of the work.
This means close attention.

0:26:34.240,0:26:38.410
The less he is attracted by the nature of the
work and the way in which it has to be accomplished,

0:26:38.410,0:26:43.910
and the less, therefore, he enjoys it as a
free play of his own physical and mental powers,

0:26:43.910,0:26:48.580
the closer his attention is forced to be."

0:26:48.580,0:27:06.760
What he is attacking here is the
Fourier view of work as play, pure play.

0:27:06.800,0:27:11.350
Marx is kind of saying:
'It is never pure play'.

0:27:11.350,0:27:13.960
When we get into a project

0:27:13.960,0:27:18.100
we find after a while
the project starts to run us.

0:27:18.100,0:27:20.300
We have to complete the project.

0:27:20.300,0:27:25.669
We have to subordinate our will to it.

0:27:25.669,0:27:31.890
And sometimes that can
be a very tedious process.

0:27:31.890,0:27:36.730
For those of you who envisage writing
a thesis, you will know perfectly well

0:27:36.730,0:27:39.890
what I'm talking about.

0:27:39.890,0:27:46.890
The general law of that is, it's ten percent
inspiration and ninety percent perspiration.

0:27:47.019,0:27:52.270
And you know, you've only got to see anybody
towards the end of their thesis groaning like crazy,

0:27:52.270,0:27:55.690
saying: 'This is absolutely weighing me down.'

0:27:55.690,0:27:58.080
It still happens to me when I write a book.

0:27:58.080,0:28:01.200
I get into it - 'Great Idea!!'

0:28:01.200,0:28:05.150
Six months on - 'Well, it's not a bad idea.'

0:28:05.150,0:28:09.690
Towards the end - 'Oh what a lousy idea this was!
Why can't I get out of it. It won't finish.'

0:28:09.690,0:28:11.960
And all this kind of stuff.

0:28:11.960,0:28:15.929
Marx is, if you like, a bit too dour to enjoy

0:28:15.929,0:28:20.460
the Fourier conception, that
all work should be mere play.

0:28:20.460,0:28:25.900
Not only does he not think it is,
he doesn't even think it ought to be.

0:28:25.900,0:28:32.860
We have to accept that there's a
certain discipline goes with it, self-discipline.

0:28:32.860,0:28:37.550
And we cannot escape that.

0:28:37.550,0:28:44.860
At the same time,
I think this passage is very

0:28:44.860,0:28:48.800
important in terms of its tone.

0:28:48.800,0:28:52.690
There's something very positive about this.

0:28:52.690,0:28:57.660
There's something even romantic about it.
Marx is not averse to being

0:28:57.660,0:29:04.650
romantic on occasion, that is there
is something noble about this enterprise.

0:29:04.650,0:29:08.340
We can dream thoughts,
we can make them real,

0:29:08.340,0:29:12.070
we can transform the world,
we can transform ourselves,

0:29:12.070,0:29:18.310
we have this species capacity,
we have these species powers.

0:29:18.310,0:29:25.150
And as far as Marx is concerned,
you don't feel guilty about using them.

0:29:25.150,0:29:31.350
What you feel however is, that once you get
into them, you better stick with it, because

0:29:31.350,0:29:35.440
you can't start a project
and then leave it.

0:29:35.440,0:29:42.030
It's going to take discipline to do it.

0:29:42.030,0:29:47.610
So this is if you like a
foundational kind of argument.

0:29:47.610,0:29:51.760
But again, notice it's a unitary argument.

0:29:51.760,0:29:55.740
There's nothing specifically
unnatural about this.

0:29:55.740,0:30:01.050
Marx doesn't think we are being unnatural,
because we do this

0:30:01.050,0:30:04.019
anymore than bees are being
unnatural when they build

0:30:04.019,0:30:09.990
hives, and spiders webs, and ants anthills,
and beavers dams, and all the rest of it.

0:30:09.990,0:30:13.690
There's nothing unnatural about this at all.

0:30:13.690,0:30:17.750
It is simultaneously both natural and social.

0:30:17.750,0:30:28.460
But it is something which is
very much unitary within our species.

0:30:28.520,0:30:35.840
Now, Marx is not going to talk very
much in Capital about the relation to nature.

0:30:35.840,0:30:40.870
And how it evolves in the bourgeois era.

0:30:40.870,0:30:45.280
But actually, if you care to

0:30:45.280,0:30:51.240
do the inferences yourself, you'll find he's
actually saying quite a lot about it.

0:30:51.240,0:30:56.690
In exactly the same way that
this world of use-value and exchange-value

0:30:56.690,0:31:01.410
internal to the commodity produces an antinomy

0:31:01.410,0:31:06.670
an antagonism, and then by the
time you get to the money form produces

0:31:06.670,0:31:12.059
the possibility of real serious contradictions.

0:31:12.059,0:31:18.110
So you can see the relation to
nature evolving in the same way.

0:31:18.110,0:31:23.330
There comes a point where there can
indeed be environmental crises.

0:31:23.330,0:31:27.410
And Marx within Capital, at a
couple of points will point to

0:31:27.410,0:31:32.290
the possibility of those crises.

0:31:32.290,0:31:34.630
But what we're going to see is,

0:31:34.630,0:31:40.960
an evolution of the labour
process under capitalism,

0:31:40.960,0:31:44.740
which is going to take it
in a very specific direction

0:31:44.740,0:31:50.140
in which indeed this
conceptual separation of nature

0:31:50.140,0:31:56.310
from society is going
to become very significant,

0:31:56.310,0:31:59.889
and is going to become antagonistic.

0:31:59.889,0:32:07.680
And that our practices
are going to become so.

0:32:07.680,0:32:11.460
So, when we're reading about the
evolution of the labour process,

0:32:11.460,0:32:17.660
we might want to bear this in mind.

0:32:17.660,0:32:24.770
What Marx then does is to give
some general kinds of commentary on

0:32:24.770,0:32:29.620
how this labour process works.

0:32:29.620,0:32:32.259
And he gives a bit of an analysis of

0:32:32.259,0:32:35.870
this "purposeful activity,
that is the work itself,

0:32:35.870,0:32:39.360
the object on which that work is performed,"

0:32:39.360,0:32:43.260
where this universal material
for human labour come from.

0:32:43.260,0:32:46.700
And he gives some examples
about that; raw materials,

0:32:46.700,0:32:49.470
materials drawn from nature,
and all the rest of it.

0:32:49.470,0:32:54.580
Then he talks about the
instruments of labour,

0:32:54.580,0:32:58.750
which initially also
are appropriations of nature,

0:32:58.750,0:33:02.310
but which in turn, as he says
on page two eighty-five:

0:33:02.310,0:33:07.149
"…nature becomes one of the organs of his
activity, which he annexes to his bodily organs,

0:33:07.149,0:33:10.700
adding stature to himself in spite of the bible.

0:33:10.700,0:33:13.179
As the earth is his original larder, so too

0:33:13.179,0:33:16.580
it is his original tool house."

0:33:16.580,0:33:28.840
We take things and use them as tools.
Which then leads into the idea that

0:33:28.840,0:33:32.660
we do have a history of tool making.

0:33:32.660,0:33:37.100
He quotes Franklin on p.286,

0:33:37.100,0:33:42.300
and he obviously attributes great importance
to this, and we are going to come back to it

0:33:42.300,0:33:47.640
when he says: "It is not what is made but how,
and by what instruments of labour, that

0:33:47.640,0:33:51.120
distinguishes different economic epochs.

0:33:51.120,0:33:56.050
Instruments of labour not only supply a standard
of the degree of development which human labour

0:33:56.050,0:34:05.150
has attained, but they also indicate
the social relations within which men work."

0:34:05.150,0:34:11.129
Again there is going to be
a tight relation, possibly antagonistic

0:34:11.129,0:34:17.609
between technologies and social relations.
What Marx is doing here is laying down

0:34:17.609,0:34:22.609
again this universality of human history,
which is a complicated relationship between

0:34:22.609,0:34:29.559
technological shifts and social relations.

0:34:29.559,0:34:32.259
But we're not only dealing
with tools, as he says…

0:34:32.259,0:34:38.499
…bottom of that page…
we are also dealing with all the infrastructures,

0:34:38.499,0:34:42.629
many of which have been
created through past labour.

0:34:42.629,0:34:46.569
…p.287: "Instruments of this
kind, which have already been mediated through

0:34:46.569,0:34:55.830
past labour, include workshops,
canals, roads, etc."

0:34:57.159,0:35:03.930
Then comes a key paragraph: "In the labour
process therefore, man's activity, via the

0:35:03.930,0:35:10.239
instruments of labour, affects an alteration in the
object of labour which was intended from the outset.

