constant capital
Oct 18 2007 22:35
This thread is prompted by some stuff on the fictitious capital/ Rosa Luxemburg thread.
Constant capital is a headfuck. Its the trickiest thing in Marx, in my opinion.
Its fine when he's dealing with individual capitals, but when its looked at from society as a whole its a different story. It first becomes a problem in volume 1 of Capital when he explains the rising proportion of constant to variable capital in terms of rising productivity, acknowledges that this rising productivity in turn tends to cause the value of each given amount of means of production to fall, and leaves you wondering why these 2 tendencies cant/dont just cancel each other out. I think his explanation of this in volume 1 is uncharacteristically bad. Or rather he doesn't explain it. (I've only read a wee bit of Vol 2.)
Mikus, what would you say to the idea that what the rising value of constant capital fundamentally expresses is not rising productivity, but the fact that each worker is working with more of other people's labour. (ie that what it really is is an increasing socialisation of production).
Would I be right in thinking that this is a simpler way of putting what Marx is actually saying?
Oct 19 2007 01:16
#2
Quote:
Mikus, what would you say to the idea that what the rising value of constant capital fundamentally expresses is not rising productivity, but the fact that each worker is working with more of other people's labour. (ie that what it really is is an increasing socialisation of production).
Well, greater constant capital implies interdependence most immediately. However, in the context of capitalism it also implies greater productivity since capitalists would tend to only develop technologies of interdependence when if they yielded greater productivity.
The question of the converse is trickier. Does increased productivity imply greater interdependence within production? I think that the assumption that human beings are social beings would tend to imply this. There are a number of ways to treat this. One argument I'd make is that those situations where progress creates a situation of less interdependence become irrelevant to the economy over time - if a person can satisfy a given need themselves in a decreasing amount of time then it is unlikely that satisfying this need will be a part of the capitalist economy. If some activities, like cooking or washing, involve less interdependence and then play less of a part in the economy, other parts involve increasing interdependence like the production of automobiles or the construction of houses. These latter parts are the industries which tend to play a greater role in the economy as it evolves.
I don't know if Marx made any arguments at all similar to this. I do think this is worth discussing. Perhaps you could mention what section of Capital volume I you are talking about.
Red
Oct 19 2007 07:55
#3
I'm not sure I see the point of this discussion or where it's meant to be going, but let's at least start on the right foot. Constant capital (like all capital) is not a thing. It's a value (which is reflection of a social relation) which can vary up and down (but generally down) for all sorts of reasons without its physical embodiments changing in any way. Its physical embodiments are of course a product of labour.
It's a value which is transferred without increasing to the product (hence its name). And it shouldn't be confused with fixed capital, which is a part of constant capital that is gradually transferred to products over more than one process of production (as opposed to circulating capital, which is a part of constant capital that is transferred to a product in one go).
Hope this is not too simple.
Oct 19 2007 08:35
#4
capricorn wrote:
Constant capital (like all capital) is not a thing. It's a value (which is reflection of a social relation) which can vary up and down (but generally down) for all sorts of reasons without its physical embodiments changing in any way
I'm not sure about this - it is a thing (use value) which has an (exchange) value (which can vary over time).
capricorn wrote:
It's a value which is transferred without increasing to the product (hence its name). And it shouldn't be confused with fixed capital, which is a part of constant capital that is gradually transferred to products over more than one process of production (as opposed to circulating capital, which is a part of constant capital that is transferred to a product in one go).
I think this is wrong.
capricorn wrote:
It's a value which is transferred without increasing to the product (hence its name).
this is actually circulating capital that you are talking about here. Marx states this clearly here -
Marx, vol. 2, chap. 8 wrote:
All other material components of the capital advanced in the production process ... form ... circulating or fluid capital
Also,
capricorn wrote:
fixed capital, which is a part of constant capital that is gradually transferred to products over more than one process of production
Fixed capital is a part of constant capital, but it isn't gradually transferred to products over more than one process - that's the point, that it isn't transferred at all - it is circulating capital that is transferred, and fixed capital that is left behind (i.e. the bit of the factory/machines that isn't used up by the production that has thus far been carried out). Marx is also quite clear on this -
Marx, vol. 2, chap. 8 wrote:
A part of its [capital's] value always remains fixed in it as long as it continues to function, and remains distinct from the commodities that it helps to produce. This peculiarity is what gives this part of the constant capital the form of fixed capital.
Oct 19 2007 15:45
#5
Actually, John, I did make a mistake, but not the one you allege. I should have said that circulating capital includes not only that part of constant capital whose value is wholly transferred to the product (eg raw materials, power, etc) but also the capital used to pay wages (purchase labour power), which is also wholly transferred to the product but which also adds new value which is incorporated in the product (hence its name of "variable capital", ie that part of capital whose value varies, in fact increases).
As regards the difference between fixed and circulating capital, I'm afraid you are just plain wrong. These are concepts employed in conventional, academic economics and even they admit that a part of the value of fixed capital (machinery, factory buildings, etc) is transferred to the product, as depreciation.
