Saturday, February 13, 2016

Debunking Marx’s Concept of Exploitation based on Surplus Labour Value

The working day under Marx’s theory in volume 1 of Capital can be conceptualised in the diagram below, where there is a total working day of 12 hours.


Although the total working day in any particular industry can be variable, there are two parts of the working day as follows:
(1) necessary labour-time, which is “determined by the working time required for the reproduction of the labour-power of the labourer himself” (Marx 1906: 256), and

(2) the surplus labour-time (Marx 1990: 341).
Let us assume that the concept of abstract socially necessary labour time is coherent and empirically relevant for the sake of argument (even though the concept is incoherent, cannot be properly defined and is empirically irrelevant).

Exploitation for Marx, in its most important sense, arises from the (alleged) manner in which capitalists tend to pay only a wage equal to the value of labour-power, which is the value of reproduction and maintenance of workers, and so this allows the capitalist to steal the value of surplus labour time. Capitalists can increase this exploitation by increasing the total working day to extend the surplus labour time of workers (and so gain more absolute surplus value) or decreasing the real wage equal to the value of reproduction and maintenance of workers (which is called by Marx relative surplus value).

Again, the worker tends to be paid a wage equal to the time taken during the working day necessary for the reproduction and maintenance of labour-power, and the hours of the working day beyond this represent the surplus labour time, whose value is surplus labour value extracted from labour.

But note carefully: this theory only works if real world wages of labour tend to equal the value of reproduction and maintenance of workers, which is a type of subsistence wage.

However, wages even for workers have soared above subsistence levels, and clearly did so even in the 19th century, as noted here. Moreover, the total working day has fallen in the long run even as real wages have soared.

Once we see that workers, generally speaking, are paid well above subsistence levels and in the long run their real wages are rising, Marx’s theory of increasing exploitation based on surplus value implodes, because if people are being paid more and more above subsistence level, then they are being paid more and more for their surplus labour time, sometimes for all their surplus labour, and in some cases perhaps even more than their surplus labour time.

For example, in Germany the poverty line for a worker and spouse with two children is a monthly income of €1,873. However, it is clear that even this income provides a standard of living that is vastly better than the subsistence wage equal to the value of labour-power imagined by Marx, and moreover it can buy all sorts of goods that would have been considered luxuries in the 19th century as well as goods that did not even exist then. For example, it is absurd that, under Marx’s subsistence wage equal to the value of labour-power, a worker would require a television, DVDs, mobile phones, and the host of other modern articles of consumption now enjoyed even by workers, for none of these things are actually needed for working people merely to live and reproduce themselves.

Nevertheless, if we look over the average monthly earnings data for German workers here, we can see that virtually all jobs provide an average monthly salary well above the modern poverty line. The average monthly salary in German manufacturing is €4,242 – a wage vastly above anything that could be described as subsistence level.

If we able to aggregate all human labour with a homogeneous unit of Marx’s abstract socially necessary labour time, and then set an appropriate wage rate for one simple hour of labour, it would follow from the data that most wages in modern capitalism are well above Marx’s value of labour-power, and it would be very likely that many workers suffer very little exploitation or no exploitation at all in Marx’s sense because they are paid not only for necessary labour-time but also surplus labour-time or most of surplus labour time too – for if they were not their wages would have been stagnating for over 100 years at subsistence levels.

Marx’s whole theory of exploitation is dependent on the idea that workers must tend to be paid a subsistence wage equal to the value of reproduction and maintenance of labour, but once we see that wages in capitalism have soared above subsistence level this is shown to be false, and the whole theory comes crashing down.

Another point is that for a self-employed worker who owns, runs and works alone in his own business, Marxist exploitation cannot arise. Even worse, Marx distinguished between so-called “productive” and “unproductive” labour and seems to have argued that vast sections of what we would now call the service economy do not add surplus value (e.g., see Capital, volume 3, Chapter 17), even though they manifestly do produce profits and account for a huge percentage of employment in modern capitalism. How is a person in a service industry who produces no surplus value being exploited in Marx’s theory? Of course, Marx would argue that surplus value from value-producing industries is redistributed, but, again, that only works if labour tends to be paid just for its value of reproduction and maintenance (that is, a subsistence wage), which, as we have seen, is generally just not true.

A final point is that once Marx’s idea that commodities tend to exchange at true labour value is overthrown (as in volume 3 of Capital), it follows that many commodities can sell for prices well above their labour values and businesses can afford a wage to workers well above subsistence level and even covering their surplus labour time, a state of affairs which would not even involve exploitation by extraction of unpaid surplus labour value.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Marx, Karl. 1906. Capital. A Critique of Political Economy (vol. 1; rev. trans. by Ernest Untermann from 4th German edn.). The Modern Library, New York.