0:35:10.239,0:35:15.679
The process is extinguished in the product."

0:35:15.679,0:35:19.899
Now, we've often talked
about the way in which Marx

0:35:19.899,0:35:25.419
is frequently coming back
to relationships between processes and things,

0:35:25.419,0:35:28.249
processes, objects.

0:35:28.249,0:35:32.879
"The product of the process is a use-value,
a piece of natural material adapted to human

0:35:32.879,0:35:37.029
needs by means of a change in its form.

0:35:37.029,0:35:40.729
Labour has become bound up in its object.

0:35:40.729,0:35:43.509
labour has been objectified,

0:35:43.509,0:35:46.060
the object is being worked on.

0:35:46.060,0:35:49.479
What on the side of the worker
appeared in the form of a unrest…"

0:35:49.479,0:35:52.329
that is activity "…now appears,
on the side of the product,

0:35:52.329,0:35:57.630
in the form of being, as a fixed,
immobile characteristic. The worker has spun

0:35:57.630,0:36:03.829
and the product is a spinning."

0:36:03.829,0:36:09.199
This process-thing…

0:36:09.199,0:36:12.889
What is important,
the process or the thing?

0:36:12.889,0:36:19.640
Again, you have to think about the two.
But for Marx the labour process

0:36:19.640,0:36:23.139
is what he wants to concentrate on,

0:36:23.139,0:36:30.499
recognizing of course that
value is objectified in the thing.

0:36:30.499,0:36:40.069
Objectification is an inevitable
aspect of this process.

0:36:40.069,0:36:44.539
"If we look at the whole process…" he then
says "…from the point of view of its result,

0:36:44.539,0:36:47.759
the product, it is plain
that both the instruments

0:36:47.759,0:36:55.179
and the object of labour are means of production
and that the labour itself is productive labour."

0:36:55.179,0:37:01.819
So we then get that simple distinction.

0:37:01.819,0:37:07.959
We then have the problem of,
how do we understand past labour,

0:37:07.959,0:37:14.290
because any object we see,
all of the labour incorporated in it

0:37:14.290,0:37:19.079
is past as I take it to market.

0:37:19.079,0:37:23.459
But how 'past' is that past?

0:37:23.459,0:37:28.669
We have to deal with the fact
that past labour is often involved,

0:37:28.669,0:37:33.680
embodied in the means of production,
which we then incorporate in the next stage

0:37:33.680,0:37:42.709
of the labour process, which is then
involved in the next stage of the labour process…

0:37:42.709,0:37:50.429
So this leads him to some reflections on:

0:37:50.429,0:37:54.469
How do we think about past labour?

0:37:54.469,0:37:57.559
Since all labour is past,

0:37:57.559,0:38:00.009
as soon as the object is produced,

0:38:00.009,0:38:09.079
how do we think about
that chain of past labours?

0:38:10.199,0:38:13.939
Particularly when some of those past labours

0:38:13.939,0:38:17.929
disappear in the process of production.

0:38:17.929,0:38:22.039
The past labour involved in mining the coal,

0:38:22.039,0:38:27.929
which I then use as the
power source to make the steel.

0:38:27.929,0:38:33.649
The coal just disappears;
it's not in the steel; it has disappeared.

0:38:33.649,0:38:41.459
But it is still past labour,
which is there in terms of its history,

0:38:41.459,0:38:44.930
but not materially there.

0:38:44.930,0:38:53.400
This is going to pose some very
interesting accounting problems as we go on.

0:38:57.849,0:39:01.270
And this of course leads him
very much into the theme of:

0:39:01.270,0:39:04.429
There's a series of
metamorphoses that occur

0:39:04.429,0:39:07.439
within the labour process- steps.

0:39:07.439,0:39:12.799
And at each step something new
is added, something new happens.

0:39:12.799,0:39:17.630
So we have to think of it as a chain. We would
now often talk about commodity chains,

0:39:17.630,0:39:24.630
and things of that kind, which is
picking up on this idea.

0:39:30.039,0:39:37.479
Then on p.290 he introduces
a very important distinction:

0:39:37.479,0:39:42.410
"Labour uses up its material elements,

0:39:42.410,0:39:50.759
its objects and its instruments. It consumes
them and is therefore a process of consumption.

0:39:50.759,0:39:52.999
Such productive consumption…",

0:39:52.999,0:39:55.569
watch the terminology: "productive consumption",

0:39:55.569,0:40:00.650
"…is distinguished from
individual consumption by this,

0:40:00.650,0:40:05.390
that the latter uses up products as means
of subsistence for the living individual;

0:40:05.390,0:40:09.390
the former as a means of subsistence for labour,
i.e. for the activity through which

0:40:09.390,0:40:12.979
the living individuals
labour-power manifests itself.

0:40:12.979,0:40:19.079
Thus the product of individual
consumption is the consumer himself;

0:40:19.079,0:40:26.079
the result of productive consumption
is a product distinct from the consumer."

0:40:26.769,0:40:30.359
This distinction between individual
consumption and productive consumption -

0:40:30.359,0:40:33.069
a use-value is going to disappear.

0:40:33.069,0:40:36.459
Where does it disappear to?, where
does it go to? Productive consumption,

0:40:36.459,0:40:40.690
it continues to remain
present somehow or other

0:40:40.690,00:40:47.409
in the production process,
either materially or in terms of

0:40:47.409,0:40:52.339
the past labour embodied…

0:40:52.339,0:40:59.339
…being continuously present.

0:40:59.869,0:41:03.859
On the bottom of p.290
we get the summary statement:

0:41:03.859,0:41:07.529
"The labour process,

0:41:07.529,0:41:11.619
…is purposeful activity aimed
at the production of use-values.

0:41:11.619,0:41:15.170
It is an appropriation of what exists
in nature for the requirements of man.

0:41:15.170,0:41:21.659
It is the universal condition for
the metabolic interaction between man and nature,

0:41:21.659,0:41:25.749
the everlasting nature imposed
condition of human existence,…"

0:41:25.749,0:41:27.779
echoing what he said earlier

0:41:27.779,0:41:32.049
"…and it is therefore independent of every
form of that existence, or rather it is common to

0:41:32.049,0:41:36.749
all forms of society which human beings live.

0:41:36.749,0:41:40.849
We did not, therefore, have to present
the worker in his relationship with other workers;

0:41:40.849,0:41:46.219
it was enough to present man and his labour on one
side, nature and its materials on the other.

0:41:46.219,0:41:51.059
The taste of porridge does not tell us who grew
the oats, and the process we have presented

0:41:51.059,0:41:54.339
does not reveal the conditions
under which it takes place,

0:41:54.339,0:41:59.099
whether it is happening under the slave-owner's
brutal lash or the anxious eye of the capitalist,

0:41:59.099,0:42:05.440
whether Cincinnatus undertakes it in tilling his
couple of acres, or a savage, when he lays low the

0:42:05.440,0:42:09.889
wild beast with a stone."

0:42:09.889,0:42:16.949
The labour process can be
described in this metabolic way.

0:42:16.949,0:42:21.479
But now we have to look at
specifically how the labour process

0:42:21.479,0:42:26.609
works under capitalism.

0:42:26.609,0:42:29.279
So suddenly on p.291

0:42:29.279,0:42:36.279
he turns arounds and says: "Let us now
return to our would-be capitalist."

0:42:36.519,0:42:39.859
The capitalist buys labour power.

0:42:39.859,0:42:42.869
Initially the capitalist buys

0:42:42.869,0:42:49.229
the labour power that is
found on the market, whatever that is.

0:42:49.229,0:42:53.080
So we're not talking of a trained
labour force, we are just talking about

0:42:53.080,0:42:58.359
whatever happens to be there.

0:42:58.359,0:43:02.239
And buying labour power, the capitalist

0:43:02.239,0:43:07.529
sets that labour power to work.
And there are two conditions:

0:43:07.529,0:43:11.559
First - the worker works
under the control of the capitalist

0:43:11.559,0:43:14.549
to whom his labour belongs.

0:43:14.549,0:43:18.479
The contractual relation is this:

0:43:18.479,0:43:22.179
I sell my labour power to the capitalist.

0:43:22.179,0:43:27.119
The capitalist takes that labour
power inside of the factory and says:

0:43:27.119,0:43:31.499
'Your capacity to work now belongs
to me, you're going to follow my instructions

0:43:31.499,0:43:37.440
and do what I tell you
in terms of labouring.'

0:43:37.440,0:43:40.060
That is the contractual condition.

0:43:40.060,0:43:42.229
The second condition is this:

0:43:42.229,0:43:47.179
"The product is the property of
the capitalist and not that of the worker,

0:43:47.179,0:43:53.039
its immediate producer."

