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I think you see how, concepts that are launched
at one point in the text then
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actually become the simple basis for
an advance of an argument at a later point in the text.
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Now, if you remember, Marx starts off with a theory of the commodity.
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And so, the first question is: What fixes the value,
or how does he define, the value of the commodity?
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So, how did he define it? What's the value of a commodity?
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Socially necessary labour time, okay?
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So, the value is socially necessary labour time.
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Now if you go back to the passages where he talked about
socially necessary labour time,
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you'll find this immediately followed,
and this is back on page 130-131.
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It's immediately followed
by a discussion of
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the impact of changing productivity
upon the value of commodities.
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So, the question is: What does rising productivity
do to the value of commodities?
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-Lowers them. So, it lowers the unit value of commodities.
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We then combine that with a discussion
of the value of labour power.
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What was it that fixed the value of labour power?
» STUDENT: The time necessary to reproduce the labourer.
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» HARVEY: Can you be a bit more elabourate?
It's not just simply the time necessary to reproduce.
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» STUDENT: The value of labour power is the means of subsistence required…
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» HARVEY: It's the value
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of the means of subsistence needed to reproduce
the labourer at a given standard of living.
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So, it's the value of that bundle of commodities
that the labourer needs to survive.
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Now, when he was discussing this,
he pointed out that that value varies a great deal,
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according to the conditions of class struggle,
the degree of civilization in a country.
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So, the bundle commodities was not constant
across space and time.
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But then he said: At a given society, a given time,
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we know what that bundle is
and therefore we have a datum
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which we can establish, which is
the value of labour power.
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But then what he does is to go one step further,
and say this:
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We're not simply dealing with this historical
and moral element.
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So, you go to page 276,
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and then you'll find a little short paragraph down there,
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where he gives a definition, which we've given:
"The value of labour-power
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can be resolved into the value of
a definite quantity of the means of subsistence.
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It therefore varies with the value of the means of subsistence, i.e.
with the quantity of labour-time required to produce them."
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So, what happens to the value of this bundle of commodities
when there's rising productivity?
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-Falls.
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Therefore, the value of labour-power declines,
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not in terms of what people are physically receiving, you still
get the same bundle of commodities.
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But they just cost you much less.
The value has gone down.
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Now, that happens as a connection between these two,
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but there's a funny thing about this connection:
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Does any increase in productivity do this?
» STUDENT: Just the increase in the goods that go into the…
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» HARVEY: Just in, what we'll call,
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this only operates with respect to what we'll call wage goods, i.e.
those which enter into this bundle of commodities.
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So, an increase in productivity in
making mink coats for the bourgeoisie doesn't do it.
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The increase in productivity, which makes a Lexus
cheaper doesn't do it.
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So, for anything that goes into this bundle
of commodities, which is affected by this,
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generates, therefore, a lower value of labour power.
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Now, how does Marx define the rate of exploitation?
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What is the rate of exploitation?
» STUDENT: The ratio of the surplus worker's time to necessary worker's time.
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» HARVEY: Okay.
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Simply put: S over V.
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What happens to 'S over V' as 'V' goes down?
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The rate of exploitation increases.
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Of course, what he does in this section,
is to start out by saying:
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'Well, imagine that the working day is fixed,
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that you can't change the length of the working day
anymore', and we'll remember,
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the previous chapter took up the question of limits.
What are the limits
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on the mass of the surplus-value
which the capitalist can gain?
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And those limits are fixed by two things:
(1) the rate of surplus-value
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and (2) by the number of labourers you employ.
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So, if the number of labourers you employ, is fixed,
and the length of the working day is fixed,
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then the only way you can hope to increase
the rate of exploitation and the rate of surplus-value,
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is by decreasing the amount you spend on 'V'.
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He starts off this section, by saying 'Well, we know that capitalists
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are very anxious to reduce wages as much as they can.'
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We just heard, right?
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'But I'm not going to consider that case.'
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So, he sets up an argument which is again, based
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on the propositions of political economy
about a perfectly functioning world.
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So, he says on page 431:
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'I know that capitalists will try to reduce wages below value.'
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He says, but "the surplus labour would in this case be
prolonged only by transgressing the normal limits;
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its domain would be extended only by a usurpation of part
of the domain of necessary labour-time.
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Despite the important part which this method plays in practice,
we are excluded
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from considering it here by our assumption that all commodities,
including labour-power, are bought and sold at their full value."
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Now, this again, is another instance,
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and we've come across them many times in 'Capital'
and we're going to come across them again,
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where Marx, in order to make his argument, stays within
the assumptions of a perfectly functioning, political-economic system,
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as depicted by the political economists
of the 18th and early 19th centuries.
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As we've already discussed, the reason he does
that is because he wants to say:
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'Even if their system worked, according to their utopian plans,
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we would get a very different result
than that which Adam Smith predicted.'
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So, he's being very rigorous about staying within these assumptions.
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But he's saying: 'Look, we can't get this effect
of an increased rate of exploitation,
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simply by combining the argument about the value of the commodity
with the argument about the value of labour power.'
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Now, this immediately raises some very interesting questions.
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Which Marx does not, at this point,
immediately take up.
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For example, let's suppose there is a dramatic increase in productivity,
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and wage goods come way, way down in value.
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What would happen, if you gave
a bit of that saving to the working class?
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You could actually increase the rate of exploitation,
while increasing the physical living standard of the workers.
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Now, this is a very, very important element in the argument,
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because one of the things people'll always say
to you is 'Marx is always talking about an increasing rate of exploitation,
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but, my god, look how well off the working class
are now, in terms of the products they've got
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as opposed to what they had 150 years ago.
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So, his thesis about an increasing rate of exploitation is obvious nonsense.'
0:12:42.810,0:12:46.800
Well, the answer to that is: It's not obvious nonsense at all.
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It's perfectly feasible, within a capitalist system,
that increasing productivity, produces
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such an increase in the quantities of commodities which are available,
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That a certain segment has to go to the working-class,
otherwise you wouldn't have a market,
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and that segment that does go to the working
class is, of course,
0:13:14.350,0:13:18.080
one of the great ways in which you can pull
the working class
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into support for capitalism, by saying 'Look
you're getting better off all of the time,
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you have more goods now that you had 30, 40 years ago.'
0:13:30.030,0:13:37.270
Now, whether that sharing of the gains of productivity
actually occurs,
0:13:37.270,0:13:43.920
depends on class struggle, of course. Like the length of the working day.
Marx does not
0:13:43.920,0:13:47.020
actually introduce that here. But,
0:13:47.020,0:13:57.080
elsewhere in 'Capital' and elsewhere in his writings,
he does, in fact, entertain this possibility.
0:13:57.080,0:14:03.620
But, historically, I think there's a very
interesting thing we have to look at.
0:14:03.620,0:14:13.370
You look at the history of American labour,
up until around 1970.
0:14:13.370,0:14:26.340
American labour always benefited by an increase in its living standards,
as it shared somewhat in rising productivity.
0:14:26.340,0:14:34.870
And in fact, a typical trade union bargaining thing
in the 1960's was precisely
0:14:34.870,0:14:40.510
to say to the unions: 'You agree to these means
by which we will increase productivity,
0:14:40.510,0:14:46.860
and we'll agree to give you more money,
so that you get more in the marketplace.'
0:14:46.860,0:14:51.800
So, it's a kind of productivity-sharing agreement.
0:14:51.800,0:14:55.670
Since the 1970's, all of the data in this country show,
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not necessarily globally, but in this country show,
0:14:59.200,0:15:06.140
that the working class has not benefited from gains in productivity,
hardly at all.
0:15:06.140,0:15:16.890
In other words, real wages have remained pretty stagnant,
for the last 20, 30 years, a little bit increased in the 1990's.
0:15:16.890,0:15:22.910
But, pretty much stagnant, which means that
the working class has not shared
0:15:22.910,0:15:29.770
in the benefits that come from rising productivity.
So, guess who has taken it all?
0:15:29.770,0:15:35.000
Well, you know hedge-fund folk
and all the rest of it.
0:15:35.000,0:15:40.299
So we get an incredible increase
in inequality over the last 30 years
0:15:40.299,0:15:51.270
which is partly an indicator of the fact that the working class in this country
has not benefited from this, at all.
0:15:51.270,0:15:55.629
Again, that has a lot to do with the state
of class struggle, how class struggle is being
0:15:55.629,0:15:59.530
set up, and all the rest of it.
Marx does not deal with that in this chapter,
0:15:59.530,0:16:04.640
but it is implicit in the analysis and I think
it's very important at this point in the
0:16:04.640,0:16:14.700
argument to insert it as part and parcel
of what is possible here.
0:16:14.700,0:16:17.700
So the proposition would simply be this:
0:16:17.700,0:16:21.450
It is entirely feasible
0:16:21.450,0:16:27.820
for there to be an increase in the physical
living standards of the working-class,
0:16:27.820,0:16:34.480
at the same time as there'd be an increase
in the rate of exploitation.
0:16:34.480,0:16:41.600
Bear that proposition in mind.
0:16:41.600,0:16:46.120
Secondly, there's another issue, which he does raise in this chapter,
0:16:46.120,0:16:54.430
but which I want to suggest might have a slightly different answer.
0:16:54.430,0:16:59.360
What happens when somebody increases productivity?
0:16:59.360,0:17:04.910
An individual capitalist increases the productivity
0:17:04.910,0:17:12.449
in shoe production and the value of the shoes
goes down and this is what workers need.
0:17:12.449,0:17:13.910
See what happens.
0:17:13.910,0:17:17.610
An individual capitalist does something,
0:17:17.610,0:17:22.690
which is a benefit to the whole working-class,
to the whole capitalist class, sorry.
0:17:22.690,0:17:27.829
It's a benefit to everybody in the capitalist class.
0:17:27.829,0:17:39.390
Because the value of labour power goes down, because shoes are cheaper,
all capitalists can pay less value.
0:17:39.390,0:17:46.660
So, he raises the question: Why would an individual capitalist
do something which is
0:17:46.660,0:17:53.330
for the benefit of the whole capitalist class?
0:17:53.330,0:18:00.250
I mean, maybe they're endowed with incredible
class consciousness, when they do this.
0:18:00.250,0:18:04.160
But at some point they're likely to get really
teed off, in the sense that they'll say 'well,
0:18:04.160,0:18:09.280
look, I'm putting in all this effort in innovating
and raising productivity.
0:18:09.280,0:18:13.310
Everybody's benefiting, you're all sitting
around doing nothing,
0:18:13.310,0:18:17.010
you're playing what's called the free rider game.
0:18:17.010,0:18:20.690
You're, all the rest of you, you're doing nothing.
0:18:20.690,0:18:28.920
I mean even you people making mink coats are benefiting from this.
0:18:28.920,0:18:32.080
So, why would I as an individual capitalist do that?
0:18:32.080,0:18:39.080
What is the incentive for me? Well, yes, I can
pay my labourer just a little bit less,
0:18:39.440,0:18:41.930
because shoes are a bit cheaper.
