📚 node [[20200611201816 capital]]
📓 garden/ryan/literature/20200611201816-capital.org by @ryan

My notes on Capital Vol. 1, indexed. These were originally not written as Roam files so forgive the messiness.

1. The Commodity

  • commodity:: is a thing through which its qualities satisfy some human need

  • Use value:: is the usefulness of a thing

    • The amount of laborthat goes into making a commodity is unrelated to its usefulness

    • The usefulness of a commodity is conditioned by the physical properties of a commodity

  • Exchange value:: is the use value relation of one commodity to another

    • Exchange value is intrinsic to a commodity

    • x amount of wheat could be exchanged for y amounts of silk

    • Exchange value expresses an equality relation

  • When looking at use values, commodities only differ in terms of quality, whereas with exchange value, commodities differ in terms of quantity

  • Commodities are different from other items because they contain within them human labor, i.e. they are made by humans

  • The labor contained in commodities is abstract labor which can be measured in time

    • "it took x hours to produce y products" I assume?

  • Marx says that a thing isn't more valuable if some lazy worker takes more time to produce it, the exchange value is wrapped up in the total labor power of society. The total labor power of society is homogeneous and greater than one individual, and is manifested in the values of commodities.

    • The introduction of electric looms, Marx says, probably reduced the amount of socially necessary labor timeto convert yarn into fabric by half. The product of the old hand loom worker's value, then, dropped by half

  • The greater the amount of productivity, the less required socially necessary labor time

  • What distinguishes a commodity from any other item is that it contains usefulness to others, i.e. social value

So what is a commodity

  1. A thing, that

  2. contains within it human labor,

  3. that is socially useful, and

  4. is transferred via a medium of exchange.

The Dual Character of Labor Embedded in Commodities

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: the-dual-character-of-labor-embedded-in-commodities

  • Commodities and labor contain within them a dual character

  • Division of commodities implies the existence of a division of labor

    • The division of labor is required for commodity production, but not the other way around

    Labor, then, as the creator of use-values, as useful labor, is a condition of human existence which is independent of all forms of society; it is an eternal natural necessity which mediates the metabolism between man and nature, and therefore human life itself. (p. 133)

    "Labor is the father of material wealth, the earth is its mother." (p. 133)

  • Modes of labor are simply forms of expenditure of human labor power

  • Labor power must have attained a certain level of development before it can be expanded into certain forms

    • The precondition for weaving is looms? Something like that?

In civil society as a whole, at the standpoint of needs, what we have before is the composite idea which we call man. Thus this is the first time, and indeed the only time, to speak of man in this sense.

  • Commentary

    This quote is interesting because it's like an old-time equivalent of saying humanity is a social construct

  • Abstract labor (this quality of labor) forms the value of commodities. The fact that labor can be equated as such indicates this quality of labor

The Value-Form, or Exchange-Value

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: the-value-form-or-exchange-value

  • Commoditiesare commodities because they are "objects of utility and bearers of value"

  • Commodities take on a particular form (value form) that allows for their exchange, called money

  • Human labor alone doesn't create value

    • Two commodities with the same amount of labor put into them are, obviously, not the same, nor would they be the same value

  • Marx goes through a lot of different forms of exchanges to ultimately show that the fact that commodities can be exchanged shows that they have something common between them

    • what is common between all commodities is the fact that human labor has gone into them

  • Abstract labor as we've said, is a quantity of time put into the production of a commodity

  • Concrete labor in contrast, is a specific type of labor, such as tailoring or weaving. It is an expression of abstract labor

  • The fact that commodities are universally exchangeable explains why there is a single, special, socially accepted commodity that can be used to express this universal exchange: money

Commodity Fetishism

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: commodity-fetishism

  • commodity fetishism

  • A way of saying that commodities appear to have the natural characteristic of bringing themselves to market and pricing themselves

4. The General Formula for Capital

  • Capital begins with the circulation of commodities

  • Capital's first appearance is that of money

    The first distinction between money as money and money as capital is nothing more than a difference in their form of circulation.