0:43:53.039,0:44:01.599
Now, this of course is an
interesting violation of the Lockeian view,

0:44:01.599,0:44:10.259
that private property arises
out of the way in which people labour,

0:44:10.259,0:44:16.199
and embody their labour in the land,
and therefore that belongs to them.

0:44:16.199,0:44:23.239
So the Lockeian view is that
private property, and the rights to possess

0:44:23.239,0:44:28.599
whatever it is one produces is crucial.

0:44:28.599,0:44:33.929
But the rule here is not of that sort.
It's a completely different rule.

0:44:33.929,0:44:35.400
He says: "From the instant

0:44:35.400,0:44:38.799
he steps into the workshop,
the use-value of his labour-power

0:44:38.799,0:44:43.189
and therefore also its use which is labour,
belongs to the capitalist. By the purchase

0:44:43.189,0:44:49.210
of labour-power, the capitalist incorporates
labour, as a living agent of fermentation,…"

0:44:49.210,0:44:55.539
Again, this idea of labour
as a form giving fire.

0:44:55.539,0:45:03.539
"…into the lifeless constituents
of the product, which also belong to him."

0:45:03.539,0:45:08.599
So he consumes the labour power.
The capitalist consumes the labour power,

0:45:08.599,0:45:17.489
and the means of production,
and the product belongs to the capitalist.

0:45:19.159,0:45:26.159
Which leads into the second section:
"The Valorization Process".

0:45:27.369,0:45:30.119
What is it the capitalist is looking for

0:45:30.119,0:45:34.439
in that process of conjoining

0:45:34.439,0:45:38.119
labour power and means of production

0:45:38.119,0:45:40.649
in the labour process?

0:45:40.649,0:45:44.309
The capitalist, says Marx,

0:45:44.309,0:45:49.289
"…wants to produce a commodity greater in value
than the sum of the values of the commodities

0:45:49.289,0:45:51.819
used to produce it,

0:45:51.819,0:45:55.150
namely the means of production of the labour-
power he purchased with his good money on

0:45:55.150,0:46:01.079
the open market. His aim is to produce
not only a use-value, but a commodity;

0:46:01.079,0:46:09.759
not only use-value but value and
not just value but also surplus-value."

0:46:09.759,0:46:18.660
So the capitalist unites, as Marx put it,

0:46:18.660,0:46:23.299
the labour process and
the process of creating value

0:46:23.299,0:46:27.970
in the process of production.

0:46:27.970,0:46:39.489
So there's a new unity which the
capitalist creates internal to the factory.

0:46:40.789,0:46:48.699
What follows then is a discussion
of how to understand the value

0:46:48.699,0:46:53.640
which gets produced in
that production process.

0:46:53.640,0:46:59.389
We first have to go through a
consideration of all of the past labour

0:46:59.389,0:47:06.389
incorporated in the means of production.

0:47:06.910,0:47:10.949
And as he says on p.294/p.295:

0:47:10.949,0:47:17.689
"All the labour contained
in the yarn is past labour;

0:47:17.689,0:47:22.489
and it is a matter of no importance that the
labour expended to produces its constituent

0:47:22.489,0:47:26.040
elements lies further back in the past than
the labour expended on the final process,

0:47:26.040,0:47:29.919
the spinning.

0:47:29.919,0:47:33.769
Therefore…" he concludes "…the labour contained
in the raw material and instruments of labour can

0:47:33.769,0:47:39.689
be treated just if they were labour expended
in an earlier stage of the spinning process,

0:47:39.689,0:47:47.639
before the labour finally added
in the form of actual spinning."

0:47:47.639,0:47:53.150
The same is true of machinery,

0:47:53.150,0:47:56.869
spindles, and all the rest of it.

0:47:56.869,0:48:00.869
But again, we have a
condition placed on this.

0:48:00.869,0:48:04.849
That past labour has to be
socially necessary past labour,

0:48:04.849,0:48:10.739
the spindle has to be a
spindle which is made in a socially

0:48:10.739,0:48:16.569
necessary way. So he uses the example,
well if you have a gold spindle

0:48:16.569,0:48:19.039
that's tough. You're just going
to have to work as if the spindle-

0:48:19.039,0:48:21.619
the value you're going to work with is

0:48:21.619,0:48:28.619
going to depend on the socially
necessary labour time incorporated in spindles.

0:48:34.309,0:48:38.979
So the labour process then
is put to work in this way

0:48:38.979,0:48:41.219
where you are taking past labour,

0:48:41.219,0:48:50.629
the value of the past labour
and putting it to work.

0:48:50.629,0:48:59.769
And the value is going to
be the value which the labour adds

0:48:59.769,0:49:06.609
to the value of that past labour which
is incorporated in the means of production.

0:49:06.609,0:49:09.619
But when we do a simple accounting on that,

0:49:09.619,0:49:13.019
on p.297, on the bottom there

0:49:13.019,0:49:16.449
he goes through this little
thing and says: 'Well you know,

0:49:16.449,0:49:20.729
you can go through the acounting
this way, and what you come up with is that

0:49:20.729,0:49:23.089
there's no surplus value…'

0:49:23.089,0:49:27.089
"Our capitalist stares in astonishment.
The value of the product is equal to

0:49:27.089,0:49:29.089
the value of the capital advanced.

0:49:29.089,0:49:33.869
The value advanced has not being
valorized, no surplus value has been created,

0:49:33.869,0:49:39.099
and consequently money has not
been transformed into capital."

0:49:39.099,0:49:43.549
So then the capitalist goes
through a bunch of arguments:

0:49:43.549,0:49:46.999
'This is wrong,

0:49:46.999,0:49:50.309
consider first my abstinence;

0:49:50.309,0:49:54.489
I abstained from having a good time,

0:49:54.489,0:49:58.079
from consuming my money.
I invested it,

0:49:58.079,0:50:03.999
don't I deserve some return for that?

0:50:03.999,0:50:07.659
Isn't there some reason why

0:50:07.659,0:50:12.309
I should not get some more money
just simply by virtue of my abstinence?"

0:50:12.309,0:50:14.309
And actually the whole

0:50:14.309,0:50:18.409
argument about the 'Protestant Ethic'
and abstinence and that kind of stuff has an

0:50:18.409,0:50:23.749
important role to play in the whole history
of how people thought about capitalism…

0:50:23.749,0:50:29.589
'Yeah, it was a return to abstinence!'

0:50:29.589,0:50:33.289
The second point - he says:

0:50:33.289,0:50:37.890
'Well, I actually provide employment.

0:50:37.890,0:50:44.299
Don't I deserve something for
providing employment to people?'

0:50:44.299,0:50:48.139
I used to have this argument with
my mother all the time. I'd say:

0:50:48.139,0:50:50.829
'Let's abolish capitalists' and she'd say:

0:50:50.829,0:50:53.829
'Well who would employ anybody if
you didn't have any capitalists?'

0:50:53.829,0:50:56.769
I'd say: 'Well there are plenty
of other ways of doing it.'

0:50:56.769,0:50:59.829
'No, no we need the capitalists to employ people.'
…all the time. You know just…

0:50:59.829,0:51:02.089
'They are very important,

0:51:02.089,0:51:06.499
the more of them the better.', she'd say,
it'd drive me crazy;

0:51:06.499,0:51:09.779
…impossible to get pass that logic.

0:51:09.779,0:51:14.779
And the third argument is: 'Well, I worked,

0:51:14.779,0:51:19.079
I worked hard. You know, I mean …it wasn't
as if I just sat there and put my feet up.

0:51:19.079,0:51:23.799
I worked hard, actually setting up this
production process. Did all those kinds of things'.

0:51:23.799,0:51:27.119
Now, what we forget here, is actually

0:51:27.119,0:51:31.829
that capitalists usually pay themselves twice.

0:51:31.829,0:51:36.759
To the degree that they work
they pay themselves a managerial fee.

0:51:36.759,0:51:40.809
They pay themselves as managers.

0:51:40.809,0:51:47.809
They then actually in addition take a
rate of return on the capital they advanced.

0:51:48.449,0:51:53.619
Now, small entrepreneurs don't do that.
They obviously merge that together.

0:51:53.619,0:52:00.429
But certainly in big corporations,
you get this dual thing,

0:52:00.429,0:52:06.359
you are getting a fee, and then
you're getting something else on top of it.

0:52:06.359,0:52:10.019
The easiest way to look at that
is the difference between

0:52:10.019,0:52:17.019
the management salary that a CEO gets,
and what they get in the way of stock options;

0:52:18.099,0:52:22.330
which have a lot to do with, you know,
how much surplus value you've managed to…

0:52:22.330,0:52:25.199
imagine you've created,
even if you haven't done it,

0:52:25.199,0:52:32.199
in the short time you remained CEO.

