part III
|
CHAPTER VIII |
The various factors of the labour-process play different parts in forming the value of the product.
The labourer adds fresh value to the subject of fiis labour by expending upon it a given amount of additional labour, no matter what the specific character and utility of that labour may be. On the other hand, the values of the means of production used up in the process are preserved, and present themselves afresh as constituent parts of the value of the product; the values of the cotton and the spindle, for instance, re-appear again in the value of the yarn. The value of the means of production is therefore preserved, by being transferred to the product. This transfer takes place during the conversion of those means into a product, or in other words, during the labour-process. It is brought about by labour; but how?
The labourer does not perform two operations at once, one in order to add value to the cotton, the other in order to preserve the value of the means of production, or, what amounts to the same thing, to transfer to the yarn, to the product, the value of the cotton on which he works, and part of the value of the spindle with which he works. But, by the very act of adding new value, he preserves their former values. Since, however, the addition of new value to the subject of his labour, and the preservation of its former value, are two entirely distinct results, produced simultaneously by the labourer, during one operation, it is plain that this two-fold nature of the result can be explained only by the two-fold nature of his labour; at one and the same time, it must in one character create value, and in another character preserve or transfer value.
Now, in what manner does every labourer add new labour and consequently new
value? Evidently, only by labouring productively in a If the special productive labour of the workman were not spinning, he could
not convert the cotton into yarn, and therefore could not transfer the values of
the cotton and spindle to the yarn. Suppose the same workman were to change his
occupation to that of a joiner, he would still by a day's labour add value to
the material he works upon. Consequently, we see, first, that the addition of
new value takes place not by virtue of his labour being spinning in particular,
or joinering in particular, but because it is labour in the abstract, a portion
of the total labour of society; and we see next, that the value added is of a
given definite amount, not because his labour has a special utility, but because
it is exerted for a definite time. On the one hand, then, it is by virtue of its
general character, as being expenditure of human labour-power in the abstract,
that spinning adds new value to the values of the cotton and the spindle; and on
the other hand, it is by virtue of its special character, as being a concrete,
useful process, that the same labour of spinning both transfers the values of
the means of production to the product, and preserves them in the product. Hence
at one and the same time there is produced a two-fold result.
Let us assume, that some invention enables the spinner to spin as much cotton
in 6 hours as he was able to spin before in 36 hours. His labour is now six
times as effective as it was, for the purposes of useful production. The product
of 6 hours' work has increased six-fold, from 6 lbs. to 36 lbs. But now the 36
lbs. of cotton absorb only the same amount of labour as formerly did the 6 lbs.
One-sixth as much new labour is absorbed by each pound of cotton, and
consequently, the value added by the labour to each pound is only one-sixth of
what it formerly was. On the other hand, in the product, in the 36 lbs. of yarn,
the value transferred from the cotton is six times as great as before. By the 6
hours' spinning, the value of the raw material preserved and transferred to the
product is six times as great as before, although the new value added by the
labour of the spinner to each pound of the very same raw material is one-sixth
what it was formerly. This shows that the two properties of labour, by virtue of
which it is enabled in one case to preserve value, and in the other to create
value, are essentially different. On the one hand, the longer the time necessary
to spin a given weight of cotton into yarn, the greater is the new value added
to the material; on the other hand, the greater the weight of the cotton spun in
a given time, the greater is the value preserved, by being transferred from it
to the product.
Let us now assume, that the productiveness of the spinner's labour, instead
of varying, remains constant, that he therefore requires the same time as he
formerly did, to convert one pound of cotton into yarn, but that the
exchange-value of the cotton varies, either by rising to six times its former
value or falling to one-sixth of that value. In both these cases, the spinner
puts the same quantity of labour into a pound of cotton, and therefore adds as
much value, as he did before the change in the value: he also produces a given
weight of yarn in the same time as he did before. Nevertheless, the value that
he transfers from the cotton to the yarn is either one-sixth of what it was
before the variation, or, as the case may be, six times as much as before. The
same result occurs when the value of the instruments of labour rises or falls,
while their useful efficacy in the process remains unaltered.
Again, if the technical conditions of the spinning process remain unchanged,
and no change of value takes place in the means of production, the spinner
continues to consume in equal working-times equal quantities of raw material,
and equal quantities of machinery of unvarying value. The value that he
preserves in the product is directly Value exists only in articles of utility, in objects: we leave out of
consideration its purely symbolical representation by tokens. (Man himself,
viewed as the impersonation of labour-power, is a natural object, a thing,
although a living conscious thing, and labour is the manifestation of this power
residing in him.) If therefore an article loses its utility, it also loses its
value. The reason why means of production do not lose their value, at the same
time that they lose their use-value, is this: they lose in the labour-process
the original form of their use-value, only to assume in the product the form of
a new use-value. But, however important it may be to value, that it should have
some object of utility to embody itself in, yet it is a matter of complete
indifference what particular object serves this purpose; this we saw when
treating of the metamorphosis of commodities. Hence it follows that in the
labour-process the means of production transfer their value to the product only
so far as along with their use-value they lose also their exchange-value. They
give up to the product that value alone which they themselves lose as means of
production. But in this respect the material factors of the labour-process do
not all behave alike.
The coal burnt under the boiler vanishes without leaving a trace; so, too,
the tallow with which the axles of wheels are greased. Dye stuffs and other
auxiliary substances also vanish but re-appear as properties of the product. Raw
material forms the substance of the product, but only after it has changed its
form. Hence raw material and auxiliary It is thus strikingly clear, that means of production never transfer more
value to the product than they themselves lose during the labour-process by the
destruction of their own use-value. If such an instrument has no value to lose,
if, in other words, it is not the product of human labour, it transfers no value
to the product. It helps to create use-value without contributing to the
formation of exchange-value. In this class are included all means of production
supplied by Nature without human assistance, such as land, wind, water, metals
in situ, and timber in virgin forests.
Yet another interesting phenomenon here presents itself. Suppose a machine to
be worth £1,000, and to wear out in 1,000 days. Then one thousandth part of the
value of the machine is daily transferred to the On the other hand, a means of production may take part as a whole in the
formation of value, while into the labour-process it enters only bit by bit.
Suppose that in spinning cotton, the waste for every 115 lbs. used amounts to 15
lbs., which is converted, not into yarn, but into "devil's dust." Now, although
this 15 lbs. of cotton never becomes a constituent element of the yarn, yet
assuming this amount of waste to be normal and inevitable under average
conditions of spinning, its value is just as surely transferred to the value of
the yarn, as is the value of the 100 lbs. that form the substance of the yarn.
The use-value of 15 lbs. of cotton must vanish into dust, before 100 lbs. of
yarn can be made. The destruction of this cotton is therefore a necessary
condition in the production of the yarn. And because it is a necessary
condition, and for no other reason, the value of that cotton is transferred to
the product. The same holds good for every kind of refuse resulting from a
labour-process, so tar at least as such refuse cannot be further employed as a
means in the production of new and independent use-values. We have seen that the means of production transfer value to the new product,
so far only as during the labour-process they lose value in the shape of their
old use-value. The maximum loss of value that they can suffer in the process, is
plainly limited by the amount of the original value with which they came into
the process, or in other words, by the labour-time necessary for their
production. Therefore, the means of production can never add more value to the
product than they themselves possess independently of the process in which they
assist. However useful a given kind of raw material, or a machine, or other
means of production may be, though it may cost £150, or, say, 500 days' labour,
yet it cannot, under any circumstances, add to the value of the product more
than £150. Its value is determined not by the labour-process into which it
enters as a means of production, but by that out of which it has issued as a
product. In the labour-process it only serves as a mere use-value, a thing with
useful properties, and could not, therefore, transfer any value to the product,
unless it possessed such value previously. [3]
While productive labour is changing the means of production into constituent
elements of a new product, their value undergoes a metempsychosis. It deserts
the consumed body, to occupy the newly created one. But this transmigration
takes place, as it were, behind the back of the labourer. He is unable to add
new labour, to create new value, As regards the means of production, what is really consumed is their
use-value, and the consumption of this use-value by labour results in the
product. There is no consumption of their value, [6]
and it would therefore be inaccurate to say that it is reproduced. It is rather
preserved; not by reason of any operation it undergoes itself in the process;
but because the article in which it originally exists, vanishes, it is true, but
vanishes into some other article. Hence, in the value of the product, there is a
reappearance of the value of the means of production, but there is, strictly
speaking, no reproduction of that value. That which is produced is a new
use-value in which the old exchange-value reappears. [7]
It is otherwise with the subjective factor of the labour-process, with
labour-power in action. While the labourer, by virtue of his labour being of a
specialised kind that has a special object, preserves and transfers to the
product the value of the means of production, he at the same time, by the mere
act of working, creates each instant an additional or new value. Suppose the
process of production to be stopped just when the workman has produced an
equivalent for the value of his own, labour-power, when, for example, by six
hours' labour, he has added a value of three shillings. This value is the
surplus, of the total value of the product, over the portion of its value that
is due to the means of production. It is the only original bit of value formed
during this process, the only portion of the value of the product created by
this process. Of course, we do not forget that this new value only replaces the
money advanced by the capitalist in the purchase of the labour-power, and spent
by the labourer on the necessaries of life. With regard to the money spent, the
new value is merely a reproduction; but, nevertheless, it is an actual, and not,
as in the case of the value of the means of production, only an apparent,
reproduction. The substitution of one value for another, is here effected by the
creation of new value.
We know, however, from what has gone before, that the labour-process may
continue beyond the time necessary to reproduce and incorporate in the product a
mere equivalent for the value of the labour-power. Instead of the six hours that
are sufficient for the latter purpose, the process may continue for twelve
hours. The action of labour-power, therefore, not only reproduces its own value,
but produces value over and above it. This surplus-value is the difference
between the value of the product and the value of the elements consumed in the
formation of that product, in other words, of the means of production and the
labour-power.
By our explanation of the different parts played by the various factors of
the labour-process in the formation of the product's value, we have, On the other hand, that part of capital, represented by labour-power, does,
in the process of production, undergo an alteration of value. It both reproduces
the equivalent of its own value, and also produces an excess, a surplus-value,
which may itself vary, may be more or less according to circumstances. This part
of capital is continually being transformed from a constant into a variable
magnitude. I therefore call it the variable part of capital, or, shortly,
variable capital. The same elements of capital which, from the point of
view of the labour-process, present themselves respectively as the objective and
subjective factors, as means of production and labour-power, present themselves,
from the point of view of the process of creating surplus-value, as constant and
variable capital.
The definition of constant capital given above by no means excludes the
possibility of a change of value in its elements. Suppose the price of cotton to
be one day sixpence a pound, and the next day, in consequence of a failure of
the cotton crop, a shilling a pound. Each pound of the cotton bought at
sixpence, and worked up after the rise in value, transfers to the product a
value of one shilling; and the cotton already spun before the rise, and perhaps
circulating in the market as yarn, likewise transfers to the product twice its,
original value. It is plain, however, that these changes of value are
independent of the increment or surplus-value added to the value of the cotton
by the spinning itself. If the old cotton had never been spun, it could, after
the rise, be resold at a shilling a pound instead of at sixpence. Further, the
fewer the processes the cotton has gone through, the more certain is this
result. We therefore find that speculators make it a rule when such sudden
changes in value occur, to speculate in that material on which the least
possible quantity of labour has been spent: to speculate, therefore, in yarn
rather than in cloth, in cotton itself, rather than in yarn. The change of value
in the case we have been considering, originates, not in the process in
As the value of the raw material may change, so, too, may that of the
instruments of labour, of the machinery, &c., employed in the process; and
consequently that portion of the value of the product transferred to it from
them, may also change. If in consequence of a new invention, machinery of a
particular kind can be produced by a diminished expenditure of labour, the old
machinery becomes depreciated more or less, and consequently transfers so much
less value to the product. But here again, the change in value originates
outside the process in which the machine is acting as a means of production.
Once engaged in this process, the machine cannot transfer more value than it
possesses apart from the process.
Just as a change in the value of the means of production, even after they
have commenced to take a part in the labour-process, does not alter their
character as constant capital, so, too, a change in the proportion of constant
to variable capital does not affect the respective functions of these two kinds
of capital. The technical conditions of the labour-process may be revolutionised
to such an extent, that where formerly ten men using ten implements of small
value worked up a relatively small quantity of raw material, one man may now,
with the aid of one expensive machine, work up one hundred times as much raw
material. In the latter case we have an enormous increase in the constant
capital, that is represented by the total value of the means of production used,
and at the same time a great reduction in the variable capital, invested in
labour-power. Such a revolution, however, alters only the quantitative relation
between the constant and the variable capital, or the proportions in which the
total capital is split up into its constant and variable constituents; it has
not in the least degree affected the essential difference between the two.
[1] "Labour gives a new creation for one extinguished."
("An Essay on the Polit. Econ. of Nations," London, 1821, p. 13.)
[2] The subject of repairs of the implements of labour does
not concern us here. A machine that is undergoing repair, no longer plays the
part of an instrument, but that of a subject of labour. Work is no longer done
with it, but upon it. It is quite permissible for our purpose to assume, that
the labour expended on the repairs of instruments is included in the labour
necessary for their original production. But in the text we deal with that wear
and tear, which no doctor can cure, and which little by little brings about
death, with "that kind of wear which cannot be repaired from time to time, and
which, in the case of a knife, would ultimately reduce it to a state in which
the cutler would say of it, it is not worth a new blade." We have shewn in the
text, that a machine takes part in every labour-process as an integral machine,
but that into the simultaneous process of creating value it enters only bit by.
bit. How great then is the confusion of ideas exhibited in the following
extract! "Mr. Ricardo says a portion of the labour of the engineer in making
[stocking] machines" is contained for example in the value of a pair of
stockings. "Yet the total labour, that produced each single pair of stockings
... includes the whole labour of the engineer, not a portion; for one machine
makes many pairs, and none of those pairs could have been done without any part
of the machine." ("Obs. on Certain Verbal Disputes in Pol. Econ., Particularly
Relating to Value," p. 54.1 The author, an uncommonly self-satisfied wiseacre,
is right in his confusion and therefore in his contention, to this extent only,
that neither Ricardo nor any other economist, before or since him, has
accurately distinguished the two aspects of labour, and still less, therefore,
the part played by it under each of these aspects in the formation of value.
[3] From this we may judge of the absurdity of J. B. Say,
who pretends to account for surplus-value (Interest, Profit, Rent), by the
"services productifs" which the means of production, soil, instruments, and raw
material, render in the labour-process by means of their use-values. Mr. Wm.
Roscher who seldom loses an occasion of registering, in black and white,
ingenious apologetic fancies, records the following specimen: - "J. B. Say
(Traité, t. 1, ch. 4) very truly remarks: the value produced by an oil mill,
after deduction of all costs, is something new, something quite different from
the labour by which the oil mill itself was erected." (l. c., p. 82, note.) Very
true, Mr. Professor! the oil produced by the oil mill is indeed something very
different from the labour expended in constructing the mill! By value, Mr.
Roscher understands such stuff as "oil," because oil has value, notwithstanding
that "Nature" produces petroleum, though relatively "in small quantities," a
fact to which he seems to refer in his further observation: "It (Nature)
produces scarcely any exchange-value." Mr. Roscher's "Nature" and the
exchange-value it produces are rather like the foolish virgin who admitted
indeed that she had had a child, but "it was such a little one." This "savant
sérieux" in continuation remarks: "Ricardo's school is in the habit of including
capital as accumulated labour under the head of labour. This is unskilful work,
because, indeed, the owner of capital, after all, does something more than the
merely creating and preserving of the same: namely, the abstention from the
enjoyment of it, for which he demands, e.g., interest." (l. c.) How very
"skilful" is this "anatomico-physiological method" of Political Economy, which,
"indeed," converts a mere desire "after alr' into a source of value.
[4] "Of all the instruments of the farmers' trade, the
labour of man ... is that on which he is most to rely for the repayment of his
capital. The other two ... the working stock of the cattle and the ... carts,
ploughs, spades, and so forth, without a given portion of the first, are nothing
at all." (Edmund Burke: "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, originally presented
to the Right Hon. W. Pitt, in the month of November 1795," Edit. London, 1800,
p. 10.)
[5] In The Times of 26th November, 1862, a
manufacturer, whose mill employed 800 hands, and consumed, on the average, 150
bales of East Indian, or 130 bales of American cotton, complains, in doleful
manner, of the standing expenses of his factory when not working. He estimates
them at £6,000 a year. Among them are a number of items that do not concern us
here, such as rent, rates, and taxes, insurance, salaries of the manager,
book-keeper, engineer, and others. Then he reckons £150 for coal used to heat
the mill occasionally, and run the engine now and then. Besides this, he
includes the wages of the people employed at odd times to keep the machinery in
working order. Lastly, he puts down £1,200 for depreciation of machinery,
because "the weather and the natural principle of decay do not suspend their
operations because the steam-engine ceases to revolve." He says, emphatically,
he does not estimate his depreciation at more than the small sum of £1,200,
because his machinery is already nearly worn out.
[6] "Productive consumption ... where the consumption of a
commodity is a part of the process of production. ... In these instances there
is no consumption of value." (S. P. Newman, l. c., p. 296.)
[7] In an American compendium that has gone through,
perhaps, 20 editions, this passage occurs: "It matters not in what form capital
re-appears;" then after a lengthy enumeration of all the possible ingredients of
production whose value re-appears in the product, the passage concludes thus:
"The various kinds of food, clothing, and shelter, necessary for the existence
and comfort of the human being, are also changed. They are consumed from time to
time, and their value re-appears in that new vigour imparted to his body and
mind, forming fresh capital, to be employed again in the work of production."
(F. Wayland, l. c., pp. 31, 32.) Without noticing any other oddities, it
suffices to observe, that what re-appears in the fresh vigour, is not the
bread's price, but its bloodforming substances. What, on the other hand,
re-appears in the value of that vigour, is not the means of subsistence, but
their value. The same necessaries of life, at half the price, would form just as
much muscle and bone, just as much vigour, but not vigour of the same value.
This confusion of "value" and "vigour" coupled with our author's pharisaical
indefiniteness, mark an attempt, futile for all that, to thrash out an
explanation of surplus-value from a mere re-appearance of pre-existing values.
[8] "Toutes les productions d'un même -- genre ne forment
proprement qu'une masse, dont le prix se détermine en général et sans égard aux
circonstances particulières." (Le Trosne, 1. c., p. 893.)
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