    1.  247

  • In contrast to the C-M-C exchangerelation we saw in the last chapter, capital begins with M-C-M

    • Ultimately, M-C-M can be boiled down to M-M, or the exchange of money for money

    • If I purchase x commodity for y money, and sell it for z money, I've transformed the original amount of money that I originally had

  • C-M-C and M-C-M are both just two sides of the same coin

    • Both can be broken into their component parts, C-M and M-C

    • Both are circular paths that lead is back to a similar start

    • Both involve three parties: someone who buys, someone who sells, and someone who does both

  • In C-M-C, the money is spent and leaves circulation

  • In M-C-M, the money is not spent so much as it is advanced

  • The point of M-C-M is exchange value

  • C-M-C results in commodities of equal value being circulated

    • I sell linen for $12 and buy a Bible with the same amount of money

    • It also results in different use values. Linen and Bibles have different use values

  • M-C-M results in the opposite, the only difference is in magnitude

  • This change in magnitude results in surplus value

    • The difference in each extreme of the M-C-M relation. The value that is advanced in this relation remains the same, except that an increment is added. This movement converts money into capital

  • C-M-C exchange is done in order to satisfy needs, to consume. M-C-M is done in order to accumulate, and is endless, unlike C-M-C

  • Footnote 6 is very good

  • If at any point in the M-C-M relation, that money is then simply exchanged to purchase something, it no longer becomes capital

    • Can we then say that capital must be money in motion?

The simple circulation of commodities --- selling in order to buy thus, a variable and not a constant quantity of value

  1. Every change in the relation between the magnitude of surplus-value and the value of labor-power arises from a change in the absolute magnitude of the surplus labor, and consequently of surplus value

  2. The absolute value of labor power can change only in consequence of the reaction exercised by the prolongation of surplus labor upon the wear and tear of labor power.

  • The shortening of the working day follows or precedes a change in the productivity and intensity of labor

  • The lengthening of the working day risks increasing the value of labor power

4. Simultaneous Variations in the Duration, Productivity, and

Intensity of Labor :PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: simultaneous-variations-in-the-duration-productivity-and-intensity-of-labor

(1) Diminishing productivity of labor with simultaneous lengthening

of the working day :PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: diminishing-productivity-of-labor-with-simultaneous-lengthening-of-the-working-day

  • Surplus-value may rise

  • Between 1799 and 1815 this was the case in England

    • Nominal wages rose, real wages fell, productivity increased

    • Pauperism and capital grew together!

(2) Increasing intensity and the productivity of labor with

simultaneous shortening of the working day :PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: increasing-intensity-and-the-productivity-of-labor-with-simultaneous-shortening-of-the-working-day

  • Decreases amount of necessary labor

  • If the whole length of the working day were to shrink to just its necessary component, surplus labor would vanish

    • This would still lead to an expansion of necessary labor, however

  • The more the working day can be shortened, the more the intensity of labor can increase

18. Different Formulae for the Rate of Surplus-Value

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: chapter-18-different-formulae-for-the-rate-of-surplus-value

  • The formula for surplus value we know:

$$\frac{Surplus\ value}{Variable\ capital}(\frac{s}{v})=\frac{Surplus\ value}{Value\ of\ labor\ power}=\frac{Surplus\ labor}{necessary\ labor}$$

  • Political economy provides the following derivative equation:

$$\frac{Surplus\ labor}{Working\ day}=\frac{Surplus\ value}{Value\ of\ the\ product}=\frac{Surplus\ product}{Total\ product}$$

  • The derivative equations show how the products of labor are divided between worker and capitalist

  • If you attempt to extract 100% surplus labor, you'll only end up reducing necessary labor to 0, thus making this impossible

  • Political economy loves to present the value of labor power as fractions of the value-product, which only mystifies what's really going on

  • A new formula emerges:

$$\frac{Surplus\ value}{Value\ of\ labor\ power}=\frac{Surplus\ labor}{Necessary\ labor}=\frac{Unpaid\ labor}{Paid\ labor}$$

#+BEGIN_QUOTE Capital, therefore, is not only the command over labor, as Adam Smith thought. It is essentially the command over unpaid labor.

