Political Science 116A Final Studying
LNB was a mediocrity
"Fake Napoleon"
Base and Superstructure interact; the base limits what we think & do but doesn't wholly determine it
"Liberation is an historical and not a mental act"; to make the world better, you can't just tell people their ideas are wrong; people think the way they do because their material conditions make that pattern of thought necessary
Processed foods will hurt your body and are the product of a system trying to extract as much surplus labor out of workers as possible
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Professor says Trump is a mediocre version of Nixon
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Relative to the revolution quantitative change leads to qualitative change
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Surplus labor is the amount beyond that necessary to reconstitute their labor-power
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The 2016 US POTUS election also happened on the 18th of Brumaire
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The British faced China to open so that they could sell more stuff
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The Communist Manifesto is not a theoretical text, but it was a practical document written for a real political party
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The dialectical relationship between Base & Superstructure largely explains the world as we find it today
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The fundamental conflict b/w workers and capitalists is that workers want to limit surplus labor while capitalists want to maximize it
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The logic of capital will drive a capitalist to make the working day as long as possible
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The maximum limit to a working day is complete and utter exhaustion
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The ratio of BC - AB is the ratio of surplus to necessary labor
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The value of labor power is the amount necessary to reconstitute the laborer's energy for the next day and raise the next generation
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This week we read "The German Ideology" by Marx
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Time clocks exist because workers demanded them
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Under capitalism, the rich get richer because profit margins are larger than they are made out to be and capital self-valorizes
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Unions treat their members like people, not like commodities (as they are at work)
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Variable capital increases through labor-power reawakening dead labor and resting it at a higher state
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We have to keep imagining what the next economic order might look like
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We will always have some division of labor until technology reaches its peak
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We're reading Chapter 10 now, one of the most important parts of Capital, Vol. 1
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Wealthy people aren't bad, but the system necessitates a social division of exploitation
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Whatever profit the boss gets, it does not come from their work
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Workers are working for longer than it takes to reproduce the value equivalent of their subsistence
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Workers attempting to preserve their labor-power and capitalists extending the working day leads to these problems
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Primitive Accumulation Timeline
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Capitalist eg:
$10 for object, $10 for tools, $30 for labor; laborer adds $10 of surplus value; sale for $60, resulting in net $10 gain
Shoe Calculation -- Machine Production
($100k constant(machines)/year + $100k constant(raw materials)/year + $10k variable/year) / 100k shoes/year = $2.1/shoe cost of production
Shoe Calculation -- Manufacture Production
($10k constant/year + $100k variable/year) / 10k shoes/year = $11/shoe cost of production; this is how machine production saves money
Marx provides an analysis of society that empowers you to make the changes that are possible given the circumstances
1968 was the last time we thought the world might change
1789
Commoners declare a National Assembly giving themselves the power to write a new constitution (June); the Bastille is stormed by the people in Paris (July)
The USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc., do not represent true Communism
Communism is not a form of government; in the USSR, the state controlled the means of production; these countries really use state capitalism
Communism will happened when ideas and material conditions meet in the correct way (dialectical process)
Communism is not a political project, it is a historical movement
By intensifying the working day, you can reconstitute the value of labor in less time, creating more time for surplus value to be produced at a higher intensity
the idea of poor people not working hard and not having wealth due to laziness taps into problematic ideas of Social Darwinism
A worker must always be busy while at work, or the capitalist doesn't get to consume all the labor they purchased
a capitalist wants the working day to be as long and intense as possible
Communism is the "real movement which abolishes the present state of things," it is an economic organization of society which abolishes private ownership of the means of production
"Marxism" doesn't make sense because ideas can't lead this process; ideas will be powerless until material conditions are met
National debt also allowed wealth to be concentrated in the hands of wealthy people, which was stealing wealth from future poor people -- result of fetishization
"Momo" is a great book on capitalism, by Michael Ende
In our society, we mistake the law for justice
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas"
This history of labor in products is obscured by their immediate use-values
"it is by their imperfections that the means of production in any process bring to out attention their character of being the products of past labor"; eg a thread which keeps snapping reminds you of the person who made it
Ideas don't make capitalists -- material wealth does, and it is this wealth which drives their ideas, not their ideas driving their wealth
"it's the economy, stupid!" is true because people fundamentally care about their material conditions
Tools are used on raw materials to make more things
"the same use-value is both the product of a previous process, and a means of production in a later process"
"The State is the form in which the individuals of a ruling class assert their common interests"
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All machines are dead labor
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Aristocrats were naturally the first capitalists because they had grown their wealth for centuries and created private land
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CEOs get paid more than low-wage earners because we fetishize their positions differerntly
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Capitalism has developed tricks to make people think that exploitation isn't that bad
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Capitalists cheat workers out of the time in the workplace by cutting short breaks, forcing workers to stay on past the end of their shift, require workers to stay when someone else goes absent, etc.