0:18:41.930,0:18:46.669
But it's it's a very small amount of gain
I get for a large amount of effort.'
0:18:46.669,0:18:50.720
So, Marx is going to talk about,
0:18:50.720,0:18:58.100
how is it that individual capitalists
are persuaded to do this.
0:18:58.100,0:19:06.790
And his answer is going to be based
on something that we have come up against before,
0:19:06.790,0:19:15.530
which is the idea of the coercive laws of competition.
0:19:16.080,0:19:27.919
Now, Marx is very restrained about
how to look at competition, throughout 'Capital'.
0:19:27.919,0:19:37.380
In part, I think, because he wants to view it, a bit like demand and
supply, as something that equilibrates the system,
0:19:37.380,0:19:43.660
rather than being fundamental to the character
of the system.
0:19:43.660,0:19:59.920
So what he does, is to then immediately introduce
the idea that we have to look at the rules of competition.
0:19:59.920,0:20:08.090
So, on 433, he says:
0:20:08.090,0:20:12.930
"It is not our intention here to consider the way in which
the immanent laws of capitalist production
0:20:12.930,0:20:17.700
manifest themselves in
the external movement of the individual capitals,
0:20:17.700,0:20:20.800
assert themselves as the coercive laws of competition,
0:20:20.800,0:20:25.759
and therefore enter into the
consciousness of the individual capitalist as the motives
0:20:25.759,0:20:27.799
which drive him forward,
0:20:27.799,0:20:29.130
this much is clear:
0:20:29.130,0:20:35.280
a scientific analysis of competition is possible
only if we can grasp the inner nature capital,…"
0:20:35.280,0:20:40.120
That is, you got to understand what it is that
competition is going to do,
0:20:40.120,0:20:45.210
if you can't understand what competition is
going to do, you can't understand
0:20:45.210,0:20:51.310
why a capitalist society tolerates or likes competition.
0:20:51.310,0:20:52.730
And as he says:
0:20:52.730,0:20:56.920
This "scientific analysis … is possible only
only if we can grasp the inner nature of capital,
0:20:56.920,0:20:59.040
just as the apparent motions
0:20:59.040,0:21:03.040
of the heavenly bodies are intelligible only to someone
who is acquainted with their real motions,
0:21:03.040,0:21:06.330
which are not perceptible to the senses."
0:21:06.330,0:21:13.150
Again, there's a notion here, which goes back a bit,
close to fetishism, right? That, there's a disguise,
0:21:13.150,0:21:18.230
but if we just look at competition in itself,
we're gonna miss the point,
0:21:18.230,0:21:25.230
it's disguising something else. What is it disguising?
0:21:27.770,0:21:34.770
What it is disguising, he points out on page 434-435, is this:
0:21:36.850,0:21:44.040
Socially necessary labour time is a social average.
0:21:44.040,0:21:51.040
So the value of commodities is a social average.
0:21:51.970,0:21:55.610
And at any one particular moment,
0:21:55.610,0:22:04.560
some capitalists will be working above that average
and some will be working below that average.
0:22:04.560,0:22:08.350
Those who'll be working below that average,
0:22:08.350,0:22:16.810
will be selling at the average but producing at below average,
therefore they'll be getting a little bit more surplus-value.
0:22:16.810,0:22:22.280
Those selling above will be getting less surplus-value than the social average.
0:22:22.280,0:22:26.710
So, there's a distinction:
0:22:26.710,0:22:30.380
Everybody's selling at the social average, but [there are] those
who are producing above the social average
0:22:30.380,0:22:34.210
and those who are producing below the social average.
0:22:34.210,0:22:41.250
And if you go back to those passages about
socially necessary time and productivity,
0:22:41.250,0:22:53.170
Marx introduces the question: What happens when you get hand loom weavers
against power loom weavers?
0:22:53.170,0:23:00.160
The productivity of the power loom weavers is
immensely greater,
0:23:00.160,0:23:04.830
so what happens to value? Well, value starts to come down
0:23:04.830,0:23:08.530
and eventually, of course, the hand loom weavers
are gonna be driven out of business
0:23:08.530,0:23:13.390
because they can't compete anymore.
0:23:13.390,0:23:20.670
But notice what happens in the midst of this process;
let's suppose the social average,
0:23:20.670,0:23:22.880
we're doing it in a graph kind of form,
0:23:22.880,0:23:33.870
at any one particular moment, the social average is -that-.
Ten units to produce a widget or whatever.
0:23:33.870,0:23:41.050
Let's suppose I come up with a superior way of making widgets.
0:23:41.050,0:23:48.040
Then I'm still going to sell at -this average-
but I'm going to produce at -this one here-,
0:23:48.040,0:23:58.920
So what I get is an extra piece of surplus-value.
0:23:58.920,0:24:02.140
But then what happens?
0:24:02.140,0:24:07.730
At some point maybe I start to produce a lot
more widgets because I've gotten so productive,
0:24:07.730,0:24:16.980
so I will start to try to outcompete everybody else
and extend my market by bringing the value down,
0:24:16.980,0:24:21.220
-this- is the original time,
to time 2.
0:24:21.220,0:24:24.830
In which case I'm still getting extra,
0:24:24.830,0:24:30.039
but I'm now outcompeting everybody else, so
anybody else who is producing much above that,
0:24:30.039,0:24:34.309
is beginning to get into competitive trouble.
0:24:34.309,0:24:38.130
What do you do if you're in competitive trouble?
0:24:38.130,0:24:43.420
You say: 'What on earth is my competitor doing
that allows my competitor to go into
0:24:43.420,0:24:46.600
the market and produce so cheaply?
0:24:46.600,0:24:51.950
Oh, they've got a new machine!
Okay, I can get a new machine.'
0:24:51.950,0:24:58.030
So what my competitor does is then say 'Ah!
I'm gonna follow you into your technological innovation,
0:24:58.030,0:25:00.179
I'm going to come down to -here-.'
0:25:00.179,0:25:06.890
And pretty soon, everybody is down to -here-;
the value's -here- and
0:25:06.890,0:25:12.670
my surplus-value has disappeared, my extra surplus-
value has disappeared.
0:25:12.670,0:25:19.270
So, what Marx says about this, is that there
is a form of surplus-value,
0:25:19.270,0:25:25.050
driven in this way by the coercive laws of competition,
0:25:25.050,0:25:31.620
which is ephemeral. It only lasts as long as I'm ahead of the pack,
0:25:31.620,0:25:43.380
in terms of my production technique, my organizational technique,
but it will disappear as soon as everybody catches up with me.
0:25:43.380,0:25:48.600
And this is what individual capitalists are after when they innovate.
0:25:48.600,0:25:52.960
They're not after -this form- of surplus-value at all,
they would have the 'surplus rider' problem,
0:25:52.960,0:25:55.080
they would probably stop it.
0:25:55.080,0:26:08.860
But they are after -this-. Because as an individual capitalist,
I can get this ephemeral kind of surplus-value,
0:26:08.860,0:26:16.400
just for a while, by having a superior technology.
0:26:16.400,0:26:22.960
But, notice something immediately. I then think to myself:
0:26:22.960,0:26:27.260
'Well there's something about a superior technology
that was extremely advantageous to me, so
0:26:27.260,0:26:31.399
I'm going to find another superior technology.'
0:26:31.399,0:26:39.170
And pretty soon my competitors, well most will get on the
idea and say superior technology seems a pretty good idea.
0:26:39.170,0:26:42.350
So I'm going to get superior technologies.
0:26:42.350,0:26:51.400
So what the coercive laws of competition tend to do,
is to generate leapfrogging innovations
0:26:51.400,0:27:00.570
in which there is a competitive fight
to try to get the most superior technology,
0:27:00.570,0:27:04.820
in that search for this ephemeral form
0:27:04.820,0:27:09.350
of surplus-value which gives me windfall profits, if
you want to call it that.
0:27:09.350,0:27:18.110
Ephemeral, excess surplus-value just for that period of time.
0:27:18.110,0:27:22.409
Here's a very happy coincidence:
0:27:22.409,0:27:34.200
The individual motivation of the capitalist,
driven by the coercive laws of competition,
0:27:34.200,0:27:49.590
produce this effect i.e. the reduction in the value of labour power.
0:27:49.590,0:27:56.170
It's interesting here, what Marx is doing is
taking individual behavior and setting it alongside
0:27:56.170,0:27:59.750
class perspective.
0:27:59.750,0:28:10.480
And this is also very important, that capitalists
rarely act individually, in a class interest.
0:28:11.309,0:28:18.460
But, what drives them individually is to do something which is in the class interest,
0:28:18.460,0:28:25.570
which is why he wants you to understand that the reason that
0:28:25.570,0:28:29.700
capitalists keep on yacking on about competition
and everybody goes on and on about
0:28:29.700,0:28:40.160
the importance of the competition and being competitive and so on,
is because it produces this kind of result.
0:28:40.160,0:28:48.909
This happy coincidence between what's happening to the individual capitalist,
and what's happening to the class interest,
0:28:48.909,0:28:57.510
is really very strongly presented here.
0:28:57.980,0:29:00.870
This also produces something else.
0:29:00.870,0:29:22.600
I suggested that capitalists driven by the coercive laws of competition
are going to be pushed towards innovation.
0:29:22.600,0:29:31.680
Now there's an interesting thing, in a lot of studies you will find innovation
0:29:31.680,0:29:44.880
treated as something which is 'outside of', it's external to the dynamics, it's an exogenous
variable, it's outside of, it just happens, you know.
0:29:44.880,0:29:50.770
Edison had an idea or somebody else had an idea, you know, it just happened.
0:29:50.770,0:29:58.560
What Marx is doing here is actually internalizing it within the logic of capital itself.
0:29:58.560,0:30:02.980
That is, when you see what he's doing here,
you immediately would understand
0:30:02.980,0:30:12.880
there is no way in which a capitalist society
can not be technologically dynamic,
0:30:12.880,0:30:16.940
it has to be.
0:30:16.940,0:30:22.950
And of course, historically, many people now
would look at other modes of production
0:30:22.950,0:30:28.720
and say 'Well, the problem was they weren't
technologically dynamic'.
0:30:28.720,0:30:31.390
One of the criticisms of
0:30:31.390,0:30:35.810
the ex-Soviet Union was: They weren't technologically
dynamic, they didn't come up with
0:30:35.810,0:30:41.299
new brands of toothpaste, two a month, or something like that.
They didn't do those kinds of things.
0:30:41.299,0:30:45.510
Actually, they were technologically dynamic in
certain areas,
0:30:45.510,0:30:49.020
laser technologies and all those kinds of things,
but they were not technologically dynamic
0:30:49.020,0:30:51.970
in the way that capitalism is.
0:30:51.970,0:31:02.200
But what comes out of this is that technological
dynamism is both inevitable, and a good thing.
0:31:02.200,0:31:13.030
If somebody came from outer space to put a
moratorium upon technological change under capitalism,
0:31:13.030,0:31:17.260
then the whole system would collapse.
0:31:17.260,0:31:21.190
So Marx is saying that there's an internal necessity.