0:52:32.279,0:52:39.049
So the capitalist tries to pull
all of these sorts of arguments together.

0:52:39.049,0:52:42.689
Marx mocks all three of them and says:

0:52:42.689,0:52:49.939
'Well they're not really serious arguments.'

0:52:49.939,0:52:56.359
So he then goes on to talk
very explicitly on what happens;

0:52:56.359,0:53:03.359
and the key passages
are on p.300 and p.301.

0:53:03.909,0:53:07.199
He says: "Let us examine
the matter more closely.

0:53:07.199,0:53:10.839
The value of a day's labour-power
amounts to three shillings,…"

0:53:10.839,0:53:13.759
remember the value of
the labour-power is set by

0:53:13.759,0:53:18.309
the value of the commodities needed to support
the labourer at a given standard of living,

0:53:18.309,0:53:26.129
and that's three shillings in Marx's accounting.

0:53:26.129,0:53:31.329
And that three shillings can be
created through half a day's labour.

0:53:31.329,0:53:35.899
And he says: "The fact that half a day's labour
is necessary to keep the worker alive during

0:53:35.899,0:53:42.179
24 hours does not in any way
prevent him from working a whole day.

0:53:42.179,0:53:46.289
Therefore the value of labour-power, and
the value which that labour-power valorizes

0:53:46.289,0:53:51.440
in the labour-process are
two entirely different magnitudes;

0:53:51.440,0:53:56.649
and this difference was what the capitalist had
in mind when he was purchasing the labour-power.

0:53:56.649,0:54:00.150
The useful quality of labour-power, by virtue

0:54:00.150,0:54:03.989
of which it makes yarn or boots,
was to the capitalist merely

0:54:03.989,0:54:09.619
the necessary condition for his activity;…

0:54:09.619,0:54:14.649
What was really decisive for him was the specific
use-value which this commodity possesses" -

0:54:14.649,0:54:19.830
that's: labour-power possesses -
"of being a source not only of value,

0:54:19.830,0:54:22.499
but of more value than it has itself.

0:54:22.499,0:54:26.780
This is the specific service the capitalist
expects from labour-power, and in this transaction

0:54:26.780,0:54:32.890
he acts in accordance with the
eternal laws of commodity-exchange.

0:54:32.890,0:54:37.369
In fact the seller of labour-power like
the seller of any other commodity,

0:54:37.369,0:54:41.909
realizes its exchange-value,
and alienates its use-value."

0:54:41.909,0:54:50.140
Remember last time we mentioned
labour in this C-M-C circuit.

0:54:50.140,0:54:57.880
The labourer sells the labour power for the
money in order to get the commodities to live.

0:54:57.880,0:55:02.939
And there's no violation
of that law of exchange.

0:55:02.939,0:55:05.880
So on the bottom of p.301
Marx says: "Every condition

0:55:05.880,0:55:09.420
of the problem is satisfied, while the laws
governing exchange of commodities have not

0:55:09.420,0:55:11.730
been violated in any way.

0:55:11.730,0:55:14.609
Equivalent has been exchanged for equivalent.

0:55:14.609,0:55:18.369
For the capitalist as buyer paid
the full value for each commodity,

0:55:18.369,0:55:22.519
for the cotton, for the spindle,
and for the labour-power.

0:55:22.519,0:55:29.519
He then did what is done by every purchaser
of commodities; he consumed their use-value."

0:55:29.689,0:55:34.489
Then he goes through to actually refer back to
a whole set of things that he has mentioned earlier.

0:55:34.489,0:55:38.660
"This whole course of events, the transformation
of money into capital, both takes place

0:55:38.660,0:55:42.289
and does not take place
in the sphere of circulation."

0:55:42.289,0:55:47.209
Remember the echo back onto p.269.

0:55:47.209,0:55:50.939
Next passage he talks about
it's magical properties;

0:55:50.939,0:55:54.260
remember the goose that
magically laid its own golden eggs.

0:55:54.260,0:55:56.579
Well, here you see the secret of that;

0:55:56.579,0:56:02.249
how it is that "…value which can perform
it's own valorization process…" appears as

0:56:02.249,0:56:10.249
"…an animated monster which begins to 'work',
'as if its body were by love possessed'."

0:56:10.629,0:56:15.309
And this all happens because

0:56:15.309,0:56:19.859
when you get the labourers labour power

0:56:19.859,0:56:25.189
you get it for a time,
and you set the labourer to work,

0:56:25.189,0:56:29.509
and after three hours, or six hours, or whatever
it is they have reproduced the equivalent of their

0:56:29.509,0:56:33.899
value, you then work for another six hours.

0:56:33.899,0:56:37.159
That's your surplus value.

0:56:37.159,0:56:40.769
Which of course, then
leads into the question of:

0:56:40.769,0:56:45.599
'Well, why don't people stop
working after six hours ?'

0:56:45.599,0:56:48.859
Well, there's going to be
class struggle over the working day;

0:56:48.859,0:56:52.169
for the obvious reason,
the capitalist wants him to work

0:56:52.169,0:56:56.169
twelve hours, not six hours.

0:56:56.169,0:56:59.169
And the other problem is
that the way this is set up,

0:56:59.169,0:57:02.350
it's become very difficult
to see when that moment

0:57:02.350,0:57:09.350
of reproduction of
labour power has been reached.

0:57:10.749,0:57:13.249
So we've answered the question:

0:57:13.249,0:57:17.409
'Where does the inequality come from?'

0:57:17.409,0:57:21.579
And that's maybe a good point
at which we should break.

0:57:21.579,0:57:25.129
The final point is that
Marx is going to come back to

0:57:25.129,0:57:30.849
the definition of 'socially necessary',
and so he lays down these conditions on p.303.

0:57:32.899,0:57:35.089
The 'socially necessary' means:

0:57:35.089,0:57:39.089
"First, the labour-power must be
functioning under normal conditions."

0:57:39.089,0:57:42.799
Whatever those 'normal conditions' happen to be.
"A further condition" he says

0:57:42.799,0:57:46.839
"is that the labour-power itself
must be of a normal effectiveness".

0:57:46.839,0:57:52.499
And obviously this depends a lot
on the particular trade you're in.

0:57:52.499,0:57:56.569
And then he introduces something
which I think is rather

0:57:56.569,0:57:59.569
important later on, but it slides in here.

0:57:59.569,0:58:06.669
"It must be expended with the average amount
of exertion and the usual degree of intensity."

0:58:06.669,0:58:09.899
Marx hasn't used the
term intensity much before.

0:58:09.899,0:58:13.899
It just occurred a couple of times.
But you better watch out,

0:58:13.899,0:58:18.339
because it slides into the argument,
and becomes rather significant further on.

0:58:18.339,0:58:23.369
And so the question
of intensity is significant.

0:58:23.369,0:58:26.790
And then of course he
then introduces an idea that

0:58:26.790,0:58:29.199
is going to be made much of later,

0:58:29.199,0:58:33.720
when he talks about the way in which the capitalist
"…has bought the use of the labour-power for a

0:58:33.720,0:58:36.189
definite period, and he insists on his rights."

0:58:36.189,0:58:38.269
So the question rights comes in.

0:58:38.269,0:58:40.789
"He has no intention of being robbed.

0:58:40.789,0:58:43.949
Lastly - and for this purpose our
friend has a penal code of his own -

0:58:43.949,0:58:50.309
all wasteful consumption of raw material
or instruments of labour is strictly forbidden."

0:58:53.559,0:58:58.819
On p.304 I think what he
does is simply to say this:

0:58:58.819,0:59:04.130
"The production process, considered as the unity
of the labour-process and the process of creating

0:59:04.130,0:59:08.029
value, is the process of
production of commodities;

0:59:08.029,0:59:12.439
considered as the unity of the
labour process and the process of valorization,

0:59:12.439,0:59:17.979
it is the capitalist process of production, or
the capitalist form of the production of commodities."

0:59:17.979,0:59:25.860
So again he's differentiating between
the capitalist form of production of commodities,

0:59:25.860,0:59:30.269
and the particular kind of unity,
that is being established within that form;

0:59:30.269,0:59:36.349
Which is of course the unity of the
labour process and the production of surplus value.

0:59:36.349,0:59:42.599
That is what this is all about.
So the evolution of the labour process

0:59:42.599,0:59:48.660
under capitalism is going to be
very much about maintaining that unity;

0:59:48.660,0:59:54.130
not simply that of production.

0:59:54.130,0:59:58.209
Then he comes back to the whole

0:59:58.209,1:00:03.009
fraught issue of skills on p.305.

1:00:03.009,1:00:07.279
Where he says: 'You know,
we also have to figure

1:00:07.279,1:00:13.899
that the labour process is employing people
with different skills. What does skill mean?'

