How Capital Extended the Working Day and Created Surplus Value

Name: Class 9: Capital Chapters 10-13: Relative Surplus-Value, Division of Labor, Machinery, part 1
Uploaded: 2026-03-26T08:59:14.309336+00:00
Duration: 50 min 20 s
Channel: YaleCourses
Description: Summary and key takeaways on How Capital Extended the Working Day and Created Surplus Value, covering Historical Development of the Working Day The full

YaleCourses

Mar 26, 2026

•

50 min video

•

3 min read

YouTube video ID: qX03sm-chv4

Source: YouTube video by YaleCourses — Watch original video

PDF

The full working day was not a natural given; it had to be “made historically” by human beings responding to the needs of capital and the struggles of workers. Marx stresses that no single “evil demon called capital” dictates history; instead, a series of historical forces created the notion of a complete working day.

Early Laws and Pressures

From the 14th century onward, statutes began to compel people to work, because work is not a natural necessity in conditions of abundance. The plague dramatically reduced the labor force, prompting laws that required individuals to fill a regular day with work. Marx describes this process as a “traffic in human flesh,” comparable to chattel slavery, carried out through expropriation (dispossessing people of what they have) and extortion (renting resources back on the condition of work). By the late Middle Ages, “reasonable wages for fuller work” were enshrined in law, and Elizabeth I in 1562 limited the length and amount of breaks for workers.

The Struggle Over the Working Day

By the late 18th century, enforced mechanisms such as debtor’s prisons, workhouses, and punitive work gangs compelled labor. In the first third of the 19th century, the punishment for not working shifted from legal coercion to the realm of survival. Between 1833 and 1864, a series of English factory laws attempted to limit the duration of work, especially for children. The Factory Act of 1833 sought to reduce child labor from twelve to ten hours a day, but weak enforcement allowed capital to exploit “interstices” of the day, increase labor intensity, and make the working day “bigger than just the day.” Marx treats these statutes with a comic tone, showing how limits are meant to be circumvented.

Capitalism’s Drive for Accumulation

The pressure to produce surplus value is unending and ever‑increasing. Surplus value can be raised internally without extending the working day by improving productivity. Capitalists pursue infinite accumulation for several reasons: covering subsistence, expanding business, preparing for contingencies, out‑competing rivals, and seeking higher financial returns. The distinction between constant capital (means of production) and variable capital (labor power) matters because only variable capital creates new value. Fixed capital such as machinery transfers its value to commodities without adding new value, while variable capital is the source of surplus value. Fluctuations in returns to variable capital are averaged across the system, influencing overall profit rates.

Absolute vs. Relative Surplus Value

Absolute surplus value is obtained by extending the length of the working day; it is bounded by natural limits such as a 24‑hour day or individual capacity. Relative surplus value arises when productivity increases, reducing the value of labor power and thereby raising surplus value within a given day. The rate of surplus value is the ratio of surplus labor time to necessary labor time, while the amount of surplus value is the total surplus generated. With many workers, the absolute amount of surplus value can rise dramatically even if the rate stays constant. Capitalists therefore focus on decreasing the value of labor power—by lowering the cost of means of subsistence, intensifying work, and employing technical revolutions such as Taylorism and specialization.

Mechanisms of Value Extraction

Value can be extracted extensively, intensively, interstitially, through completeness, or by size. Expropriation dispossesses people of property; extortion rents those resources back, demanding work in return. The “relay system” preserves child labor by reducing hours for individual children while increasing the total number employed. Increases in productivity are inversely proportional to product value because value is determined by socially necessary labor time. Capital’s primary interest is to reduce the value of labor power, thereby expanding surplus value and sustaining the drive toward infinite accumulation.

Takeaways

The full working day was not a natural given but a historically constructed institution shaped by capital’s demand for labor and workers’ resistance.
From the 14th century onward, laws and crises such as the plague forced people into regular labor, creating a “traffic in human flesh” that resembled chattel slavery.
Factory legislation in England between 1833 and 1864 attempted to limit child and adult work hours, but enforcement gaps allowed capital to extract value through intensified labor and interstitial exploitation.
Capital’s endless drive for surplus value shifts from extending the working day (absolute surplus value) to increasing productivity (relative surplus value), which lowers the value of labor power.
The distinction between constant capital (means of production) and variable capital (labor power) explains why profit rates depend on the ability to reduce necessary labor time through technological and organizational innovations.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is absolute surplus value and how is it limited?

Absolute surplus value is generated by extending the length of the working day, increasing the amount of labor performed beyond what is needed for workers’ subsistence. It is limited by natural constraints such as a 24‑hour day and the physical capacity of individual workers.

How did the Factory Act of 1833 attempt to limit child labor?