0:31:21.190,0:31:27.020
That's what the value theory goes back to, the socially necessary,
What is socially necessary for capitalism to survive?
0:31:27.020,0:31:33.730
Technological dynamism,
along, of course, with growth,
0:31:33.730,0:31:41.370
capitalism either grows or dies,
it's technologically dynamic or it dies.
0:31:41.370,0:31:51.570
What Marx is doing here is explaining to us why and how
that internalization of technological dynamism
0:31:51.570,0:31:55.790
becomes so important.
0:31:55.790,0:32:03.850
So you don't go back to the great inventors
and all that kind of stuff, and explain technological
0:31:59.930,0:32:05.680
dynamism simply by talking about the great inventors.
0:32:05.680,0:32:13.560
You explain it by a system that begins to
particularly kick in towards the end of the 18th century,
0:32:13.560,0:32:21.220
in which this internalization of technological dynamism
really takes off.
0:32:21.220,0:32:30.010
And that is, if you like,
a central aspect of a capitalist mode of production.
0:32:30.010,0:32:39.070
Then this leads to one other question:
Is there any way in which capitalists could realize
0:32:39.070,0:32:45.810
this increased exploitation through collective action?
0:32:45.810,0:32:49.510
Marx here does not raise that possibility,
0:32:49.510,0:33:00.559
but actually that possibility was raised in the chapter on the working day.
Can you remember what it was?
0:33:03.300,0:33:10.300
What was it that the industrial interests wanted?
Final hour… ? -No.
0:33:10.300,0:33:15.750
The working day broadened… -No.
0:33:15.750,0:33:22.010
What they wanted was cheap what?
0:33:22.010,0:33:24.510
Cheap bread!
0:33:24.510,0:33:34.220
They wanted the Corn Laws repealed,
they wanted cheap imports of wheat,
0:33:34.220,0:33:40.230
so they could have cheap bread,
so they could lower wages,
0:33:40.230,0:33:44.150
so that they could be more competitive on
the global economy.
0:33:44.150,0:33:49.940
That's what the Manchester school of economics was about,
that's what Compton and Bright
0:33:49.940,0:33:56.170
and the anti-Corn Law agitation was about.
0:33:56.170,0:34:00.830
It was cheap bread.
0:34:00.830,0:34:13.669
So actually, there is a way in which
a capitalist class interest can be expressed, in tariff policy.
0:34:13.669,0:34:28.849
Where do you think most of the gains in physical living standards,
insofar as they're there at all,
0:34:21.849,0:34:28.849
over the last 20 or 30 years, has come from?
0:34:30.419,0:34:32.569
Where has it come from?
0:34:32.569,0:34:39.679
Cheap Chinese imports, Walmart…
0:34:39.679,0:34:44.349
And you fool around with a Walmart economy and you
fool around which cheap Chinese imports,
0:34:44.349,0:34:53.460
see what it does to the physical standards of living of the working class.
0:34:53.460,0:35:00.640
In other words, tariff policy becomes
0:35:00.640,0:35:06.529
very much mixed up. And part of what you're seeing right now
is a kind of crazy business,
0:35:06.529,0:35:20.619
the AFL-CIO saying 'We got to stop the export of jobs
to China because that means loss of jobs here.'
0:35:20.619,0:35:27.209
But in so doing of course they're likely to undermine
the standard of living of the working class.
0:35:27.209,0:35:35.769
And actually, it turns out that most of the job losses in this country
are not due to outsourcing.
0:35:35.769,0:35:38.939
What are they due to?
0:35:38.939,0:35:40.429
Technological change.
0:35:40.429,0:35:46.789
About sixty percent of the job reduction amongst the working class
in this country over the last 30 years has been due
0:35:46.789,0:35:51.099
to technological change.
0:35:51.099,0:35:59.630
When I arrived in Baltimore [early 1970's] there were something of about
27,000 people employed in 'Bethlehem Steel'.
0:35:59.630,0:36:10.039
By the time you get to 1990, there about 5,000 people employed in Bethlehem Steel
producing the same amount of steel.
0:36:10.039,0:36:18.979
Eventually, of course it all disappears, it's gone to China
and Korea and Japan and all the rest of it.
0:36:18.979,0:36:19.890
But the point,
0:36:19.890,0:36:26.389
the point here is that you can see immediately
what the collective interest might be
0:36:26.389,0:36:31.040
over things like free-trade, tariff policy and all the rest of it.
0:36:31.040,0:36:42.739
And why it actually makes it rather complicated
for a working-class movement to argue for protectionism
0:36:42.739,0:36:51.890
and at the same time, want to have cheap goods
to support it's standards of living.
0:36:51.890,0:36:56.920
So, in other words, you have to mix up this external dynamic.
0:36:56.920,0:37:05.519
There are other places where this collective interest comes out,
consider the tax system:
0:37:05.519,0:37:12.519
What is exempt from sales tax in New York state?
0:37:12.519,0:37:20.400
-Food. It's pretty good example, right?
0:37:20.400,0:37:35.449
What about agricultural subsidies which give you cheap
cheap milk, cheap agricultural products?
0:37:35.449,0:37:43.050
Europe has maintained a lot of its standard of living through agricultural
subsidies. So there's a whole
0:37:43.050,00:37:51.829
arena here of class politics, around 'what is going to be
the value of this bundle of commodities'.
0:37:51.829,0:38:02.019
So, if you suddenly taxed all the food, at the same rate
you're taxing everything else, then that would raise (…)
0:38:02.019,0:38:09.019
I mean, wage demands would go skyrocketing up, immediately.
0:38:10.160,0:38:15.279
So, again, there are, it turns out collective ways.
0:38:15.279,0:38:20.189
And some of them have historically been very very interesting,
0:38:20.189,00:38:33.920
for example: the industrial interest has on occasions supported
subsidized housing for the workers, rent control.
0:38:33.920,0:38:46.039
In some countries, for instance in France in the 1920s
the industrial interest was fiercely behind rent control.
0:38:46.039,0:38:52.089
And subsidized housing has played a very important role in keeping
0:38:52.089,0:38:56.859
the country competitive in terms of the wages it had to pay.
0:38:56.859,0:39:04.199
One of the long-term effects of Margaret Thatcher
privatizing all of the social housing in Britain,
0:39:04.199,0:39:12.390
was to raise the cost of housing to the point where
Britain became non-competitive
0:39:12.390,0:39:18.169
in many areas of industrial activity. So, its car industry,
0:39:18.169,0:39:24.179
the British car industry sort of disappeared and
all kind of things like that.
0:39:24.179,0:39:32.829
So politics gets played around what is it that is fixing
the value of this bundle of commodities?
0:39:32.829,0:39:37.650
Marx does a great job in this chapter, of talking
about the way in which this individual incentive
0:39:37.650,0:39:45.189
has this effect. But he does not take up
the other part of the story, which is
0:39:45.189,0:39:50.259
the collective way in which capitalist class interests
and working class interests and
0:39:50.259,,0:40:01.469
the interest of those classes who have no immediate stake in the issue
get involved in a struggle over tariff policy, taxation policy,
0:40:01.469,0:40:09.989
subsidies policy to agriculture. And all kinds of arguments of that sort,
so the class character of that
0:40:09.989,0:40:11.939
starts to become significant.
0:40:11.939,0:40:22.759
And as I said, I think it's a pity that Marx didn't mention this here
and actually doesn't take it up elsewhere, to my knowledge.
0:40:22.759,0:40:29.249
So, this is, if you like, the theory of relative surplus-value.
0:40:29.249,0:40:40.849
It's a very simple formulation, as I suggested, but it's one
you have to really think about and get straight,
0:40:40.849,0:40:43.959
by going back over these propositions
0:40:43.959,0:40:50.919
going back over, for example: What is it that
fixes the value of labour power?
0:40:50.919,0:40:57.919
And then asking the question: What is it that
fixes the value of that bundle of commodities?
0:40:58.239,0:41:07.390
You've got to get those connections straight,
because for some reason or other
0:41:07.390,0:41:11.959
people often seem to have difficulty in seeing
the difference between
0:41:11.959,0:41:16.999
this social class form that I'm talking,
and the individual form,
0:41:16.999,0:41:22.029
and what the relationship is between the two. But
I think you can see it immediately when you say:
0:41:22.029,0:41:30.059
Rising productivity arises out of this search
for ephemeral relative surplus-value,
0:41:30.059,0:41:38.139
and it generates a social form, provided it affects
the value of labour power.
0:41:39.139,0:41:42.699
It seems to me important when reading these two chapters and
0:41:42.699,0:41:54.979
the long chapter on machinery that follows, to recognize that
Marx is as interested in organizational form,
0:41:54.979,0:42:03.930
if you like, the software, as he is in the machines, the hardware,
and all the rest of it.
0:42:03.930,0:42:07.339
So you have to look at Marx's theory of
0:42:07.339,0:42:12.529
technology as not simply being about machinery
but also being about organizational form.
0:42:12.529,0:42:20.369
And the two organizational forms, which are basic,
right through to our situation are:
0:42:20.369,0:42:24.599
co-operation and division of labour, and how those work.
0:42:24.599,0:42:32.279
The distinctive form under capitalism is, of course,
the development of machinery, and the machine culture
0:42:32.279,0:42:36.979
in general. But that doesn't mean that
co-operation or division of labour disappear,
0:42:36.979,0:42:39.119
they are integral to
0:42:39.119,0:42:44.839
the acquisition of relative surplus-value because
both co-operation and division of labour,
0:42:44.839,0:42:52.499
when you look at the reorganizations, are about
finding ways to increase productivity.
0:42:52.499,0:43:00.499
What you'll find also in these chapters,
is again a question which was posed
0:43:00.499,0:43:06.879
very much in the chapter on the labour process.
0:43:06.879,0:43:13.039
Where Marx does not actually view the labour
process as something negative,
0:43:13.039,0:43:23.729
he views it is something potentially creative,
potentially beneficial and satisfying etc.
0:43:23.729,0:43:27.190
It's only under capitalism that
0:43:27.190,0:43:31.019
this is turned into something rather negative,
and I think you'll get a similar atmosphere
0:43:31.019,0:43:37.029
in these chapters which suggest that
co-operation is not bad thing.
0:43:37.029,0:43:44.249
In fact, it's a wonderful capacity we have.
Division of labour is not a bad thing.
0:43:44.249,0:43:52.959
The only interesting question for Marx is: How
are divisions of labour and co-operation mobilized
0:43:52.959,0:43:56.329
under capitalism and with what effects?
Which we'll see
0:43:56.329,0:44:02.660
are broadly going to be negative with some positive
qualities as well.
0:44:02.660,0:44:07.369
The chapter on machinery is gonna be much more
0:44:07.369,0:44:13.549
controversial, because the issue there will
be: To what degree the machines themselves
0:44:13.549,0:44:23.019
are inherently so capitalistic that you can't hold with them
very much longer if you want to be socialist,
0:44:23.019,0:44:28.179
or to what degree is it possible also,
to convert them into something
0:44:28.179,0:44:35.949
which is positive for humanity in general, and for the
labourer in particular.