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Communism must be democratic because it is a collection of freely associated people working together
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Communism will be one big union
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Eg $50 (C) -> $20 (c) & $30 (v) -> $20 (c) & $60 (v) -> $80 (C)
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Even though machines are everywhere, we keep on finding work
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Every minute you spend relaxing and really enjoying a good meal is a minute you take away from the capitalists who are trying to exploit you
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Exchange-value of labor power is price needed to survive for a day
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French History (1848-1852)
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In his text, Marx addresses how the mediocrity of LNB rose to power through the lens of economic interests and class
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In our society, we fetishize leadership positions
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In the West, the Bourgeois generally is the state, leading to the manifestation of class consciousness in labor and a conflict between capital/the state and labor/unions
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In the second half of Chapter 10, Marx gives us the history of the working day
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LNB played the economic classes against one another
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Machines increase time for surplus value because they reduce variable capital and increase constant capital, whose value is transmitted to the final product and not lost, like wages
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Marx does not give a clear definition of Communism
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Marx doesn't think literal values are bad, but that we should live up to them
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Marx says we need to think of the working day as a proportion b/w necessary and surplus labor
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Marx writes that capitalism eventually blows itself out, but he thinks nothing is set in stone
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Marx: "these newly freed men became sellers of themselves only after they had been robbed of all their own means of production"
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Networking is the worst form of the society of social relations between things, not people
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Part of why humans don't make history exactly as they want is because they don't understand the dynamics working against them
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Models of the Working Day
1) A ---- B - C; 2) A ---- B -- C; 3) A ---- B ---- C
Factions
1) Bonapartists, Orleanists, Legitimists (Bourbonists) -- right wing; 2) The Mountain (Montaigne) -- fractured center; 3) Other
Two kinds of capital
1) constant: value doesn't change during production process; dead labor (many commodities), 2) variable: changes value during production process/consumption, living labor (one commodity -> labor-power)
3 Ways to Reduce Variable Capital w/ Machines
1) socially produce cheaper commodities to meet the workers' needs (reduce value of labor), 2) flood the market with displaced workers to compete on price (reduce price of labor), 4) speed up the machines (intensify labor)
November 8, 2016
18 Brumaire, An CCXXIV
In the late 1940s, 50% of World GDP came from the U.S.
America led the charge for the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which predominantly contained Bourgeois values
1852
Bonaparte declares himself Emperor Napoleon III of France; he would be a dictator for twenty years; Marx wants to know: how did we go from a working class revolution in 1830 to a dictatorship in 1852?
The German Ideology was written by Young Marx prior to Capital and the Communist Manifesto
Capital & Material, not Ideas, drive world-historical activity; eg economic revolutions, major inventions, etc.; these things shape how it's possible for us to think as individuals
this process of change occurs differently everywhere, and Marx uses the example of England, but it is no more important than any other place
Capitalism is not natural and not inevitable, it is the result of specific politics, and these politics hint at how capitalism can be taken down
Some people think that within 100 years nobody will need to really work anymore
Capitalists wouldn't like this; the idea that your self worth is connected to your job is capitalist propaganda; we've been tricked into working harder than ever before even though machines do so much of our work now
1824
Charles X becomes constitutional monarch
1830
Charles X overthrown during July Revolution of 1830 (working class)
It is in the worker's interest to shorten the day and make it as easy as possible
Disneyland example
The idea of original sin is used by Marx to parody how capitalist economists blame the workers for their own poverty
Eg Ayn Rand writing about how the world is moved forward by creative, innovative, people who make the world great and are held back by greedy masses; capitalist propaganda
The footnotes in Chapter 10 are really interesting
Footnote #4 is really important
This all leads to LNB being emperor from 1852-1871
France went backward to a feudal-like order
How does Communism happen?
His opinion: 1) Read Dis-Agreement & Proletarian Nights by Ranciere, 2) Read Philosophy of the Encounter by Althusser, 3) Read On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky, 4) Do Politics, 5) Join a Union
People believe the same thing because of similar material conditions
Ideology: "all the different products and forms of consciousness...etc...based in a particular mode of production"
The French Revolution was a Bourgeois uprising in pursuit of Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham
Marx was an opponent of LNB
Marx uses the language of blood and violence when describing primitive accumulation
Key: to have an industrial workforce, you need to kick people off of their land, where they can be self-sufficient
Marx has no distinction between socialism and communism
Khrushchev created the idea of a transitionary socialism phase to justify the failures of communism at that point
1792
King and Queen are executed
18th Brumaire
LNB arose due to class politics driven by economic change; depicts relationship between state and economic base; LNB read the situation just right and the conditions were perfect for him to break the state off from the Bourgeoisie and use it to play the classes off each other; tells us that things can happen in the right circumstances; rejects the determinist reading of Marx
1848
LNB, his nephew, elected to 4-year term as president
County comes from the word Count under Feudalism
Lords/Counts had a military/administrative function
For the total # of units produced per day: Manufacture: A --- B - C --- D
Machine: A - B - C ----- D; since machines allow you to produce many units with less variable and constant capital, they result in more surplus value
Manufacture: A --- B - C --- D
Machine: A - B --- C --- D; A-B: variable capital transmitted to each product; B-C: constant capital transmitted to each product (relative increase); C-D: surplus value gained on each unit
Laborers under capitalism are dependent on capitalists to get everything they need in life
Male height reached a minimum in developing capitalist countries in the mid-late 1800s; unrestricted working days and an excess population stunted growth
Machines produce surplus population, they force the family to labor more; these are the distorting effects of capitalism
Manufacturing Society: A -- (N) -- B -- (S) -- C; Machine Society: A - (N) - B --- (S) --- C; this happens because machines are more efficient at creating the things which humans need to survive; we could be working less in a machine society, but we don't because they are owned by capitalists
A capitalist is only "capital personified"
Marx describes capital as a vampire of dead labor sucking up living labor to self-valorize
Communism originally came out of religion; communal living was understood as an expression of God's love
Marx gave communism a new material focus; also: the Manifesto is not the universal document we think it is
Ayn Rand says capitalism is an unrestrained market
Marx says capitalism is when some people own capital and some people must sell their labor-power
Marx says that the free labor market is an Eden, reversing his previous tone
Marx says the market is great b/c you're totally free
In the 1872 Preface to the Manifesto, Marx states that the general principles remain accurate, but the details have gone out of date and must be qualified
Marx suggests that taking over the state only disregards the evidence from real revolutions
The French Revolutionaries articulated their actions using the language and ideas of Ancient Rome
Marx tracks how the early revolutionaries swept away the Feudal system in France, and later revolutionaries, including Napoleon, established the conditions favoring capitalist development; then, Napoleon's conquests got rid of feudalism throughout Europe; Napoleon helped the Bourgeois/Middle Class rise to power both in France and abroad
Senior's last hour: Surplus Value / Capital = s / C = s / (c + v) = 1 / 11 = 9%
Marx's Rate of Surplus Value: Surplus Value / Variable Capital = s / v = 6 / 6 = 100%; this is because constant capital is transmitted in the consumption of labor power, not lost
Senior: vvvv | ccccc | s
Marx: vvvv | ssssss
1815
Napoleon defeated at Waterloo and exiled; Bourbons return to the throne
1793
Napoleon promoted to general
1799-1814
Napoleon seizes control and starts creating empire; Napoleon was made a general because European monarchies were trying to stop the French Revolution to save themselves; he won great battles in Egypt, and people accepted the coup upon his return because people were exhausted; people sought a return to order
Where there has been real communism:
Paris Commune (Communal Luxury), Mexican Commune (Zapistas), Occupy Wall Street (Sort Of), May 1968 Revolts
Capitalism emerged in Europe specifically because of the discovery of material wealth in the Americas, because of the capture of African slaves and the collection of wealth from India, etc.