The Factory Act of 1833 aimed to reduce child labor hours from twelve to ten per day, establishing a legal ceiling for young workers. Weak enforcement, however, allowed employers to circumvent the limit by using relay systems and other tactics.

Who is YaleCourses on YouTube?

YaleCourses is a YouTube channel that publishes videos on a range of topics. Browse more summaries from this channel below.

Does this page include the full transcript of the video?

Yes, the full transcript for this video is available on this page. Click 'Show transcript' in the sidebar to read it.

Helpful resources related to this video

If you want to practice or explore the concepts discussed in the video, these commonly used tools may help.

Historical Analysis Of Working Day Recommended

This book likely delves into the historical development of the working day, exploring its origins and evolution, which is a core theme of the video.

Amazon →

Marxist Theory Of Surplus Value

The video extensively discusses Marx's concepts of absolute and relative surplus value, and how capital accumulates it, making a book on this theory highly relevant.

Amazon →

History Of Labor Laws England

The video specifically mentions factory laws in England from the 14th to the 19th centuries, making a historical account of these laws a direct fit.

Amazon →

Economic History Of Capitalism

The video explores the contingent nature of capitalism and its drive for infinite accumulation, suggesting a broader historical economic analysis would be beneficial.

Amazon →

Links may be affiliate links. We only include resources that are genuinely relevant to the topic.

