[Sphinx]

I have been reading Das Kapital, an Arabic translation by Dr. Rashed El-Barrawy, and I am almost done with Volume 1.

I have a question about the theory of surplus-value: why does Marx distinguish between machines and humans when it comes to surplus-labour and surplus-value?

According to Marx, a machine contributes to the value of a commodity only by the amount of wearing that occurs to the machine while producing the commodity. In this sense, a machine never produces any "surplus-value" and never does any "surplus labour."

But when it comes to humans, a human contributes to the value of a commodity more than the amount of "wearing" that occurs to him/her. For example, if the rate of surplus-value is 50%, half of the worker's contribution to the value of the commodity comes from work that is necessary for the survival and reproduction of the worker, while the other half is surplus, and is done for the capitalist for free.

Why can't we say the same thing about the machine? Following the same line of thinking, one can say that a machine is also set to do more work than necessary to produce its parts that wear out during the production of a commodity, and in this case the machine's contribution to the value of the commodity is not restricted to the value of those parts that wear out. Right?

[Harmattan]

I am not a Marxist specialist and may be wrong but I think it is because in Marx's theories value is defined as the amount of human labor necessary to produce a good. For Marx there is nothing of value but human labor.

So the machine's wearing represents the corresponding fraction of the human labor that was necessary to produce the machine. If making your machine required ten hours of human labour and it can produce ten pieces before it breaks, then you have actually invested one hour of indirect labor into each piece.

Machines are simply accounted as the fruit of a human work, and the wearing gives the adequate fraction of its total cost to consider.


Note however that Marx's "value" is not related to utility or desirability. It rather represents a production effort, to determine the amount of hours that must be provided in exchange for a product to maintain an equalitarian society.

This can be misleading: if you find a diamond without having to do anything, its Marxist "value" is zero, while its desirability is non-zero. It is desirable but you should not be allowed to request goods in exchange of it. Instead it should become a communal good or something like that, depending on your economical organization. So take care to not interchange the Marxist value with other definitions of value, such as utility, to reason about economy.

For example added value is always 100% if you use the Marxist value. Nevertheless you could define added value by using utility, and then you get back your usual concept, which helps you arbitrate how to maximize utility for all, even in a communist economy. After that you can use the Marxist value to decide how to fairly distribute production among citizens.

[Eauz]

So the machine's wearing represents the corresponding fraction of the human labor that was necessary to produce the machine. If making your machine required ten hours of human labour and it can produce ten pieces before it breaks, then you have actually invested one hour of indirect labor into each piece.

Machines are simply accounted as the fruit of a human work, and the wearing gives the adequate fraction of its total cost to consider.

Essentially, it is this. Machines don't reproduce themselves, even if most of the production process is automated. Llabour of humans is stored within the machine from when the machine was created. Now, constant capital is also transferred from the machine to the new product via living labour.

Note however that Marx's "value" is not related to utility or desirability. It rather represents a production effort, to determine the amount of hours that must be provided in exchange for a product to maintain an equalitarian society.

What? It's called Socially Necessary Labour Time. If a labourer produces a chair in 1 hr and an unskilled labourer does it in 4 hours, guess who is getting shafted for pay? On the other hand, socially necessary labour time does not assume that all products should be produced and there is a sense of utility and desirability. For example, I can be quite efficient and produce mud pies in 1 minute, however, the utility and desire is non-existent.

This can be misleading: if you find a diamond without having to do anything, its Marxist "value" is zero, while its desirability is non-zero. It is desirable but you should not be allowed to request goods in exchange of it. Instead it should become a communal good or something like that, depending on your economical organization. So take care to not interchange the Marxist value with other definitions of value, such as utility, to reason about economy.

First, if you found a diamond, it probably means someone lost it, as I don't know many people who just randomly find diamonds on the streets. The diamond itself has value, based upon the social-constructs of society and the actual socially necessary labour time to produce that diamond, so yes, there is still value. However, if you intended on digging for diamonds and found a diamond, of course there is value, assuming it is socially necessary labour time, as defined by society. Again, if the social construct of society does not view diamonds as having any socially necessary labour time (value) linked to it, then it is the same situation as my mud pies.