1:00:13.899,1:00:19.869
And he points out that actually a
a lot of these definitions are pretty arbitrary.

1:00:19.869,1:00:27.959
And actually it's a long
history of definition of skills in which

1:00:27.959,1:00:33.019
the definition has nothing to do with
the actual nature of the labour process.

1:00:33.019,1:00:38.739
For instance in France, in the nineteenth century,
if women can do it was unskilled by definition;

1:00:38.739,1:00:41.039
full stop.

1:00:41.039,1:00:45.489
So as soon as you introduce women and suddenly
it became unskilled. Which is why

1:00:45.489,1:00:52.999
so many of the anarchists like Proudhon
were anti-having-women-in-the-workshop.

1:00:52.999,1:00:57.059
Deeply antagonistic to women's
employment; so the anarchist

1:00:57.059,1:01:00.159
Proudhon thought women
belong at home, not in the workshop.

1:01:00.159,1:01:05.219
And in fact the First International
split on that question of whether women

1:01:05.219,1:01:08.989
are welcome in the employment
place or whether they were not.

1:01:08.989,1:01:12.359
And Proudhon's anarchist wing said:
'No, they were not welcome.'

1:01:12.359,1:01:19.249
But that had a lot to do with
the fact that the base of the

1:01:19.249,1:01:23.239
Proudhon movement was
essentially skilled artisan.

1:01:23.239,1:01:26.629
And they knew perfectly well that as soon as
women got introduced in the workshop doing

1:01:26.629,1:01:29.440
their jobs, (the skilled artisans)
will be called unskilled.

1:01:29.440,1:01:31.379
And they will be seriously…

1:01:31.379,1:01:34.790
So there was a social proces
definition there, which was very important.

1:01:34.790,1:01:37.079
So Marx mentions that a little bit…

1:01:37.079,1:01:42.229
of this when he talks: "…it depends in part on
the helpless condition" …this is the footnote

1:01:42.229,1:01:49.229
As he says: "The distinction between higher and
simple labour…rests in part on pure illusion…

1:01:49.339,1:01:52.219
…on distinctions that long since

1:01:52.219,1:01:57.979
ceased to be real …in part on the helpless
condition of some sections of the working class…"

1:01:58.309,1:02:00.940
But then, there is this problem however,

1:02:00.940,1:02:06.389
what do you do with the situation
of highly productive, skilled labour,

1:02:06.389,1:02:10.489
and how do we…
you know, account for the way

1:02:10.489,1:02:14.390
in which they work in the labour process?

1:02:14.390,1:02:19.039
And obviously they…

1:02:19.039,1:02:24.010
As he says: "This power being of higher
value, expresses itself in labour of a higher sort,

1:02:24.010,1:02:27.390
and therefore becomes objectified,
during an equal amount of time,

1:02:27.390,1:02:30.129
in proportionally higher values." That is,

1:02:30.129,1:02:33.229
skilled labour is incorporating
more value into a product

1:02:33.229,1:02:37.609
than unskilled labour. This is
the argument which is being made here.

1:02:37.609,1:02:42.439
It doesn't affect the theory of surplus value.
But it does affect the whole calculus,

1:02:42.439,1:02:47.769
as to exactly how we
understand the value of labour power,

1:02:47.769,1:02:54.299
as it is both employed, and as
it is productive in the labour process.

1:02:54.299,1:02:59.129
But Marx pushes by that whole argument
by the end of this chapter, simply saying:

1:02:59.129,1:03:02.979
"We therefore save ourselves a
superfluous operation, and simplify our analysis

1:03:02.979,1:03:07.129
by the assumption that the labour of the worker
employed by the capitalist is average simple labour."

1:03:07.129,1:03:11.199
So he's not going to concern
himself with this problem anymore.

1:03:11.199,1:03:15.769
As I think I mentioned before, when this
same issue cropped up in a slightly different

1:03:15.769,1:03:17.809
context, in a slightly different way,

1:03:17.809,1:03:21.179
this is a bit of a problem in
Marx's analysis, and some people made

1:03:21.179,1:03:26.739
quite a bit of this as a weakness
in Marx's analysis; so you may want to go

1:03:26.739,1:03:33.419
to that literature if you
get very far into this argument.

1:03:33.419,1:03:42.419
The next two chapters are in a way
simple enough in content.

1:03:42.419,1:03:49.869
And I don't think it's really necessary
for me to spend too much time on them.

1:03:49.869,1:03:53.139
He defines constant capital.

1:03:53.139,1:03:58.999
And it's constant
because it is past labour,

1:03:58.999,1:04:04.559
which is being incorporated in
products prior to their incorporation

1:04:04.559,1:04:08.239
in a particular labour process.

1:04:08.239,1:04:12.069
The value of that labour,
the value of the commodities,

1:04:12.069,1:04:16.429
the value of the
means of production is fixed.

1:04:16.429,1:04:20.139
What happens to that value?

1:04:20.139,1:04:27.089
Marx argues: "It gets transferred through
the production process to the final product."

1:04:27.089,1:04:31.569
So the total value of all
of those means of production,

1:04:31.569,1:04:37.219
which are used in the production process,
ends up coming out the other end

1:04:37.219,1:04:39.280
as the same total value.

1:04:39.280,1:04:42.979
It is constant, that's why
he calls it constant capital.

1:04:42.979,1:04:44.549
The value transfer…

1:04:44.549,1:04:49.899
the same amount of value comes out
at the end, as went in at the beginning.

1:04:49.899,1:04:56.499
Now, this poses some particular problems, which
he goes through in this chapter in some detail.

1:04:56.499,1:04:58.819
Okay, this makes sense

1:04:58.819,1:05:03.819
when we're looking at the
cotton that ends up in the shirt.

1:05:03.819,1:05:07.549
But what happens when we're
dealing with the energy inputs?

1:05:07.549,1:05:12.829
What happens when we're
dealing with materials that disappear?

1:05:12.829,1:05:21.239
What happens with machines,
that last a long time, say for ten years,

1:05:21.239,1:05:24.399
or something like that. What happens?

1:05:24.399,1:05:29.469
Well, Marx is going to say: 'There is a value
transfer that goes on, even though there is

1:05:29.469,1:05:33.619
no material transfer going on.'

1:05:33.619,1:05:37.739
The machine does not pass bits
of itself on into the product

1:05:37.739,1:05:42.199
- at least you hope it doesn't.

1:05:42.199,1:05:46.679
The value part of the machine
gets passed on to the product,

1:05:46.679,1:05:49.869
but at the end of the day
the machine is still there -

1:05:49.869,1:05:53.349
so how much of the value of the
machine gets passed on into the product?

1:05:53.349,1:05:57.669
Well, Marx does a simple straight
line depreciation argument. He says:

1:05:57.669,1:06:00.879
'Well, if it is ten years

1:06:00.879,1:06:06.569
then one-tenth of the value of the
machine passes on the product every year.

1:06:06.569,1:06:10.900
And you pro-rate that for the commodities. So that
a little bit of the value of a machine ends up

1:06:10.900,1:06:15.429
in the shoes, or the shirts, or whatever
it is; per every shoe or shirt.

1:06:15.429,1:06:20.069
So there is a value transfer
going on here. Now again, this is interesting,

1:06:20.069,1:06:29.399
this can only happen of course precisely
because value is immaterial but objective.

1:06:29.399,1:06:35.229
Remember that definition way back:
'Value is immaterial but objective.'

1:06:35.229,1:06:43.969
Socially necessary labour time is a social
relation. It has a social meaning,

1:06:43.969,1:06:51.529
and the means of its
transfer is socially mandated.

1:06:51.529,1:06:54.299
And it is mandated in this way,

1:06:54.299,1:07:00.149
that the value of those inputs
is incorporated into the output

1:07:00.149,1:07:03.339
as the same value.

1:07:03.339,1:07:06.939
Now, Marx is going to make
a big deal of the fact

1:07:06.939,1:07:13.939
that this transfer of value is given
to the capitalist free by the labourer.

1:07:14.409,1:07:19.049
That if the labourer were not doing
what the labourer is doing,

1:07:19.049,1:07:24.329
the value incorporated in those
means of production will be lost.

1:07:24.329,1:07:32.639
If the machines were not used,
the value incorporated in them would be lost.

1:07:32.639,1:07:40.049
So what the labourer is doing is
transferring value through productive consumption.

1:07:40.049,1:07:43.519
Remember the term:
'through productive consumption'.

1:07:43.519,1:07:48.389
That's what the labourer is doing.

1:07:48.389,1:07:53.219
And the reason Marx is making
a meal of this argument

1:07:53.219,1:07:58.569
is precisely because you can
see how much it empowers labour.