0:44:35.949,0:44:46.209
Now the chapter on co-operation takes up
this first way of thinking about things.
0:44:46.209,0:44:50.689
Marx points out immediately that one of
the benefits that comes from co-operation
0:44:50.689,0:45:00.069
is the capacity for increasing the scale of production.
And there is, of course, a long theory
0:45:00.069,0:45:11.319
in the history of political economy about increasing scale
and the way in which increasing scale can increase productivity.
0:45:11.319,0:45:20.379
So the doctrine of increasing scale
is a very important one to Marx.
0:45:20.379,0:45:29.089
Over the first few pages, he spends time talking about this.
0:45:29.089,0:45:44.879
In which he's prepared to acknowledge the potential positive aspects of it.
On page 443,
0:45:44.879,0:45:48.759
he defines co-operation by saying: "When numerous workers
0:45:48.759,0:45:53.140
work together side by side in accordance with a plan,
whether in the same process,
0:45:53.140,0:45:59.809
or in different but connected processes,
this form of labour is called co-operation."
0:45:59.809,0:46:07.609
Note the word 'plan' there, it's going to become an important idea.
0:46:07.609,0:46:11.099
The result, he says towards the bottom of page 443:
"Not only do we have here
0:46:11.099,0:46:14.529
an increase in the productive power of the individual, by
means of co-operation,
0:46:14.529,0:46:20.989
but the creation of a new productive power,
which is intrinsically a collective one."
0:46:20.989,0:46:28.650
And this collective one, he says, "begets in most industries
a rivalry and a stimulation of the 'animal spirits',
0:46:28.650,0:46:31.849
which heightens the efficiency of each individual worker.
0:46:31.849,0:46:36.549
This is why a dozen people working together will produce far more,
0:46:36.549,0:46:45.959
in their collective working day of 144 hours
than twelve isolated men each working for 12 hours."
0:46:45.959,0:47:01.179
He then talks about the way in which that co-operation can be
mobilized within industry and what this allows to occur.
0:47:01.179,0:47:05.989
On page 446-447,
0:47:05.989,0:47:12.869
he talks about the way in which "co-operation
allows work to be carried on over a large area…
0:47:12.869,0:47:19.159
On the other hand, while extending the scale of production it
renders possible a relative contraction of its arena.
0:47:19.159,0:47:23.279
This simultaneous restriction of space and extension of effectiveness,
0:47:23.279,0:47:28.199
which allows a large number of incidental expenses to be
spared, results from the massing together
0:47:28.199,0:47:35.509
of workers and of various labour processes,
and from the concentration of the means of production."
0:47:35.509,0:47:40.069
Interesting tension here between the expansion,
the geographical expansion, the spatial expansion
0:47:40.069,0:47:45.849
and the geographical concentration.
And as he will point out
0:47:45.849,0:47:54.039
later on, this geographical concentration, bringing workers together,
has certain political consequences as well.
0:47:55.039,0:48:02.709
But, he insists on page 447, towards the middle there:
0:48:02.709,0:48:12.309
"The special productive power of the combined working day is,
under all circumstances the social productive power of labour,
0:48:12.309,0:48:19.289
or the productive power of social labour.
This power arises from co-operation itself.
0:48:19.289,0:48:27.289
When the worker co-operates in a planned way with others,
he strips off the fetters of his individuality, and develops
0:48:27.289,0:48:31.249
the capabilities of his species."
0:48:31.249,0:48:35.189
Occasionally, Marx goes back to some notion of 'species being'
0:48:35.189,0:48:40.880
which is very important in the economic and philosophic manuscripts,
and here is one of those moments.
0:48:40.880,0:48:47.079
And at this point it's very hard to view this discussion
of co-operation in a negative light,
0:48:47.079,0:48:52.429
you strip off the fetters of your individuality, and develop the capabilities of the
species,
0:48:52.429,0:48:57.849
there's an almost positive tone about this.
0:48:57.849,0:49:07.259
But as in the chapter on the labour process, he then says
'Well let us now return to what our capitalist does with this'.
0:49:07.259,0:49:14.859
And the first point he makes on page 448,
is that the capitalist, in order to launch co-operation has to
0:49:14.859,0:49:19.279
have a mass of capital available at the
start. So one of the big questions is:
0:49:19.279,0:49:25.869
How much do they need to start off this whole
process and where does it come from?
0:49:25.869,0:49:31.669
There are, if you like, what we now call
'barriers to entry' into a production process.
0:49:31.669,0:49:37.109
How much do you need to start up?
0:49:37.109,0:49:47.859
This also introduces, in a shadowy way, at the bottom of page 448,
a distinction which is going to come back again.
0:49:47.859,0:49:54.859
He says: "We also saw that, at first, the subjection of labour to capital was
only a formal result
0:49:54.979,0:50:00.609
of the fact that the worker, instead of working for himself,
works for, and consequently under, the capitalist."
0:50:00.609,0:50:01.969
Then he goes on to say:
0:50:01.969,0:50:06.379
"Through the co-operation of numerous wage-labourers,
the command of capital develops into a requirement
0:50:06.379,0:50:13.579
for carrying on the labour process itself,
into a real condition of production."
0:50:16.079,0:50:22.749
He's introducing here this distinction between
a formal subjection to capital,
0:50:22.749,0:50:25.649
or a formal subsumption under capital,
0:50:25.649,0:50:30.789
against a real, subjection to capital, subsumption under capital.
0:50:30.789,0:50:34.939
What he means by this is that, if you had a
putting out system,
0:50:34.939,0:50:39.279
you had individuals all over the place,
and I'm a merchant capitalist
0:50:39.279,0:50:43.419
each one of those labourers
out there in the cottages will be working
0:50:43.419,0:50:46.619
for themselves. I wouldn't be overseeing them at all.
0:50:46.619,0:50:49.219
I wouldn't even know what they're doing.
0:50:49.219,0:50:58.739
But I go out there and I get their goods.
So that will be the formal subsumption:
0:50:58.739,0:51:03.969
They depend upon me for their livelihood
but I'm not in control of their production process.
0:51:03.969,0:51:09.599
When I round up all of those people and bring them into
a factory, they're under my supervision.
0:51:09.599,0:51:18.139
Under my direct supervision, that is the real subsumption.
So formal is out there, dependent,
0:51:18.139,0:51:22.629
the real is inside the factory,
0:51:22.629,0:51:26.380
and totally under the supervision of the capitalist.
0:51:26.380,0:51:32.729
One of first things that happens is that the labourer moving into
0:51:32.729,0:51:44.709
collective co-operation in a factory environment,
starts to be under the directing authority of the capitalist.
0:51:44.709,0:51:52.920
He starts to compare this with that of the orchestra conductor,
and says:
0:51:52.920,0:51:57.739
"The work of directing, superintending and adjusting becomes one
of the functions
0:51:57.739,0:52:04.099
of capital, from the moment that the labour under
capital's control becomes co-operative."
0:52:04.099,0:52:09.099
That is, the real subsumption results in this.
"As a specific function of capital, the directing function
0:52:09.099,0:52:13.979
acquires its own character."
0:52:13.979,0:52:19.469
But the reverse of that, in next paragraph, is:
"As the number of the co-operating workers increases,
0:52:19.469,0:52:23.519
so too does their resistance to the domination of capital,
0:52:23.519,0:52:28.219
and, necessarily, the pressure put on by capital to overcome this
resistance." In other words,
0:52:28.219,0:52:36.150
class struggle gets internalized on the shop floor.
0:52:36.150,0:52:43.469
Now we start to see that the co-operation of wage labourers
0:52:43.469,0:52:51.369
is brought about, in this instance, through the power of capital
0:52:51.369,0:52:56.339
and the result of that is that co-operation, instead of
0:52:56.339,0:53:03.339
appearing as a power of labour, now appears as a power of capital.
0:53:03.659,0:53:07.559
He says on the top of page 450: "The interconnection between their
various labours confronts them,
0:53:07.559,0:53:09.649
in the realm of ideas,
0:53:09.649,0:53:14.479
as a plan drawn up by the capitalist
and, in practice, as his authority,
0:53:14.479,0:53:21.199
as the powerful will of a being outside them,
who subjects their activity to his purpose."
0:53:21.199,0:53:25.309
So here you move into the negative mode.
0:53:25.309,0:53:31.659
The result of this, he says, a little bit further
down the page:
0:53:31.659,0:53:36.329
"If capitalist direction is thus twofold in content,
0:53:36.329,0:53:40.289
on the one hand a social labour process for the
creation of a product,
0:53:40.289,0:53:47.289
and on the other hand capital's process of valorization
- in form it is purely despotic."
0:53:47.379,0:53:50.029
He then introduces the idea that
0:53:50.029,0:53:55.459
there's going to be work of direct and constant
supervision of the individual workers,
0:53:55.459,0:53:59.819
and groups of workers to a special kind of wage labourer.
0:53:59.819,0:54:09.159
"An industrial army of workers under the command of a capitalist requires,
like a real army, officers (managers) and N.C.O.s (foremen, overseers)…"
0:54:09.159,0:54:17.900
So you end up with a certain structure of supervision
of the co-operation which is despotic.
0:54:17.900,0:54:21.199
As he goes on, the bottom of the page, to say:
"It is not because he is a leader of industry that
0:54:21.199,0:54:28.169
a man is a capitalist; on the contrary,
he is a leader of industry because he is a capitalist.
0:54:28.169,0:54:32.669
The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital…"
0:54:32.669,0:54:37.119
Then he says very explicit, in the middle of page 451,
0:54:37.119,0:54:41.039
because what happens to the labourer, as he says,
is "they enter into relations with the capitalist,
0:54:41.039,0:54:48.039
but not with each other.
0:54:50.459,0:54:54.649
Their co-operation only begins with the labour process,
but by then they have ceased to belong
0:54:54.649,0:55:00.689
to themselves. On entering the labour process they are
incorporated into capital. As co-operators,
0:55:00.689,0:55:06.439
as members of a working organism, they merely form a particular
mode of existence of capital."
0:55:06.439,0:55:11.609
This is what he means by real subsumption
of labour within capital.
0:55:11.609,0:55:18.579
"The socially productive power labour
develops as a free gift to capital
0:55:18.579,0:55:24.949
whenever the workers are placed under certain conditions,
and it is capital which places them under these conditions.
0:55:24.949,0:55:28.400
Because this power costs capital nothing,
0:55:28.400,0:55:32.499
while on the other hand it is not developed
by the worker until his labour
0:55:32.499,0:55:37.430
itself belongs to capital,
0:55:34.030,0:55:42.430
it appears as a power which capital possesses
by its nature - a productive power inherent in capital."
0:55:44.629,0:55:46.219
We get this inversion,
0:55:46.219,0:55:53.889
from something that is an inherent power of labour,
the social power of labour,
0:55:53.889,0:55:58.559
to something that is appropriated entirely
by capital, made to appear as a power of capital
0:55:58.559,0:56:02.169
over the workers.
