Wage Labour and Capital #2

Hello everyone, welcome to Theory Thursday! This is a community led project, the point of these posts is to read about 30 minutes of theory every Thursday. Then we discuss with fellow comrades the contents of the reading. This week’s topic we are covering Karl Marx’s Wage Labour and Capital. Chapter 2, what are wages, through chapter 5, the nature and growth of capital.

Discussion #1: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1134970

The Reading: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm

The Study Guide: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/guide.htm

Study Guide questions:

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What are wages?

  1. What is the difference between “Labour” and “Labour Power”?
  2. Describe some circumstances from your personal experiences where on the one hand, labour is purchased, and on the other labour-power is purchased. Can you find examples where in both cases the seller is a manual worker and the buyer is a capitalist?

By what is the price of a commodity determined?

  1. In what sense does Marx deny that prices are determined by the balance of supply and demand?
  2. What will cause a commodity in short supply to fall in price?
  3. What factors discussed in this chapter may cause wages to fall?

By what are wages determined?

  1. What additional factors discussed in this chapter do you see which will cause wages to be higher or lower for one or another trade or vary over the years?
  2. What do you think the effect of introducing free public education would have on wages?
  3. Discuss other factors: increased immigration, cheap public housing, introduction of new technology, anti-union laws, … (no simple answers!)

The nature and growth of capital

  1. What does Marx mean when he introduces this point about a (antiquated word for black person) being a slave? What is he saying about Capital?
  2. What does Marx mean by saying “Capital is a social relation”?
  3. In today’s capitalist society, in what circumstances are useful, valuable things not capital?
  4. In what sense do we see the dead dominating the living in capitalist society?

Feel free to discus below your thoughts or insight into this reading.

Next week we will finish the reading, from chapter 6 (relation of wage labor to capital) onward.

Check out the sidebar for additional resources, including comrade CriticalResist8’s ProleWiki study guide, also check out comrade GrainEater’s Matrix study group if you’d like to study additional theory. Have a good week comrades, until next time!

Study Guide Questions for next time:

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Relation of wage-labor to capital

  1. Can we think of even more factors governing the rise and fall of real wages?
  2. What does “standard of living” mean? Has it increased over the past 100 years in your country (or not)? Why?
  3. What is the effect on profits of a situation where people work long hours every day of the week (other things being equal)? And on the other hand, of people only having a few hours work a week?

The general law that determines the rise and fall of wages and profit

  1. Marx says that the gap between rich and poor was getting wider in his day. Is this true today? Has it always been true throughout the past hundred years in your country? And what about differences within the working class? Are these getting bigger or smaller?
  2. Where does profit come from? If commodities are paid for at their value, how can a buyer or seller consistently make a profit and get rich? – Does your answer cover how bankers, landlords, stock-brokers and so on get rich?

The interests of capital and wage-labor are diametrically opposed

  1. Discuss an example you know about of a new technique of production being introduced and the effects this had on prices, wages, etc.
  2. Discuss the contrast between “labour intensive” and “capital intensive” industries. What parts of the economy are becoming more capital intensive, and which are not?

Effect of capitalist competition on the capitalist, middle and working class

  1. Discuss the prospects for wages in your country at the moment and what tactics could be used to improve wages.
  2. What is your answer to someone who says that an increase in wages will only cause inflation or cause capital to be withdrawn from the country.
  3. Why is the fight for better wages anything to do with the fight for socialism? What would you say to someone who said that fighting for higher wages is just being greedy like the capitalists?
  4. Many workers are not paid wages, but work on contracts, or on piece-work. How does this effect what Marx has been saying about the value of Labour Power, and so on.?

FAQ

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Why are we only doing 30 minutes worth of reading?

  1. I’m a very busy person and don’t have time to do more
  2. This format is specifically designed for people with busy schedules to participate
  3. It is proven that the best way to digest information is a little bit at a time

Still not satisfied? I recommend starting your own study session, reading at your own pace, or joining an additional study group.

I’m open to constructive criticism, key word there being constructive. Just keep in mind I’m a flawed human being who’s volunteering my limited time and energy to do this.

  • TT17@lemmygrad.mlOP
    5·
    1 year ago

    My answers to the study guide:

    1. Labour is when you do work in general. Labour-power is a commodity that you sell to a capitalist in exchange for wages.
    2. If I labour to make a pizza at home then sell that pizza to a buyer, that would be an example of me ‘selling my labour’. If I were to go to the capitalist pizza shop owner and agree to make pizza for them, for a certain amount of time, for a fixed wage. This would be an example of me ‘selling my labour power’ as a commodity to the capitalist.
    3. Maybe I’m wrong here but I don’t believe he makes the argument that supply and demand play no factor in prices. He is simply adding the cost of production into the equation.
    4. Sellers compete on the market to offer the lowest price, buyers will go with the lowest price, thus a race to the bottom. I can’t see an example where Marx uses products in short supply while also decreasing in price at the same time, maybe I missed something. I see him making the opposite argument, that when supply is low, the sellers will work together to drive the price up.
    5. The cost of production is directly related to the price of a commodity, thus giving the capitalist incentive to cut labour costs. Giving the capitalist the biggest portion of the profits.
    6. Wages boil down to the bare necessities for keeping the species alive, able to work, produce future working offspring, and getting enough nutrients to get through a working day. Notice how he emphasizes the word species, there are plenty of individual workers who don’t get enough to fill these basic needs. Rather the goal is to keep the species alive just enough to keep the money machine working.
    7. According to this logic with free public education wages would decrease, simply because the cost of giving workers the bare necessities would go down significantly. I argue despite this potential problem there should be free or a reduced cost of education, and that this logic too simplistic.
    8. Although you might be able to make a ghoulish argument that increased immigration will lead to lower wages, I sure will not. I think that framing is missing a lot of context while leading to dangerous and xenophobic conclusions. I don’t think it’s as simple as more immigrants = bad wages. Frankly I find that rhetoric disgusting and reeking of fascistic principles. Marx didn’t say a word about immigration during the reading. Pisses me off that the study guide would even include that, as if it’s appropriate to ‘debate’ human beings living their lives outside of the arbitrary border they were born into. Call me a moralist if you want, I don’t care, I refuse to engage in any further discussion or ‘debate’ on this subject. If you think we shouldn’t allow immigration because of a potential drop in wages, I’d be happy to smash the keyboard over your head and force feed you the pieces.
    9. He’s making the argument, in an antiquated gross way, about how by themselves (people or objects) they are only that person or object. It’s the way that person or object interacts in the system is when they become an integral part of said system. For example a car sitting in the garage is just a car, if I use that car to deliver pizzas for a capitalist it becomes an instrument in the capitalist system.
    10. He’s stating that capitalism is a social relation of production, just like other systems are about how a given society chooses to produce.
    11. I’m going to use my example of a car again. A car sitting in the garage is just a car, if I use that car to deliver pizzas for a capitalist it becomes an instrument in the capitalist system.
    12. The dead dominate the living in the sense of ‘old money’. Great great grandfather accumulated capital in the slave trade, great grandfather expanded that capital by getting rich on the war machine, grandpa expanded that capital with a pizza chain, dad expanded that capital on real estate, the son inherits all of that capital, and so on. This is what I mean by ‘old money’, it’s been proven that most wealth/capital is inherited. This is how the dead come into play, because it was accumulation of the sweat/blood/tears of dead workers that allowed the rich family to have such vast capital today.