Summarize another video

Full Transcript YouTube

(dramatic music)
- So the working day had
to be made historically.
Marx is a person who is committed
to the idea that human
beings make their history,
though not without constraints
and there's a lot of constraints
and forces that lead to the working day
being something like complete.
These are the modes in
which you can get value
out of materials and humans, extensively,
intensively, interstitial
or in terms of completeness
or also there's a function of size.
So the first thing was to
have a complete working day.
Now there is no evil demon called capital
that says, "What we need
in this world," right?
It isn't Faust.
We don't have a devil that says,
"Here's how we're gonna shape history."
For various reasons,
history moved in Europe
towards a full working day.
So Marx is clear that the
struggle over the working day
was first fought by people
who needed to get more labor
so you couldn't fight to limit it.
This is where we left off last time
when the fire alarm went off.
Do you remember that?
You're supposed to pull the
fire alarm in the corporations,
not in the university.
He wants to know how we got to a place
where there was a full
working day to begin with,
such that it could be struggled over
for the interests of the workers.
Well, first, it's in the interest of those
who are getting labor out of the workers
and he will tell you that
there's a set of laws
starting already in the 14th century
that try to move people to
work because work is not,
although work is a natural capacity,
work is not a natural necessity
or natural actuality
depending on the abundance
of things that are around.
If you live in an abundance,
work is at a minimum.
You peel the banana
rather than planting it,
growing it, packing it, shipping it
and distributing it,
selling it, et cetera.
So he gives you an
insight into factory laws
from the 14th century
to the late 18th century
in which capitalists and others,
for all sorts of reasons
that are not clear
until capitalism becomes industrial,
try to extend the working day
to a full compliment of hours.
It's an uphill battle
and Marx calls it what it
is, a traffic in human flesh.
So you could say that chattel slavery
is one kind of traffic in human flesh,
but this rising tide that is capital,
globally because of
Europe's outward movements,
is in general a traffic in human flesh,
which starts with two modes of violence
or pressure or force being exerted.
One is expropriation,
which I mentioned before in which people
are dispossessed of
what they already have.
A kind of false scarcity is made
so that you need to go travel
or move yourself towards
work in a different way,
plus extortion where those resources
that have been taken
away are then rented back
to the workers on the
condition that they work.
This is a basic mechanism
that Marx wants to lay out
and you'll hear more about
the historical events
and the blood that was let
in the chapter called,
"The So-Called Original Accumulation."
But here he's just indicating that
before it could be fought
over from the workers,
it had to be constituted.
One big impetus here
was the plague, he says,
so there are historical
events that are somehow
kind to the movement towards capital.
The plague took a lot of
people out of circulation
and a lot of the laws that
required people to work
for certain hours or even had the idea
that a day could be filled up with work
or even that it could be regularized
came in the wake of this devastating
event in Europe where
people had to be moved
to work because they had
got unused to working.
Remember this?
Recently happened again,
and some things that were
offered in recompense
were reasonable wages.
These are ideas that come
into European history,
at least for the first
time for these reasons
and get taken up by capital later.
Reasonable wages for fuller work
starts in the late Middle Ages,
gets enshrined in law in
the early Renaissance,
is reemphasized, as Marx says.
He's just cherry picking history here.
So you could do more research in this
and people have, but you
notice how he uses history
to exemplify how capital gets started
and the kinds of things it needs.
For example, Elizabeth I,
in 1562, limited the length
and amount of breaks
that workers could take.
All of these laws became custom in habit
and then got used by capitalism.
But it isn't until the late 18th century
that workers had regular weeks, he says.
It's important both to understand
that the advent of capital
is highly contingent
and that there are
other ways to do things.
That's why he keeps giving
you windows onto the past,
not because by any means it was inevitable
that capital should take over
as the main social form
for the entire globe.
What had to be, and here's
an important turning point
for him in his argument,
and also gives you an insight
into the way capital works.
What was common in the late 18th century
as an effect of force
or an effect of the enforcement of laws.
That is to say, if you
don't do this much work
or if you get into debt,
you will be punished.
So the debtor's prison,
the workhouse, punitive work gangs
where people could be
pressed into service.
By the first third of the 19th century,
this became common for all workers
and began to take over as the ethos
that if you didn't work,
you would be punished.
The punishment was taken
out of the realm of law
and brought into the realm of survival.
That's what capitalism did.
This is an important historical
but also theoretical
argument that he's making.
First, he lays out how the
working day was extended.
Then he will tell you how it
was fought over to limit it.
And this is really the most
important news of the chapter.
Between 1833 and 1864,
there was a set of factory laws in England
and he's clear that he starts with England
because that's the country in Europe
that's most industrialized.
And in the story of labor
and sympathetic politicians,
it's almost a tragedy or almost a comedy.
I'm not sure what it is,
but the intentions go awry.
That's what the story is here.
It's a tragic comedy or a common tragedy
because insofar as sympathetic politicians
and laborers work
and successfully limit the working day,
it opens up whole realms
of further exploitation for capital.
At a certain point, capital will say,
