the rate of surplus-value

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote:
> all else (especially real wages) constant, increases in labor productivity
> raise the rate of surplus-value.
>
> ((((((
>
> CB: I'm always a little unclear on this. I know that the capitalists who
> make the initial innovations gain an advantage over those who don't
> because with the increase in productivity, they get more unit commodities
> to sell for the same total wage. But after all capitalists finally get the
> innovative technology, is it true that the rate of surplus value is up for
> everybody as compared with before the innovation ? In other words, surplus
> value can only be made on labor, so the less human labor that goes into a
> commodity , the less value goes in.

The rate of surplus-value is a ratio, the mass of surplus-value S divided
by the mass of variable capital V. One way of looking at it is the way Marx
does in volume I of CAPITAL: in per-worker-day terms, the mass of
surplus-value S equals the length of the working day (H) minus the number
of hours of the day needed to pay for the worker's wages (V).

If we take the worker's daily real wages as given and fixed, and equal to
B, and assume that labor productivity (Q = output per hour) is the same in
all sectors, then the number of hours needed to produce the real wage, V,
would equal (commodities paid per worker-day)/(commodity output per hour)
=  B/Q. Then the mass of surplus-value per worker-day S equals H - B/Q.

The rate of surplus-value is the ratio of surplus-value per worker-day: S/V
= (H - B/Q)/(B/Q) = (H*Q/B) - 1.

This says that the rate of surplus-value rises if the length of the
working-day is raised (absolute surplus-value extraction) or labor
productivity rises (relative surplus-value extraction). Marx assumed B was
constant in almost all of volume I, but if it's depressed, the rate of
surplus-value rises. Boosting profits by cutting wages seems akin to
absolute surplus-value extraction.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine