Wage Labour and Capital #3

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 6 (relation of wage labor to capital) to the end.

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

Discussion #2: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1241612

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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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 What is your answer to someone who says that an increase in wages will only cause inflation or cause capital to be withdrawn from the country.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.?

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

Announcement:

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With a heavy heart I’m afraid I must put this project on an indefinite hiatus. My life is going through a pretty bad rough patch at the moment. I’ve got huge life commitments coming up that require my full attention and energy. I will be focused on my personal life, my family, the community, and the future. Covering basic survival and life obligations come first. I won’t be much help to the cause if I’m starving to death or living on the street. I will still pop in occasionally to the ‘grad to say hello and comment. While I might be done with Theory Thursday, for now, when I get to a better spot in my life I’d like to pick it back up again. I’ll probably be back in a few months. This is very disappointing because I’ve been really enjoying this, overall I’ve learned a lot from the reading and from all of the comrades who’ve taken the time to participate. I want to thank everyone who’s taken part in this, you are the reason I went to all of this time/effort to make this. Thanks to you comrades I’ve learned so much about theory, life, society, and myself. Goodbye comrades, I leave you with an Irish blessing: May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

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.

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.

  • afellowkid@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Regarding your announcement–thank you OP for starting up this project, I looked forward to it each week that it went on, and appreciated seeing everyone’s reflections on the texts. I also liked the simple format and gradual pace. I hope everything works out well with your IRL needs and commitments. Take care!

    My study response–As last week I found myself unable to answer the study questions quickly enough, I am going to go with a bit more of a free-form response this time so I don’t end up taking too long to participate. And since I barely participated last thread, I’m just going to make my reply this time be about the text as a whole.

    If anyone sees errors in my response, please let me know. I’m not trying to write authoritatively but rather to check my understanding and see whether I can summarize a few of the major points.

    Response

    I think a quote from early on in this work seems to summarize one of the major points Marx is making throughout the text. He writes: “If the silk-worm’s object in spinning were to prolong its existence as caterpillar, it would be a perfect example of a wage-worker.” (Ch. 2)

    In other words, it’s as if a silk-worm is spinning not to become a moth, but to just keep spinning and spinning, generating silk indefinitely to remain a caterpillar indefinitely. I believe Marx is likening this to the process of the wage-worker surrendering their value-creating labor-power to the capitalist class, whose interest it is to make this relationship become only more deeply entrenched and prolonged, and therefore uses the value generated by the worker’s surrendered labor-power to deepen and expand the system of wage-labor under bourgeois dictatorship. As the silk-worm metaphor implies, this is not the most sensible way of doing things from a worker’s perspective. Normally, the silk worm would spin its silk to then use it to eventually undergo transformation into a moth. Likewise, it’s implied that a worker would use their labor-power to create value the worker themself can actually access and benefit from, bringing a transformation in the mode of production, bringing society to a new stage.

    In Chapter 8, Marx talks about the implications of the worker’s real wages versus the worker’s relative wages. Speaking of rises in real wages over time, Marx writes: “the more speedily the worker augments the wealth of the capitalist, the larger will be the crumbs which fall to him”–however, even if real wages are rising with profits, when we look at relative wages, we see “a widening of the social chasm that divides the worker from the capitalist, and increase in the power of capital over labour, a greater dependence of labour upon capital.” (Ch. 8) As usual, Marx is calling our attention to the relationships between things. Rather than just look at a line representing real wages go up, we need to pay attention to the growing gap between wages and profits and the implication that this has for the relative social positions of workers and capitalists:

    If capital grows rapidly, wages may rise, but the profit of capital rises disproportionately faster. The material position of the worker has improved, but at the cost of his social position. The social chasm that separates him from the capitalist has widened. (Ch. 8)

    Toward the end of this work, in the end of Chapter 8 and throughout Chapter 9, Marx turns his attention to explaining the overall effects that the growth of productive capital has on wages, the need for expanded markets, and on causing the competition between workers to intensify:

    This war [of capitalists among themselves] has the peculiarity that the battles in it are won less by recruiting than by discharging the army of workers. The generals [the capitalists] vie with one another as to who can discharge the greatest number of industrial soldiers.

    […] The more productive capital grows, the more it extends the division of labour and the application of machinery; the more the division of labour and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together. […]  the forest of outstretched arms, begging for work, grows ever thicker, while the arms themselves grow ever leaner.

    …I have spent more time on this than I originally meant to, and so I need to end here. As I mentioned above, please point out any errors in my understanding, as this is just me writing to try and see whether I understood the text well or not and whether I could identify (some) of the text’s main points.

    Thanks again OP, I’m glad you started this study group.