Primitive Accumulation in Europe was a result of colonialization; this accumulated enough wealth in Europe to create capital; w/o colonialism, capitalism would not have emerged in Europe; Europe stole wealth from indigenous people all across the world
Why is it that capitalism keeps getting more productive, but the working day doesn't shorten?
Professor is rejecting the idea that there is value in risk b/c it is a product of the system and workers could start companies on their own w/o a capitalist middleman
Class is dependent on where you lie in the system of production
Proletariat: can only sell labor-power, Bourgeois: own something other than labor-power; these classes can be differentiated further too, explaining differences in wages; eg white collar and blue collar workers; even though they are all proletariat, they view themselves as different; different cultures
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
Quantitative Utilitarianism; Hedon = unit of pleasure; Dolor = unit of pain; base decisions off proportions of Hedons and Dolors; his head was lost for many years
"So-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production"
Rousseau's "Discourse on Inequality" us a favorite text of Marx; the idea of private property was "the greatest trick ever played on mankind" according to Rousseau
When Stalin took power, he turned the USSR into a nationalist state
Stalin gave up the idea of worldwide Communism
Through productive consumption, dead labor turns into living labor, which then turns back into dead labor, etc.
a better way to phrase this is that living labor is added, not transforms it; dead labor is the total of past labor; living labor valorizes dead labor
Eg with a rental car you get the privilege of using it, not crashing it
a worker can't let the capitalist destroy them
Normal Fatigue (Recoverable in 1 Day)
a) 12 hours @ normal intensity, b) 10 hours @ 1.25 intensity, c) 8 hours @ 1.5 intensity
Unions
actually existing communism; mutual aid, solidarity, autonomy, power
16th-17th c.
agricultural revolution begins
At this time, the economy was in a recession and the Republic was in relative chaos; the Bourgeoisie didn't like this chaos because it was bad for business; business wants a stable environment in which to trade so that capital can grow linearly
all the factions of the Bourgeois agreed that stability without political rights would be better than chaos with them; if you don't concern yourself with politics, things are fine; LNB realized he could buy them off
Our society cannot be considered successful if it requires the oppression and exploitation of others
all these real examples of communism were different
In a machine society, variable capital is less because you need less workers -> s / v = 9 / 3 = 300%
also because: 1) production is more efficient, so the value put into each output is smaller, 2) also price diverges from value of labor because the whole family is working (1/3 - 1/4 of former allocation), and 3) machines displace extraneous labor
Marx wants to know why the working class accepted LNB
also: why did working class people in America accept a billionaire seeking to lower taxes on the wealthy
A bicycle is a machine that makes people power more efficient
an electric drill would be a machine, and the metal part that spins would be the tool
17th c.
anti-vagabondage and poor laws
He says you should never work 110% in the workplace because you need to protect your commodity
average hourly compensation went stagnant in the 1970s but productivity increased linearly
Machine production requires all members of the family to work in order to obtain the level of value necessary to maintain the family
before mechanization, there were jobs that only men could really do (eg coal mining), but machines make it so that everyone could physically do a task; eg hammers require physical force but jack hammers don't; this opened up the labor market to women and children, causing the price of labor to drop; the price falls but the value stays the same; thus a single man working can't earn enough to care for the family; this drives women and children to produce; this is why there was child labor
Meeting the bare minimum needs of society every year gets easier and easier, but we don't meet those needs
before mechanized capitalism, there was a clear hierarchy in production between masters, apprentices, etc.; now, people invent new ways to hierarchize themselves when these natural hierarchies (& useful too) go away; eg racism and sexism
There are limits to what we can accomplish which is imposed by the past
both material and mental conditions limit us; eg no concept of abstract labor in the Roman Empire, preventing them from establishing massive systems of production
Marx thinks capitalism is great in terms of production...
