From: Gerald A. Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Fri Oct 01 2004 - 09:10:52 EDT
> Jerry, just a note that occurred to me as I was reading your fine post: > If stronger capitals are superior in competition precisely because of > relative surplus value they do not need to resume to absolute surplus > value. Other points of your post will have to be thought out as they > are well taken. Paolo, Take your time. The reason I think the question of whether wage disparities under capitalism tend to decline or increase over the course of the cycle and over the course of capitalist development is important should be obvious. The reason I think it is particularly interesting is because Marx didn't have any clear statements about this one way or the other which encourages us to think about this from a fresh perspective. I like thinking about questions like that -- they are intellectually challenging. So, I'm thinking through this issue just like you are and if you or anyone else has a better answer to this issue -- at the level of abstraction that we have been discussing -- then I'm all ears. I raised the issue of absolute surplus value only parenthetically and I don't want us to get off the track re the main question -- i.e. whether there is a tendency for wage equalization under capitalism. But, for the sake of clarity, I'll explain more what I meant re the production of absolute s. To begin with (and crucially important to the point I was making), let's make all of the assumptions that you made previously. Now suppose that a weaker capital is able to extend the length of the working day or the length of the workweek without increasing wages for its (productive) workers. Under the assumptions that you have made, there is every reason to believe that the stronger capital will follow suit and increase absolute surplus value to the same extent. Clearly, if workers employed by the weaker capital can be made to work longer hours per day or more days per week then we would expect members of the industrial reserve army to accept jobs offered by the stronger capital if the stronger capital wanted to increase absolute s. This means that the stronger capital can increase absolute s by either hiring new employees out of the IRA or by using the threat of the same to coerce its current workforce to accept the change in working hours and days. Moreover, the force of competition -- the very mechanism that led the weaker capitals to attempt to increase absolute s -- will ensure that the stronger capitals *will* attempt to increase absolute s. If they did not do so, then they would be conceding a competitive advantage to the weaker capitals and thereby make the weaker capitals stronger and the stronger capitals weaker. That is not what we would expect from capitalists who strive to "accumulate, accumulate ...." The upshot of this is that a new social standard for the length of the working day and workweek is created. Marx's point, I believe, was not that capitalists (whether strong or weak) will cease to attempt to increase absolute s. On the contrary, his point was that while the major form in which surplus value can be raised will increasingly become through the production of relative surplus value, *all* capitalists will strive *wherever possible* to increase absolute surplus value and the intensity of labor. But, like I said, let's keep the focus on the issue of wage equalization rather than the question of absolute s. Hopefully, though, I have expressed myself more clearly about the latter. In solidarity, Jerry
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