0:56:02.169,0:56:11.649
This leads him to talk a little bit about
some of the history of co-operation.
0:56:13.779,0:56:20.759
And here he says, that there has been,
of course, enforced co-operation,
0:56:20.759,0:56:28.849
middle ages, slavery, colonies, slave labour,
0:56:28.849,0:56:35.849
but under capitalism, it develops as
a form in which wage labour is manifest.
0:56:38.920,0:56:46.639
On page 453 he says: "The simultaneous employment of a large
number of wage-labourers in the same labour process,
0:56:46.639,0:56:52.039
which is a necessary condition for this change,
also forms the starting-point of capitalist production.
0:56:52.039,0:56:59.769
This starting-point coincides with
the birth of capital itself.
0:56:59.769,0:57:04.739
If then, on the one hand, the capitalist
mode of production is a historically necessary condition
0:57:04.739,0:57:08.300
for the transformation of the labour process
into a social process,
0:57:08.300,0:57:14.349
so, on the other hand, this social form of the labour process
0:57:14.349,0:57:22.469
is a method employed by capital for the more profitable exploitation
of labour, by increasing its productive power."
0:57:22.469,0:57:30.499
There is an interesting thing here, where Marx is talking
about a co-evolution.
0:57:30.769,0:57:43.319
Capital originates; as it originates, it animates,
appropriates certain forms of co-operation.
0:57:43.319,0:57:59.640
Certain forms of co-operation allow capital
to start to raise productivity to produce surplus-value.
0:57:59.640,0:58:03.729
We can never forget however that this originary point
0:58:03.729,0:58:08.539
stays with the whole history of capitalism,
so he concludes on page 454:
0:58:08.539,0:58:11.589
"Simple co-operation has always been,
0:58:11.589,0:58:19.119
and continues to be, the predominant form in those branches of production
in which capital operates on a large scale,
0:58:19.119,0:58:24.109
but the division of labour and machinery play
only an insignificant part. Co-operation remains
0:58:24.109,0:58:28.630
the fundamental form of the capitalist mode of production,
0:58:28.630,0:58:36.539
although in its simple shape it continues to appear as
one particular form alongside the more developed ones."
0:58:36.539,0:58:44.889
So you cannot imagine a capitalist mode of production
without co-operation,
0:58:44.889,0:58:51.189
but co-operation under the despotic control of the capitalist,
0:58:51.189,0:58:57.909
with a whole kind of structure, supervisory authority,
which introduces, by the way,
0:58:57.909,0:59:03.599
the notion of a sudden fragmentation or layering
within the working class itself.
0:59:03.599,0:59:10.529
That there's a managerial strata, foremen, operatives.
So that,
0:59:10.529,0:59:15.599
instead of talking about of 'the wage labourer', we now
start to envision a working class which
0:59:15.599,0:59:20.499
is stratified according to these
0:59:20.499,0:59:32.569
kinds of functions within a cooperative apparatus,
which is fiercely despotic.
0:59:33.099,0:59:37.949
Then we look at 'The Division of labour and Manufacture,
the next chapter.
0:59:37.949,0:59:43.160
and again, we look at the reorganization
0:59:43.160,0:59:51.179
of existing handicrafts, existing skills,
existing tool, technologies and the like,
0:59:51.179,0:59:53.429
into something different.
0:59:53.429,0:59:59.109
And he points out immediately, there are two
ways you can do the reorganizing.
0:59:59.109,1:00:01.770
One is: You bring together, in the same workshop
1:00:01.770,1:00:08.209
under the control of a single capitalist, workers
belonging to various independent handicrafts.
1:00:08.209,1:00:15.889
He talks about carriage making on page 456,
he makes a contrast with
1:00:15.889,1:00:19.549
something like making nails or needles:
1:00:19.549,1:00:23.779
You start off with raw materials and you have a continuous process.
1:00:23.779,1:00:27.049
So in this case you're talking about a continuous process
1:00:27.049,1:00:33.099
of one material which is being continually reorganized until
it comes out the end as a needle.
1:00:33.099,1:00:36.759
Whereas in the making of a carriage you have a complicated
1:00:36.759,1:00:46.149
process of bringing together multiple handicrafts.
So there are two ways in which you can do the reorganizing.
1:00:46.149,1:00:50.549
But in both cases he points out on page 457:
1:00:50.549,1:00:55.869
"Whatever may have been its particular starting-point, its final form
is always the same - a productive mechanism
1:00:55.869,1:01:01.410
whose organs are human beings."
That is, you bring human beings into a certain kind of
1:01:01.410,1:01:09.809
relationship inside of the cooperative regime at the factory space.
1:01:09.809,1:01:18.809
Furthermore, as you bring these divisions of labour together,
you start to
1:01:18.809,1:01:22.559
reorganize it in another way. He says,
at the bottom of page 457:
1:01:22.559,1:01:27.279
"The analysis of a process of production into its particular
phases here coincides completely
1:01:27.279,1:01:35.069
with the decomposition of a handicraft into its different partial operations."
1:01:35.069,1:01:38.669
That is, when you start to see the production
process as a whole you start to see that you
1:01:38.669,1:01:43.919
can split it up into smaller fragments and get specialized
1:01:43.919,1:01:50.439
workers engaging at each point, either in terms
of the sequence or in terms of
1:01:50.439,1:02:00.140
the bringing together of the heterogeneity
of many different handicrafts.
1:02:00.140,1:02:05.639
But he says, on page 458: "Handicraft remains the basis,
1:02:05.639,1:02:10.119
a technically narrow basis which excludes
a really scientific division of the production
1:02:10.119,1:02:13.699
process into its component parts…"
1:02:13.699,1:02:17.489
A barrier, right?
1:02:17.489,1:02:21.619
Marx recognizes that capital doesn't like barriers,
that's gonna be a barrier that has to be overcome,
1:02:21.619,1:02:25.939
here he's saying it's a barrier.
1:02:25.939,1:02:30.109
"Every partial process undergone by the product
must be capable of being done by hand,
1:02:30.109,1:02:34.029
and of forming a separate handicraft.
1:02:34.029,1:02:37.019
It is precisely because the skill of the craftsman
1:02:37.019,1:02:41.449
thus continues to be the foundation of the production
process that every worker becomes exclusively
1:02:41.449,1:02:44.579
assigned to a partial function and
1:02:44.579,1:02:51.579
that his labour-power becomes
transformed into the life-long organ of this partial function."
1:02:52.029,1:03:00.920
So now, workers, instead of having the freedom to move,
from one activity to another,
1:03:00.920,1:03:12.189
are increasingly locked into a particular skill,
a particular handicraft, a particular set of tools.
1:03:13.539,1:03:20.539
He raises the question of the worker and
his tools in section two.
1:03:21.459,1:03:26.760
He says: "It is firstly clear that a worker who
performs the same simple operation for the whole of his life
1:03:26.760,1:03:33.760
converts his body into the automatic, one-sided
implement of that operation."
1:03:38.009,1:03:44.119
Could be an interesting discussion here as to
whether the worker is in control of the tools,
1:03:44.119,1:03:47.719
or the tool is in control of the worker;
1:03:47.719,1:03:50.119
and what's the relationship between tool and
1:03:50.119,1:04:02.169
worker. And he's suggesting that the social
imprisonment of somebody in a particular
1:04:02.169,1:04:07.410
aspect or a particular specialization
within the division of labour,
1:04:07.410,1:04:17.999
puts them in a position of essentially
being so connected to their tool
1:04:17.999,1:04:23.430
that they cannot be liberated.
1:04:23.430,1:04:30.859
On page 460, he talks further about this:
1:04:30.859,1:04:35.289
"A craftsman who performs the various partial operations
1:04:35.289,1:04:39.609
must at one time change his place, at another time his tools.
The transition from one operation
1:04:39.609,1:04:42.050
to another interrupts the flow of his labour
1:04:42.050,1:04:44.859
and creates gaps in his working day, so to speak."
1:04:44.859,1:04:50.069
-We have already seen that capital doesn't like gaps in the working day-
1:04:50.069,1:04:55.400
"These close up when he is tied to the same operation the whole day long…"
1:04:55.400,1:04:58.649
At the bottom of that paragraph: "As against this,
1:04:58.649,1:05:03.639
constant labour of one uniform kind disturbs the intensity and flow
of a man's vital forces,
1:05:03.639,1:05:09.089
which find recreation and delight
in the change of activity itself."
1:05:09.089,1:05:12.559
This is a partial concession to Fourier,
1:05:12.559,1:05:18.630
Fourier's view of the labour process, as against
the imprisonment of one person with one tool
1:05:18.630,1:05:22.299
and a division of labour for a lifetime.
1:05:22.299,1:05:28.159
So we're beginning to see this discussion of the positive and negative
1:05:28.159,1:05:35.159
aspects of how the division of labour is working
under capitalist control.
1:05:35.339,1:05:40.139
The next section deals with two fundamental
forms of manufacture: heterogeneous and organic.
1:05:40.589,1:05:49.329
It really takes up what he did in the first section,
where he elabourates
1:05:49.329,1:05:56.329
on the way which heterogeneous processes are brought together
1:05:57.809,1:06:08.189
and then also how the continuous processes get reorganized.
1:06:08.189,1:06:10.440
This leads him
1:06:10.440,1:06:17.440
to again introduce a new concept which we've not encountered
yet, on page 464.
1:06:17.630,1:06:23.169
Where he starts to talk about the collective worker.
1:06:23.169,1:06:27.199
"The collective worker, formed from the combination
of the many specialized workers,
1:06:27.199,1:06:31.929
draws the wire with one set of tooled-up hands, straightens the wire
with another set, armed with different tools,
1:06:31.929,1:06:33.709
cuts it with another set,
1:06:33.709,1:06:36.130
points it with another set, and so on.
1:06:36.130,1:06:44.089
These different stages of the process previously successive in time
have become simultaneous and contiguous in space. "
1:06:44.089,1:06:55.849
And here he goes, in the next couple of pages
to talk about the space-time organization of this process,
1:06:55.849,1:07:03.810
and the efficiencies which can be won through efficient
spatio-temporal reconstruction
1:07:03.810,1:07:08.449
of how the labour process fits together.
1:07:08.449,1:07:15.879
By not losing any time you gain in productivity.
1:07:15.879,1:07:25.409
By rationalizing the way in which space is organized
you could save on movement costs.
1:07:25.409,1:07:32.299
So the whole space-time structure becomes an organizational
question, and he here introduces it as
1:07:32.299,1:07:39.109
being fundamental to how capitalism works.
1:07:39.109,1:07:46.479
There was a big innovation of the Japanese, introduced
into the labour processes in the 1970's-80's.
1:07:46.479,1:07:52.139
What was it?
» STUDENT: Collective working spaces…
1:07:52.139,1:07:56.849
» HARVEY: Well it was collective but something else: just-in-time production.
1:07:56.849,1:07:59.439
Just in time. (JIT)
1:07:59.439,1:08:06.099
That is, scheduling of flows and goods in space and time such that
1:08:06.099,1:08:09.839
you had almost no inventories anywhere in the system.
