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Re: indirect labor, the real wage, and the production of surplus value

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At 23:24 26/11/2003 -0800, ajit wrote:
 For you, real
wages are a direct function of productivity (q). My
point has been that for Marx the real wages are not a
function of productivity.

Why? Why--- given that productivity increases lower the value of wage goods?

So the problem you are
posing to Marx is not Marx's problem. To say that
given U = Bq/X, U will be constant only if q/X must
remain constant, given B being constant, is elementary
mathematics. What insight one can get from such
elementary mathematics?

The importance of X to any discussion of U?

So, to repeat, the problem
with what you are saying is that for your theory a
rise in labor productivity, leaving other variables
constant, must lead to a rise in real wages. This is
not in Marx.

Have you read what I wrote on 23/11 in response to Jerry? Here it is again:

?Finally the third CASE?, where productivity (q) and the standard of necessity (U) rise at the same rate:

The worker continues to receive the same value--- or the objectification of the same part of the working day--- as before. In this case, because the productivity of labour has risen, the quantity of use values he receives, his real wage, has risen, but its value has remained constant, since it continues to represent the same quantity of realised labour time as before. In this case, however, the surplus value too remains unchanged, there is no change in the ratio between the wage and the surplus value, hence the proportion [of surplus value] to the wage remains unchanged (Marx, 1994:65-6).
In short, in this case, ?there would be no CHANGE in surplus value, although the latter would represent, just as wages would, a greater quantity of use values than before? (Marx, 1994: 66).
In Capital, this third case in which both capitalist and worker may obtain more use-values without any change in surplus value is introduced as follows:

Now, if the productivity of labour were to be doubled without any alteration in the ratio between necessary labour and surplus labour, there would be no change in the magnitude either of the surplus-value or of the price of labour-power. The only result would be that each of these would represent twice as many use-values as before, and that each use-value would be twice as cheap as it was before (Marx, 1977: 659).

        in solidarity,
         michael
---------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Office Fax:   (604) 291-5944
Home:   Phone (604) 689-9510


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