19. The Transformation of the Value (and Respectively the Price) of Labor-Power into Wages

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: chapter-19-the-transformation-of-the-value-and-respectively-the-price-of-labor-power-into-wages

  • Labor is a special commodity in that it has no existence before it is actuated

  • The value of labor is not determined by what it produces

  • Either the worker receives x pay for y hours of labor, and equivalents have been exchanged, or he receives less than x pay for y hours of labor

  • We must remember that the value of the commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary laborit contains

    • If a commodity requires 6 hours to make and later on requires 3, its value has halved

  • The worker is selling labor power, not labor itself

    • As soon as the worker begins working, it ceases to belong to him

    • It can no longer be sold at this point

    • Labor has no value itself, it is just a measure of value

  • The money-relation conceals the uncompensated labor of the wage-laborer

We see, further: the value of 3 shillings [the value of labor which creates a value of 6 shillings], which represents the paid portion of the working day, i.e. 6 hours of labor, appears as the value or price of the whole working day of 12 hours, which thus includes 6 hours which have not been paid for. The age-form thus extinguishes every trace of the division of the working day into necessary labor and surplus labor, into paid labor and unpaid labor. All labor appears as paid labor. Under the corvee system it is different. There the labor of the serf for himself, and his compulsory labor for the lord of the land, are demarcated very clearly both in time and space. In slave labor, even the part of the working day in which the slave is only replacing the value of his own means of subsistence, in which he therefore actually works for himself alone, appears as labor for his master. All his labor appears as unpaid labor. In wage-labor, on the contrary, even surplus labor, or unpaid labor, appears as paid. In the one case, the property-relation conceals the slave's labor for himself; in the other case the money relation conceals the uncompensated labor of the wage laborer.

  • Marx remarks that much ink has been spilled at answering this very question. The reason for it being so is obvious, though!

  • From the worker's standpoint:

    • Receives 2 shillings for 12 hours of labor, created 6 hours worth of value-product

    • His 12 hours of labor is a means of buying the 3 shillings

    • Any change in the amount of equivalent he receives appears to him as a change in value or price of his 12 hours of labor

  • From the capitalist's standpoint:

    • Only cares about the difference between the price of labor power and the value which its function creates

    • If value of labor really existed, and he really paid this value, no capital would exist

  • Under wage labor, all labor seems to be for the worker, when indeed some of it is for the capitalist

  • It is important to note that at the end of the day the worker is paid for their necessary labor (?). Wages are paid out just enough to keep workers alive and reproducing

20. Time-Wages

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: chapter-20-time-wages

  • The sale of labor power takes place for definite times

  • The laws laid out in chapter 17 can also be used to describe the change in wages

  • In Marx's time workers were paid daily, so the hourly wage would be calculated as a day's wage / hours worked, such was the price of 1 working hour

  • Daily and weekly wages may remain the same while the price falls constantly, or vice versa

  • In 1860 there were riots against the imposition of hourly labor

  • If hourly labor isn't fixed, then the capitalist can really get away with sneakily stealing surplus-value

    • Why?

    • "He can annihilate all regularity of employment."

  • If the ratio is daily value over working hours in a day, then as the denominator of that fraction increases so must the numerator to keep up with equivalents

  • In general, the longer the hours, the lower the wage

  • The lower the price of labor, the greater the quantity of labor is required

  • The low level of the price of labor acts as a stimulus to the extension of labor time

21. Piece-Wages

  • "The piece-wage is nothing but a converted form of the time-wage, just as the time-wage is a converted form of the value or price of labor power."

