Relative and absolute surplus value

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Relative and absolute surplus value
by Devine, James
27 November 2001 23:55

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Charles Brown writes:> On this I usually think ( and I been told)  that the
large amount of overtime in the autoplants , for example, for the last 15
years or so, means that the companies don't have to hire a certain margin of
more people. Thereby the company saves on benefits. They squeeze a bit more
( a margin ?) out of overtime workers and that little bit extra has no
benefits paid corresponding to it, benefits being part of the modern wage.
Thus, lots of overtime, a lengthened work day and week ( undermining the 40
hour workweek  and 8 hour day) does get some surplus value out of this that
might be dubbed absolute surplus value. <

Jim Devine: Yes, absolutely. Having a fixed cost (benefits) associated with each worker
encourages the boss to pay overtime to existing hires rather than bringing
on new ones. I was taking that for granted, since I was talking about the
treatment of the existing work-force. Raising that group's hours may not
raise the rate of surplus-value, though presumably it raises the mass of
surplus-value (total profits).


NEW RESPONSE:

CB: I follow you. Here's how I might think of a way in which rate of surplus-value is increased even only considering existing work-force: Take a worker named, oh, Shaniece, who works at a Ford engine plant in Romeo , Michigan. When she works overtime, I believe, most of her benefits in toto stay the same amount. Her benefits don't go up proportionally with overtime. So,, there is a greater rate of exploitation of her when she works overtime .

???

(((((



>> Return to the waged (blue-collar or pink-collar) workers: if OT is cut
back, this may help the rate of surplus-value, if the wage paid per hour
falls (since OT pay isn't being paid anymore). This can coincide with
_greater _ work-time for the salaried employees. I think this is what's
happening right now, though I don't have the evidence at hand.<<

CB:> I don't think the Big Three would be structuring jobs with so much
overtime for the last 15 years if it tended to cutback the rate of
exploitation of surplus-value or the rate of profit.<

Your point about the role of benefits explains this behavior.

However, it's important to remember that what a bunch of individual firms do
(seeking the maximimum profit) doesn't always work out well for the
capitalist class as a whole (raising the aggregate average rate of profit).
Sometimes their individual greed leads to economic crisis or unproductive
spending. I was simply discussing the capitalists' actions -- and the result
-- rather than their intent.


NEW RESPONSE:

CB: I see what you mean. The increased overtime that Ford or Chrysler , that has  been implemented for a number of years would not necessarily raise the aggregate average rate of profit for the capitalist class as a whole.

In Marx's discussion of absolute surplus value, I took him to be discussing individual capitalists , not the capitalist class as a whole. In other words, I take Marx to mean that the method of lengthening the working day as a method of increasing the rate of surplus ( absolute surplus value) value was a way of increasing the rate of surplus value of the individual capitalists who lengthen the working day,not a capitalist class wide plan to increase all capitalists ' rate of profit or the whole capitalist class average rate of surplus value or profit as a whole.

I agree. There is no actually existing "intent" of the capitalist class as a whole. This is part of the truth that capitalism is a system and not a conspiracy. Although, I think modern capitalist economic profession , its major dons, have developed a form of all-class capitalist consciousness in macro-economics. The near ten year boom in the U.S. is the eating proving the pudding of this theoretical feat.  Within this, capitalist enterprises still concentrate on their own bottomlines, not the capitalist class bottomline.





>CB:My recall is that Marx defines relative surplus value such that more
commodities per time whether by mechanization or speedup would be relative
surplus value. Here are a couple of quotes.

>Jim Devine:"The surplus-value produced by prolongation of the working-day, I call
absolute surplus-value. On the other hand, the surplus-value arising from
the curtailment of the necessary labour-time, and from the corresponding
alteration in the respective lengths of the two components of the
working-day, I call relative surplus-value" ... "Hence, independently of
this latter circumstance, there is a motive for each individual capitalist
to cheapen his commodities, by increasing the productiveness of labour.
Nevertheless, even in this case, the increased production of surplus-value
arises from the curtailment of the necessary labour-time, and from the
corresponding prolongation of the surplus-labour. "<

Jim Devine:I'm familiar with this. He hadn't really gotten to the issue of the
intensity of labor yet. It's in chapter 14 of volume I that he defines the
intensity of labor as an "expenditure of labor-power in a given time" (p.
341 of the Int'l Publ. ed.) and he doesn't spend a lot of ink on this issue.
(I'd say instead that the intensity of labor refers to the amount of labor
done (effort) during a specific time period of labor-power hired.) Anyway, I
find it useful to separate increases in labor productivity that occur
because of increased intensity of labor (sweating labor) from those that
occur because effort is more effective (tech progress).


CB: I agree on differentiating increased number of commodities produced per unit time based technological innovation from that based on making the worker work faster with technology constant, for example, in Marx's theory , because, techno innovation has many other implications in Marx's analysis, including the theory of the FROP ultimately. Speedup without techno innovation does not form part of this logic, from what I understand.

However, and let me know what you think, for what we are talking about, I would classify both speed up and techno change increased productivity under relative and not absolute surplus value increased extraction.


>> It gets even more confusing when we drop Marx's constant real wage
assumption. Are real wage cuts part of absolute surplus-value extraction (as
I asserted) or relative surplus-value extraction (as Michael suggests)?<<

CB:>I'd say wage cuts are neither, but in differentiating relative and
absolute surplus value, <

I've never found Marx to categorize wage cuts as either of these, though
maybe Michael Perelman has. I find it useful to treat wage cuts as being
different from technological progress.

>Marx remarks on this category as actually occurring in practice or class
struggle between the workers and capitalists. ....<

right. But sometimes (like the last quarter century or so in the US), it's
been mostly a one-sided class war.

NEW COMMENT:

CB: Yes, there has been an enormous assault on the living standards of the U.S. working class in the period you mention. The U.S. working class giant has fallen fast to sleep. What a drag. Without the Marxist economic conception, the labor leaders are letting the gains of the thirties, forties and fifties slip away.  The elimination of the mass nature of Marxist politicaleconomic education, direct and indirect, is getting us slaughtered in the class struggle

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Jim :>>In the end, the meaning of the distinction shouldn't depend on "what Marx
said," since Marx was wrong once or twice. It should depend on how
theoretically and empirically useful the distinction is, how it fits with a
holistic/dialectical perspective, and how it helps guide practice.<<

CB: >Well, it does depend some on what Marx said, because he developed the
ideas and definitions, and we are dealing with definitions here.<

JIm: Of course. Marx was very clear-headed and his definitions -- when he
actually uses definitions -- are useful. One thing, though: the meaning of
Marx's categories depend on what level of abstraction he's working at. And
sometimes he defines things weirdly. As Sweezy remarks, Marx took an entire
book (volume I of CAPITAL) to define "capitalism."

In many cases, what we need to do is simply be clear about what definitions
_we're_ using, acknowledging that they sometimes differ from Marx's. And,
again, we should reify _any_ definitions.

CB: I agree with what you say , approaching categories as fluid, so to speak, Marx uses words like bats ( i.e. birds and rodents at the same time) as Ollman says in _Alienation_ , etc. Also, Engels in _AntiDurhing_ makes clear the dialectical materialist attitude against use of  terms as absolutely irreconcilable antitheses, or rigid definitions, reified definitions , as you say. I do think that there is a moment in this process at which terms are used rigidly. There is a socalled metaphysical moment, or moment of understanding when there is sharp definition. Otherwise, there would be no precision or definiteness. But overall , you remark the dialectical aspect, and I agree.