Re: AUT: The Dark Satanic Mills

[Saul Marsh <saulmail@xxxxxxxxx>]

Patrick:

As I understand him, Marx says that constant capital (means
of production and raw material) does not add any value (as
you note), it only transfers a part (means of production)
or all (raw material) of its value to the commodity
produced by the labor process (labor process = constant
capital altered by work to produce a commodity).  The only
value added in the labor process is that part of the value
not paid in wages to the worker.

"Piece work" does not alter Marx's scheme.  Although he
mainly discusses the wage in terms of its being paid per
day, the fundamental point is that the worker is not paid
the value of the work.  So, a piece-rate wage is simply
lower than it would be if the worker were paid the full
value of the piece.

I believe that what you are forgetting about is what
determines the value of the labor-power (the labor-power
that is sold for wages that contain less value than the
value the worker added in the labor process).  This value
is determined by the social necessity of the labor
performed, which comes down to an average that decreases
with advances in productivity and increases with demand.
Machines (means of production) do not add value - they
decrease the time socially necessary for the labor that
used to be necessary before the introduction of the machine
or other instrument of labor.

Saul

--- Patrick Lea <led_82@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a rather fundamental question in regards to
> surplus value and
> machines.
>
> Surplus Value, the basics:
>
> People work, labour. The capitalist class, however, do
> not purchase what
> people produce, but their potential to produce, and
> reward not labour in
> particular, but labour in general. So if a worker
> produces 5 lines of code
> one day, but 10 the next, they are paid the same on both
> days. (aside: what
> about commission work? telemarketing for example?)
>
> That I understand, and fits with production generally.
> That also makes the
> concept of surplus value potentially correct as well. If
> people *were* paid
> according to what they've produced individually (barring
> things like piece
> work) there would be no surplus value, for example:
> artisans. (contract work
> too perhaps? or is that just another piece work?)
>
> What I'm still missing (after the whole of vol 1 of
> capital, and various
> other texts) is the role the machine in the rise and fall
> of both value and
> surplus value. Machinery, from the stone tools onwards,
> dead labour,
> function in allowing living labour to produce more
> "things" (commodities
> perhaps) in a shorter period of time. They do not produce
> more value as
> such, as each individual "thing" merely contains less
> value (objectified
> labour) than they did prior to the introduction of the
> particular machine.
> So that's why after the introduction of the machine the
> particular commodity
> achieves less exchange value than prior to the machine.
> Eg. That's why
> computers become cheaper and cheaper the more computers
> are used to create
> them. (aside: a strange occurrence: it would be
> impossible to create a
> modern computer without the use of a modern computer.)
>
> But it still hasn't clicked with me as to how machines
> benefit the
> production of surplus value.
>
> Is it because machines allow for less labour needed in
> producing for the
> producer, and more can be spent producing for the
> consumer(capitalist)???????? True, I guess. If I was
> producing 3 cobs of
> corn, two of which I bought back to consume for myself,
> then really only one
> goes as surplus. If, through a nifty little corn machine,
> I increase that to
> 6 cobs of corn, and still only consume 2, that's 4 cobs
> of corn as surplus.
> Is that it??? If it is, well something seems not quite
> right, not sure what.
> It kind of makes sense, yet kind of doesn't. But I don't
> know why. Almost
> circular perhaps? HELP!
>
>
> bye
> patrick
>
>
>
>      --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
---


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