but it doesn't fairly distribute its benefits and liberate people
Therefore, we spend way more time on surplus labor than it is made out to be by capitalists
we are forced on pain of starvation to work for free
Correct Math
c + s / c + v = Rate of Profit; constant capital is not destroyed, so you can set it to zero, s / v = simplified Rate of Profit
A working day
c + v -> c + v + s, so we can remove the c because it does not change
Capital (C) = c + v
c = tools, raw materials, workplace, things necessary for labor to take place; v = the labor alone; also: workers turn dead labor into living labor through their consumption; capital accumulates because labor in food and shelter is required for labor to take place
The State exists only to maintain an order conducive to Capitalism
campaign finance reform would be a good start to address this; eg Citizens United decision
Labor came from people getting kicked off their land and forced to work for money
capital requires money to be concentrated somehow
Fundamental Contradiction of Capitalism
capital wants to extend the working day as much as possible; labor wants to limit the working day as much as possible; politics resolves this conflict
Alienation means in German ~"to remove from yourself"
capitalism has a tendency to alienate people from each other and from their labor power
If we lived in a society without surplus-value, then machines would make life so much easier because you would only need to work for a short time for necessary labor
capitalism structurally forces us to work unnecessarily long and hard; machines aren't used to make production easier, they are used to generate surplus value
Capitalist eg 2:
capitalist advances $20 for living labor and $10 for dead labor; by midday, $20 has been produced, covering living labor cost; my mid afternoon, $30 has been produced, covering all costs; by evening, $40 has been produced, resulting in a $10 profit
The "physical and mental degradation" of the worker from capitalism is not the result of a cabal or capitalist conspiracy, it is simply the result of the logic of capital
capitalists will oppress their own workers, but it isn't concerned about labor as a whole; morality doesn't play a role in this process, shaming people won't make meaningful change
By the early 19th century, English workers began to stand up to capital, and they got Parliament to pass 5 labor laws between 1802 - 1833; however these were unfunded, so nothing actually happened
class consciousness arose but nothing changed; the height of socialism in the US was in the 1930s; communism is the principle of mutual aid -- it is equivalent to unionization
1492
colonization begins
18th c. #3
commercial wars
The idea of a Tragedy of the Commons is very modern
common resources have been used throughout history
Machines
complex of machines/tools that increase the power of a basic tool
Machine*
complex that moves the tool without human guidance
"Bad jobs" are only bad because we allow them to be bad
conditions of jobs make them hard, not the physical act itself
In production you don't destroy the raw materials, you transform them
constant capital represents the means of production; variable capital represents labor-power
Weber: Protestant theology encouraged the rise of Capitalism
countries created workhouses in the 18th century that were "Houses of Terror" for debtors which were intentionally horrible to discourage debtors from not paying their debts back; these then evolved into a general factory for the average urban laborer
Necessary Labor*
create value equal to daily sustenance (wages)
Surplus Labor*
create value for the capitalist (stolen labor)
18th c.
end of feudal tenure
Moral Depreciation
describes the effect of technological changes on the value of purchased machinery to the capitalist, as the machine goes out of date
Variable Capital
does change its value in circulation
Constant Capital
doesn't change its value in the process of circulation
Extreme Fatigue (Not Recoverable in 1 Day)
eg 12 hours @ 1.5 intensity produces tons of surplus-value and could lead to death
Things that we take to be natural and self evident are not
eg Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham; eg Declaration of Independence; it took until 1776 to write down the list of unalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness because the material circumstances didn't make them possible or necessary yet; they were needed for American Capitalism
The political right likes to create the illusion that unions stand in the way of freedom
eg Right to Work Laws
To make a better world, you must be active politically
eg Union leadership calling members; the working class can rationally take charge politically; strength in solidarity
The government upholds the oppression of private companies
eg corporations pressuring the state to cancel unemployment benefits to force people back to work; you shouldn't have to be rich to run for high office
The lumpenproletariat are people who couldn't sell their labor power
eg criminals, outcasts, etc; LNB bought them off; he exploited their anger and insecurity; he orders them to storm the houses of the Bourgeoisie so that they lose the ability to reassert their political power
Weber argues that certain elements of Protestantism encouraged certain behaviors that got Capitalism started, not that Protestantism is uniquely responsible for it
eg don't spend money on beautiful churches, reinvest in business; they "hang together"
Outcast people ended up stealing stuff as vagabonds, which the British Govt. then set laws against
eg fining people for being homeless
Once one part of commodity production is mechanized, you are naturally driven to mechanize other parts of commodity production in order to make the excess of commodities useful
eg make cars more efficiently to keep up with rising supply of rubber wheels; everything has to speed up to keep production moving smoothly without wasting resources
People project the problems with Capitalism onto Communism
eg poverty, individualism, exploitation, free speech, etc.
The USSR said that these rights were not enough, so they put forward the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
eg right to work, trade unions, social insurance, adequate standard of living, education, physical health, etc.; the U.S. objected -> not free market capitalism; the U.S.'s economic structure determined its ideological platform; the U.S. was the only major power not to sign it
Both tools and raw materials require conscious intention
eg the Suez Canal is a tool because it has a purpose for human production specifically
People don't change their ideas because of reason, they change only when material conditions allow them to change
eg you become more conservative as you get older because you acquire more property and have more to lose
LNB didn't make the world exactly as he wanted; he had many failed coup attempts
either by luck or by skill he initiated a coup at the perfect time and played the classes against each other to maintain power; just like Donald Trump
15th c.
enclosures of the commons begin
Laborers give away so much free labor that they are not compensated for, under the understanding that the production barely results in any profit
even if the owner works, they will do quantitatively easier and better things, leading us to wonder why they get paid so much more; eg they'll be counting the money, not cleaning the toilets, and they'll be getting paid more
During the coup, by supporting LNB, the Bourgeoisie went against their own interests: freedom, equality, property, and Bentham
feudal interests are the opposite of this; in 1852, by letting LNB take charge, the Bourgeois gave up their political interests, which serve their economic interests -- why?
In the market, you are:
free to do whatever you want w/o royal influence, equal to others as owners of commodities, entitled to your private property, which you alone control, able to pursue your own interests (Bentham); Marx appears to be celebrating capitalism; this paragraph is the Western narrative of the market, saying that capitalism only works if you follow your self-interest
Superstructure
government, family, religion, education, culture, etc.
