The Critique of Capitalism, pp. 222-226

Marx notes that in the writings of the 18th century the idea of the

individual is always an isolated one. Instead Marx notes that this is a

myth because individuals have always been dependent on other individuals in

the production process. Individuals' producing in society is a social act-

socially determined individual production. People need society in order to

be individuals, in order to differentiate themselves.

For Marx a definite stage of production is always a definite stage of

social development. Each state of production has some similar

characteristics. The preconditions of production fall into two categories,

1) the conditions that are absolutely necessary for production, and 2) the

conditions which promote production to a greater or lesser degree.

Although there are historical differences, there are always some general

characteristics. One of these is the instrument of production. The tools

used to produce. These are not possible without stored up labor- capital.

So capital is another element that is found in all different forms of

production. Production is always a type of production- a certain social

body, a social subject.

Marx criticizes the classical economists for being ahistorical about

production and making the current capitalist production, and its social

relations seem natural. He also notes that distribution and production are

often treated separately, and the real relationship between them is not

revealed. He also notes that general laws of the relationship between

these two dimensions can be discovered.

Two preconditions that economists always cite are property and the

protection of property. However Marx sees problems with this. The idea of

property being a precondition for production is a tautology for Marx. For

him all production is some form of appropriation of nature on the part of

an individual in and through a specific form of society. However this

doesn't entail that private property is naturally entailed in this.

Private property is tied to a particular form of development in production

and a particular historical timepoint. Property is always needed, but the

form the property can vary with the social setting.

In terms of the protection of acquisitions and property, this is nothing

new for Marx. He notes that will each development of production, a form of

government and laws arises and corresponds to it.

The ideas of the economists aren't abstract categories, but rather real

historical permutations. There are general aspects to production, but they

are very tied to the historical moment.

The Method of Political Economy pp. 236-244

The method of rising from the abstract to the concrete is only the way in

which thought appropriates the concrete, reproduces it as the concrete in

the mind. This is the way the mind apprehends reality, but not the way

reality is produced itself. Reality exists outside the thoughts of people.

Move from the simple relations, such as division of labor, labor to the

level of the state, exchange between nations and the world market. This is

the proper methodological path.

The more simple the abstraction the more developed the concrete category.

Labor is an abstract category, but it represents many different forms.

Only when in reality a category is more complex does abstraction become

possible. This occurs only in the most modern society.

Each of these categories used in political economy are abstractions.

However, they are the product of historic relations, and posses their full

validity only for and within these relations. All categories and

abstractions must be considered within their historical location.

Furthermore the epoch or time that a person creates these categories or

views the development of history is conditioned by the present epoch. When

its members criticize an epoch, it always conceives of them in a one sided

fashion.

When looking back at history, the history needs to be done in reference to

the current time period and the level of development of the forces of

production. Their relation to one another in the present society

determines the sequence of economic categories.

So the method is

1) the general, abstract determinants which obtain in more or less all

forms of society

2) The categories which make up the inner structure of bourgeoisie society

and on which the fundamental classes rests

3) Concentration of bourgeois society in the form of the state.

4) The international relation of production. International division of

labor. International exchange.

5) The world market and crises.

Commodities, pp. 302-312

I.

A commodity is something that is outside of a human being that satisfies

some sort of want or need. Any object can be viewed from two different

perspectives: quantity and quality. The quality aspect is its use value.

The use value is the utility of an object. This value is independent of

the amount of labor required to make use of its qualities. Use values are

only a reality by their use and consumption.

The second perspective of quantity relates to exchange value. A first look

exchange value seems to be a quantitative relation- the proportion in which

values in use of one sort are exchanged for those of another sort.

Exchange values do not deal in quality and express a purely quantitative

value. Exchange values of a particular commodity express an equivalent

relationship. Also exchange values are expressions of another thing,

something that is contained in the objects to be exchanged.

This common thing is labor- human labor in the abstract. (Labor theory of

value) A useful article only has value because human labor in the abstract

has been embodied or materialized in the object. The problem is how is

this measured. The length of time or duration of labor needed to create

the object or use it will measure the quantity of labor. This labor

doesn't vary by quality. It is rather the expenditure of one uniform labor

power. This uniform labor time is the socially necessary amount that is

required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production,

and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time.