1:08:09.839,1:08:13.919
The typical way in which a car factory would work, was:
1:08:13.919,1:08:17.179
somebody would bring the wheels or something like that,
then you'd have a whole stack
1:08:17.179,1:08:18.899
of wheels outside,
1:08:18.899,1:08:22.469
they'd be sitting there; you have a big stack of them,
1:08:22.469,1:08:26.339
you have a big stack of brake parts and
1:08:26.339,1:08:30.039
a big stack of upholstery and things like that.
1:08:30.039,1:08:34.499
What the Japanese did was to use a just in time system.
1:08:34.499,1:08:45.179
They organized the flows so that you could see almost
no inventory out there, none at all.
1:08:45.179,1:08:50.130
The trucks would come up to the place
and exactly the same number of wheels
1:08:50.130,1:08:57.159
you needed on that day will be on the truck,
exactly the number of other component parts would be on the truck.
1:08:57.159,1:09:08.799
This is a tremendous innovation in industrial production.
It actually was the innovation which gave the Japanese car industry
1:09:08.799,1:09:14.319
its big competitive advantage over all others during the 1980's.
1:09:14.319,1:09:19.429
So suddenly you find all of the car companies
everywhere around the world are engaging in
1:09:19.429,1:09:22.739
the JIT system.
1:09:22.739,1:09:27.109
General Motors goes for it, they all go for it.
1:09:27.109,1:09:30.059
So the just in time system
1:09:30.059,1:09:36.759
is I think a very good contemporary example of exactly what Marx is talking about.
1:09:36.759,1:09:43.599
And it was of course - put in that competitive stuff about the role of surplus-value-
1:09:43.599,1:09:51.170
when the Japanese got this organizational form of the JIT system,
they got
1:09:51.170,1:10:01.010
this extra surplus-value, they got the ephemeral
form, so everybody else scrambles to catch up.
1:10:01.010,1:10:06.380
This also allowed, by the way, increasing subcontracting to go on,
1:10:06.380,1:10:10.090
you no longer need to have everything in the plant.
You have plants out there that were independent,
1:10:10.090,1:10:15.409
and you're not responsible for their healthcare
or their pensions or anything like that.
1:10:15.409,1:10:18.420
You got a just in time system where you'd organize
1:10:18.420,1:10:23.940
those plants outside, so on a given day they'd have exactly what you need there.
1:10:23.940,1:10:29.920
This, of course is rather vulnerable to disruption.
1:10:29.920,1:10:43.239
For instance, Ford motors in Europe had a JIT system between its works,
and one workforce went on strike and
1:10:43.239,1:10:47.270
all factories around Europe had to close down,
and they had to close down very fast because
1:10:47.270,1:10:51.769
none of them had any inventories of whatever it was it was producing.
1:10:51.769,1:10:55.680
It actually empowers workers to some degree,
by the fact that if they go on strike
1:10:55.680,1:11:01.260
they can stop the whole thing because it is so tightly scheduled,
so tightly organized.
1:11:01.260,1:11:06.209
I think what's interesting about these passages
on page 464-465,
1:11:06.209,1:11:17.289
is that Marx is recognizing that a major organizational aspect
of a capitalistic system is how
1:11:17.289,1:11:24.679
space and time get set up and understood.
1:11:24.679,1:11:31.760
This requires however an internal plan.
1:11:31.760,1:11:38.919
He introduces this theme which is going
to come back later, on page 465, he talks about
1:11:38.919,1:11:42.789
"the rule that the labour-time expended on a commodity
1:11:42.789,1:11:46.340
should not exceed the amount socially necessary to produce it
is one that appears, in the production of commodities
1:11:46.340,1:11:50.999
in general, to be enforced from outside by the action of competition…"
1:11:50.999,1:11:55.069
"In manufacture, on the contrary, the provision
of a given quantity of the product
1:11:55.069,1:12:01.150
in a given period of labour is
a technical law of the process of production itself."
1:12:01.150,1:12:07.590
The distinction between what the market enforces and what is done by internal planning,
1:12:07.590,1:12:13.999
and here he's talking about internal planning,
1:12:13.999,1:12:18.800
and the way in which that internal planning,
1:12:18.800,1:12:31.010
by re-orchestrating how space and time gets used,
can produce these efficiencies.
1:12:32.579,1:12:35.030
But again there's a barrier.
1:12:35.030,1:12:41.780
And the barrier lies in the fact that you're
still dealing with handicrafts.
1:12:41.780,1:12:48.739
He then says, on page 468,
1:12:48.739,1:12:53.849
-the technologies of different social orders is interesting-
1:12:54.849,1:13:00.369
he says: "The Roman Empire handed down the elementary
form of all machinery in the shape of the water-wheel.
1:13:00.369,1:13:06.979
The handicraft period bequeathed to us the great inventions of
the compass, gunpowder, type-printing and the automatic clock.
1:13:06.979,1:13:11.439
But on the whole, machinery played that subordinate part which
Adam Smith assigns to it
1:13:11.439,1:13:14.839
in comparison with the division of labour."
1:13:14.839,1:13:21.010
That is, up until the end of the 18th century,
capitalists were not
1:13:21.010,1:13:25.599
really homing in on machinery etc. as a way
1:13:25.599,1:13:30.679
to improve their productive efficiency,
they were using these other methods.
1:13:30.679,1:13:36.599
And of course there were innovations like
the compass and gunpowder etc. but,
1:13:36.599,1:13:40.360
we haven't got this internalization
1:13:40.360,1:13:44.449
of technological innovation within the capitalist
mode of production which
1:13:44.449,1:13:53.030
happens later on, with machinery and and modern industry.
1:13:53.030,1:13:58.589
But nevertheless there's an impact on the
workers even at this early stage,
1:13:58.589,1:14:04.920
and the impact is already foreseen a little bit earlier.
Page 469, he repeats the argument:
1:14:04.920,1:14:07.679
"The habit of doing only one thing
1:14:07.679,1:14:11.800
converts him into an organ which operates with the certainty
of a force of nature, while
1:14:11.800,1:14:19.289
his connection with the whole mechanism compels him
to work with the regularity of a machine."
1:14:19.289,1:14:23.610
Further down: "Manufacture therefore
develops a hierarchy of labour-powers,
1:14:23.610,1:14:29.449
to which there corresponds a scale of wages."
1:14:29.449,1:14:33.719
And this derives from the fact, as he said at the top,
1:14:33.719,1:14:39.899
that "workers are divided, classified and grouped
according to their predominant qualities."
1:14:39.899,1:14:49.060
We get introduced therefore, even at this stage,
as he says on page 470, a distinction
1:14:49.060,1:14:55.019
between skilled and unskilled labourers.
1:14:55.019,1:14:59.749
As he says on page 470: "Alongside the gradations of the hierarchy,
there appears the simple separation
1:14:59.749,1:15:04.679
of the workers into skilled and unskilled.
1:15:05.679,1:15:12.670
For the latter, the cost of apprenticeship vanishes; for the former, it diminishes,
compared with that required of the craftsman,…"
1:15:12.670,1:15:16.280
"In both cases the value of labour-power falls."
1:15:16.280,1:15:23.569
This deskilling, he's going to talk about a deskilling process which is going on.
1:15:23.569,1:15:26.329
But "an exception to this law occurs
1:15:26.329,1:15:30.439
whenever the decomposition of the labour process
gives rise to new and comprehensive functions,
1:15:30.439,1:15:37.029
which either did not appear at all in handicrafts
or not to the same extent.
1:15:37.029,1:15:41.039
The relative devaluation of labour-power caused by the disappearance
or reduction of the expenses
1:15:41.039,1:15:47.139
of apprenticeship directly imply higher degree of valorization of capital;
1:15:47.139,1:15:50.510
for everything that shortens the necessary labour-time
required for the reproduction of
1:15:50.510,1:15:55.319
labour-power, extends the domain of surplus labour."
1:15:55.319,1:16:01.789
What we're dealing with here is the fact that,
in any reorganization of the labour process,
1:16:01.789,1:16:07.619
there can be deskilling but there's going to be
a smaller group that's reskilled, if you want call it that,
1:16:07.619,1:16:11.679
and put in a superior position.
1:16:13.869,1:16:19.269
So you cannot divorce, you cannot simply say
it's all deskilling; you gotta say it's deskilling
1:16:19.269,1:16:23.320
and reskilling going on at the same time.
And the reskilling can sometimes empower
1:16:23.320,1:16:31.429
certain segments of the workers relative to other segments of the workers.
1:16:31.429,1:16:35.539
Then comes the key section: The Division of Labour in Manufacture,
1:16:35.539,1:16:42.539
and the Division of Labour in Society.
1:16:45.020,1:16:51.429
What he's really concerned to do here is to make a big distinction
1:16:51.429,1:16:56.760
between the detailed division of labour in the workshop,
1:16:56.760,1:17:02.949
which occurs under the planned design of the capitalist,
1:17:02.949,1:17:06.739
under the direct supervision of the capitalist.
1:17:06.739,1:17:13.030
And the division of labour that occurs through market coordination.
1:17:13.030,1:17:17.059
We have to see those two in relationship to each other.
1:17:17.059,1:17:20.960
That is, they're not independent of each other.
1:17:20.960,1:17:33.719
so we have to look at these two kinds of division of labour
which get set up in this manufacturing period.
1:17:33.719,1:17:36.900
As he says, on page 471:
1:17:36.900,1:17:42.009
"The division of labour within society develops from one starting-point;
1:17:42.009,1:17:47.989
the corresponding restriction of individuals to particular
vocations or callings develops from another starting-point,
1:17:47.989,1:17:52.039
which is diametrically opposed to the first.
1:17:52.039,1:17:57.310
This second starting-point is also that
of the division of labour within manufacture.
1:17:57.310,1:18:02.659
Within a family and, after further development, within a tribe,
there springs up naturally a division of labour
1:18:02.659,1:18:08.679
caused by differences of sex and age, and therefore
based on a purely physiological foundation."
1:18:08.679,1:18:14.800
Marx might get some criticism for that but that's his view.
1:18:14.800,1:18:18.019
"On the other hand, as I have already remarked,
1:18:18.019,1:18:22.519
the exchange of products springs up at
1:18:22.519,1:18:25.980
the points where different families, tribes or communities come
into contact;
1:18:25.980,1:18:30.199
for at the dawn of civilization it is not private individuals
but families, tribes, etc.
1:18:30.199,1:18:34.269
that meet on an independent footing.
1:18:34.269,1:18:37.379
Different communities find different means of production
and different means of subsistence
1:18:37.379,1:18:40.879
in their natural environment.
Hence their modes of production and living,
1:18:40.879,1:18:44.270
as well as their products, are different."
1:18:44.270,1:18:52.469
This brings him then to talk about exchange relations
between different communities with different assets, different resources,
1:18:52.469,1:18:57.159
different kinds of products.