18th c. #4
growth of national debts
Nassau Senior's "last hour" argument is that production is so expensive that surplus-value is only accumulated at the end of the day, so a shorter working day would result in a loss of all profits
he has a mistaken assumption that inputs are destroyed during production instead of augmented; value continues from raw materials to the final product
At the end of Chapter 6, Marx mentions "freedom, equality, property, and Bentham" with reference to the "sphere of circulation or commodity exchange"
he previously describes how labor-power is the magic commodity that produces value as it is consumed
Lenin was pretty pragmatic and held the belief that Communism demanded a global revolution
he thought the Russian Revolution would trigger other ones
By the 19th century, Houses of Terror were very common, with long hours, low wages, bosses trying to steal your lunch break, etc. (factories)
he worked in a car factory, where for hours it would be super hot and he would do a repetitive task
18th-19th c.
highland clearances begin
Marx's text on LNB is about how people make their own history and it addresses Bourgeois Revolutions
his text figures out how LNB took power as a gross mediocrity
When you shorten the working day, you decrease the proportion of surplus value produced because variable capital is fixed for a certain # of workers
however, if you force workers/machines to work faster, then you can get just as much surplus value in a shorter amount of time; we've compressed a 12 hour day into an 8 hour day; you can overcome limits of the working day and earn more if you crank up the intensity
Under capitalism "the product is the property of the capitalist and not that of the worker, its immediate producer"
humans are productively consumed by capitalists
When you don't like a job, you have to pay really close attention to get the job done; most jobs we don't like do not allow us to use our creative energies
ideally you want to do something you would love that you would do anyway
Machines have a motor mechanism, transmitting mechanism, and working machine, which "seizes on the object of labor and modifies it as desired"
ie motor, moving part, and active part that does work
Thus, the mechanization of industry requires revolutions throughout society in order to keep up with Socially Necessary Labor Time
ie robots will keep stealing your job; this society wide process of change is unique to capitalism
When capitalists pay you, they only pay you enough to revive yourself for a normal day
if you have to work longer than that, you won't have enough money to revive yourself for the next day -- abuse of labor
In the US, the true Bourgeoisie uses rhetoric to tell people that they can join the "middle class," but really they are just in the proletariat because they don't own the means of production
if you have to work to be paid money, you are not middle class
The capitalist formula artificially makes it seem like they earn a lot less in profit each day than they really do
implies that necessary labor requires the worker to recreate both the cost of constant and variable capital, instead of just variable capital; this doesn't make sense because the value of final products accounts for both the value of their input and the labor-power, not just the labor-power
Due to the excess of displaced workers in a machine society, the price of labor can dip below its value because there is a bidding war down
in a capitalist system, losing your job can be ~tantamount to death or poverty because of how hard it can be to find a new one
Capitalism is a machine society
in a factory, many machines are connected together, and human interference often isn't needed
We don't even ask what makes us individuals, and we largely base our self worth off our jobs
in capitalism, your actions are restricted to work and consumption
Machines are products of congealed human labor (ore -> steel -> machine)
in highly mechanized societies, it may be more efficient to hire human labor and work it until it dies, since people will be willing to work for les than the value of their labor relative to the amount they need to replenish their labor-power
On the surface, a society which provides these rights seems natural and good, these rights appear perfect
in reality, a Bourgeois society provides these rights because that is what it takes to make the economy function; because the worker is attached to their labor-power, these "rights" are a lie
There is no way to grow capital without exploitation
it must absorb surplus-labor, and if it doesn't then it cannot grow; this has nothing to do with morality
When there is excess labor, they have little political power and industry can work people to death
industrial regulations limited the working day and improved conditions, leading male height to rise again
Human nature arguments are:
intellectually lazy, inherently conservative -- accepting the status quo, not verifiable (at best), contrary to evidence (at worst), eg we can see lots of humans who aren't greedy, aggressive, etc.; just because something is nature or natural doesn't make it good; stuff that's natural is often terrible; since we have rational control, we can do better
In Feudalism, the fields would clearly designate areas for the people and for the land
it was very clear when you were being exploited
The state is only ever just the arm of the dominant class
it is an extension of the economy; democracies cannot reform themselves because the govt. system is a function of a capitalist economy
Question: why do we use a document written by 18th century slaveowners to guide our actions today; to some degree, we fetishize it
it is difficult to escape from the ideas of the past; but people do have agency and they can push against boundaries and alter them; Marx is not a determinist; if people don't act, things don't change
Why do people think capitalism is okay?
it's clearly not working for most people in society; we waste a ton while other people starve; we spend ~$800 billion a year on the Department of Defense -- why spend it there?; our post-Enlightenment world is complacent with unnecessary pain
Real freedom is not going to work at McDonalds
it's impossible to be an individual under capitalism because your value is reduced to the commodities you produce; we don't even know what we would do if we didn't have to work because we've never thought about it
Samuel Smiles' "Self-Help" conveys the narrative of people earning their wealth
justifying capitalism's theft; the theft is taking the means of production from the people and forcing them to sell their labor power
Problem: when you take your labor-power to market, you have to remain attached to it as it is consumed
labor-power is inherent in the body, when you purchase labor-power, you alienate your money
Capitalists do productive consumption, making more products
laborers do individual consumption, sustaining them
Fast food tasting good is a distraction from your exploitation
laborers in the U.S. have the illusion of choice b/w eating healthy and eating fast food, but oftentimes you are too busy to have a meaningful choice; eg you need a Big Gulp for energy because you are being exploited so much that you need caffeine to survive; these foods are designed to be addictive and not satisfying
late 18th-19th c.
large-scale industry (mechanization)
Professor is president of our local UC-AFT
lecturers get treated horribly by the university; he has no idea what the department does with course evaluations; the university doesn't want to provide job security so they can maintain an excess labor pool w/ low wages and timid politics
Revolution becomes possible when you have nothing left to lose or you are protected in some way
liberation depends on material foundations; to change material conditions, you need to change ideas
19th c.
