Re Rakesh's [5464]: > >Consider the following simple example. > >Assume an 8 hour working day in which > >necessary labor time = 4 hours and surplus > > labor time = 4 hours. > >Now double the labor intensity in the example > >above. How does that change the numbers > >for nlt and slt? > In my opinion nlt remains 4 while (assuming a > doubling of intensity) > snlt goes to 12. What I am saying is that nlt > could not remain 4 with a doubling of intensity. Your second sentence directly contradicts your first. Your first sentence CAN NOT be right: i.e. in the example above an 8 hour working day is assumed. This is not a hard problem. To explain why the answer to the above question MUST BE nlt = 2 hours + slt = 6 hours, please consider again what has happened: -- since labor intensity has doubled, it means that in the SAME WORKING DAY AND HOURS, the output of the SAME AMOUNT OF WORKERS has doubled. I.e. the PRODUCTIVITY OF LABOR (as measured by output/worker hr.) has doubled. This is why an increase in the intensity of labor MUST be considered to be a form of relative surplus value. It is true nonetheless that this does *not* constitute the *primary* form of how relative surplus value can be increased under capitalism and that there are natural and social limits to how far the intensity of labor can be increased that are not the case with labor-saving technical change. In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed May 02 2001 - 00:00:06 EDT