1:18:57.159,1:19:02.389
And beyond that, we get his argument,
1:19:02.389,1:19:08.199
which is very briefly set up here but which is important in general:
1:19:08.199,1:19:10.969
"The foundation of every division of labour
1:19:10.969,1:19:14.630
which has attained a certain degree of development, and has
been brought about by the exchange of
1:19:14.630,1:19:17.610
commodities, is the separation of town from country."
1:19:17.610,1:19:22.820
That is, the relation between town and country,
and that dialectic
1:19:22.820,1:19:26.249
is important historically. He's not going to go into it
1:19:26.249,1:19:36.199
very much more here but elsewhere he does in some considerable detail.
1:19:36.310,1:19:42.519
That leads him to think about "the number and density of the population,
1:19:42.519,1:19:46.510
which here corresponds to the collection of workers together in one workshop,…"
1:19:46.510,1:19:52.080
This, he says "…is a precondition of the division of labour within society
1:19:52.080,1:19:55.130
Nevertheless, this density is more or less relative.
1:19:55.130,1:19:58.539
A relatively thinly populated country,
1:19:58.539,1:20:02.249
with well-developed means of communication, has a denser population
1:20:02.249,1:20:07.610
than a more numerously populated country with badly developed means of communication.
1:20:07.610,1:20:13.070
In this sense, the northern states of the U.S.A. for instance,
are more thickly populated than India."
1:20:13.070,1:20:17.589
Interesting: Marx is using the notions of relative space-time here
1:20:17.589,1:20:20.469
in actually quite an innovative way,
1:20:20.469,1:20:25.400
so he's not seeing the terrain upon
which this is happening as fixed.
1:20:25.400,1:20:29.779
It is, in fact varying depending upon
1:20:29.779,1:20:36.779
density of population and transport and communication
technologies and availabilities.
1:20:40.010,1:20:48.539
The division of labour in manufacture however, assumes that
1:20:48.539,1:20:53.159
"society has already attained a certain degree of development.
1:20:53.159,1:21:04.030
Inversely, the division of labour in manufacture reacts back
upon that in society, developing and multiplying it further."
1:21:04.030,1:21:10.320
What we're getting here is the beginnings
of the argument that
1:21:10.320,1:21:15.749
there is, what is called 'increasing roundaboutness in production',
1:21:15.749,1:21:19.460
increasing complexity of production.
1:21:19.460,1:21:24.219
That is, you go from a simple situation
where somebody makes something,
1:21:24.219,1:21:30.139
to a situation where you start to make pieces of something
which then get traded in the market
1:21:30.139,1:21:36.859
for other pieces of something which then get collectively
put together to make 'the something' that is eventually
1:21:35.409,1:21:38.859
going to be consumed.
1:21:39.859,1:21:47.460
And this increasing roundaboutness of production is also
1:21:47.460,1:21:51.860
associated, he says on page 475, with increasing
1:21:51.860,1:21:58.860
emphasis upon territorial divisions of labour,
territorial specializations of labour.
1:22:00.019,1:22:05.280
Page 474 in the middle, he says: "The territorial division of labour,
which confines special branches
1:22:05.280,1:22:08.639
of production to special districts of a country, acquires fresh stimulus
1:22:08.639,1:22:13.550
from the system of manufacture, which exploits all natural peculiarities.
1:22:13.550,1:22:20.889
The colonial system and the extension of the world market, both of which
1:22:20.889,1:22:26.420
form part of the general conditions for the
existence of the manufacturing period,
1:22:26.420,1:22:33.420
furnish us with rich materials for displaying the division of labour in society."
1:22:34.260,1:22:39.880
He's going to insist, towards the bottom,
that while there are analogies and links between
1:22:39.880,1:22:48.150
division of labour in society and within the workshop,
they "differ not only in degree, but also in kind."
1:22:48.150,1:22:54.849
He then gets into some serious discussion of Adam Smith,
1:22:54.849,1:22:58.789
which brings him to what I think the crucial passages.
1:22:58.789,1:23:03.769
Right at the bottom of page 475, under 476:
1:23:03.769,1:23:06.869
"The division of labour within society
1:23:06.869,1:23:13.599
is mediated through the purchase and sale
of the products of different branches of industry,
1:23:13.599,1:23:17.529
while the connection between the various partial operations
in a workshop is mediated through
1:23:17.529,1:23:25.550
the sale of the labour-power of several workers
to one capitalist, who applies it as combined labour-power."
1:23:25.550,1:23:33.099
"The division of labour within manufacture presupposes
a concentration of the means of production in the hands of one capitalist;
1:23:33.099,1:23:37.979
the division of labour within society presupposes a dispersal
of those means among many independent
1:23:37.979,1:23:41.589
producers of commodities.
1:23:41.589,1:23:46.579
While, within the workshop, the iron law of proportionality
1:23:46.579,1:23:50.079
subjects definite numbers of workers to definite functions,
1:23:50.079,1:23:53.410
in the society outside the workshop,
1:23:53.410,1:23:57.949
the play of chance and caprice results in a motley pattern
of distribution of the producers and their
1:23:57.949,1:24:03.469
means of production among the various branches of social labour."
1:24:03.469,1:24:08.250
Okay, he says, "different spheres of production constantly tend
towards equilibrium…"
1:24:08.250,1:24:11.960
because that's the way the market works.
1:24:11.960,1:24:20.179
And he then explains why, going back over
the laws of exchange of commodities.
1:24:20.179,1:24:26.020
He then goes on point out: "This constant tendency on the part
of the various spheres of production towards equilibrium
1:24:26.020,1:24:32.270
comes into play only as a reaction against
the constant upsetting of this equilibrium."
1:24:32.270,1:24:36.579
That is, when demand and supply gets out of kilter,
1:24:36.579,1:24:41.360
all kinds of messes happen and prices yo-yo all over the place.
1:24:41.360,1:24:44.289
And there's an adjustment,
1:24:44.289,1:24:49.789
producers have to adjust what they're producing and how much.
1:24:49.789,1:24:55.010
He says: "The planned and regulated a priori system
1:24:55.010,1:25:00.190
on which the division of labour is implemented within the workshop becomes,
in the division of labour within society,
1:25:00.190,1:25:08.360
an a posteriori necessity imposed by nature, controlling
the unregulated caprice of the producers,
1:25:08.360,1:25:12.070
and perceptible in the fluctuations of the barometer of market prices.
1:25:12.070,1:25:17.709
Division of labour within the workshop implies the undisputed authority
of the capitalist over men,
1:25:17.709,1:25:21.300
who are merely the members of a total
mechanism which belongs to him.
1:25:21.300,1:25:25.739
The division of labour within
society brings into contact independent producers of commodities,
1:25:25.739,1:25:29.539
who acknowledge no authority other than that of competition,
1:25:29.539,1:25:33.719
of the coercion exerted by the pressure of their reciprocal interests,
1:25:33.719,1:25:42.050
just as in the animal kingdom the 'war of all against all' more or less preserves
the conditions of existence of every species."
1:25:42.050,1:25:47.760
He then goes on to say: "The same bourgeois consciousness
which celebrates the division of labour in the workshop,
1:25:47.760,1:25:53.059
the lifelong annexation of the worker to a
partial operation, and his complete subjection to capital,
1:25:53.059,1:25:56.330
as an organization of labour that increases its productive power,
1:25:56.330,1:26:02.329
denounces with equal vigour every conscious attempt to control and
regulate the process of production socially,
1:26:02.329,1:26:06.579
as an inroad upon such sacred things as the rights of property, freedom and
1:26:06.579,1:26:10.829
the self-determining 'genius' of the individual capitalist.
1:26:10.829,1:26:19.469
It is very characteristic that the enthusiastic apologists
of the factory system have nothing more damning
1:26:15.039,1:26:16.310
to urge against a general organization of labour in society than
1:26:19.469,1:26:25.599
that it would turn the whole of society into a factory."
1:26:25.599,1:26:29.219
"In contrast…", he then goes on to say,
"…anarchy in the social division of labour
1:26:29.219,1:26:36.219
and despotism in the manufacturing division of labour
mutually condition each other,…"
1:26:37.269,1:26:48.759
What he's saying here is that capitalists actually love
the planned organization of production
1:26:48.759,1:26:51.550
within their factory,
1:26:51.550,1:27:01.280
and they abhor however the idea of any kind of social planning
of production outside of the factory.
1:27:01.280,1:27:03.860
So, when you hear
1:27:03.860,1:27:10.199
people going on and on about how planning is a bad thing,
1:27:10.199,1:27:16.359
why don't you say: Well, why do they do it so much inside
of General Motors?
1:27:16.359,1:27:20.179
Why are they doing it so much in all of these
corporations?
1:27:20.179,1:27:27.039
Why is it they're engaging in things like total-quality management,
input-output analysis etc. ?
1:27:27.039,1:27:32.829
Why are they absolutely interested in optimal scheduling
and design, all that sort if thing?
1:27:32.829,1:27:38.619
They're planning everything down to the finest detail.
1:27:38.619,1:27:40.360
So next time,
1:27:40.360,1:27:45.969
somebody says 'planning is a bad thing', just say
'Well okay, abandon it in General Motors and see what happens
1:27:45.969,1:27:51.230
to any company that that the fails to plan.'
1:27:51.230,1:27:57.529
And if they can plan very well, then why can't we?
1:27:57.529,1:28:02.019
Well the answer then would be: Then you'd
turn the whole world into one big factory
1:28:02.019,1:28:04.889
and look how appalling the factory is.
1:28:04.889,1:28:08.659
And you say 'yes well, that's precisely the point, right?
1:28:08.659,1:28:11.239
The factory is indeed appalling.
1:28:11.239,1:28:16.590
that's because you're planning in that particular kind of way,
that you make the factory appalling'.
1:28:16.590,1:28:20.429
And you're admitting it's so appalling by saying 'oh my god,
1:28:20.429,1:28:25.909
if you made the whole world like a factory,
just think, I mean you might even make us work
1:28:25.909,1:28:28.550
in that kind of fashion,
1:28:28.550,1:28:33.209
instead of liberating our individual genius
to go about and to all these kind of innovative
1:28:33.209,1:28:36.419
things we like to do,
1:28:36.419,1:28:42.380
through constant reorganizations of the production process'.
1:28:42.380,1:28:49.439
So what Marx is doing here is mocking a little bit
1:28:49.439,1:28:56.189
this whole attempt to say that you cannot plan.
1:28:56.189,1:29:01.989
And there are people who've been saying 'Well no,
centralized planning is is impossible,
1:29:01.989,1:29:07.650
I mean look at what the Soviet Union got into
and all the rest if it. Obviously it doesn't work,
1:29:07.650,1:29:10.919
and it doesn't work because it's so complex,
1:29:10.919,1:29:14.860
the complexity is just too much.'
1:29:14.860,1:29:23.210
You say 'Well actually, if you look at the complexity
involved in a large corporation
1:29:23.210,1:29:28.820
producing electronic goods or something like that,
actually, you find it pretty complex.'
1:29:28.820,1:29:32.869
So you can't make the argument of complexity against it.