limitations on the working day
Variable capital represents the zombie-fied dead labor that living labor augments
living labor is essentially variable capital; constant labor is essentially dead labor; variable capital results in a bigger pile of dead labor
In the machine economy, you have to work longer and faster
longer b/c capital always wants to keep the machines on; faster b/c technology is always evolving so you want to get as much out of your constant capital investment before SNLT decreases with a new invention; this is also why you want to keep the machines on all the time; you want to generate surplus value as fast as possible so you can afford to reinvest in the next generation of technology and not get stuck behind
The whole family must now work for the same value which they got from the man working before
machine production changes the structure of freedom, equality, property, and Bentham because the laborer doesn't have a choice and he allows/forces his wife and child to work; a child can't sell their labor power of their own will; the machine production process forces kids to work
Machines can help produce surplus-value but they can't produce value
machines change the proportion of necessary vs surplus value produced; only workers can produce value; machines increase the amount of surplus value you can extract from labor
Marx writes that machines are intended to produce surplus-value by increasing the share of the working day dedicated to surplus labor
machines facilitate the exploitation of labor, so they do not result in an easier life for laborers
Machines produce surplus-value by making more time in the day for surplus-value, not by creating capital themselves
machines transmit value
18th c. #2
manufacturing period
Complex of Machines
many machines working in tandem with little-no human effort; Marx is enthusiastic about machines because they can make things very efficiently
Capitalism is where we make things we don't need for people we don't know
money and free labor are the two fundamental elements
Both the NYC and Tokyo subways are old, but the Tokyo one is much nicer because it is understood as a shared resource and their society is more collective
most of the labor we do in our society is appropriated by people that don't even work
Elections of 1848
mostly moderate Republicans, some socialists and an extreme right "Party of Order" -- this is LNB's party
Machines are much more powerful and expansive than they were at the start of the Industrial Revolution
motor mechanisms have become more powerful, and transmitting mechanisms are connected to more active parts; eg the engine in a car turns the wheels, powers the radio, operates the A/C, etc.
The shift system makes it so that factories can absorb labor-power 24 hours per day
night shifts are fundamentally unnecessary most of the time; stopping the machines at night goes against the logic of capital
Communism is doing things together rationally; it is not a system of government
nobody would choose Capitalist production if they could; our economic system is fundamentally irrational; to solve homelessness, you need to build people houses; our capitalist system precludes these rational answers; we build houses for billionaires who don't even live in them; instead of making rational decisions together, we let irrational production run wild; once you have the technological capacity to do something, there's no rational reason not to do it; we don't make rational decisions b/c we're not freely associated; we're unfree in all the ways that it matters for Communism to work
Tool
object you use to shape the object of labor however you want
Time Theft
occurs when the capitalist systematically extracts the marginal labor out of the worker; eg extending a shift by 10 minutes; at the end of the year, this could equal many additional days; this emerges from feudalism, eg making a peasant come work in a castle after the fields; this is clearer than exploitation under capitalism
capitalism brought a change from communal to private property
once it became possible to exchange commodities to make money, the lords began to enclose the commons; some peasants would be paid to tend to the lord's sheep; next, the lord encloses the fields, leaving the peasants with no ability to get what they needed; in this sense, property is theft because the lords kicked the people off their common land
"Only the destruction of rural domestic industry can give the home market of a country that extension and stability which the capitalist mode of production requires"
once markets exist, there is an incentive for money to accumulate
We don't start a revolution right now because we still need to secure our means of subsistence
only truly wealthy people can be a full-time revolutionary; this is the inherent violence in the system
late 19th c.
peak colonization
Lenin's major flaw was that he demanded there be a revolution, which is not, then, a true revolution
people are largely afraid of Communism due to the failures of the USSR and China
This shows that you don't need a boss; they add nohthing
people could be paid a more fair wage where one person doesn't benefit from doing nothing
To make the world anew, we need to understand how capitalism works and strike it at the right moment
politics is essential to Marx's understanding of revolution
LNB was made "Prince-President" for a non-renewable 4 year term
people thought he would be a good unifying figure due to his name
Labor mixes raw material into a product, but the things used to make the product are themselves the product of labor in a previous phase of production
products become more complicated in later cycles
eg Dead Labor (10) -> Living Labor (+10) -> DL (20) -> LL (+10) -> DL (30) -> etc.
products of labor become more complicated as this goes on
Marx explains to us how ideas can impact the real world
public discourse and ideas come from our material conditions that circumscribe our daily life; our ideas of what is possible is also limited beyond our material reality
Elements of Labor Process
purposeful activity, object on which work is performed, instruments of that work
In the UK, the 10 Hours Act relative to child labor (?) was enacted in 1848, leading to massive capitalist resistance
revolutions happened across Europe in 1848, leading to quasi-class consciousness among the Bourgeoisie, leading them to undercut labor progress since 1833; manifestation of endless conflict between capital and labor
16th c.
rich farmers emerge
Capitalist Math
s / c + v (aka C) = Rate of Profit (Surplus-Value); this implies that capital (c) is destroyed in consumption
Augmented Capital (C') = c + v + s
s = surplus value
Bentham
self interest
Machines can help capitalists save money if the value of the machine relative to its congealed labor power is less than the value of living labor-power if it is more efficient, costing them less while producing more
side note: "national cuisine" is brand new b/c you couldn't get fancy ingredients before refrigeration
Electric power plants are like machines which power machines in all factories
since the electric grid is all connected, all technology is sort of one big machine; energy consumption is correlated with GDP
The lower value of labor in reason #1 above is due to spending the same amount of exchange-value over more use-values, leading to the value of each commodity to decrease...