"Well, we have a 10 hour working day.
"How much more can we get out
of them in the interstices
"and in the intensity of labor
"and in the completeness with
which they use the machines
"and in making the day
bigger than just the day,
"pushing it into the night
"and then making the workers bigger
"than just an individual worker
"and making each worker much
smaller than an individual,
"just a part worker?"
This is the tragic comedy of the laws
that limit the absolute
length of the working day,
which we said was absolutely 24 hours,
but also absolutely limited
by an individual's
ability, capacity to work
for a certain amount of time.
So you can follow the trials
and tribulations of the factory acts.
Marxs treats them, it's
almost a comic moment,
I have to say.
The tone is comic like,
"Look at what happened.
"Look at these great factory acts
"and look at the aftermath."
Kant's definition of a joke.
Take this with a grain of salt
because Kant was not a funny human being,
but he was good at defining
things, let's just say.
So the definition of a joke is not funny
and that may be a fatal flaw.
His definition of a
joke is taking something
that's meaningful and
making it mean nothing.
And that is in a sense what Marx is doing
with the factory legislation.
It doesn't mean what you
think it means under capital
as any limit will not mean
what you think it means under capital.
That is, it's a limit to be consumed,
to be gone around, to be gone under.
But you have funny stories
and I wanna make sure
that you understand this.
Other sorts of comedies
in which they're working
to put into practice
the Factory Act of 1833,
which was largely supposed
to limit the amount of hours
that children worked,
right, from a 12-hour
day to a 10-hour day.
I was trying all day yesterday
to get my kid to do his homework.
So I sympathize.
We need some factory legislation.
This is why I have bags under my eyes
'cause at midnight, we were
still working on the...
And he tells you all about
how even if they do go into effect,
the factory owners nibble away at it
and it's very hard to enforce.
But insofar as it failed, it
opened up a whole other realm
of struggle in which
the workers finally won.
It failed to be enforced
and it failed to be in effect as a law.
But the workers were like,
and this isn't not a bad thing,
Marx thinks, it's just a fact.
The workers were like,
"Well, you don't have a law
"that's protecting us,
"that's keeping our children
"from working themselves to death
"or keeping us from having to
work at your back and call,
"so we'll just not go to work."
The factory owners were like,
"Okay, here's our limit.
"We'll give you a 12-hour workday
"regardless of the legislation,"
and still the workers who
fight for the absolute length
of the working day are missing
all the other more subtle ways
in which capital will exploit them
and which are very hard to fight against.
You will see when we get to
the other big fat chapter,
the machinery chapter,
how hard it is to
struggle against machines.
It's like they don't
respond in the same way.
Sabotage is possible,
but machines can be fixed
and repurchased and the
takeover of factory work
by machines cannot be stopped.
Just so you know, if you want
to have a horrific picture
of child labor that's
still going in the world,
look at silk work in
various places in the world
where children are still employed
because of their little fingers.
So you can see that even
limiting these things
is an ongoing battle
and as capital expands
and takes over in other
places in the world,
the battles have to be fought again.
Here are some of the downsides
of trying to legally limit child labor.
Did you get these?
It kind of sucks if you
wanna fight legal battles.
Insofar as you limit child labor time,
it establishes child labor
as part of the system.
This is Marx's point.
Insofar as you limit child labor,
it changes the terms of the battle
from how long they work
to what is a child?
Remember these funny parts?
They're like, "Well, a
child doesn't start till,
"you know," wait, what was it?
I'm trying to limit work under 10.
So they say, "Well, you know,
"a child is only under six.
"Sure, we can limit that."
They can redefine what a child is.
They can redefine what counts
as a starting time for labor.
They can put children in relays
where it doesn't take children out.
It might reduce the time
for any individual child,
but it brings many more
children into the labor force.
Is that a good or a bad?
You can see how capital tries
to overcome all these limits
through cheating, through reinterpreting,
through the obvious silences
of any law which always
open up all the areas
that are not regulated
for capital to export.
These are what he's showing you.
Here are the limits to
legal limitation on capital.
Now what happened over
this period until 1864
was that limits on the
duration of the working day
and on the duration of work
for certain classes of workers
became defacto conventions.
You couldn't get around it.
So even though child labor under 14
wasn't banned until,
in England, until 1933,
I believe so not that long ago.
All the other limits, including the limits
on the working day in terms
of its extensive length
became conventions.
You cannot ask someone to work 12 hours
in our sphere of the world.
So what do they do?
Well, the pressure to
produce surplus value
is unending and increasing.
So Marx will show you how,
internal to the system
of capital, pardon me,
there's a possibility for
increasing surplus value
that doesn't involve
extending the working day.
And here we get to Chapter 9,
"The Rate and Amount of Surplus Value."
Before we get to the the ABCs of capital,
we'll just talk about Chapter 9 briefly.
Do you have questions about 8
incidentally while we're here?
Yeah, Tomas.
- So we said that in
the early 18th century
with the work gangs and so on,
the ethos of debt punishment,
the ones that instituted,
but I remember from other readings,
even in like ancient Greece,
debt punishment was a
very contentious subject.
So does he deal with that at all?
- He's really only
interested in showing how,
his theoretical interest is to show how
what was originally an effective force
becomes subsumed into the
system in a matter of course,
such that by this time you get
up and go to work willingly
and you don't expect punishment
