Marx’s theory of surplus value.
In a recent issue of the Socialist Standard it was suggested that readers having doubts and difficulties as to any phase of Socialism or of the Socialist movement should forward them to the Editorial Committee, and endeavours would be made to have those doubts and difficulties removed. This suggestion has been followed by a sufficient number of readers to justify the setting aside of a portion of the paper under the heading of “Doubts and Difficulties,” and we hope that our readers will help us to make it of permanent interest and utility.
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The Editorial Committee have asked me to undertake the conducting of this section of the Socialist Standard, and I have consented, after some hesitation, to look after it for the present. I do not for a moment claim that I shall prove infallible in my solutions to the economic, historic, and other problems set me, but I do not think I shall ever be found wrong. In the event of the answer to any question proving somewhat hazy to any readers I feel confident that they will say so, and every criticism will be ever welcome.
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My attention has been called by one of my correspondents to a letter which has appeared in the Social Democratic Herald, published by the Social Democratic Publishing Company, of Milwaukee, wherein a Mr. Henry B. Ashplant, of London, Ontario, takes it upon himself to criticise adversely the surplus-value theory of Marx. He takes and disputes Marx’s illustration of the yarn manufacturer who invests his 27s. capital in the purchase of raw material, machinery, and labour-power. For raw material he gives 20s., while his machinery costs him 4s. and labour-power 3s. When the expenditure of the labour-power has, with the aid of the machinery, worked up the raw material into yarn, the finished product is sold for 30s.
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The question which Mr. Ashplant desires to have elucidated is “Whence originates this 3s ?” Is it derived from the spinner, or from the machinery, or from the raw material, or from the capitalist, or from the buyer of the yarn ?
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To quote his own words: “Who paid the 3s. realised by the yarn manufacturer ? If the 3s. is paid by the spinner then, I ask, where did the spinner get the extra 3s. from in view of the fact that he enters the market possessed of only his labour-power, which he sells to the capitalist for 3s. only. How then can it be shown that he pays to the capitalist this 3s., plus an additional 3s. which he never possessed as a spinner ?”
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Again he says: “The yarn is sold to a third party whom we may call No. 3. Now to which class does No. 3 belong ? Does he belong to the capitalist-class ? If so, then indeed the 3s. is not paid by No. 2 class, viz., the spinner. Does No. 3 belong to the working-class ? If so, then I ask where does he who possesses nothing but his labour-power secure this 3s. which he pays to No. 1 in excess of what he receives from No. 1, the capitalist-class ?”
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“As I have before intimated,” continues Mr. Ashplant, “I do not dispute the fact that social energy, including the labour of superintendence, produced the 20 lbs of yarn for which only 3s. was paid to labour, but I do dispute the soundness of the analysis in Marx’s “Capital,” as focussed in this yarn illustration.”
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Such then is the contention of the genial Ashplant, who does “not in any sense speak disrespectfully of the great work of this truly great master thinker,” and does not “need ‘Capital’ or the surplus-value theory as marked “out by Karl Marx in this yarn transaction, to explain the terrible phenomena in my industrial environment.”
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The amazing condescension in the letter overpowers even my native modesty, so much so that I hesitate to assail “his argument with the sword of my logic with a view to letting out its vital principle.”
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What is the Marxian theory of surplus-value? In the first place the theory is essentially bound up with Marx’s theory of value as being materialised labour-power. Value, according to Marx, is the embodiment of labour-power in material articles, and is measured by the average amount of labour-time socially necessary to produce them.
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Since value is labour-power materialised in commodities, values can be created only by the expenditure of labour-power. That this is the only source of value must be ever borne in mind when considering the problem of surplus-value.
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Marx contends that surplus-value is the value created by the worker in excess of his own necessary means of subsistence, and I, for one, cannot see how our industrial environment can be explained except in terms of such surplus-value.
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The fallacies which Mr. Ashplant appears to make are the identification of labour-power with labour, and the assumption, implicitly made, that the sum of all the values in existence remains a constant quantity. Doubtless he would be the first to deny these two principles, but nevertheless they run throughout the whole of his criticism.
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Labour and labour-power are two entirely distinct things, or at least, two distinct phases of the same thing. Labour-power is potential; labour is kinetic. Labour-power is the power of working; labour is that power in action. Labour is the expenditure of labour-power.
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Value being the embodiment in commodities of expended labour-power, we must look to the expenditure of labour-power—the activity of man, physical, mental, and moral—for the source of all value, whether it be of the raw material, the machinery, or the consumable articles which go to the replacement of man’s power of working.
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In taking the division of the yarn manufacturer’s capital into so much money for raw material, so much for machinery, and so much for labour-power, we must bear in mind that the facts underlying the whole question are relative to labour-power rather than to money.
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As, however, we are dealing with it in terms of money, let us see whether there are any difficulties which vitiate the reasoning of Mr. Ashplant. The yarn capitalist starts with 27s. which he proceeds to lay out as indicated above, viz., 24s. for raw material and machinery, and 3s. for labour power. Three persons figure in the transaction : the yarn manufacturer originally possessing his 27s., the spinner with his labour-power valued at 3s., and the purchaser of the completed yarn with 30s. At the end of the transaction the first has 30s., the second 3s., and the third the finished product.
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Now, the machinery and the raw material purchased by the capitalist possess a value which represents so much expended labour-power, and is measured by a money value of 24s. But machinery and raw materials can expend no labour-power and cannot, therefore, create any new value. In so far as they are socially necessary to the completion of the finished product, their values—the labour-power expended in their own production—are simply transferred to that product.
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The purchaser of the finished product receives in exchange for his finished product a value of 30s. in commodities as represented by the yarn. Hence from him arises no surplus-value.
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We have to look then to the second party in the transaction, the spinner, to ascertain if he can throw any light upon the origination of our new surplus-value of 3s.
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In the Ashplanter theory the spinner, possessing only his labour-power worth 3s., can only transfer an equivalent value of 3s. to the finished commodity in the same way that the machinery and the raw material transfer their value. But is this so ? The value of the labour-power of the worker is the value of his cost of subsistence whereas the value of his labour may be more or less than his cost of subsistence, according to the duration of the working-day. Under capitalism it is invariably more.
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If Mr. Ashplant’s view were correct it would matter little to the capitalist what number of hours constituted the working-day. The labour-power of the labourer was transferred to his product irrespective of the length or shortness of that day. But the capitalist thinks otherwise. The capitalist is aware that after the worker has been engaged in production for a certain number of hours he has created a value equal to the value of his own labour-power, and that any additional working on his part is towards the production of a value over and above what he possessed at the beginning of the working-day, and which he continues to possess at the end of that day as the result of the consumption of his wages, which, determined by the socially necessary cost of his subsistence, measure the value of his labour-power.
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To me there appears to be no difficulty in understanding this part of the theory of surplus-value, which not only explains the position of the worker in the industrial organisation of modern capitalism, but is the only satisfactory explanation of that position. He is exploited just because there is a difference between the 3s. which measures the value of his labour-power, and the 6s. which measures the value he has added to the commodity—between the actual and the potential value of his labour-power.
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To-day also the degree of his exploitation, the extent to which he is robbed, is much greater than is shown in this yarn illustration of Marx. The surplus-value is now much greater than 100 per cent. Many of the workers are producing not twice but twenty times the value of their labour-power, and the parasites who live upon all this exploitation are ever on the increase.
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I trust I have made myself clear on this matter, but if any of my readers are not satisfied I shall be pleased to hear from them, and all having difficulties on matters sociologic should hasten to lay them before—
Economicus.
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