  • It would seem that in this case the laborer is selling their use value directly, not his labor power, and that his price of labor is determined by his capacity to work

  • Both wage schemes benefit the capitalist because ultimately they can derive more value out of laborers working more

  • Piece-wages measure the amount of labor has become embodied in commodities in a given period of time

22. National Differences in Wages

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: chapter-22-national-difference-in-wages

  • In finding the differences in wages between nations we must be reminded of the fact that wages are determined by the value of labor power

    • Price of necessities of life

    • Cost of training workers

    • Part played by women and children

      • Also, presumably, the part women play in the reproduction of labor

    • Productivity of labor

    • Extensive and intensive magnitude of labor

  • Every country has a certain average intensity of labor

  • Relative value of money will be less in a country with less developed capitalist production

  • Note: nominal wages are labor power expressed in money. Real wages are the means of subsistence placed at the disposal of the worker

  • Wages in England at the time were much lower than on the continent, but labor was more intense

  • Relative price of labor varies to the inverse of the average intensity of labor

23. Simple Reproduction

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: chapter-23-simple-reproduction

  • Marx comes right out of the gate mentioning that the production process is continuous

  • NOTE: recall that Harvey mentions that Capital is something constantly in motion

  • No society can go on producing (i.e. reproduce itself) unless it constantly reconverts a part of its products into means of production

  • If production has a capitalist form, reproduction does also

  • Capital doesn't become capital until money constantly functions as capital

    • If $100 was invested and $20 surplus value was received, it must continue, year after year, to produce the same operation

  • Variable capital is a particular historical form of appearance of a labor fund

    • "Labor fund" - fund for providing the means of subsistence

  • If the capitalist doesn't reproduce his capital he'll be left without anything!

  • After a while the capital that the capitalist possesses is ONLY the surplus value extracted

  • The perpetuation of the worker is absolutely necessary for the worker

  • The worker leaves the process with a source of wealth but with nothing else to show for it

  • What was the starting point for capitalist production is a characteristic result of it: production converts material wealth into capital, and the worker leaves with a source of wealth, but unable to reproduce that wealth for himself

  • The worker engages in two kinds of consumption

    • Productive consumption: consumption of the means of production with his labor and converts them into products with a higher value than that of the capital advanced

    • Individual consumption: use of the money paid out to him by his wage

  • In the former he belongs to capital, and the latter he belongs to himself, i.e. in the former case it allows the capitalist to continue to live, and in the latter case it allows himself to live

  • Individual consumption is what a worker needs to reproduce himself, and is seen as incidental to the labor process. Therefore individual consumption is just a facet of productive consumption

  • If a worker consumes more than he "needs", this is called unproductive consumption

  • It is productive to the capitalist because it is the production of a force which produces wealth for other people (i.e. capitalists)

  • The capitalist class sees itself as the owners of skilled workers, as they see it as a form of variable capital

  • It is no accident that workers and capitalists confront each other in the market; capitalist society forces workers to do so!

24. The Transformation of Surplus-Value into Capital

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: chapter-24-the-transformation-of-surplus-value-into-capital

1. The Capitalist Production on a Progressively Increasing Scale. The

Inversion which Converts the Property Laws of Commodity Production into Laws of Capitalist Appropriation :PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: the-capitalist-production-on-a-progressively-increasing-scale.-the-inversion-which-converts-the-property-laws-of-commodity-production-into-laws-of-capitalist-appropriation

  • Accumulation of capital: The employment of surplus-value as capital, i.e. its re-conversion into capital

  • If all that was left at the end of the labor process were surplus value, capital could never accumulate. A part of the surplus product is required for the transformation of capital

  • Surplus value can only be transformed into capital because the surplus product already comprises the material components of a new quantity of capital

  • Simple reproduction continues and continues, "changing into a spiral"

  • If a capitalist spends $10,000 of capital on an investment, and that returns $2,000, then that $2,000 is reinvested, which may beget $400, which may beget $80. This is the accumulation of capital

  • We can ask where the $10,000 comes from, but it is of no matter. The $2,000 comes from unpaid labor

  • "The working class creates by the surplus labor of one year the capital destined to employ additional labor in the following year."

  • First mention of dialectics?

  • The property rights of capitalism are the rights to unpaid labor

  • The result of commodity production is:

    1. that the product belongs to the capitalist and not the worker

    2. that the value of this product includes, apart form the value of the capital advanced, a surplus-value which costs the worker labor but the capitalist nothing, and which none the less becomes the legitimate property of the capitalist

    3. that the worker has retained his labor power and can sell it anew if he finds another buyer

  • Property laws are therefore based on commodity production

2. The Political Economists' Erroneous Conception of Reproduction on

an Increasing Scale :PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: the-political-economists-erroneous-conception-of-reproduction-on-an-increasing-scale

  • Bourgeois economists would have you believe its everyone's right to be a capitalist!