since the same amount of human labor is expended in the creation of the total product
By making the laborer work harder, the laborer will do the amount of work in eg. 30 years within a intensified 10 years
so they get 30 years of work but they only have to pay you for 10 years, leading to death
Marx describes how the whole culture of the revolution was destroyed by LNB -- rendered impotent
somehow the historical conditions holding LNB were overcome -- that is the mystery
Raw Material
stuff that has labor mixed with it; eg a rock isn't raw material, but steel would be; raw material contains value (labor-power)
Labor is the same in machine production, you just get paid less because more people are in the labor pool
supply and demand govern price, not value; in this case, the price of labor drops below its value
Rate of Surplus Value
surplus value / variable capital
Marx wrote about Napoleon's seizure of power
the 18th of Brumaire is a famous date (1799); when Napoleon took control through a coup; in 1852, his nephew declared himself as emperor also on that date (Louis Napoleon Bonaparte)
National Debt was created to fund colonial wars by lending from Bourgeois private funds at interest and taxing poor people to pay for it
the Bourgeoisie lends money to itself and tricks poor people into paying it; it was part of the primitive accumulation process; expands the supply of capital
Monopolies are banned due to competition within the Bourgeoisie
the Bourgeoisie sometimes realizes it needs to regulate the worst parts of capital; the US shouldn't be thought of as a capitalist country b/c capitalism is a worldwide phenomenon; ie child labor has been shifted to India and Bangladesh
The answer: LNB guaranteed the economic interests of the Bourgeoisie even as he stole their political interests
the Bourgeoisie them blamed the proletariat for not defending the liberal values of the revolution; but the proletariat didn't stand up for those values because they don't align with their economic interests; eg kidnapper being mad the victim tries to escape
In the Manifesto, Marx says that Communism is fundamentally about the abolition of private property
the Plan of the Communist League is another relevant document; this calls for use of the state to undo the problems of capitalism
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, enough wealth had amassed in Europe along with enough "freed" labor, allowing capitalism to spark and take off, giving us the world today
the birth of capitalism requires "blood and dirt," some accidents were involved, but violence was always there
The value needed to support the worker is less than what is produced in a day
the capitalist does nothing, and they steal from the laborer
Capital and labor are irreconcilable on this point
the capitalist wants to extend the working day to infinity; the laborer wants to minimize it to the recovery of sustenance; laborers must defend the value of their commodity, labor-power
As infrastructure grew & technology advanced, feudal domination became private ownership
the clearance of the Scottish Highlands is a horrible example; land was given to English aristocrats, who later drove the Scottish people out to make money for themselves as private hunting preserves for rich people
Senior tried to confused Parliament into extending the working day by arguing that the country would get richer by extending the working day
the country doesn't get richer, the rich get rich
Base
the economy
There wasn't a clean break between feudalism and capitalism
the end of capitalism will be similar
Use-value of labor power is how much value it produces total
the exchange-value of labor is less than its use-value; half a day's labor is needed for sustenance, but we keep working
Marx compares primitive accumulation to original sin
the idea of someone getting their wealth from only their industriousness is a myth because you always use outside resources, eg roads, customers, loan from parents
Immanent Critique
the idea that you can't criticize something from an outside perspective; we can only use the concepts that have been created historically and exist in our time; this occurs in a dialectical process which understands the present as a process and as something that's always changing
Dead Labor*
the labor already stored in a thing
Dead Labor
the labor congealed into products
Living Labor
the labor done by a human being
Living Labor*
the labor that is actively being applied
Necessary labor is always constant
the longer the day, the more surplus labor there is
Labor Union
the manifestation of labor class consciousness; it is the recognition of workers' shared interests; only ~10% of US workers today are unionized; a major low
We're looking at videos of Japanese sword making
the original process required 3 people, and the mechanized process requires only 1; mechanized industry is super powerful
In capitalism, you work so someone else doesn't have to
the owner does nothing and gets the benefit
things change when historical conditions converge and allow them to change -- if humans act
the proletarian revolution didn't work because the conditions were not correct
Relative Surplus Value*
the proportion of the day devoted to surplus value; intensity improves relative surplus value; length improves absolute surplus value; this hits certain limits w/ total laborer exhaustion & death; machines address this, allowing the working day to be more intense and longer
Marx argues that the proportion between v/c/s matters, not the total amount of each
the rate of profit is a proportion; as long as s > v proportionally, there will be profit; the unit of time considered does not matter; each our, you work a little bit for you and mostly for someone else
Relative Surplus Value
the ratio of surplus to necessary value
Necessary Labor
the time it takes for a laborer to reproduce their means of subsistence; the worker is the basis of capitalist society because capital can't self-valorize without labor-power
Surplus Labor
the time spent after necessary labor generally surplus-value for the capitalist
Absolute Surplus Value
the total amount the capitalist receives at the end of a working day
The needs of society are met in the A-B period, and the B-C period only generates wealth for the capitalist, so it is socially unnecessary
the work day is MUCH longer than it really needs to be
Marx gets from Rousseau the idea that there is no set human nature that explains exactly how humans operate
there are many different things humans are capable of; the concept of human nature restricts us; this shows again the idea that nobody would rationally choose the system we have today
Since machines make goods cheaper in a capitalist society, then people will be paid less because they will require less money to survive, decreasing the value of labor
there is a decrease in necessary labor in a machine society
Bentham: your self-interest will always be stuck at maintenance and survival level if you don't own capital
there is a fundamental violence under the market that betrays the ideals that Bourgeois society talks about so much; without capital, you sell your labor-power or starve
Things like Amazon quotas artificially extend the working day by making it difficult to take bathroom breaks
there is always a race to the bottom for workers to be exploited; eg laborers in China are demanding protections, so countries like Cambodia are attractin companies
Communism also requires the public use of reason
therefore any system with a dictator or single leader is not truly communist
Rural peasants aren't really a class because they don't have shared interests
they are mostly self-sufficient; LNB wins them over by appealing to nationalism -- his last name; he turns the peasants into a class to counterbalance them against the urban classes; the peasants were the largest group
All of these events created the seeds for the creation of the proletariat
they did not exist prior to modern, urban capitalism
There have to be structural conditions preventing people from working elsewhere for people to be willing to work in a factory
they must have no choice; and they must be thrilled to work in the factory because the alternative is death; if there are more jobs than workers, then workers would have political power to set wages and they would have greater choice between employment opportunities
Members of the bourgeoisie working in finance don't want the state to fall because they own govt. debt
they need the state to continue to pay its debts; some own debt, while others trade in it, so they can have different interests within the Bourgeois class; the Manifesto is an oversimplification of Marx; finance capital vs industrial capital, etc.
