Hi Brad, Please note this is not a refutation of what I wrote. the question is how
the subsistence necessary for the reproduction of the working class is determined. Only if you decide to ignore Capital (as you do in the Berkeley econ dept, though not in the sociology, geography and ethnic studies) could you forget that Marx recognizes that the subsistence level is not biologically determined (and this recognition goes back to the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844); it contains a historical and moral element. Marx could not be clearer in Vol I. Giusanni quotes from Capital III as well:
"The actual value of the [the wage laborer's]labor power deviates from the physical minimum; it differs according to climate and level of social development; it depends not merely upon the physical, but also upon the historically developed social needs, which become second nature."
Quoted in Paolo Giusanni, "Value of Labor Power and the Wage" in International Journal of Political Economy, vo22, no 3
> I believe that Marx (i) didn't like Malthus, and explicitly rejected
> Malthusian arguments;
Yes, I think Marx was a bit unconvinced by Malthus who attempted to show "how little the price of labor and the price of the means of supporting the family depend on revolution" and thus convince "every man in the lower classes of society..to bear the distresses in which he might be involved with more patience...feel less discontent and irritation at the government and the higher classes of society on account of his poverty, become more peaceable and orderely, be less inclined to tumultuous proceedings in seasons of scarcity, and...at all times be less influenced by inflammatory and seditious publications." Quoted in Eduard Heiman's remarkable History of Economic Doctrines. At any rate, it does give one a feel for why Marx thought Malthus had heaped the greatest calumny on the human race.
The nature of Marx's critique of Malthus is discussed in John Torrance, Marx's Theory of Ideas.
best, rakesh