  • Hoarding is not the same as capital accumulation

    • Hoarding would require the removal of that capital from circulation

  • The accumulation of commodities in great masses is the result of either a bottleneck in circulation or over-production

  • Bourgeois economists would have you believe also that all surplus-value is transformed into variable capital. This is not so, obviously

  • Discussion point: Capital at the end of the day doesn't just become wages, as that would imply that all the capital laid out is equitably consumed by workers

3. Division of Surplus-Value into Capital and Revenue. The Abstinence

Theory :PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: division-of-surplus-value-into-capital-and-revenue.-the-abstinence-theory

  • Surplus-value is divided into revenue and capital

  • The ratio between these two things determines the magnitude of accumulation

  • Surplus-value is both a fund for accumulation and for the capitalist's individual consumption requirements

  • The capitalist isn't personally responsible in some ways, he is merely a cog in the capitalist machine

  • The capitalist is the personification of capital, but ceases to be merely the incarnation of capital

    • It is said that all we have to do is get rid of the capitalists, but this doesn't seem to be the case

Accumulation is the conquest of the world of social wealth. It is the extension of the area of exploited human material and, at the same time, the extension of the direct and indirect sway of the capitalist.

  • The capitalist must abstain from taking some wealth for himself so that he can reinvest it into his business

  • The capitalist may "abstain" from taking from accumulation whatever they want, but capitalism still goes on!

4. The Circumstances Which, Independently of the Proportional

Division of Surplus Value into Capital and Revenue, Determine the Extent of Accumulation, etc. :PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: the-circumstances-which-independently-of-the-proportional-division-of-surplus-value-into-capital-and-revenue-determine-the-extent-of-accumulation-etc.

  • Reminder: the rate of surplus-value depends on the degree of exploitation of labor power

  • The tendency of capital is to force the cost of labor to zero

    • to paraphrase Mill: "if labor could be bought without purchase, there would be no need of wages"

  • See footnote 41 on a wrong prediction by Engels

    • (if China became a manufacturing power, it would decimate the living standards of England)

  • The less the worker consumes, the less their wages ought to be

    • Workers who don't smoke, consume alcohol, etc. have a lower cost of reproduction

    • But what life is that?

  • Note: the two primary creators of wealth are labor and land

  • At some point the accumulation of capital is able to augment beyond its own seemingly fixed limits

5. The So-Called Labor Fund

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: the-so-called-labor-fund

  • The aforementioned labor fund is just the collection of surplus value

25. The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: chapter-25-the-general-law-of-capitalist-accumulation

Supplemental: MR Online | Notes on Marx's "General Law of Capitalist Accumulation"

  • "Composition of capital" can be understood in two senses:

    • As value, as the composition of constant and variable capital (value-composition)

    • As a material, as it functions in the process of production, divided between means of production and living labor power (technical composition of capital)

  • The organic composition of capitalis the value-composition of capital as determined by its technical composition

  • Growth of capital implies growth of variable capital

  • Capitalist accumulation can outpace the growth of adding workers to capital. It's possible that the demand for labor power surpasses the rate of growth of capital

The more or less favorable circumstances in which wage-laborers support and multiply themselves in no way alter the fundamental character of capitalist production.

Accumulation of capital is therefore multiplication of the proletariat.

  • First mention of "proletariat"

    • By "proletariat" Marx means "wage laborer" in footnote 1

  • If the price of labor power rises resulting from the accumulation of capital, the following are implied:

    • Either the price of labor keeps rising, because its rise doesn't interfere with the progress of accumulation

    • Or accumulation slackens as a result of the rise in the price of labor

  • The rate of accumulation is the independent variable in all of this. Other factors, such as wages, are dependent on this

    • That is to say, if the rate of accumulation falls, it isn't because of high wages

The relation between capital, accumulation, and the rate of wages is nothing other than the relation between the unpaid labor which has been transformed into capital and the additional paid labor necessary to set in motion this additional capital. It is therefore in no way a relation between two magnitudes which are mutually independent, i.e. between the magnitude of the capital and the numbers of the working population; it is rather, at bottom, only the relation between the unpaid and the paid labor of the same working population.