for not going to work, you'll just starve.
That's his aim here.
So it's not really a historical point
and he will tell you that the materials
for the capital system come
from all places in history
and have echoes in all places
in history and in the world.
It isn't the case that profits
only are made in capital
or that interest is
only charged in capital,
but they cometogether
in this pernicious cycle
with its own internal drive
to exploit the worker more and more.
That's only in capital.
Other questions about 8? Yes, Richard.
- Could you talk a bit more
about the relay system?
Just like why it's being
considered under this kind
of legislation and what Marx is like?
- So the relay system,
it's not a technical name
for a system of work.
It's what Marx and other
political economists call it.
It's simply a way to preserve child labor
while recognizing that people are fighting
for a less extensive amount of labor time
for each individual child.
And he wants to show you that
the unintended consequence
is that where before you had 10 children
in the workforce, now you have 1,000.
So although there were
parts of the population
that were spared,
and the size of the workforce
is gonna be a big issue here
for him, for a lot of other reasons now.
So you can see how it's a funny
kind of feedback loop or a system
that has its internal
balancing mechanisms.
If it gets pushed down in one
area, it goes up in another.
This is a mode of logic that Marx
is learning from biochemistry of the time
and is not a usual logic for philosophy,
even in the 19th century.
Hegel doesn't think in feedback groups.
Richard.
- I'm sort of like thinking
about like the form
of this chapter
because like in the previous chapters,
like it was very like
abstract of goes awkward.
Why is the upskilling
randomly into all the space?
- That's a great question.
What is the structure of this book?
Why does he suddenly talk about history
after we've been talking
about quasi metaphysical value
objects and ghostly objecthood
and money as a universal equivalent.
All these highly abstract features.
Well, don't forget that
it is the capital system
that actually and really
abstracts these things.
It's not a matter of abstract thought.
Money is as real as anything else,
even though it doesn't
have any useful qualities
aside from trade.
So that's one answer, right?
You could say, in general, this
book is not abstract at all.
Abstraction is not what's
causing your problem
because you use money all the time.
Abstract is not opposite to real.
Abstract means it doesn't
have sensual useful qualities
for your own individual life
except one, in terms of money.
You can trade it for anything.
Why does he get to this chapter now?
Well, the parts of the
book really help you.
So if you can really, maybe this class
is only for the purposes
of understanding the different parts,
have to look at the index.
Good thing we made an index,
I mean a table of contents.
He's concerned with the production
of absolute surplus value.
What is absolute surplus
value? Does anyone know?
Why is it absolute?
- It's the surplus value you get
from trying to extend working day.
- Yeah, that's the definition.
Absolute surplus value is what you get
from trying to extend the working day.
It's absolute 'cause It
has an absolute limit,
24 hours or the capacities
of an individual worker
or the capacities of a group of workers.
So you cannot extend
it past a certain point
so you can know it relatively
precisely and permanently
and where capital needs to grow,
it can't find any more there.
And so he needs to demonstrate this
and the way he demonstrates it is by,
we look at the end of
Chapter 7, necessary labor
and surplus labor taken together.
In other words, the periods of time
during which a worker produces
both the replacement value
of his labor power and surplus value
constitute the absolute
magnitude of his labor time
or the working day.
What he will show here is
no matter what happens,
you can't extend it
and no matter how much
it tries to be limited,
well, the limits to the working day
which become absolute over time, right?
Absoluteness is a matter,
is a historically absolute.
One is logically absolute
no more than 24 hours.
Let me know if you figure
out a way to expand that.
You will be the next multi-billionaire,
trillionaire if you can do that.
But these other limits
become absolute too.
They don't change
and this are the saga in which you learn
how they don't ultimately change.
And also how absolute value necessarily,
because of capital's drive to accumulate,
leads to relative surplus
value as the only mechanism
by which capitalists
can increase their rate
and amount of surplus value.
Isn't this fun?
Rated amount of surplus value, Chapter 9.
Another question.
- Why does the capitalist constantly need
to increase the rate of surplus value?
Like why is there no limit on the amount
that would satisfy the capitalist?
- Volume 3.
You just have to take it on faith
that capital has a drive
to infinite accumulation
and capitalists feel this, let's say,
and become the instruments of this drive.
We'll begin to see one of the reasons
when we get to the
concept of surplus value
and also the techniques
by which it's increased.
But I'll give you a
couple of simple reasons.
So you, you understand that the book
is structured to start
from the narrow entry point
and show you how things
are not as they seem
in your relationship to
commodities and labor.
Then it shows you the actors,
the functions of capital
who are the workers and the capitalists
and how they relate to one another
in the production of value.
First, it shows you how production
of useful goods becomes
the production of value.
Then it shows you how
this production value,
is production of value is fought over
and shaped under the limits
of capital in time and space
and capacity and also in innovation.
And much later, you get to the need
for infinite accumulation.
But there's really, let's say,
let me give you three reasons
for accumulation or the need for growth.
It's a kind of compounding
issue as you go.
First of all, there's the need for more.
So we are dealing now with
the need for more, right?
More than just the value that's created
by the worker in making a thing.
You need surplus value.
Later, you'll understand
why you need more of more.