Therefore the amount of socially necessary labor time determines the

magnitude of the value of any article. Commodities that have the same use

of labor time embodied within them have the same value. The value of the

commodity values directly as the quantity, and inversely as the

productiveness of the labor incorporated in it. The more labor the higher

the value. The more productive labor is the less the value. People can

produce for themselves and create a use value. A commodity is created when

the person produces for others and creates social use values.

II.

Labor that is used to create a use value, or a product that satisfies human

wants and needs, is useful labor. To each type of useful product there

corresponds different types of useful labor. These forms of labor belong

to the social division of labor. The division of labor is necessary for

the production of commodities, but it does not follow, that the production

of commodities is a necessary condition for the division of labor. The

division of labor in capitalist economies is what produces commodities.

The division of labor has existed in other forms in different historical

periods.

Every product that doesn't exist in nature owes its existence to special

productive activity. This is exercised with a definite aim, an active that

appropriates particular nature-given materials to particular human wants.

Every product is therefore composed of two elements: labor and matter.

Although the expenditure of labor power can be different- in the abstract

it is a universal form of labor power. All exchange values are based on

this abstract quality not the qualitative aspects of labor. The magnitude

of the value of a commodity represents only the quantity of labor embodied

in it. Even if the labor is more skilled it is still labor in the general

and abstract. The skilled labor might take more time and it will be more

expensive. Therefore an artisan's chair is more expensive than a machine

made chair. The quantities of labor embodied in them are different.

An increase in use values is an increase in material wealth. However this

increase in material wealth can mean a decrease in value. This is due to

the fact that useful labor becomes a source of products in proportion to

the rise and fall of its productiveness. The more productive the more

abundant the wealth. However the more that is produced requires less time

and therefore the embodied labor duration falls.

Labor is both this abstract expenditure that reflects a quantitative value.

It is also qualitative in the different forms it takes and the different

use values it creates. Just as values are both qualitative and

quantitative, so is labor.

The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof, pp. 319-329

A commodity has a transcendent quality to it. This quality does not come

from its use value. This characteristic comes from the form of the

commodity itself. This is because the social character of men's labor

appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that

labor. The relation of the producers to their own labor is presented to

them not as a social relation existing between each other. It is not

presented as the product of a social form of production. Rather this

social relation is presented to them as a relation between their products

of their labor or things. Social relations become relations between

things. This is fetishism.

This fetishism is due to the peculiar social character of the labor that

produces them. People don't produce all products together so the social

nature of the production is not apparent. People only come together to

exchange these products. When people exchange their products what appears

to them is not a relationship connecting one individual's labor to another.

Rather it is a material relation between persons and a social relation

between things that is expressed. The determination of the magnitude of

value of labor time is hidden under the apparent fluctuations in the

relative value of commodities. The commodities are viewed to relate to

each other in terms of exchange values. In reality however they are

relating to each other in terms of the labor embodied in them and the

production of these products for social use. The social character of the

product is concealed.

Coat, boots, horses, diamonds, movies etc. are not related to each other by

some fluctuating of value that is mysterious. In reality they are the

products of people's labor. There is nothing inherent in these products

themselves, besides labor that has these products relate to each other.

Instead it is the social character of labor and the production for social

needs that ties these different items together.

Note: Society based upon the production of commodities: the producers enter

into social relations with one another by treating their products as

commodities and values, where by they reduce their individual private labor

to the standard of homogenous human labor.

Production of Relative Surplus Value, pp. 403-417

Section 1: The development of Machinery

Machinery is designed to increase the productivity of workers. This

productivity increase is designed to create more surplus value for the

capitalist. It shortens the portion of the working day, in which the

laborer works form themselves, and lengthens the portion of the day that

the worker produces value for the capitalist.

Section 3: The Proximate Effects of Machinery on the Workman

A.