Tools
things made by humans for specific purposes; eg cows, which humans bred for food
The lords / pseudo-capitalists then forced people to work to earn money to purchase the things they previously got for free directly from their own labor
this allowed the lord to get richer because they got a larger proportion of resources, w/the possibility for exponential growth, relative to feudal stagnation
Capitalists rely on population growth and immigration for an excess population
this also leads to colonialism, so there can be an excess population for labor to consume
Over time, machines transmit their value to their output, so they drop out of the equation of the rate of surplus value
this basically means that all time not spent on recovering variable capital is spent on surplus value
Lenin argued that we are all stakeholders in the state, so this constituted communal ownership
this failed because the state became its own class -- the govt was one big capitalist; administrators became the new Bourgeoisie; also, it tried to compete with capitalist countries in terms of consumerist production
Primitive Accumulation*
this happens whenever capital is consolidated in a smaller # of hands; it was huge under colonialism and it is still happening today
This is scary because fascism comes from the desire for stability
this is exploitable by someone who understands the situation; is this what happened in 2016?
Marx observes that Capitalism only works while there is an overabundance of workers
this is necessary because it decreases wages and decreases the power of labor
LNB kept power by separating the state from the economic order
this is normally not possible
Some people think Marx is purely deterministic
this is not totally true; you can't change things based only on ideas, material reality comes first
Professor claims that salaries are inferior to hourly wages because you are paid to be working all the time
this maximizes consumption of labor-power
Marx explains where surplus-value comes from by telling a story about how cotton is turned into yarn, and over the course of a week a capitalist will extract a small surplus-value by paying the worker less than the value of their labor
this turns money into capital
The first laws regulating the working day in the 14th century made it shorter and conditions improved
this was in response to the Bubonic Plague; 30-50% of the population died; this was really bad for the nobility; they fixed wages at a higher level and established lots of breaks to incentivize people to work; only recently did the State start to lengthen the working day
May 1968 Revolts
this was the last time it seemed like global communism was possible; explicit violence: police beat and imprisoned police; inherent violence: people had to go back to work or starve
There was a moment in human history M - C - M became M - C - M', leading to modern capitalism
this was when labor met capital on the open market
We fight back against capitalism with Class Consciousness
throughout the world, labor spontaneously assumes class consciousness; eg Japanese silk laborer women randomly going on strike
Eg we think that we can't set high tax rates to help homeless people because that would violate Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham, but really those things are a fallacy
to get ahead in our society, you need some kind of external support, whether monetary, social, etc.; hard work alone will not work
Machines contribute to oppression
to make things better, you must unionize to stand up against the logic of capital
Eg industrial England, they had to create really cheap and low quality bread for poorly paid laborers
today, fast food like McDonalds fulfills this role as cheap and low quality food for people who can't afford good food and are busy going to work
The Bourgeois are less aware of class consciousness due to independent social values; only unite with big event like 1848
today, the US govt. is the Bourgeoisie because you need money to get elected or have influence; dependent on people with disposable money; eg case of Eskrigge (Capital)
Value is not destroyed in productive consumption; it grows
value stagnates in individual consumption; "the product of individual consumption is the consumer himself; the result of productive consumption is a product distinct from the consumer"
Eventually, we will all lose our jobs to robots and become unemployed
virtually no profession is safe anymore
The factory is explicitly connected to Protestant morality with the idea of a penance for unpaid debt
we can't listen to Ayn Rand because we had unlimited capitalism in the 19th century and it was a disaster
"Late Capitalism" is stupid -- how do we know it's late?
we don't know how close we are to the revolution, and it is clear that primitive accumulation is still happening
There was a moment when capital confronted free labor
we need to know where they each come from
Most political theory scholarship today justifies the current state of the world with no further critical thought
we reproduce capitalism everyday in our daily lives
American popular culture fetishizes wealth
we want to be wealthy and secure; eg rap videos with stack of cash; Ariana Grande songs*** (this is my idea, maybe use it in the final essay); rich people are often miserable, but we think it will make us happy, because that's the ideology of capitalism
There is no way of knowing what a better future would look like -- Utopian theories are baseless
what comes next after capitalism will be dependent on the conditions of the moment, the spirit of the time
Whether capitalism is the direct cause of misery or not is irrelevant
what matters is real, material human misery; the point of any theory or analysis must be to resolve real, objective human misery
The proletariat was created through land expropriation & the invention of the modern idea of work
when everyone is forced off the land, you create massive demand for agricultural commodities
In the 1940s-60s, US union membership was high, leading to less total income going to the top 10%
when unions are strong the economy is much more equitable; WWII sparked the rise of unions; labor demanded better treatment, and due to the shortage of labor due to the war, capital had no choice; the public sector still has strong unions, but in the private sector they have been destroyed by legislation backed by corporations
Primitive Accumulation
where it all went wrong
When you sell your labor-power, you have to alienate your own being
while there is an equality b/w people in the market before the law, there is a fundamental inequality because people with only labor-power are forced to sell to whatever buyer is available; people with capital don't have to sell themselves
Gallup reports that most people in the US work > 50 hours per week
why don't we have machines doing stuff for us' because value only comes from human labor
Machines replace human labor b/c they are more efficient in terms of surplus-value
with machines, dead labor acts like a force of nature like the wind or water; this distinguishes Capitalism from other eras
Paris Commune
workers spontaneously came together and met each others' needs through self-help and mutual-aid; the French govt. massacred these people several months later
Upton Sinclair
wrote The Jungle; this describes the problems associated with processed foods
Who you are is not a unique, sovereign individual
you are a member of society; you were born and there was stuff their already; your individuality is preconditioned on the stuff that came before you
Work is miserable because you're not free while you're working
you have alienated the things that make work enjoyable
The capitalist gets more money over time, while the laborer ends up staying the same (stagnation)
your body gets weaker over time