Socialdem. 21st Century

In Chapter 19 of volume 1 of Capital Marx quotes the Classical economics on wage determination: “Classical political economy borrowed from every-day life the category ‘price of labour’ without further criticism, and then simply asked the question, how is this price determined? It soon recognized that the change in the relations of demand and supply explained in regard to the price of labour, as of all other commodities, nothing except its changes, i.e., the oscillations of the market price...

This strikes me as such a blatant piece of hypocrisy from some of the left: they have spent years (rightly) decrying the absurd cult of free trade and the various deleterious neoliberal trade deals passed off as free trade (on which, see Galbraith 2008: 188–189; Baker 2006: 2–3, 18–19), and yet now there is a Republican front runner also vehemently denouncing free trade deals Trump doesn’t get any credit for it. Very strange.[embedded content]If there is something to criticise here, it is...

Chapter 20 of volume 1 of Capital is called “Time-Wages” and deals with wages paid by the hour.Wages can take various forms but the two fundamental forms are time wages or piece wages (Marx 1990: 683).In essence, the hourly wage can be calculated by the value of a day of labour-power (the subsistence wage equal to the value of the maintenance and reproduction of labour-power) divided by the number of hours in a working day (Brewer 1984: 64). As the working day rises so the hourly wage rate...

And Dean Baker, a man who is clearly not a conservative but left-wing, explains why in his very interesting book The Conservative Nanny State (2006) and in the US context: “Trade is not the only mechanism that nanny state conservatives have used to depress the wages of the bulk of the population. Immigration has also been an important tool to depress the wages of a substantial segment of the workforce. The principle with immigration is exactly the same as with trade. It takes advantage of...

Chapter 19 of volume 1 of Capital is called “The Transformation of the Value (and Respectively the Price) of Labour-Power into Wages” and discusses how capitalist wages conceal the reality that the wage is a payment for the value of the maintenance and reproduction of labour (Harvey 2010: 242), a subsistence wage, which is equal to the necessary part of the working day. But capitalists generally pay hourly wages so that this alleged reality is obscured (Brewer 1984: 63).The use-value that the...

Chapter 18 of volume 1 of Capital is called “Different Formulae for the Rate of Surplus-Value” and Marx discusses his basic formulae here.For Marx, the rate of surplus value is represented by these formulae:Surplus value  =  s  =  Surplus value  =  Surplus labour —————————— —— ———————————— —————————— Variable capital v Value of labour power Necessary labour The first two formulae are expressed in values, but the third is a ratio of the relevant quantities of time (Marx 1990: 669). For Marx,...

Chapter 17 of volume 1 of Capital is called “Changes of Magnitude in the Price of Labour-Power and in Surplus Value” and discusses how capitalists extract surplus value in relation to wages.Marx divides the chapter into four sections: (1) Length of the Working Day and Intensity of Labour Constant. Productiveness of Labour Variable.(2) Working-Day Constant. Productiveness of Labour Constant. Intensity of Labour Variable.(3) Productiveness and Intensity of Labour Constant. Length of the...

Chapter 16 of volume 1 of Capital is called “Absolute and Relative Surplus Value” and discusses the nature of labour, surplus value and surplus labour time. This chapter begins Part 5 of Capital (which comprises Chapters 16, 17 and 18).Marx opens his chapter with a discussion of the nature of productive labour. Under the capitalist mode of production, the commodity ceases “to be the direct product of the individual, and becomes a social product, produced in common by a collective labourer,...

In the videos below.But first let us look at Marx’s theory. It is that capitalists aim at increasing their theft of surplus value from workers.They can do this in three ways: (1) by increasing the length of the working day while holding down the real wage to a subsistence level (that is, increasing absolute surplus value);(2) decreasing the price of the basic commodities making up the value of the maintenance and reproduction of labour by automation, and thus reducing the real subsistence...

Chapter 15 of volume 1 of Capital is called “Machinery and Large-Scale Industry” and examines the role of machines in developed capitalist production in the 19th century.Part 1 of this review is here. This is Part 2.Marx divides the chapter into ten sections: (1) The Development of Machinery(2) The Value transferred by the Machinery to the Product(3) The Most Immediate Effects of Machine Production on the Worker(4) The Factory(5) The Struggle between Worker and Machine(6) The Compensation...