Machinery allows people of lesser strength to be hired. This increases the

pool of labor that can be hired. The entire family can now be hired and

consequently the value of the head of the family is devalued. Now what

used to be paid to one person can be spread out over four. This increases

the degree of exploitation.

B.

Since machinery increases the amount produced in a period of time, the

working day can be lengthened to get the largest amount of productivity.

In machinery the job of men becomes automated. The momentum to increase

the amount of machinery in the production process is due to the fact that

this can be more easily controlled than the elastic nature of people.

Machinery produces surplus value because it labor of higher degree and

efficacy. It enables the capitalist to replace the value of a day's labor

power by a smaller portion of the value of the day's product. The rate of

surplus value is determined by the relative duration of the necessary labor

and of the surplus labor in a day.

As the use of machinery becomes more common in the industry, the surplus

value arises from the labor power employed by the human working the

machinery. It is only from human labor power or variable capital that

surplus value is created.

The application of surplus value implies a contradiction. Since capital

cannot produce surplus value the application of machinery risks losing

surplus value. The numbers of laborers are replaced by the capital and

consequently the less surplus value is created. Therefore in order to

raise the surplus value the working day is lengthened. The most powerful

instrument for shortening labor time, become the most unfailing means for

placing every moment of the laborers time and that of his family as the

disposal of the capitalist for the purpose of expanding the vlued of his

capital.

C.

The lengthening of the working day and the more productive potential

created by machinery intensifies labor.

Section 4: The Factory

A factory is the machinery organized into a system. The division of labor

in the factory is the distribution of working men among the specialized

machines. This is a technical division of labor. The working man shapes

his movements to that of the machine. The machine dominates the worker.

The work also becomes boring and horrible monotonous. This form of dead,

accumulated labor confronts the worker as an alien object (alienation).

Everything that is natural and normal about humans is bent, misshapen and

twisted.

Marx makes an important distinction between the increased productiveness

due to the development of the social process of production, and that due to

the capitalist exploitation. Marx admired the productive power that had

been unleashed. It was rather the form of appropriation that bothered him

and the current ownership structure of these social productive forces. The

main contradiction of capitalism is not found in the productive forces

themselves. It is rather the contradiction between the social nature of

production and the private appropriation and ownership that caused this

problem.

Section 5: The Factory Acts. Sanitary and Educational Clauses of the Same.

Their General Extension in England.

The system of production removes all security from the life of the worker.

When a worker is laid off or not working they no longer have any means for

survival. An industrial reserve army that is always ready to work worsens

this situation. This army poses a threat to those working to be thankful

for what they receive or else they will have their livelihood removed from

the.

Factory legislation if the first reaction of society against the process of

production. These are the first concessions gained from the capitalist.

This legislation when confined to regulating the labor in factories is a

mere interference with the rights of capital. However, if applied to

production in the home it is an outrage. The current forces of production

are tearing apart those traditional family relations. Parents can exploit

their children labor. However it is not parental exploitation that is the

source of the problem. Rather it is capitalism, which has swept away the

economic basis of the family and denigrated parental authority into a

mischievous use of power. The forces of production are reshaping

traditional family relations.

Section 10: Modern Industry and Agriculture

The peasant is eliminated in this sphere and replaced by the wage laborer.

Scientific methods replace the irrational, old-fashioned methods of

agriculture. The old bonds of agriculture are transformed. The union of

agriculture and industry violates the traditional methods and consequently

violates the conditions necessary for the lasting fertility of the soil.

The same processes that happen in the factory are present in the

agriculture sector. The environment suffers equally with the worker. All

progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time is a

progress towards ruining the lasting sources of fertility. Capitalist

production in agriculture zaps both the laborer and the soil.

Note: In the writings of alienation, nature is present. Although

Reisebrodt didn't mention it, the alienation of man from himself includes

the alienation of man from nature. This idea of alienation from nature is

expressed in the passage above. Some Marxist theorists (James O'Connor)

have developed this aspect of Marx's thought more completely since Marx did

not spend tons of time addressing the exploitation of the environment as

coinciding with the exploitation of the laborer.