Re: AUT: The Dark Satanic Mills

["Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 23 Feb 2002, Saul Marsh wrote:

> 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.

Mostly right, but the "value added" is all the work done by living labor,
only part of which is returned to the workers in wages. In Marx's jargon
the "value added" is V + S, not just S.

> "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.

Right.

> 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.

I would say "by the socially necessary labor time required to produce the
means of subsistence necessary to the reproduction of that labor power",
otherwise, yes.

> 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.

Machines "decrease the time socially necessary" to produce the means of
subsistence required to reproduce labor power. This is an aggregate
phenomenon, not a micro one. It works at the level of the whole. The class
as a whole must be reproduced. So you shouldn't think about the reduced
SNLT just in terms of "the labor that used to be necessary before the
introduction of themachine."

H.

>
> Saul



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