>From Capital by way of Chris B:
>Machinery produces relative surplus-value; not only by directly
depreciating the value of labour-power, and by indirectly cheapening the
same through cheapening the commodities that enter into its reproduction,
but also, when it is first introduced sporadically into an industry, by
converting the labour employed by the owner of that machinery, into labour
of a higher degree and greater efficacy, by raising the social value of the
article produced above its individual value, and thus enabling the
capitalist to replace the value of a day's labour-power by a smaller
portion of the value of a day's product. During this transition period,
when the use of machinery is a sort of monopoly, the profits are therefore
exceptional, and the capitalist endeavours to exploit thoroughly "the sunny
time of this his first love," by prolonging the working-day as much as
possible. The magnitude of the profit whets his appetite for more profit.
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>From Marx (by way of Rakesh):
> "One other thing must never be forgotten, namely, that, just as everything
has become a monopoly, there are also nowadays some branches of industry
which dominate all the others, and secure to the nations which most largely
cultivate them the command of the world market."
>
> Now this raises the problem of how such industries can be isolated. Can
one
> discover them (if they indeed do exist) through an analysis of data
> specified in terms of standard industrial classifications? Or would one
> have to rework such data as James Galbraith has attempted in first
> Balancing Acts (see chapter and footnotes on capital goods) and then the
> Macro textbook with Darity and finally Created Unequal?
The questions you raise and the ones raised by the quote from Capital that Chris posed seem different. The quote from Capital is not about what goods are being produced: it's about the machinery used in production, and relative and absolute surplus value. There's no saying that machinery per se can produce quasi-monopoly profits--semiconductors used in shoe manufacture surely don't themselves allow for extraction of absolute surplus value on the order of those in semiconductor production itself. (That's one of the points of Robert Gordon's criticism of the "New Economy" narratives, no?) Likewise, the surplus value generated in semi-conductor manufacture (say, in present day Taiwan) has depended pretty largely on the political and economic context of industry growth. But that hasn't secured market dominance for Taiwan in other markets necessarily.
> Marx's point that greater technological advance and productivity will
> actually encourage capital paradoxically to lengthen the working day so
as
> to fully enjoy "this sunny day of his first love"...well, it sounds to me
> like my America, both the most advanced technologically and socially
> regressive of the leading capitalist nations.
>
So do you think "lengthen the working day" means move production to places around the globe so that somewhere there is always surplus value being generated? Or is this another way of talking about longer single-time-zone days?
Christian