Re Rakesh's [5498]: > If you burn yourself out, you need time to > recuperate, i.e., not work. Workers are not batteries. All they need in a purely physiological sense to recuperate from working intensively (provided they are not injured on the job) is adequate time for sleep. > Your wage then has to be high enough to allow > you to take days off in order to heal yourself > of wear and tear and thus reproduce your labor > power. No. What is required is sleep, not days off. Of course, workers can come to believe that they need days off per week and weeks off per year and this can (and does) then become an issue in the class struggle. It is not (strictly speaking) a physiological need, though. > Then you are missing the obvious. Not > additional time each day necessarily but more > days off if the working day has become more > intense. This is neither obvious nor necessary. > It's obvioulsy not just a matter of getting more > time off per day (though this is of course > important); it's also a matter of vacation time. Once again -- no. > And I truly don't get this point. the more > intensively workers labor, > the more non working time they need. You keep saying this, which you deem to be obvious, without any explanation. > Again this is not the question. If after intensifying > the labor > process the capitalists don't raise the wage so > workers can afford > more days off, ... there you go again: i.e. the same assertion without explanation. > There is not a necessary link between > intensification and relative > surplus value as long as we assume that relative > surplus value does > not include the case of the depression of the > wage below the value of labor power. The point I would make is that there is more than one form of relative surplus value and simply because we label an increase in labor intensity as a form of increasing relative surplus value does not mean that we can or should confuse this form with the *predominant* form for how relative surplus value is increased (i.e. with labor-saving technical change). Indeed, it is crucial to understand the difference in these two forms as well as their difference from absolute surplus value. > How are you responding to the criticism I made > of your argument? You said that intensification > does not endanger the depression the wage > below the level needed to meet certain > physiological needs. I said > that this was not clear at all. You are simply not > responding. I already responded ... on numerous occasions. For instance, yesterday I explained the _only_ (highly exceptional) circumstance in which increasing labor intensity would necessarily require additional consumption. As for your new assertion about time off, see above. > Still there are caloric and other physical needs > to be met. It's not clear that intensification > never endangers the workers vis a vis > these needs. Already discussed. > I understand that given how Allin and Paul want > to measure the OCC, > they have a good argument that an increase in the > annual rate of > surplus value is just another expression of a > reduced OCC, though I > am still not satisfied with it and will thus have to > come up with a > better argument. But I don't understand what you > are saying in response to this. I didn't say anything about that in this thread since it concerns another thread and another issue. > Again the thesis under question is that > intensification is ipso facto a form of relative > surplus value. I am arguing that this is not > necessarily true. Yes, I've heard you say that before. > Again non responsive. Once the working hour > of a laborer is twice as > intense, there is an immediate change in the value > of labor power due > if not to the need for a higher level of > consumption then to the need > for a shorter working day or more days off. Already responded to. In solidarity, Jerry
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