2

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: section

  • Up until now we've seen that as c increases, v decreases

3. The Progressive Production of a Relative Surplus Population or

Industrial Reserve Army :PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: the-progressive-production-of-a-relative-surplus-population-or-industrial-reserve-army

  • Much like any other commodity, capitalism is able to produce a surplus of laborers

  • This surplus labor-power is called the reserve army of labor

  • This reserve army of labor allows capital to command large amounts of labor without disrupting the production process

  • The economic periods are cyclical: production at high pressure, crisis, stagnation, average activity

  • As the productivity of labor increases, capital increases its supply of labor more quickly than its demand for workers

  • The general movements of wages are generally regulated by the expansion and contraction of the reserve army of labor

  • Wages do not depend on the size of the reserve army (i.e. population size) but depend on capital's valorization requirements, i.e. the demand for labor

    • Discussion note?

  • Employed workers are in competition with unemployed workers

4.

:PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: section-1

  • The general law of capitalist accumulation is that, by virtue of the fact that the existence of the bourgeoisie create the proletariat, it is that this relation will always create and need a reserve army of labor

26. The Secret of Primitive Accumulation

We have seen how money is transformed into capital; how surplus-value is made through capital, and how more capital is made from surplus-value. But the accumulation of capital presupposes surplus-value; surplus-value presupposes capitalist production; capitalist production presupposes the availability of considerable masses of capital and labor-power in the hands of commodity producers. The whole movement, therefore, seems to turn around in a never-ending circle, which we can only get out of by assuming a primitive accumulation... an accumulation which is not the result of the capitalist mode of production but its point of departure.

  • "primitive accumulation" is the "original sin" of capitalism

  • capitalism isn't some eternal constant (we know this now!)

In actual history, it is a notorious fact that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, force, play the greatest part.

  • side note: laborers are neither means of production in and of themselves (in that case they would be slaves), nor do they own the means of production

  • capitalism was born out of the ruin of feudalism

  • the worker was able to become a worker only after:

    1. he was freed from the land

    2. he was freed from the regime of guilds

    3. he is robbed from his own means of production and all "guarantees of existence provided by feudal arrangements"

  • capitalism arises out of the abolition of feudalism and the waning of city-states

  • capitalism first started appearing in Italy, but Marx calls what happened in England the "classical" form of capitalism

27. The Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land

  • by the fourteenth century feudalism had pretty much been disappeared in practice

    • they were free peasant proprietors

  • Marx makes a note that it's worth remembering that a serf was not only the owner of his piece of land ("owner"), but the co-proprietor of common land

  • a class of independent peasant farmers arose

  • the nobility usurped the land that was nominally theirs and expelled the peasantry from their land, thereby creating the proletariat of England

    • the nobility usurped this land contra the monarchy

  • peasants could not build houses on land unless they had four acres!

    • Marx remarks how in his time people are lucky to have a garden

  • the yeomanry disappeared from England by 1750

  • "Bills for Inclosure of Commons" was the legislative act that dealt the final blow to the commons. Landowners granted themselves the people's land as private property

  • even at the time it was obvious that enclosures were pretty bad!

  • Marx cites a defender of enclosures, who says that laborers on this land were in fact idle and wasted their labor

    • this reminds me of what colonists said of the Native Americans!

  • peasants were literally kicked off their lands!

