Re Rakesh's [5486]: In a previous post, Rakesh wrote: > Though with intensification a greater sum of > use values is needed to reproduce labor > power, I then asked: > > Why? < < Rakesh has now responded: > Consumption needs tend to be higher to repair > the greater wear and tear on labor > from a more intensified labor process. It is true that there is some relationship between intensity of labor and e.g. caloric and nutritional requirements (a point Gil and I recently discussed). Yet, simply because 'consumption needs tend to be higher' doesn't mean that workers real wages will necessarily go up as a consequence. It will require a struggle between capital and labor. This, along with a change in culture specific to a particular society about such things as diet and nutrition, will almost certainly take considerable time *if* there is then a change in the 'cultural' and 'moral' component to the wage. I, thus, think that it is entirely appropriate to believe that there will not be short-run or immediate or even necessary changes in the real wage or the value of labor-power as a consequence of changes in the intensity of labor. Moreover, without a struggle by workers for wage increases I think that there is every reason suppose that there _won't_ be a change in the VLP due to this cause. I also, btw, think that it is highly misleading to refer to the 'wear and tear' on workers in this regard: workers are not machines. Moreover, the health needs of workers are not simply determined by physiological requirements (e.g. nutritional requirements) but are also culturally and socially determined. Further, from a strictly physiological perspective the human body is capable of quite amazing things that are not 'customary' -- consider the intensity of labor in Nazi prison camps. Thus while the human body is capable of sustaining amazing abuse when survival dictates and humans can thus increase the intensity of work while simultaneously diminishing food consumption, this is not what determines either the real wage, the VLP, or the intensity of labor under capitalism. All of these are determined, most fundamentally, by class struggle rather than human physiological requirements for food and health care. > And I am not saying that it does. I am saying > that an intensification > of the labor process will tend to change the value > of labor power. This is a strong area then of disagreement. See above. > I of course said that. I explicitly mentioned that > only under certain > conditions could intensification result in the > production of relative > surplus value even on the assumption that the > wage remains equal to > the value of labor power. What did you say those conditions were? In solidarity, Jerry
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