Fwd: Re: Re: real vs. formal subjection

[Joanna Sheldon <cjs10@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Yoshie and Jim,

> I wrote:
> > > but real vs. formal subjection of labor was defined or at least
> > > mentioned in the text of the shorter version of CAPITAL, in chapter 16.
> > > It corresponds roughly (or exactly?) to the distinction between absolute
> > > and relative surplus-value extraction.
>
> Yoshie asks:
> > What's the German word that is usually translated as "subsumption"?
>
> According to the Penguin/Vintage translator (Ben Fowkes), it's "Subsumtion."
>
> I don't know German, but in my college dictionary, "subsumption" means
> "the act or process of subsuming," where "subsume" refers to "to include
> or place within something larger or more comprehensive; [to] encompass as
> a subordinate or component element."
>
> While this has a nice dialectical flavor, it can lose Marx's political
> emphasis, allowing academics to escape into excessively formal debates.
> That's why I like the International Publishers' translation of the term as
> "subjection."

Well, I've had some fun with this, today, avoiding work.

The German word is indeed "Subsumtion" which is identical in meaning to the
word "subsumption" in English. Note that, in German, this Latin word is
used most often in legal documents.

As Jim's dictionary points out, subsumption suggests the taking up of an
element into a larger context and, if it includes the idea of
subordination, it is in the sense of an encompassing by something greater
rather than a subjection to something superior, so I don't agree in
principle with translating "subsumtion ... unter" with "subject
to".  Still, it's interesting to note that Marx speaks, in the same
context, of the subordination (using the Germanic word Unterordnung) of the
producer to capital, which may be intended to inform our reading of
"subsumption under" (and, if so, would push it in the direction of "subject
to"). In fact, in the following four lines (from Capital 1, the 14th/16th
chapter: Absolute and Relative Surplus Value), he seems to be having a bit
of fun bouncing German and Latin equivalents off of one another.

Below I've got Marx (14th ch. in the German GDR ed., 16th in the English),
then my xlation, then a standard xlation.

----
Here's Karl (Karl Marx - Friedrich Engels - Werke, Band 23, S. 11-802,
Dietz Verlag, Berlin/DDR 1962)
http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me23/me23_531.htm:

"Die Produktion des absoluten Mehrwerts *dreht sich nur um* die Länge des
Arbeitstags; die Produktion des relativen Mehrwerts *revolutioniert* durch
und durch die technischen Prozesse der Arbeit und die gesellschaftlichen
Gruppierungen.
Sie *unterstellt* also eine spezifisch kapitalistische Produktionsweise,
die mit ihren Methoden, Mitteln und Bedingungen selbst erst auf Grundlage
der formellen *Subsumtion* der Arbeit unter das Kapital naturwüchsig
entsteht und ausgebildet wird. An die Stelle der formellen tritt die reelle
*Subsumtion* der Arbeit unter das Kapital.
Es genügt bloßer Hinweis auf Zwitterformen, worin die Mehrarbeit weder
durch direkten Zwang dem Produzenten ausgepumpt wird, noch auch dessen
formelle *Unterordnung* unter das Kapital eingetreten ist." [my italics]

Note: word play? -- "dreht sich um" is from umdrehen of which the noun is
Umdrehung, the German literal equivalent of "revolution", which occurs
later in the same sentence; "unterstellt" means "assumes" or "presupposes"
here, but literally it means "places under" (and "sumere" in Latin can mean
"to assume").  In the last sentence "Unterordnung" is an "ordering under"
which is placed in the same logical position as the preceding "Subsumtion"
(i.e., bears the same relationship to the producer as, in the preceding
sentence "Subsumtion" does to labour).

---

My translation, ugly but I think close to the bone:

"The production of absolute surplus value turns alone upon the length of
the working day; the production of relative surplus value thoroughly
revolutionises the technical processes of labour, and social groupings.
It therefore presupposes a specifically capitalist means of production
which, with its methods, means and conditions, itself arises naturally and
develops [lit: completes its education] only when the foundation has been
laid -- when labour has been formally subsumed under capital. The formal is
replaced by the real subsumption of labour under capital.
We need only note the intermediate forms in which surplus labour is not
pumped out of the producer by direct pressure, in which the producer has
not been formally subordinated to capital."

---

Moore and Aveling translation
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch16.htm:

"The production of absolute surplus-value turns exclusively upon the length
of the working-day; the production of relative surplus-value,
revolutionises out and out the technical processes of labour, and the
composition of society. It therefore pre-supposes [unterstellt] a specific
mode, the capitalist mode of production, a mode which, along with its
methods, means, and conditions, arises and develops itself spontaneously on
the foundation afforded by the formal subjection [Subsumtion] of labour to
capital. In the course of this development, the formal subjection is
replaced by the real subjection [Subsumtion] of labour to capital.
It will suffice merely to refer to certain intermediate forms, in which
surplus-labour is not extorted* by direct compulsion from the producer, nor
the producer himself yet formally subjected to [Unterordnung] capital."

*Note, the German "ausgepumpt" is translated "extorted" here, but there's a
perfectly good word for extorted in German, and Marx doesn't use it.  It's
a shame to lose the vivid image of the producer being pumped for all he's
worth.

cheers,
Joanna S



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