I can see I was right about the need to be clear on the basic concepts before embarking on a discussion of the finer points.
Oct 19 2007 18:10
#6
Capricorn is correct, John was plain wrong.
I don't have Capital with me but if it's necessary I can help show that capricorn's definitions are the same ones that Marx used. I think in mainstream economics the categories are somewhat different, however, as in Marx the terms are closely related to the use of constant and variable capital, which aren't used in mainstream economics. But basically they are very similar.
To re-sum up what (I think) capricorn was saying:
Fixed capital is capital that transfers its value piecemeal to commodities over time. (Like machines, or even improved soil.)
A portion of the value of that fixed capital is transferred to the product, and a portion of that value remains behind in the machine.
Circulating constant capital is that portion of constant capital which transfers its value in whole to a product, like raw materials, fuel, etc.
John is confusing circulating and fixed capital when he says that ALL value which is transferred to a commodity is circulating capital, and that ONLY value left behind in machinery is fixed capital. I mean, you can define things in that way if you'd like, but you will just be causing a huge amount of confusion in discussions. (Not that there isn't already confusion.) And you will also be losing the distinction between the portion of value in a commodity transferred by machinery and such (i.e. fixed capital in Marx's definition) and the portion of value transferred by raw materials, etc. (circulating constant capital).
As it so happens, if I remember correctly Geert Reuten (fairly well known Marxist-ish economist) made the same mistake at the Historical Materialism conference last year. It wasn't really relevant to what his talk was on, but it caused a huge debate on the issue.
Mike
Oct 19 2007 18:14
#7
As far as interdependence goes, I think it's pointless to try to collapse the argument about OCC rising into an argument about interdependence.
Even if you prove that interdependence increases while the OCC rises, this is irrelevant since Marx's argument depends directly on a rising OCC rather than on increasing interdependence. Marx's argument would remain true if the OCC rose and interdependence fell, for example.
So you can make a separate argument about increasing interdependence (to a large extent this is already there in Marx) but this can't directly ground the reserve army of labor theory or the falling rate of profit theory, which are the primary functions of Marx's argument about the OCC.
Mike
Oct 19 2007 18:17
#8
except if naturally they are coextensive - occ and interdependence 
Oct 19 2007 18:26
#9
Capricorn is correct about fixed and circulating capital.
Here is Marx on fixed capital:
Quote:
A portion of the advanced capital-value becomes fixed in this form determined by the function of the instruments of labour in the process. In the performance of this function, and thus by the wear and tear of the instruments of labour, a part of their value passes on to the product, while the other remains fixed in the instruments of labour and thus in the process of production. The value fixed in this way decreases steadily, until the instrument of labour is worn out, its value having been distributed during a shorter or longer period over a mass of products originating from a series of constantly repeated labour-processes. (Capital, volume 2, Penguin, 237-238)
Looking at the whole paragraph from which john quotes:
Quote:
This portion of the capital-value fixed in the instrument of labour circulates as well as any other. We have seen in general that all capital-value is constantly in circulation, and that in this sense all capital is circulating capital. But the circulation of the portion of capital which we are now studying is peculiar. In the first place it does not circulate in its use-form, but it is merely its value that circulates, and this takes place gradually, piecemeal, in proportion as it passes from it to the product, which circulates as a commodity. During the entire period of its functioning, a part of its value always remain fixed in it, independently of the commodities which it helps to produce. It is this peculiarity which gives to this portion of constant capital the form of fixed capital. All the other material parts of capital advanced in the process of production form by way of contrast the circulating, or fluid, capital. (Capital, volume 2, Penguin, 238)
Oct 19 2007 18:31
#10
Quote:
Even if you prove that interdependence increases while the OCC rises, this is irrelevant since Marx's argument depends directly on a rising OCC rather than on increasing interdependence. Marx's argument would remain true if the OCC rose and interdependence fell, for example.
it's totally irrelavent what marx says here unless you mean you won't be able to be repeating an argument made by marx
i dunno if it's my imagination but i often see errors like that in your posts mikus.
Oct 19 2007 18:36
#11
lem wrote:
Quote:
Even if you prove that interdependence increases while the OCC rises, this is irrelevant since Marx's argument depends directly on a rising OCC rather than on increasing interdependence. Marx's argument would remain true if the OCC rose and interdependence fell, for example.it's totally irrelavent what marx says here unless you mean you won't be able to be repeating an argument made by marx
i dunno if it's my imagination but i often see errors like that in your posts mikus.
Lem, you are out of your element here. Cardinal Tourette was almost surely wondering about the OCC because of either/both the reserve army argument or the falling rate of profit argument. No one ever argues about the OCC for its own sake. Why? Because it doesn't really matter. And his talk of devaluation (which I still haven't gotten around to answering) is a further hint at this.
Mike
Oct 19 2007 18:43
#12
Quote:
Even if you prove that interdependence increases while the OCC rises, this is irrelevant since Marx's argument depends directly on a rising OCC rather than on increasing interdependence. Marx's argument would remain true if the OCC rose and interdependence fell, for example.