1:29:32.869,1:29:38.800
So what Marx is doing here is contrasting these two divisions
of labour, the detailed division of labour which
1:29:38.800,1:29:42.599
is mathematically worked out,
1:29:42.599,1:29:46.640
scheduled optimally scheduled, optimally configured,
1:29:46.640,1:29:55.969
planned down to the last detail with labourers put in
slots in certain kinds of ways to maximize efficiency,
1:29:55.969,1:30:01.649
against the incredible inefficiencies of the market system,
1:30:01.649,1:30:05.320
which nevertheless through the coercive laws of competition
1:30:05.320,1:30:13.650
reinforce the despotism that occurs inside of the
capitalist system,
1:30:13.650,1:30:17.119
inside the workplace.
1:30:17.119,1:30:19.420
Because you can see immediately that
1:30:19.420,1:30:23.710
if I have a super system of exploitation,
1:30:23.710,1:30:29.010
which gives me surplus-value, then others are going to have to follow me.
1:30:29.010,1:30:32.879
I've mentioned the just in time system.
1:30:32.879,1:30:37.669
If I come up with a super efficient four-way
of organizing labour which is very repressive
1:30:37.669,1:30:44.449
for labour but is super efficient for me,
then all my competitors are going to have to follow me.
1:30:44.449,1:30:50.590
So the repressions inside
of the factory are not independent
1:30:50.590,1:30:57.590
of the competitive pressures that are organized outside.
1:31:02.909,1:31:12.119
'The capitalist reorganization of the manufacturing
system', section five.
1:31:12.119,1:31:17.839
Just briefly.
1:31:17.839,1:31:22.409
Again we get on page 481 the strong idea
1:31:22.409,1:31:30.199
that what's going on here, is the appropriation
of the productive powers of labour
1:31:30.199,1:31:35.889
by capital. And in both of these sections Marx is trying
to say to the working class and the labourers:
1:31:35.889,1:31:39.100
These are your productive powers!
1:31:39.100,1:31:40.760
Capital is appropriating them!
1:31:40.760,1:31:53.440
And as it appropriates them, that makes it seem as if
they're their productive powers of capital.
1:31:53.869,1:31:57.829
He says on page 481: "The productive power which results
from the combination of various kinds
1:31:57.829,1:32:05.669
of labour appears as the productive power of capital.
Manufacture proper
1:32:05.669,1:32:09.329
not only subjects the previously independent
worker to the discipline and command of capital,
1:32:09.329,1:32:16.369
but creates in addition a hierarchical structure amongst the workers themselves.
1:32:16.369,1:32:19.469
It converts the worker into a crippled monstrosity
1:32:19.469,1:32:23.969
by furthering his particular skill as
in a forcing-house, through the suppression
1:32:23.969,1:32:31.110
of a whole world of productive drives and inclinations, just as
1:32:31.110,1:32:35.380
in the states of La Plata they butcher a whole beast
for the sake of his hide or his tallow.
1:32:35.380,1:32:39.889
Not only is the specialized work distributed among the different individuals,
1:32:39.889,1:32:42.710
but the individual himself is divided up,
1:32:42.710,1:32:50.939
and transformed into the automatic motor of a detail operation,
thus realizing the absurd fable of Menenius Agrippa,
1:32:50.939,1:32:57.039
which presents man is a mere fragment of his own body."
1:32:57.039,1:33:02.110
The body politics of this,
1:33:02.110,1:33:07.770
that the workers are reduced to being fragments of themselves,
1:33:07.770,1:33:16.009
part of that fragmentation is also
leading to, as he says on page 482:
1:33:16.009,1:33:18.300
"Unfitted by nature…" -he's being a
1:33:18.300,1:33:23.960
bit ironic here- "to make anything
independently, the manufacturing worker develops his
1:33:23.960,1:33:27.829
productive activity only as an appendage of that workshop."
1:33:27.829,1:33:35.150
That is, the worker is now an appendage of the workshop
rather than in command of it.
1:33:35.150,1:33:36.479
Further:
1:33:36.479,1:33:41.499
"The possibility of an intelligent direction of production expands in one direction,
1:33:41.499,1:33:46.469
because it vanishes in many others. What is lost
by the specialized workers is
1:33:46.469,1:33:50.139
concentrated in the capital which confronts them.
1:33:50.139,1:33:54.170
It is a result of the division of labour in manufacture that the worker
is brought face to face with
1:33:54.170,1:33:56.829
the intellectual potentialities [geistige Potenzen].
1:33:56.829,1:34:00.169
of the material process of production as the property of another and
1:34:00.169,1:34:04.090
as a power which rules over him."
1:34:04.090,1:34:16.440
That is, intellectual labour, mental activities, also become
in the domain of capital.
1:34:16.440,1:34:22.000
"This process of separation starts in simple co-operation,…"
1:34:22.000,1:34:26.789
"It is developed in manufacture, which mutilates the worker,
turning him into a fragment of himself.
1:34:26.789,1:34:31.400
It is completed in large-scale industry, which makes science
a potentiality for production which
1:34:31.400,1:34:39.280
is distinct from labour and presses it
into the service of capital."
1:34:39.280,1:34:40.659
The result of this
1:34:40.659,1:34:49.699
is "the impoverishment of the worker
in individual productive power."
1:34:49.699,1:34:53.150
He then quotes Adam Smith,
1:34:53.150,1:34:54.449
interesting quote:
1:34:54.449,1:35:01.739
"'The understandings of the greater part of men, says Adam
Smith, 'are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments.
1:35:01.739,1:35:07.239
The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple
operations … has no occasion to exert his understanding …
1:35:07.239,1:35:12.529
He generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a
human creature to become.'
1:35:12.529,1:35:16.340
After describing the stupidity of the
specialized worker, he goes on:
1:35:16.340,1:35:20.790
'The uniformity of his stationary
life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind … It corrupts
1:35:20.790,1:35:25.199
even the activity of his body and renders him incapable of exerting
1:35:25.199,1:35:31.379
his strength with vigour and perseverance in any other employments than
that to which he has been bred.
1:35:31.379,1:35:36.440
His dexterity at his own particular trade seems in this manner
to be acquired at the expense
1:35:36.440,1:35:39.449
of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues.
1:35:39.449,1:35:42.840
But in every improved and civilized society, this is the state into which
1:35:42.840,1:35:49.840
the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall.'
1:35:50.819,1:35:56.039
Now, Marx is partially inclined
to accept to some degree
1:35:56.039,1:35:59.729
Adam Smith's argument,
1:35:59.729,1:36:10.159
that the repression of the workplace does indeed
produce this kind of situation.
1:36:10.159,1:36:14.610
And it's something I like to ask to my academic
colleagues: to what degree is your ordinary
1:36:14.610,1:36:20.219
employment corrupting the courage of your mind?
1:36:20.219,1:36:21.310
It's not hard,
1:36:21.310,1:36:26.550
to have the courage of your mind corrupted by
ordinary employment at all.
1:36:26.550,1:36:31.239
And it's not just workers who suffer from this problem,
1:36:31.239,1:36:35.949
journalists, media folk, university professors, we all have it.
1:36:35.949,1:36:42.949
You're lucky, you're students you don't have it yet.
I hope.
1:36:43.179,1:36:49.329
Marx goes on to say in the next page:
"Some crippling of body and mind is inseparable
1:36:49.329,1:36:53.199
even from the division of labour in society as a whole."
1:36:53.199,1:36:58.749
And this does indeed produce
what he calls "industrial pathology".
1:36:58.749,1:37:04.059
Marx is not going to pathologize the whole of working-class
at all, but he's going to say
1:37:04.059,1:37:17.839
'look, there are impacts of all of this
on people's abilities to react, to think',
1:37:17.839,1:37:27.459
and for those of you have done much organizing with,
people working 80 hours a week,
1:37:27.459,1:37:32.569
you find it's not an implausible thing at all to point out
1:37:32.569,1:37:37.510
that indeed, they don't have time to think about most of the things that
1:37:37.510,1:37:42.280
we would expect them to think about given
their working-class position.
1:37:42.280,1:37:47.409
They're so busy trying to make ends meet, so
busy trying to get enough food on the table
1:37:47.409,1:37:53.810
for their kids in time. and do all those
kinds of things, they don't have time
1:37:53.810,1:38:00.500
and they don't even have
1:38:00.500,11:38:08.130
the time and the ability to sit around and think
through a lot of these issues.
1:38:08.130,1:38:13.800
So Marx is quoting Adam Smith as being extreme about this,
1:38:13.800,1:38:22.749
but nevertheless there is something
to it which we have to recognize.
1:38:26.709,1:38:31.949
The division of labour then,
is something that comes about through
1:38:31.949,1:38:36.420
this transformation in the manufacturing period.
1:38:36.420,1:38:41.210
Marx is here setting up a manufacturing system and
a manufacturing period,
1:38:41.210,1:38:43.999
this has limits.
1:38:43.999,1:38:49.499
And the limit, he says, is of course going to be the technology.
1:38:49.499,1:38:53.719
Right at the end of the chapter he says,
1:38:53.719,1:39:00.179
page 490-491: "…manufacture was unable either to seize upon
the production of society to its full extent,
1:39:00.179,1:39:04.940
or to revolutionize that production to its very core. It towered up…"
1:39:04.940,1:39:10.779
-Marx is admiring of it really- "…as an artificial economic
construction, on the broad foundation of
1:39:10.779,1:39:15.599
the town handicrafts and the domestic industries of the countryside.
1:39:15.599,1:39:19.339
At a certain stage of its development, the narrow technical basis on
1:39:19.339,1:39:27.019
which manufacture rested came into contradiction with
requirements of production which it had itself created."
1:39:27.019,1:39:30.150
Which is of course going to lead, right at the end:
1:39:30.150,1:39:38.280
"It is machines that abolish the role of the handicraftsman
as the regulating principle of social production."
1:39:38.280,1:39:44.259
It is the next chapter then that we're gonna deal with machines.
1:39:44.259,1:39:49.170
Since we're out of time,
1:39:49.170,1:39:56.019
I want to go trough the machinery and
large-scale industry chapter as possible,
1:39:56.019,1:39:58.059
next time.
1:39:58.059,1:40:03.500
and I would suggest you tried to read
1:40:03.500,1:40:10.380
at least up to page 588.
1:40:10.380,1:40:17.230
No sorry, do it to page 564.
1:40:17.230,1:40:19.050
But, I also want you to do something else,
1:40:19.050,1:40:27.619
I want you to read very very carefully the
footnote on page 493 that goes over into 494.
1:40:27.619,1:40:33.929
I'm gonna spend a good deal of time on that footnote, page 493-494.
1:40:33.929,1:40:38.320
One of the few places where Marx actually says something
very concrete about his method.
1:40:38.320,1:40:42.829
I think it's very important to understand what he's talking about.
1:40:42.829,1:40:47.340
So it's footnote 4, about Darwin and technology etc.
1:40:49.899,1:40:56.839
that we need to look at so we'll take that up
next time okay. Let's leave it there.
