EmanuelaBrolandi
EmanuelaBrolandi
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same except i wrote 'marx's capital' because im ben fine
cars
cars
UNUSUALY COOL
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while i'm just described as Fine.
toutvabien
toutvabien
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i'm the lady in red when everybody else is wearing tan
Scrree
Scrree
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Chapter 19: The Transformation of Value (and Respectively the Price) of Labour-Power into Wages
life got busy for a bit and i had to take a break and then that bit was over but ive tried to to write out this chapter like three times and ditched each time but maybe momentum is a lie?
marx starts the chapter off by detailing other political economist's (smith, ricardo, etc.) attempts to elucidate a theory of value, and how they stumbled when they tried to nail down the value of labor. they couldn't escape the problem that, if the commodities are valued in labor time, then the value of labor itself is = to labor time spent producing labor, and labor = labor is a useless tautology that cannot be formulated as a law of capitalism. it's the same contradiction that marx laid out in the first three chapters - if exchange is presumed to always be equal, and unequal trade is equivalent to theft, then the economic growth under capitalism is impossible.
the trick, which marx pulled in the earlier chapters and now walks us through again, is that the basis of capitalist production is not the sale of labor but labor power. a sectioned time of a laborer sold as a commodity to the capitalist whose use value is a specific function (weaving, mining, etc) that produces value in the form of commodities (and necessarily more value than it was purchased for, lest there be a crisis). thus within a framework of fair trade and equal exchange can one class systemically exploit another. the laboring classes 'accept' this arrangement because they are denied access to the means of production and any other way of surviving.
all this is just foundational stuff, and i'm thankful marx decided this was the chapter to go over it again (over a month, christ). the reason he brings it up is to talk about the contradictions in how the absurd revolution that the basis of the capitalist system the selling of a commodity that produces more value than it's own value, and the actual form of appearance of that relationship - wages. spoiler alert: the next 3 chapters also include the word wages in their titles.
marx straight up says that the purpose ("raison d'etre", or "necessity") of wages is to obscure the exploitation and class struggle within the capitalist mode of production. classical economists searched for some kind of objective source of value - a 'natural value of labor', but the wage labor system, both materially and ideologically, obscures the fact that the capitalist mode of production is fundamentally one of unequal exchange.
for a slave it appears that, even when do work purely for the needs of their own existence, all their labors are to the slaveowner's benefit because they are owned. for the wage worker the facts that universal labor power as a commodity is different from all others, that it is living labor that motivates and imbues dead labor with value, that they can only ever realize a fraction of the value of their labor for themselves is a social arrangement, not a law, are obscured, and so even when labor is spent purely for the capitalist's benefit it takes the appearance of paid work.
marx talks a bit about how the structure of the capitalist mode of the production made it a difficult (on a historical scale) to analysis the truth of it, and that like a lot of sciences the surface phenomenon are often inversions of the essential facts. a businessman who buys low and sells high will proclaim that as the source of all wealth, even though if that were true on a large level capitalism would be impossible. bourgeois thought regards analysis as true only as long as it aids in it's own reproduction. marx both praises the material study that earlier writer accomplished in search of the truth and is also quick to point out when they wrote some real stupid shit.
life got busy for a bit and i had to take a break and then that bit was over but ive tried to to write out this chapter like three times and ditched each time but maybe momentum is a lie?
marx starts the chapter off by detailing other political economist's (smith, ricardo, etc.) attempts to elucidate a theory of value, and how they stumbled when they tried to nail down the value of labor. they couldn't escape the problem that, if the commodities are valued in labor time, then the value of labor itself is = to labor time spent producing labor, and labor = labor is a useless tautology that cannot be formulated as a law of capitalism. it's the same contradiction that marx laid out in the first three chapters - if exchange is presumed to always be equal, and unequal trade is equivalent to theft, then the economic growth under capitalism is impossible.
the trick, which marx pulled in the earlier chapters and now walks us through again, is that the basis of capitalist production is not the sale of labor but labor power. a sectioned time of a laborer sold as a commodity to the capitalist whose use value is a specific function (weaving, mining, etc) that produces value in the form of commodities (and necessarily more value than it was purchased for, lest there be a crisis). thus within a framework of fair trade and equal exchange can one class systemically exploit another. the laboring classes 'accept' this arrangement because they are denied access to the means of production and any other way of surviving.
all this is just foundational stuff, and i'm thankful marx decided this was the chapter to go over it again (over a month, christ). the reason he brings it up is to talk about the contradictions in how the absurd revolution that the basis of the capitalist system the selling of a commodity that produces more value than it's own value, and the actual form of appearance of that relationship - wages. spoiler alert: the next 3 chapters also include the word wages in their titles.
marx straight up says that the purpose ("raison d'etre", or "necessity") of wages is to obscure the exploitation and class struggle within the capitalist mode of production. classical economists searched for some kind of objective source of value - a 'natural value of labor', but the wage labor system, both materially and ideologically, obscures the fact that the capitalist mode of production is fundamentally one of unequal exchange.
for a slave it appears that, even when do work purely for the needs of their own existence, all their labors are to the slaveowner's benefit because they are owned. for the wage worker the facts that universal labor power as a commodity is different from all others, that it is living labor that motivates and imbues dead labor with value, that they can only ever realize a fraction of the value of their labor for themselves is a social arrangement, not a law, are obscured, and so even when labor is spent purely for the capitalist's benefit it takes the appearance of paid work.
marx talks a bit about how the structure of the capitalist mode of the production made it a difficult (on a historical scale) to analysis the truth of it, and that like a lot of sciences the surface phenomenon are often inversions of the essential facts. a businessman who buys low and sells high will proclaim that as the source of all wealth, even though if that were true on a large level capitalism would be impossible. bourgeois thought regards analysis as true only as long as it aids in it's own reproduction. marx both praises the material study that earlier writer accomplished in search of the truth and is also quick to point out when they wrote some real stupid shit.
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