So an increasing rate of more, moreness.
Why do you need more?
Why do you need more?
Do you know?
This, we learned in Chapter 7.
- Because this more covers
this about like a subsistence
of the capitalist and the
expansion of the business
- And the like rainy day.
- Covers the capitalist subsistence,
covers a rainy day fund,
covers the means of production.
So the means of subsistence,
the means of production,
the capitalist's own means of subsistence
is all covered by the workers' work.
So you can see why it needs
more than just what they need
to survive themselves.
If you had an association
of free laborers who eat,
everyone was laboring,
everyone produced their own subsistence,
you would not have a capital system.
This is the more is necessary
from the capitalist perspective
for their own survival
and the survival of their business.
Let me give you two reasons
why you need more and more.
One is contingencies.
So in the reproduction of the
business for the next year,
you always need extra over the year before
because you don't know
what's gonna come up
and you prepare for
eventualities like crop failures
and the other is competition,
which is another contingency
in which someone else might
suddenly be making a thing
more cheaply and you might
have to invest more capital
so that you can keep up with them.
That's the main engine.
That's one main engine
You can see another engine
of infinite accumulation
is finance, investment, right,
'cause investment goes where
the rates of return are higher
and if you need capital to
prepare for an eventuality
that someone will have a machine
that makes the things twice
as fast as you do, you need
to have that in reserve.
Otherwise you go under at
every change of technology.
You need to get that from a financier,
from a bank who will
invest where the rates
of return are gonna be even higher.
So again, this is coming in Volume 3.
Those are the pressures
from the whole system,
require each capitalist
to be pushing towards
infinite accumulation.
Other questions?
Okay, let's work on rate
and amount of surplus value.
I only wanna give you a
sense, this is Chapter 9,
"Working Day is Law."
Here he is beginning on a topic
that becomes very important later,
the relationship between constant capital
and variable capital.
To remind you what they
are, constant capital
is the investment in means of production
that only transfers its
value to the commodities.
It's constant because
it doesn't add anything.
Variable capital we know is
only labor in Marx's account
and it is the amount a capitalist
has to spend on labor power whose return
is greater than the investment.
It's the only place the more
comes from according to Marx.
Whereas constant capital
is the amount a capitalist
has to spend on the means of production
where the return is equal to the advance.
No capitalist would continue
if they only got back what they put in.
So the difference between variable capital
and constant capital matters.
It's not the place where
you can ratchet up the lever
to get more out of it,
that we're gonna see in the later chapter
is between surplus value and
the value of labor power.
But later, the relationship
between constant
and variable capital is
gonna become very important
because in very capital heavy industries,
they have a lower rate of profit overall
than in other industries
because you can only get
more out of the labor.
That becomes important later.
That's called the organic
composition of capital.
Thomas, and then-
- The constant capital, is that equivalent
to the economic term fixed capital?
- Not exactly.
Constant capital has to do
with the rate of return.
Fixed capital has to do
with like how long it lasts.
Fixed capital is compared
to the raw materials.
Fixed capital is like machinery,
but constant capital
includes the materials.
These are fine distinctions.
Samuel.
- Does Marx know for times
when variable capital returns
less than it's investing?
Like everyone gets sick.
- Yeah.
Yeah, variable capital labor
often returns less than you invest in
and then you either have to
push harder in the next quarter
or you go outta business eventually
if it keeps going that way.
In any individual capital
situation, in a business,
let's say, these things
fluctuate as they fluctuate.
Labor is like, I don't know,
everyone gets wiped out
by COVID for six weeks
and you're in trouble
and in another business, in
another part of the world,
same industry, they don't.
This is part of the averaging
of the way these things work.
We're dealing now hypothetically
with individual capitals.
Volume 1 deals with individual capitals.
But, of course, you have to understand
that these things are
spread out and averaged
over a whole economic system,
over whole industries,
in sectors and between sectors.
Okay.
So we know that variable capital
just to say, now we've got this
other V which is not value,
but variable capital.
There is a number of limits.
We know there's a limit of 24 hours.
We know there's an
individual worker's limit
of their capacities,
but you also notice that the surplus value
in relation to an individual's
capacities is indeterminate.
Someone's capacities are not known
until you work them hard enough
so that they show you
where their limits are.
It's very different than the
extension of a working day.
There is a expandable limit,
which is the number of
workers that you can hire
and out of these limited situations,
the capitalist has to be able to ascertain
and increase where needed
the surplus value that's
returned, that comes out of it.
So I like to think of these
as the capitalists' tools.
The capitalist is a kind of worker
and the machine that they
work are the laborers
and this machine has levers
that they can move up and down.
This, we talked about the
length of the day is one lever.
You can move up and down,
you can move it up slightly,
but it has an absolute limit.
The intensity of labor,
the number of workers is another labor
and the ratio of the value of labor power
to surplus value.
This, we're moving towards
in relative surplus value.
Relative surplus value,
I would say, is the main
lesson of this book.
That's the thing that makes
life for workers under capital
and for capitalists so dicey
'cause you have to be
constantly innovating new ways
to get more out of your labor.