1:07:58.569,1:08:02.509
To know, that if it goes on strike,

1:08:02.509,1:08:06.279
if it stops the whole system,

1:08:06.279,1:08:10.839
the transfer of value stops as well.

1:08:10.839,1:08:14.630
The value embodied in the machinery
the capitalist has, and which is supposed

1:08:14.630,1:08:19.269
to last for ten years and work
for ten years is going to be lost.

1:08:19.269,1:08:22.839
In other words, part of what
Marx is doing here, is trying to

1:08:22.839,1:08:25.469
work through an accounting system

1:08:25.469,1:08:31.420
from the standpoint of the labourer, to
say to the labourer: 'Look at what you're doing!

1:08:31.420,1:08:37.589
You are actually preserving their value.'

1:08:37.589,1:08:40.009
And of course you could start to make

1:08:40.009,1:08:44.459
a counter argument to the way the
capitalist says 'Well, I'm giving you employment'

1:08:44.459,1:08:48.250
by turning to the capitalist and saying:
'Yeah, but I am preserving your value.

1:08:48.250,1:08:52.199
Shouldn't you be paying me
a lot more to preserve your value?

1:08:52.199,1:08:58.849
Without me you wouldn't preserve your value.
You would lose all your value!'.

1:08:58.849,1:09:02.630
So Marx is going to talk about that as

1:09:02.630,1:09:09.009
almost an accounting phenomenon;
the way in which value gets transferred.

1:09:09.009,1:09:17.440
Then of course, the labourer is
essentially going to add value

1:09:17.440,1:09:20.149
to the value of the means of production.

1:09:20.149,1:09:26.659
So in effect what Marx is
proposing here is a value-added theory

1:09:26.659,1:09:31.180
of surplus value production.

1:09:31.180,1:09:35.989
And because it is adding
value he defines that

1:09:35.989,1:09:41.049
capacity of adding
value as 'Variable Capital',

1:09:41.049,1:09:45.049
and it is variable,
because it is increasing the amount of value.

1:09:45.049,1:09:51.089
The labourer is working incorporating
more socially necessary labour time

1:09:51.089,1:09:54.340
into those existing or
pre-existing raw materials,

1:09:54.340,1:10:00.079
using the pre-existing machinery,
and is adding value.

1:10:00.079,1:10:05.250
So it's a value-added idea
that Marx is working with.

1:10:05.250,1:10:08.499
And as the labourer adds value,

1:10:08.499,1:10:11.590
they do reach this point,

1:10:11.590,1:10:15.789
where the amount of value
they have added to the product

1:10:15.789,1:10:20.789
is equivalent to the value
of their own labour power.

1:10:20.789,1:10:23.069
And as we have seen in
the accounting that went before,

1:10:23.069,1:10:28.880
that occurs after, say, six hours,

1:10:28.880,1:10:32.239
three shillings worth, or
whatever the accounting is.

1:10:32.239,1:10:38.919
So after six hours the
labourer has added enough value

1:10:38.919,1:10:42.679
to cover their own costs of reproduction

1:10:42.679,1:10:48.860
at a given standard of living,
in a given society and at a given time,

1:10:48.860,1:10:52.139
knowing what the value of labour power is

1:10:52.139,1:10:57.489
in a given society, at a given time.

1:10:57.489,1:11:01.309
But what the labourer then does,
is to add even more value,

1:11:01.309,1:11:06.039
which Marx then says:
'we call surplus-value'.

1:11:06.039,1:11:10.899
So the value of the product
at the end of the day is going to be

1:11:10.899,1:11:14.030
the addition of these three elements:

1:11:14.030,1:11:18.039
-constant capital, the value of that;

1:11:18.039,1:11:24.840
-variable capital, which is
equivalent to the value of labour power;

1:11:24.840,1:11:28.909
-and the surplus value.

1:11:28.909,1:11:34.039
And you have to think of that as being embodied
in every single commodity. Every single commodity

1:11:34.039,1:11:41.969
is made up of a C-element,
a V-element, and a S-element.

1:11:41.969,1:11:48.969
And it is a continuous process of production.

1:11:50.349,1:11:57.349
So what Marx does in this chapter
then on constant and variable capital

1:11:58.960,1:12:05.960
is to talk at some length,
about how value is transferred,

1:12:07.369,1:12:11.409
and the significance of that transfer,

1:12:11.409,1:12:18.409
and then how value is added;

1:12:19.219,1:12:25.249
which brings him then to
the definition, which he wants on p.317,

1:12:25.249,1:12:31.039
where he says: "That part of capital therefore,
which is turned into means of production,

1:12:31.039,1:12:35.859
i.e. the raw material the auxiliary
material and the instruments of labour,

1:12:35.859,1:12:40.980
does not undergo any quantitative alteration
of value in the process of production.

1:12:40.980,1:12:47.159
For this reason, I call it the constant part
of capital, or more briefly constant capital."

1:12:47.159,1:12:50.669
And then he goes on to say: "On the other hand,
that part of capital which is turned into

1:12:50.669,1:12:52.969
labour-power does undergo an alteration of value

1:12:52.969,1:12:58.199
in the process of production(…) I therefore
call it the variable part of capital or more

1:12:58.199,1:13:04.099
briefly, variable capital."

1:13:04.099,1:13:11.349
Now, these definitions are
going to be important in what follows.

1:13:11.349,1:13:17.960
Constant value, constant capital
is not about the creation of value;

1:13:17.960,1:13:23.839
is not,…cannot be
in Marx's accounting system.

1:13:23.839,1:13:31.379
Immediately you'll see that
machines cannot be a source of value.

1:13:31.379,1:13:38.379
all machines do is to transfer value; their
own value, and the value of other things.

1:13:42.769,1:13:49.480
Now, this creates some
rather counter-intuitive ideas.

1:13:49.480,1:13:55.369
People often think machines
are a source of value.

1:13:55.369,1:14:02.369
If machines are not a source of value,
why do capitalists invest in them?

1:14:04.800,1:14:09.639
None of this means of course,
that variable capital

1:14:09.639,1:14:12.889
and constant capital
are not changing in value.

1:14:12.889,1:14:19.089
He makes very clear, that the value of the raw
materials can yo-yo up and down, depending upon

1:14:19.089,1:14:24.969
conditions of labour in all those industries which
are producing the raw materials or the machines.

1:14:24.969,1:14:28.749
So, to call it 'Constant Capital' is not saying
'it's always constant', but simply saying:

1:14:28.749,1:14:34.000
'It is constant insofar as it enters
into the production process, and comes out

1:14:34.000,1:14:38.889
quantitatively the same.

1:14:38.889,1:14:43.309
In chapter nine, what he's after,

1:14:43.309,1:14:47.239
is very simple.

1:14:47.239,1:14:52.119
What he's after,

1:14:52.119,1:14:57.070
as he says on p.326 [footnote]:

1:14:57.070,1:15:04.070
"is an exact expression for the degree of
exploitation of labour-power by capital,

1:15:05.179,1:15:10.460
or of the worker by the capitalist."

1:15:10.460,1:15:26.670
And he here plays around with these
C plus V plus S categories and says:

1:15:26.670,1:15:30.320
'Well, what do these ratios look like?

1:15:30.320,1:15:46.839
What, for example, does the
ratio of C over V betoken?'

1:15:46.839,1:15:53.399
It's a ratio of the
value of the raw materials

1:15:53.399,1:15:57.400
which a given labourer,

1:15:57.400,1:15:59.679
who is hired, can process.

1:15:59.679,1:16:07.150
The higher this,
the greater the level of productivity.

1:16:07.150,1:16:12.199
Highly productive labour
will be moving a lot of C

1:16:12.199,1:16:18.150
with very little input of V.

1:16:18.150,1:16:25.150
So there's some kind of

1:16:25.339,1:16:32.119
measure of productivity
which is involved in this.

1:16:32.119,1:16:38.809
You then ask yourself the question:
what is the relationship S over V?

1:16:38.809,1:16:41.519
It's the amount of surplus

1:16:41.519,1:16:44.469
in relationship, and he has

1:16:44.469,1:16:50.029
various ways of looking at this,
the amount of surplus versus variable capital.

1:16:50.029,1:16:54.350
But it can also be put in other terms.

1:16:54.350,1:16:58.689
Necessary labour, i.e. the
labour necessary to reproduce

1:16:58.689,1:17:04.929
the labourer is V, surplus labour.

1:17:04.929,1:17:16.820
And this is the rate of exploitation.

1:17:22.170,1:17:28.510
Then there's something else,

1:17:28.510,1:17:33.110
which is the rate of profit,

1:17:33.110,1:17:39.569
which is the surplus over
the total amount of capital advanced,

1:17:39.569,1:17:46.569
which is C plus V.

