Das Kapital

Marx determines that the magnitude of production is determined by the length of the working day and the intensity and productivity of labor. No matter how much productivity is generated in one work shift, the working day produces the same amount of value. Drawing from the economist David Ricardo, Marx lays out several laws governing surplus from worker productivity. An increase in productivity causes the value of labor power to decrease, and vice versa. Any change in labor power always proportionately affects the amount of surplus value. According to Marx, “the value of the labour-power cannot fall, and consequently surplus-value cannot rise, without a rise in the productivity of labour” (657).

At the same time, if there is a productivity increase, then both the capitalist and workers can enjoy more means of subsistence without changing the surplus or the price of labor power. However, Marx criticizes Ricardo for only considering productivity as a variable, not the length of the working day or the intensity of the work. As a result, Marx argues Ricardo is mistaken in considering the rate of profit and surplus value to be the same thing.

When the intensity of labor is increased, more commodities are made. However, there is no change in the value of each commodity. Marx adds, though, that if intensity of labor is increased, workers become more easily exhausted. This has the effect of increasing the price of labor power.

If the length of the working day changes, it affects the surplus value. A longer working day increases surplus value; a shorter one decreases it. However, longer shifts also increase the cost of labor power since it exhausts workers. This may be “compensated for […] in the form of higher wages” (664), but only to a point.

Next, Marx examines what happens if a working day is lengthened and productivity is reduced. He gives the example of economic inflation that hit England between 1799 and 1815, in which a rise in prices led to an apparent rise in wages. However, in terms of what people could actually afford, “there was a fall in real wages” (665). Marx argues against the views of other economists like David Ricardo and Edward West that, even during this period of inflation and declining production, surplus value went down. Instead, he suggests surplus value actually increased because capitalists raised the intensity of labor and increased working hours.

From this, Marx concludes that with increased productivity, it is possible to shorten the working day: “The more the productivity of labour increases, the more the working day can be shortened, and the more the working day is shortened, the more the intensity of labour can increase” (667). However, capitalism prevents this because of the “anarchic system of competition” and wasting labor power on pointless functions (667). The rise of industrial machinery should mean that people are more able to engage in “free intellectual and social activity” and that labor is more evenly distributed (667). Instead, the benefits of increased free time are only going to one class: the capitalist class.

In order to express these arguments, Marx devises several mathematical formulas. Specifically, he argues that surplus labor divided by necessary labor equals surplus value divided by variable capital. Marx criticizes traditional economists for how they calculate political capital. In Marx’s view, “they conceal the specific character of the capital-relation, namely the fact that variable capital is exchanged for living labour-power, and that the worker is accordingly excluded from the product” (670). He concludes that capital is “not only the command over labour,” but “essentially the command over unpaid labour” (672). By this, he means that surplus value is just the exploitation of unpaid labor.