That's no fun.
That's, well, clearly why
I'm clearly not a capitalist,
let's say, 'cause that
doesn't sound fun to me.
What we learn in this chapter is that
the rate and amount of surplus value
are not the same thing.
So in general, when you
have an individual worker,
the rate and amount of
surplus value are the same.
I say, you're working half
the day surplus labor,
half the day necessary labor.
It's 100% rate of surplus value.
Does this make sense?
Just to go back to that.
This would look like,
just imagine that those
are exactly the same.
This would be 100% surplus value
and in this case, if
it's 10 here and 10 here,
the amount and rate are the same.
If you hire many, many more workers
and they work the same ratio of necessary
to surplus labor time, you
have a much higher amount
of surplus value and the same rate.
This is the impetus to
collectivize, cooperatize
to make a group subject out of labor.
This is one of the impetuses.
With one worker in your business,
you can never make the
amount higher than the rate.
And, of course, capitalists
are most interested
in the amount, the absolute
amount of surplus value
that comes back
because they have an
absolute amount of things
they have to cover, loans
they have to pay back,
future contingencies
they have to plan for.
AJ.
- Under collectivized labor, is there also
that same impetus in creating
relative surplus value?
Or is that only a feature of capitalism?
- You mean under previous
kinds of group labor?
- Sure.
- No, there is no relative surplus value.
There's no need to increase
it under other systems.
Only here, Samuel.
- If capitalists were really interested
in having this more to
cover (indistinct) sense
and being better,
wouldn't we, like, I feel
like we've gone beyond
that in the sense that
expanding a business
also calls smart.
So the amount you're getting is more,
but you're gonna have to put more of that
into your slush fund
and you're gonna have to put, sorry,
into your rainy day fund
and you're gonna have to-
- Well, and also when you
increase, that's a good point.
So Samuel's point is that when
you increase from one worker
to 100 workers, you don't only,
you have to have a lot more capital.
And that's where we're getting to this
in the cooperation chapter.
You have to pay that much more
wages upfront.
You have to have that
money in an absolute terms
and you have to put that much more means
of production into movement.
So you have to have more
tools and more raw materials.
No question.
That's why the capitalists are few
and the workers are many.
Capital has to concentrate
to put more laborers to work.
We're getting to that in
the cooperation chapter.
That's a good intuition. Yeah.
Oh, sorry, there were two of
you raised your hands, David.
- Going back to the idea
that how capitalist logic
essentially forces capitalists
to constantly drive for growth.
I'm wondering if you talk
a bit about post-moderate
of something like the degrowth? Yeah.
- Degrowth, the question
is whether degrowth,
I think your question is maybe
slightly suspicious question.
I don't know.
I'm suspicious of whether degrowth
can actually have an effect
on the capital system.
Marx thinks at this
point that the only way
to stop the growth impetus
is to overcome capital,
the capital system.
The rest of that question,
which is exploring the
different degrowth movements
and talking about Kohei
Saito's book on degrowth
is for a different class.
- I'm just trying to understand,
you said here the rate
was equal to the amount
of surplus value.
- Yeah.
- Where the-
- For one worth, for one worker.
- Is 10?
- Yeah.
- So what do you mean by like 100% rate
is equal to amount of 10?
- What do I mean?
That it's not that the two are equal,
it's that the amount doesn't change.
The amount will only
change if the rate goes up.
Here, with 100 workers,
the absolute amount changes
without the rate going up.
So hiring more workers,
having a collectivized,
this is just one benefit
of having a troop.
Marx uses military metaphors
in the cooperation chapter.
Having a troop of laborers is
beneficial in absolute terms
because the rate can stay the same.
So you don't have to exhaust anybody,
but you're getting much
more of an absolute amount
of surplus value out it if
you can afford that. Yeah.
- I just, I had a follow
up on the other question
about expanding your business,
and I'm sure that this
will come up again later,
but how much of the constant capital
can go towards buying new machinery
or does that all come from like
the investing surplus value
back into the business?
- Constant capital is an important topic.
It will become more
important as we go on here.
Again, he's working with
a simple schema first
where you have a
difference between constant
and variable capital,
how much you have to
invest in constant capital,
how much of your surplus
value has to go into,
let's say, new constant
capital is an issue.
And that's another thing
that drives capitalists towards growth
rather than stagnation or stasis.
Because as you'll see in
the cooperation chapter
and the concept of relative surplus value,
when a technical revolution happens,
you have to get on board
or else you're dead.
And so in full fledged capital system
where technical
revolutions change the rate
and amount of surplus value like that,
suddenly people are
using weaving machines.
You can't afford to pay your weavers
because they're selling for a
quarter of what you sell for
or they're making that much more product
and can keep investing in machinery,
can spread their machinery out,
can improve their machinery.
You have to get on board or you die.
All right, there's lots of questions.
I'm afraid we're not
gonna move on, Samuel.
- So this is a quick question
and it might be kind of silly.
So Marx says describing a
system where capitalists
act on their amount, the absolute amount
of surplus value they get
by exploiting the labor basically,
like by having them work is surplus kind.
- Yeah.
- And why does this analysis not include
what I feel is also happens a lot,
which is like price gouge, right,
where capitalists create monopoly,
which was happening in
the 19th century where-
- Sure, monopoly is a-
- And other and cartels
and whatever, where capitalists
can extort the buyer.
- Uh-huh.
The question is about monopoly,
price gouging, cartels,