1:17:48.219,1:17:52.949
Which is higher, the rate of
exploitation or the rate of profit?

1:17:52.949,1:17:55.560
The rate of exploitation.

1:17:55.560,1:17:58.689
What's does the capitalist always talk about?

1:17:58.689,1:18:01.609
The rate of profit.

1:18:01.609,1:18:05.139
So again, what Marx is trying to do here

1:18:05.139,1:18:09.219
is to set up an accounting system

1:18:09.219,1:18:12.360
which goes beyond the ways in which

1:18:12.360,1:18:15.400
the bourgeois typically calculates

1:18:15.400,1:18:21.110
and typically argues.

1:18:21.110,1:18:26.729
You can be very highly
exploited in a labour process,

1:18:26.729,1:18:32.199
but the capitalist can have
a low rate of profit. So when you go

1:18:32.199,1:18:36.469
to the management and say: 'Hey I'm being
highly exploited, I don't like this', you know,

1:18:36.469,1:18:42.349
and the management says: 'Well, just look
at my rate of profit, it's very, very low.'

1:18:42.349,1:18:47.400
And if you're naive you say: 'Oh yeah, I see,
you're not making much out of this, are you?,

1:18:47.400,1:18:51.320
so poor you, I'll work
even harder', you know.

1:18:51.320,1:18:58.320
Well, what Marx is saying: You better watch out,
because you should really be looking at

1:18:58.320,1:19:01.050
the rate of exploitation. Which is the amount

1:19:01.050,1:19:06.260
of labour-time, socially necessary labour time,
which you are giving to the capitalist

1:19:06.260,1:19:12.619
without remuneration.

1:19:12.619,1:19:19.619
Now, there's some interesting elements here.

1:19:19.679,1:19:23.409
I suggested that capitalists may like

1:19:23.409,1:19:27.409
to cite the rate of profit.

1:19:27.409,1:19:32.139
But, in fact, when they go to the
bank to try to borrow money,

1:19:32.139,1:19:40.179
what does the bank look at?
It looks at the rate of profit.

1:19:40.179,1:19:47.309
So actually capitalists are likely to operate

1:19:47.309,1:19:54.309
on the basis, they make their calculations,
on the basis of the rate of profit.

1:19:54.609,1:19:59.469
They on't necessarily even be
aware of the rate of exploitation.

1:19:59.469,1:20:06.239
They certainly have no
interest in calculating it.

1:20:06.239,1:20:11.030
And the problem with the labour-process,
remember it's a process which is being objectified

1:20:11.030,1:20:15.989
in things, so the end of the day you got
a bunch of things there which have

1:20:15.989,1:20:18.729
C plus V plus S embodied in them,

1:20:18.729,1:20:24.079
little elements.

1:20:24.079,1:20:27.429
And it's a continuous process.

1:20:27.429,1:20:31.090
So that it becomes actually impossible,

1:20:31.090,1:20:36.880
this again is the fetish argument,
right, it becomes impossible

1:20:36.880,1:20:40.669
for the worker to know at what point

1:20:40.669,1:20:53.159
they have done enough adding of socially
necessary labour time to be equivalent to their wage.

1:20:53.159,1:20:57.959
And if there was a little bell that went off,
you know, after six hours it went 'bang!',

1:20:57.959,1:21:02.540
now you're done, from now on you're
working free for the capitalist.

1:21:02.540,1:21:10.119
Imagine how the labour process would look like.
Imagine how social relations would look.

1:21:10.119,1:21:13.550
And of course it doesn't work
that way anyway, because

1:21:13.550,1:21:19.179
we're looking at a continuous labour process.

1:21:19.179,1:21:25.469
And while Marx is giving us this
calculation in terms of days, you can also

1:21:25.469,1:21:30.289
apply in terms of hours or minutes.

1:21:30.289,1:21:40.050
It's a continuous process, making things.

1:21:40.050,1:21:46.710
So this rate of surplus value then

1:21:46.710,1:21:57.059
is what animates Marx in thinking about

1:21:57.059,1:22:04.059
how the labourer should
think of their situations.

1:22:05.929,1:22:09.289
Which then leads him to,

1:22:09.289,1:22:12.379
you know, various ways in which

1:22:12.379,1:22:15.270
those representations can occur.

1:22:15.270,1:22:19.780
And then this wonderful section three

1:22:19.780,1:22:25.440
'Senior's last hour', when
"One fine morning in the year 1836,

1:22:25.440,1:22:31.040
Nassau W. Senior, who may be called the bel-esprit
of the English economists, a man famed both for

1:22:31.040,1:22:35.619
his economic science and his beautiful style,
was summoned from Oxford to Manchester,

1:22:35.619,1:22:42.619
to learn in the latter place the
political economy he taught in the former."

1:22:42.699,1:22:46.869
Now what Senior argued was this:

1:22:46.869,1:22:53.099
Senior argued that actually,
what the worker had to do

1:22:53.099,1:22:58.069
for the first ten hours of the day,
was to reproduce fully the value

1:22:58.069,1:23:02.920
of the means of production.

1:23:02.920,1:23:06.219
In other words: Senior had no concept

1:23:06.219,1:23:09.429
of the worker transferring value

1:23:09.429,1:23:13.149
in the production process.

1:23:13.149,1:23:18.729
Senior said: Well, if the means of production cost
this, then the worker has to be put to work

1:23:18.729,1:23:25.280
and actually has to labour all over again to
make those means of production all over again.

1:23:25.280,1:23:29.409
So the first ten hours are taken up with that.

1:23:29.409,1:23:34.130
The next hour is taken
up with reproducing the labourer,

1:23:34.130,1:23:38.309
and the final hour is the surplus.

1:23:38.309,1:23:42.510
Therefore you had to have a twelve-hour day.

1:23:42.510,1:23:47.880
And if you went to an eleven hour day,
this surplus would disappear,

1:23:47.880,1:23:51.280
there would be no surplus, poor capitalists.

1:23:51.280,1:23:55.299
No surplus, no profit.

1:23:55.299,1:24:01.829
So he made the argument, and the manufactures
were making the argument in Manchester, that

1:24:01.829,1:24:07.769
their profit all came from hour eleven to twelve.

1:24:07.769,1:24:14.689
And that therefore, under no
circumstances, would it be possible

1:24:14.689,1:24:19.590
to remain in business and reduce
the length of the working day.

1:24:19.590,1:24:23.059
And Senior went through, as Marx

1:24:23.059,1:24:27.949
dissects, deconstructs avidly,

1:24:27.949,1:24:30.789
all the stupidities of his argument:

1:24:30.789,1:24:34.300
"And the professor calls this [an] 'analysis'?"

1:24:34.300,1:24:38.659
I feel like going into a bourgeois
economics class and saying,

1:24:38.659,1:24:44.659
that on several occasions:
'You call this an analysis?'

1:24:46.790,1:24:53.699
So, Senior's last hour was just

1:24:53.699,1:25:01.659
Marx deconstructing a vulgar
economic argument, along these lines.

1:25:01.659,1:25:06.889
But notice, again, what he's doing here

1:25:06.889,1:25:10.889
is also exposing the sorts of logic

1:25:10.889,1:25:18.090
which capitalists would frequently resort to.

1:25:18.090,1:25:21.039
I abstain from consumption,

1:25:21.039,1:25:31.400
don't I deserve some remuneration
from that? I provide employment,

1:25:31.800,1:25:35.939
I do all of these…

1:25:35.939,1:25:41.190
I work for what I do.

1:25:41.190,1:25:43.900
And the way I work is,

1:25:43.900,1:25:49.579
I'm desperately concerned to get that profit
and that profit comes out of this twelfth hour.

1:25:49.579,1:25:54.139
But at the same time you'll see:
there's a certain confirmation,

1:25:54.139,1:26:00.940
that comes from Senior, of Marx's argument.

1:26:00.940,1:26:05.230
That indeed, it is the
capitalist's command of time

1:26:05.230,1:26:13.349
and the workers time
which is absolutely crucial.

1:26:13.349,1:26:17.889
You can't make a profit unless,

1:26:17.889,1:26:24.699
as a capitalist, you command the workers time.

1:26:24.699,1:26:32.009
And that therefore there's going
to be class struggle over

1:26:32.009,1:26:36.709
the workers time and how that time is used.

1:26:36.709,1:26:41.829
And remember here also
the way in which intensity

1:26:41.829,1:26:46.899
is being introduced, because part
of that command over time is to

1:26:46.899,1:26:51.909
command the intensity of the labour process.
And if you can up the intensity

1:26:51.909,1:27:03.299
of the labour process you're going
to get a lot more value produced.