  • in this chapter we see Marx talking in an almost ecological sense

28. Bloody Legislation against the Expropriated since the End of the Fifteenth Century. The Forcing Down of Wages by Act of Parliament

  • the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw massive proletarianization

  • legislation turned them into "voluntary" criminals

  • some monarchs and the things they did to help this process along:

    • Henry VIII:

      • beggars who are old and incapable of working can get beggar's licenses

      • "vagabonds" endured corporeal punishment and had to go back to their place of origin

    • Edward VI:

      • anyone who refuses to work will be condemned as a slave to the person who has denounced him as an idler

      • Marx describes various punishments for trying to escape on p. 897

      • The church could also enslave people

    • Elizabeth I:

      • Unlicensed beggars are flogged and branded

        • If they're over the age of 18, they are executed

    • James I:

      • Anyone begging is declared a vagabond

      • Vagabonds are arrested, beaten, and killed after enough offenses

    • France had similar laws (see Louis XVI)

  • starting in the 1300s, France and England enacted laws to prolong the working day

  • labor had to be explicitly disciplined to take the new system

29. The Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer

  • In chapter 29 Marx begins to explain where the capitalists themselves come from, in line with the rest of this section.

  • Marx complicates the picture he's painted thus far: farmers in proto-capitalism are not exactly workers, but they're also not exactly capitalists. The first form of farmer in England was a bailiff, who was a serf. He then transforms into a share-cropper, and eventually a small proprietor.

  • The capitalist farmer benefits from the seizing of the commons because it allows him to advance more of his livestock, creating more livestock, grazing lands, manure, etc.

  • The fall in the cost of precious metals allowed for a fall of wages, from which the capitalist farmer greatly benefited. At the end of the 16th century, the farmer in England was quite uniquely rich.

30. Impact of the Agricultural Revolution on Industry. The Creation of a Home Market for Industrial Capital

  • The peasant was transformed into the proletarian, in short, by being cast off his land and having his means of subsistence taken from him, and sold back to him via wages by his new lord, the industrial capitalist

  • Over time, the following process occurs: some amount of peasantry is expelled from the land and forced to work in factories. This removes all the small producers and concentrates them into once producer, working under a capitalist. On the one hand, this produces constant capital, as there are peasants left behind to produce said raw materials, and variable capital, i.e. the freed peasantry.

  • This process that Marx is describing creates the "domestic industry" that Marx has previously talked about.

31. The Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist

  • This era of early capitalism created two kinds of capital: usurer's capital and merchant's capital.

  • Industrial capital was prevented from emerging due to the feudal organization of the countryside and the guild organization of the towns. What changed this was the enclosure of the commons and the disbanding of retainers.

  • The discovery of gold in America, the subjugation of India, and the expansion of colonialism into Africa were the primitive accumulation of the industrial capitalist.

  • Along with the expansion of colonialism, maritime trade, etc. also came national debt. This financial scheme comes from Genoa and Venice and first took hold in Holland.

  • It's also in this period that credit money is created. Coinage is an IOU to the state. The Bank of England is run by financiers who loan money to the government.

  • It sounds like Marx is anticipating David Graeber's argument in Debt. The money system Marx talks about in chapter 3 would be incompatible with Graeber's but this sounds a lot like debt-money.

  • Slavery was a huge boon to capitalist primitive accumulation in England. The English fought wars over the privilege to control certain slave trades wrested from the hands of the Spanish, for example.

32. The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation

  • People say that Marx didn't consider personal property or whatever, but in this chapter he seems to have an utmost respect for it!

  • This chapter presents a good summary of the arguments in this book so far!

33. The Modern Theory of Colonization

  • Marx says the project of capitalism is incomplete in the colonies, despite what the political economists of his time say

  • Marx says that the purpose of the colonies according to Wakefield is to create wage-laborers

  • (p. 933) Wakefield makes an interesting point: the zeal for land ownership in the Americas prevents a working class from cropping up

  • (p. 934) According to Marx laborers in the colonies "self-expropriated" with the promise of receiving capital themselves

    • I may not be understanding this point correctly

  • (p. 934) Marx identifies slavery as the basis of wealth in the colonies!

  • (p. 936) Labor in the American colonies is pretty scarce

  • (p. 936) The state of labor in the colonies is such that many wage laborers who come from Europe can actually gain wealth and become landholders themselves, which perpetuates this labor shortage.

  • (p. 938) The solution to this, according to Wakefield, is to set an artificial price on the land, thereby forcing the laborer to work before they can become a landed proprietor

📖 stoas
⥱ context
← back
(none)
↑ pushing here
(none)

↓ pulling this
(none)
→ forward
(none)
🔎 full text search for '20200611201816 capital'