collusion, price fixing, all sorts of ways
in which you get more out of the buyer.
Marx is concentrating here.
Are you okay?
- Yeah, I swallowed wrong.
- Okay. Marx does that to you.
Marx is isolating certain
features of capital
which have not been isolated.
That is here the production process,
those are on the merchant
side and on the exchange side,
and that is dealt with in Volume 2.
But it turns out that
those things in the end
are much weaker than the
forces of production,
the creation of surplus value.
If I overcharge because I have a monopoly,
very soon someone is going
to break that monopoly.
This is Marx's idea at the very least.
And Ricardo's idea, monopolies get broken
either by laws or by
innovative new technologies,
which render the whole industry obsolete.
So the movement of capital he thinks
is towards things selling at their value.
That's the tendency.
Aiden, you have a question.
- What is it about the
characterization of labor
that allows you to expand your margins
whereas the individual
worker sees the same?
- I mean, it's purely mathematical.
You have, well, you're just
making more surplus value.
You have, so here, if
you have 100 workers,
you're making 1,000 in surplus value
and you have 1,000 that
you have to lay out, right?
You're making that back
too, of course, right?
So your absolute amount goes way up.
It's a preparation.
It's a bit of an abstraction.
It's a preparation for
understanding how rate
and amount have a different effect
on how much the capitalist gets back.
Just keep that in mind. Okay, let's go on.
Now we get to the center
of the book, Section 4.
How are we doing for time?
Oh, we have hardly any time.
"The Production of
Relative Surplus Value,"
this is the place where
capitalists really shine.
In this chapter, we'll come
back to it on Wednesday
and spend some time with it.
There are three crucial issues.
One is that the lever capitalists
use more than anything in
fully developed capitalism
to increase the rate
and amount of surplus value
is increase in productivity.
The rest of part four is
about how they do that.
The second crucial issue in this chapter
is that the only revolution
possible under capital
that isn't against capital
is technical revolutions
that happen constantly
because it's one way to
increase productivity
and it spreads like wildfire
and it can't be stopped.
If you wonder why we're
captured by machines,
it's not because we love them
or 'cause we're innovative,
it's because they took over
and someone had the great
idea that they should be
for consumption as well.
But, of course, for consumption
means that all of your personal
stuff now becomes work.
The other crucial issue that
comes up in this chapter
is the disadvantage of
productivity increases.
Because in general, when
you increase productivity,
the value of the products drops.
Increase in productivity is
inversely proportional to value.
So what to do, it looks
like you can never get ahead
because if I make more of
the same in the same amount
of time, since we know
socially necessary average
abstract labor time, SNALT,
is what determines value.
If I can make it faster,
if the social average
for making something is
faster, the value drops.
What to do?
The upshot, which we'll get to next time,
is that only certain types
of productivity increases,
actually increase the
capitalist bottom line.
Those are increases in the productivity
on the means of subsistence on products
that go into necessary labor time
or the value of labor power.
So let's just look at this before you go.
The ABCs of capital, this
is the center of the book.
Since we can't, this is an absolute limit.
The limit of the day,
the limit of the day,
we have to change the ratio of the value
of labor power to surplus value.
That's the only way that
they can increase their take,
is by driving the value of labor down.
So Marx shows you that if
you can move B to B prime,
then relatively speaking,
the amount of surplus
value is more in relation
to the value of labor power.
That's why this is called
relative surplus value.
All of capital's efforts are concentrated
in moving from B to B prime in modern,
full fledged competitive industrial
and hyper-industrial capital,
including in finance capital.
All focused on that gap.
One version of the focus on that gap
is Taylorism, making you more efficient
on the workflow, where they're timing you
on your bathroom breaks
and they're timing you
on every little activity.
One version is (indistinct)
making you do just a part
of something because
it's much more efficient
if you only polish one side
of a thing while someone else is polishing
the other side of a thing.
You do it at the same
time, then it's done.
So long as that thing reduces the cost
of the means of subsistence.
That could include utilizing better,
utilizing more completely the machines
that make your means of subsistence.
What's a means of subsistence?
Healthcare, housing,
nourishment. What else?
Clothing, so shirts is his example.
If you have a machine that
is making shirts for workers
and you're using that
machine only during the day,
if you start to use it at night,
you are increasing your
absolute surplus value
on that and you're
decreasing the cost of labor
because it's cheaper
for them to get shirts.
If that means you need to
get shirts for 1 cent an hour
of labor from Bangladesh or Vietnam
or wherever you get it temporarily,
that decreases the cost
of labor where you are
and increases the surplus value.
So the completeness of the use of machines
is one important lever for them.
The size of the workforce is a lever.
The interstitial increases
where you're not taking
that many breaks and
you get to work on time
or you get to work early.
The intensiveness of agricultural work,
you have to pick so and
so more stuff in an hour,
use up more of your energy,
use up workers more quickly,
and that will decrease the cost
of labor power.
Like a marathon. Hasan.
- Would it be appropriate
to say the capitalists
are not actually should be interested
in increase in production,
but decrease the value?
- Yeah, the capitalist interest
is to decrease the value of labor power.
The capitalist interest is
to decrease the value of labor power.
That's, you know, that's
beyond good and evil.
It's a fact of the
system. See you next time.
(upbeat music)