1:27:03.299,1:27:10.290
So in all these ways we can
see Marx setting the stage for saying:

1:27:10.290,1:27:17.290
'Yeah, value is socially necessary labour time.

1:27:18.889,1:27:22.010
Profit comes from surplus value

1:27:22.010,1:27:28.650
which is surplus labour-time,
the surplus labour-time of the worker,

1:27:28.650,1:27:34.260
over and above the necessary labour-time

1:27:34.260,1:27:42.059
they use in order to reproduce their own value.'

1:27:42.059,1:27:49.769
So suddenly this becomes
all about time and temporality.

1:27:49.769,1:27:58.429
And capitalists are concerned
with temporality and command over temporality.

1:27:58.429,1:28:04.369
So not only does
the capitalist have to command

1:28:04.369,1:28:09.739
the labour process, determine
what it is the labourer will do,

1:28:09.739,1:28:13.649
not only must the
capitalist command the product,

1:28:13.649,1:28:19.049
they're also going to have
to command the time of the labourer.

1:28:19.049,1:28:29.119
And that becomes crucial, because without the
command of that time no surplus value, no profit.

1:28:29.119,1:28:35.280
And in a funny kind of way Senior
recognizes that and makes this hokey argument,

1:28:35.280,1:28:46.229
but nevertheless recognizes,
in that argument, the crucial aspect

1:28:46.229,1:28:51.960
of temporality to the way
in which capitalism works.

1:28:51.960,1:28:57.719
And again, one of the
elements which is involved here, in

1:28:57.719,1:29:12.339
this temporality, is going to be also carried over
into that metabolic moment of the relation to nature.

1:29:12.339,1:29:18.449
We all of us, I think, would recognize: one of the
big problems of capitalism is the way in which

1:29:18.449,1:29:23.290
decisions are made short-term.

1:29:23.290,1:29:29.460
Long-term decisions are much harder to make.

1:29:29.460,1:29:35.620
And the shorter the term of the decision,
the better for the capitalist.

1:29:35.620,1:29:39.630
Which means that, if you're exploiting a natural
resource of something of that kind, what do you do?

1:29:39.630,1:29:46.559
You exploit it to the hilt
on a short-term basis.

1:29:46.559,1:29:50.399
So the short-termism

1:29:50.399,1:29:55.290
is also going to be built in. So you
can build…, at the same time as you see what the

1:29:55.290,1:30:01.099
capitalist is going to do to the labourer,
you can also start to think about what the capitalist is

1:30:01.099,1:30:07.269
going to do in relationship to natural resources
and that metabolic relation to nature.

1:30:07.269,1:30:11.769
How is that metabolic relation
to nature going to evolve?

1:30:11.769,1:30:17.030
What is its evolution going to look like?

1:30:17.030,1:30:22.130
And again, what you start
to see here is Marx looking at

1:30:22.130,1:30:26.900
that unity, that we started off with in
the chapter on the labour process,

1:30:26.900,1:30:31.570
that metabolic moment where the
social and the natural…

1:30:31.570,1:30:35.210
And you start to look and think
about how that

1:30:35.210,1:30:39.929
begins to evolve under the pressures

1:30:39.929,1:30:43.289
of this temporality which

1:30:43.289,1:30:51.719
Marx will quote later on: that moments
are the elements of profit.

1:30:51.719,1:30:54.809
And if moments are the elements of profit,

1:30:54.809,1:31:04.380
then the capitalist is very concerned to
capture every moment in the labour process.

1:31:04.380,1:31:14.639
Which is going to take us then
into the next chapters on the working day.

1:31:14.639,1:31:20.319
OK, we've covered a lot, so let's have
some time here for some general discussion.

1:31:20.319,1:31:25.319
»STUDENT: How does Marx
account for the disability

1:31:25.319,1:31:32.809
to see these things that other
economists have disclaimed to see?

1:31:32.809,1:31:39.360
»HARVEY: I don't know, how he
accounts for that.

1:31:39.360,1:31:42.210
I think that… I think…two things,

1:31:42.210,1:31:47.019
probably come in to play most of all.

1:31:47.019,1:31:52.780
Firstly his conscious decision to situate himself

1:31:52.780,1:31:58.110
and look at this system from
the perspective of the worker

1:31:58.110,1:32:06.599
and the working class. So there's a, what
we would now call a 'situated knowledge decision'

1:32:06.599,1:32:11.510
…here…So I think, partly
it's looking at it from that perspective.

1:32:11.510,1:32:17.379
The other, I think, comes from,
what I initially talked about,

1:32:17.379,1:32:22.669
which is the way in which he uses for instance

1:32:22.669,1:32:26.120
notions of french socialist utopianism,

1:32:26.120,1:32:28.570
mainly French socialist utopianism,

1:32:28.570,1:32:34.159
German critical philosophy and English
political economy, to try to figure out what the

1:32:34.159,1:32:38.709
what the holes are in English political economy.
And sometimes it is very easy to pick the holes,

1:32:38.709,1:32:40.969
as he does with Senior.

1:32:40.969,1:32:46.230
Other times it's not so easy.
It's not so easy to do it with Ricardo.

1:32:46.230,1:32:53.099
And he's very admiring of Ricardo and that,
but sees clearly that Ricardo still has

1:32:53.099,1:32:58.199
these problems about the labour
theory of value without

1:32:58.199,1:33:01.619
knowing what socially necessary really meant.

1:33:01.619,1:33:06.629
And again, what we see here is
something which is important, that is:

1:33:06.629,1:33:11.000
When the capitalist establishes that unity

1:33:11.000,1:33:15.449
between the labour process and the production
of surplus value as being the core of what

1:33:15.449,1:33:17.549
they're about,

1:33:17.549,1:33:21.909
and it has to be the core of what they're about,
because that's the only way they can assure

1:33:21.909,1:33:24.199
themselves of that.

1:33:24.199,1:33:28.059
When they establish themselves that way,

1:33:28.059,1:33:32.489
they start to make decisions on that basis,

1:33:32.489,1:33:39.129
and the whole system gets
moved towards a different kind of

1:33:39.129,1:33:42.469
operational structure as a result of that

1:33:42.469,1:33:47.800
conscious move on the part of the capitalist,
we're after surplus value, that's what we want.

1:33:47.800,1:33:50.479
So, I think, it partly comes

1:33:50.479,1:33:54.270
from, like I said, his choice of situatedness,

1:33:54.270,1:34:01.289
the anti-capitalism, the situation of the worker
and then, if you like, the general critical

1:34:01.289,1:34:04.260
analysis he was attempting
to establish, and…and…,

1:34:04.260,1:34:09.340
I think, a scientific
urge to try and understand

1:34:09.340,1:34:12.429
capitalism as a working totality.

1:34:12.429,1:34:15.690
He never shies away from that. You know,

1:34:15.690,1:34:19.350
these days we're not supposed to talk about
totalities anymore, apparently it's reactionary,

1:34:19.350,1:34:24.989
but he takes the view that: you've got understand
the capitalist mode of production as a totality.

1:34:24.989,1:34:27.829
And you have to understand it in an organic

1:34:27.829,1:34:31.099
system, and you have to understand
the elements as these come together.

1:34:31.099,1:34:36.310
So he also has that scientific mission to
understand it as an organic totality.

1:34:36.310,1:34:38.889
There's no class next week.

1:34:38.889,1:34:41.349
It's 'Columbus Day' right?

1:34:41.349,1:34:43.190
Is that right?

1:34:43.190,1:34:46.389
What did Columbus do? (Laughter)

1:34:46.389,1:34:51.159
He was one of the worst
geographers who ever existed.

1:34:51.159,1:34:54.789
He landed at a place he
didn't know where he was.

1:34:54.789,1:34:59.339
He went into an environment he had
no idea what constituted it, in a population

1:34:59.339,1:35:02.609
that he had no idea how to deal with.

1:35:02.609,1:35:06.849
He was one of the worst geographical wreckers
that has ever been, you know, and yet he's

1:35:06.849,1:35:09.109
somehow or other held up as the great

1:35:09.109,1:35:11.989
example of a great geographer, it's incredible.

1:35:11.989,1:35:13.609
Anyway, no class next week.

1:35:13.609,1:35:20.780
The week after we're going do the chapter on
the working day which is a long empirical chapter.

1:35:22.619,1:35:26.119
…and then…the chapter following that,

1:35:26.119,1:35:31.169
so that's chapter ten and chapter eleven

1:35:31.169,1:35:35.699
which is 'the rate and mass of surplus-value'.
So chapters ten and eleven.

1:35:35.699,1:35:40.130
And we'll meet in two weeks time,
so you've got plenty of time

1:35:40.130,1:35:46.570
to ruminate on the working day,
with the help of Columbus and others.

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