Monday, January 21, 2008
Delay in Posting
I apologize for the only vaguely terminable gaps in my posting; this semester is front-loaded pretty badly but I should be able to post in a month or so. I will continue to read!
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Part 2: Chapters 5 and 6
Marx concludes Part 2 by reflecting on the change "in the physiognomy of our dramatis personae" as we leave the "sphere of simple circulation" for that of production.
He who was previously the money-owner now strides out in front as a capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his worker. The one smirks self-importantly and is intent on business; the other is timid and holds back, like someone who has brought his own hide to market and now has nothing else to expect but--a tanning.
What has happened in these chapters is that the buyer-seller relationship stops being one of equals. In the exchange of bibles, coats, linen, corn, etc., we were in "a very Eden of the innate rights of man." In the exchange of commodities, one serves oneself and one's advantage, and only concludes the best deal to mutual advantage. However, no money can be made this way. "Circulation, or the exchange of commodities, creates no value." This is the thesis of chapter 5.
Why does Marx call the worker "the possessor of labour-power"? [In German, Arbeitskraft or its sister concept, "capacity for labour", Arbeitsvermögen.] Labour-power is a commodity. Like other commodities, its value is the amount of socially-average labor necessary to have made it and to reproduce it. Thus, its value "is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of its owner." In every thought we have about labour-power, we should be able to check it against our knowledge of commodities from Part 1. This will help us when we get to the question of wages.
For example, there is a certain average labor time necessary to make a coat. Just so, "in a given country at a given period, the average amount of the means of subsistence for the worker is a known datum." Feigning the cold detachment of the capitalist, Marx says that this subsistence must take into account "the worker's replacements, i.e. his children," so that these commodity owners "may perpetuate their presence on the market."
To keep our terms straight, the "use-value" of "labour-power" is... labour, the exercise of the worker's labour-power. This use-value is "consumed" by the capitalist. And here is the crucial point. Labour-power is "a commodity whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption is therefore itself an objectification of labour, hence a creation of value."
To return to where we began this post, we are leaving the sphere of circulation, because capital cannot arise in that sphere. We are following "the owner of money and the owner of labour-power" "into the hidden abode of production." To restate: in commodity-circulation, there are owners of corn and owners of bibles, looking to convert one into the other (with the intermediary stage of money). But as we enter production, the commodities are different and their owners have new names: the owner of money is the capitalist, and the owner of labour-power is the worker.
He who was previously the money-owner now strides out in front as a capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his worker. The one smirks self-importantly and is intent on business; the other is timid and holds back, like someone who has brought his own hide to market and now has nothing else to expect but--a tanning.
What has happened in these chapters is that the buyer-seller relationship stops being one of equals. In the exchange of bibles, coats, linen, corn, etc., we were in "a very Eden of the innate rights of man." In the exchange of commodities, one serves oneself and one's advantage, and only concludes the best deal to mutual advantage. However, no money can be made this way. "Circulation, or the exchange of commodities, creates no value." This is the thesis of chapter 5.
Why does Marx call the worker "the possessor of labour-power"? [In German, Arbeitskraft or its sister concept, "capacity for labour", Arbeitsvermögen.] Labour-power is a commodity. Like other commodities, its value is the amount of socially-average labor necessary to have made it and to reproduce it. Thus, its value "is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of its owner." In every thought we have about labour-power, we should be able to check it against our knowledge of commodities from Part 1. This will help us when we get to the question of wages.
For example, there is a certain average labor time necessary to make a coat. Just so, "in a given country at a given period, the average amount of the means of subsistence for the worker is a known datum." Feigning the cold detachment of the capitalist, Marx says that this subsistence must take into account "the worker's replacements, i.e. his children," so that these commodity owners "may perpetuate their presence on the market."
To keep our terms straight, the "use-value" of "labour-power" is... labour, the exercise of the worker's labour-power. This use-value is "consumed" by the capitalist. And here is the crucial point. Labour-power is "a commodity whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption is therefore itself an objectification of labour, hence a creation of value."
To return to where we began this post, we are leaving the sphere of circulation, because capital cannot arise in that sphere. We are following "the owner of money and the owner of labour-power" "into the hidden abode of production." To restate: in commodity-circulation, there are owners of corn and owners of bibles, looking to convert one into the other (with the intermediary stage of money). But as we enter production, the commodities are different and their owners have new names: the owner of money is the capitalist, and the owner of labour-power is the worker.
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