> > 1. How does the productivity of labor, increased material output in the > same or reduced time, increase the rate of surplus value given the fact > that no additional new value is created, nor is the rate of new value > created has not change? 2 hours is 2 hours whether 50 mousetraps or 100 > mousetraps are the result. How does the change in output change the rate > of surplus value? >
An increase in the productivity of labour reduces the amount of time that the worker must work to produce the value of his/her necessities. So, for example, if productivity is increased by 10%, the amount of time for replacing the wage is reduced by 10% and the surplus labour time and surplus value increase correspondingly. This ONLY obtains for as long as the productivity increase is restricted to one or a few pioneering firms. Once the productivity increase becomes generalized this advantage disappears. > 2. What is the contradiction between the labor-time theory of value and > the "intensity of labor" in bourgeois political economy? How is Marx's > intensity of labor as a determinant of value different than that of > political economists. How does Marx measure "intensity" to determine the > "norm" and thus provide a base for variation in the amounts of value? > This question is poorly constructed because it *assumes* the result that it is asking the interlocutor to disprove. Actually the difference between classical political economy and Marx's critique of it in *Capital *is Marx's category of labour power. Classical political economy assumes that the capitalist buys "labour" from the worker. Marx's "labour power" or the capacity to labour. The value of that labour power is determined differently than the value of labour in the exchange value of a commodity. If you didn't catch this when you read Capital, then you missed the argument. I won't blame you for not understanding *Capital. *but I would suggest that you don't parade your misunderstanding as a SUPERIOR understanding. > 3. How is it possible for the law of value to apply to the exchange of > commodities only in the "prehistory" of industrial capitalism, before labor > itself is forced to exist as a commodity whose value to the workers exists > only in its exchange-ability with the value of the means of subsistence > necessary for its reproduction? I am not going to defend Marx's presentation of his argument here because the volume was edited by Engels from Marx's incomplete drafts. I *suppose* what Marx is talking about assumes his own familiarity with arguments presented elsewhere including (at the time) in unpublished manuscripts. I guess what Marx is getting at here is that it is only with "a definite degree of capitalist development" that changes in productivity occur so rapidly that it becomes impossible to directly estimate exchange value by labour time because these times are no longer customary, stable, or well established. So industrialists and merchants have to rely on derivative "indexes" when they are setting their prices. But if you read the passage you quoted, Marx was NOT saying that the law of value no longer applies as you put it. Curiously, you omit precisely the part where Marx is saying *the opposite* of what you claim he is saying: Whatever may be the ways in which the prices of different > commodities are first established or fixed in relation to one another, the > law of value governs their movement. Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#35041): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/35041 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/111004330/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