Marx, Karl. 1990. Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Volume One (trans. Ben Fowkes). Penguin Books, London.

6 comments:

  1. 'Marx distinguished between so-called “productive” and “unproductive” labour and seems to have argued that vast sections of what we would now call the service economy do not add surplus value (e.g., see Capital, volume 3, Chapter 17)'

    Did Marx really say that labour producing services on which workers freely choose to spend their income was 'unproductive'? Can you give an example? An absurdity of that magnitude would be excellent reason to avoid wasting even a minute of time on 'Marxian economics'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, LK is just making stuff up as he goes.

      Marx's analysis of capitalist production largely assumes the perspective of capital; in this case, "productive" means "productive to the perspective of capital," i.e., generative of net profit. That includes service-sector workers.

      What trips some people up is the fact that this is a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, category. It is no judgment against some professions to call them "unproductive," and nor is it any compliment to be "productive," especially in light of the exploitation at hand.

      So, for example, some workers who are in fact indispensable to society are not "productive" to capital's perspective. Public school teachers, for example, would be considered "unproductive." Yet no one, least of all Marx, would suggest they are not indispensable. Yet these are also the professions that plutocrats go after through the lever of state policy, because they're not directly netting profits.

      The point, as socialists maintain, is to move to an economic system predicated on use-value rather than exchange value. Then, such professions could be given the proper recognition as productive in the sense that matters to most people.

      Delete
    2. "No, LK is just making stuff up as he goes."

      lol.. so Marx's didn't make a distinction between productive and unproductive labour?:

      "Capitalist production is not merely the production of commodities, it is essentially the production of surplus-value. The labourer produces, not for himself, but for capital. It no longer suffices, therefore, that he should simply produce. He must produce surplus-value. That labourer alone is productive, who produces surplus-value for the capitalist, and thus works for the self-expansion of capital.”
      https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch16.htm

      E.g., service workers like, say, government school teachers don't produce surplus value, and you agree with me:

      http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/05/what-labour-theory-of-value-does-not.html?showComment=1431763538029#c5976898017993820681

      Also, workers who are servants and other types don't produce surplus value in Marx's theory either:

      • the maintenance of a class-based social order as such (legal system, police, military, government administration).
      • the maintenance and securing of private property relations (police, security, legal system, banking, accounting, licensing authorities etc.).
      • operating financial transactions (in banking, financing, commercial trade, financial administration)
      • insurance and safety.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_and_unproductive_labour#Marx.27s_critique

      Because of LTV B.S. that removes a vast swathe of workers who are seen by Marx as incapable of producing surplus value. Precisely as I argued above.

      The only lying, dumb b*stard here is you.

      Delete
    3. You also fail to address: can a self-employed worker who owns, runs and works alone in his own business suffer Marxist exploitation if nobody is stealing their surplus value? Self-employed people like that do account for a significant number of businesses even today.

      Typically, a dishonest idiot like you avoids the issues that would show you for the fool you are.

      Delete
    4. lol.. so Marx's didn't make a distinction between productive and unproductive labour?

      Odd, I thought he did. Any evidence he didn't?

      Because of LTV B.S. that removes a vast swathe of workers who are seen by Marx as incapable of producing surplus value. Precisely as I argued above.

      Well, they objectively don't produce surplus value, and to say they do would be incorrect, so...

      The only lying, dumb b*stard here is you.

      What? Where's my lie, and what's a b*stard?

      You also fail to address: can a self-employed worker who owns, runs and works alone in his own business suffer Marxist exploitation if nobody is stealing their surplus value? Self-employed people like that do account for a significant number of businesses even today.

      Well, it hadn't come up! But since you're raising the issue: A self-employed person doesn't produce surplus value. They may net or lose superprofits, but that's a separate consideration.

      Typically, a dishonest idiot like you avoids the issues that would show you for the fool you are.

      Speaking from personal experience?

      Delete
  2. One of the essential type of service industry in a capitalist economy is the repair and maintenance of infrastructure such a buildings, roads and power networks. They are "unproductive" in Marx's terminology, because they do not generate profits. Yet the case study of German reunification shows these services were valued far more in capitalist West Germany than Communist East Germany, whose infrastructure had fallen into a state of disrepair. Private ownership and liberal democracy in West Germany meant that people had a vested interest in maintaining these assets, unlike in East Germany which had only central planning and Marxist ideology.

    Just another one of the many ways that Marx was wrong about capitalism.

    ReplyDelete