So you can make a separate argument about increasing interdependence (to a large extent this is already there in Marx) but this can't directly ground the reserve army of labor theory or the falling rate of profit theory
FACT: by normal understanding of 'truth' etc. it doesn't matter what the individual is arguing for.
say i argue that 1 litre of water quenches my thirst, and is a clear liquid, and i therefore [being thirsty] must drink 1 litre of this pint of clear liquid infront of me. now someone proves that that h20 is naturally coextensive with water. now that is proof that i must drink the clear liquid, regardless of the fact that i didn't use that fact in my argument.
i respect your knowledge of marx but i don't think you understand 'necessity' [-or something like that].
eta what you said is just wrong mikus
Oct 19 2007 20:42
#13
Mikus how pompous
Quote:
Lem, you are out of your element here.
. So much for discussion or helping a comrade to understand!
There is a tendency in this discussion to simply see constant capital as being machines, factory building , where as Marx idea of constant capital includes: docks, ports, transport systems, communication systems and the like This adds a much wider framework to the question of the relationship between Surplus value, Variable and constant capital.
Oct 19 2007 20:47
#14
right - yes - sorry - I might well be wrong here - need to check again the section of capital I'm quoting from, but you all seem more sure than me, which suggests that I was wrong on this.
Oct 19 2007 20:59
#15
ernie wrote:
Mikus how pompous
Quote:
Lem, you are out of your element here.. So much for discussion or helping a comrade to understand!
Sorry, I suppose my general disregard for the ICC'er arguments made me overreact at Lem. I just find him frustrating because I don't know what he's on about usually. I have nothing against the guy.
I suppose I will just do what everyone else does and not respond to him.
Oct 19 2007 21:06
#16
well fair enough but TBH th following is entirely illogical:
Quote:
this [interdependence] can't directly ground the reserve army of labor theory or the falling rate of profit theory
on the basis of this
Quote:
Marx's argument depends directly on a rising OCC rather than on increasing interdependence
eta no response.
mine is a moral victory 
Oct 19 2007 23:57
#17
Ok to clarify what I maintain is a slippery concept lets start from the basics right enough.
I'm wondering if anyone disagrees with any of the following, in particular the last line:
The substance of value is abstract labour.
The magnitude of value of a thing is the amount of this labour society requires to produce it.
The material of constant capital is the means of production consumed in a given process of production.
The value of constant capital is the amount of labour necessary to produce this means of production which is productively consumed.
In being productively consumed, the means of production has its value preserved.
But the stuff of the means of production itself is not preserved. Looking at society's production as a whole, the means of production is continually having to be produced again.
The amount of abstract labour which consitutes the magnitude of value of the constant capital is an amount of abstract labour which keeps having to be done to reproduce the stuff in which this constant capital is embodied.
(Purely for the sake of simplicity, for anybody struggling with the society-as-a-whole side of things, imagine a case of simple reproduction, no accumulation, and no changes in productivity/no technical developments. Production goes on, the workers consume their share, the non-accumulating exploiters consume theirs, and everything that gets used up in production gets continually replaced so nothing changes.)
Oct 20 2007 01:16
#18
The magnitude of value of a thing is I believe the amount of socially necessary labor required to REproduce it.
Constant capital is all dead labor going into the production process, or the non labor-power (living labor)
BUT it has nothing to do with the material consumed. I think you are refering to circulating capital and there you are wrong, as was clarified above, i.e circulating constant capital is the products who's values are entirely transfered in one go, while fixed capital is the products of constant capital which are not entirely consumed in one production period. (anything which does not go all at once, is fixed).
The value of the means of production are not preserved, because the value of certain machines changes all the time, and it can be entirely devalued if production techniques change too rapidly. There is nothing that ensures its preservation. In the transfer of value from m. of p. to the new product, this is measured according to the value of those same means of production now at the time of production. So it's original cost, or value, is neither preserved nor even taken into account in the analysis of the value of the final commodity capital.
The amount of abstract labor is measured by the socially necessary labor time required to reroduce the commodities...but the stuff in which constant capital is embodied makes no sense. Do you mean abstract labor embodied in the capital? The capital is the (self-expanding) value, and that value is in the constant capital (stuff) when it is no longer in the form of money capital.
Yes the means of production in any society is constantly having to be reproduced.
I think that is correct...
maya
Oct 23 2007 22:21
#19
Is nobody else disagreeing (or agreeing) with my last post?
Oct 23 2007 22:33
#20
i think the last point is mute and the penulitiate point i'm not sure of. otherwise i'm sure it's fine!
Oct 24 2007 00:32
#21
Yeah, I was disagreeing with some of it... but I guess I didn't explicitly say so. Did you not read the post, or is it not obvious that there is disagreement? Although when you said produce it, I said reproduce because I wasn't sure if you meant something already produced or what. It was more of a clarification. It's all really more of a clearification, or is asking for one from you. My last point is obviously in agreement.
Sorry I don't like arguing online. Consider it clarification that is somewhat in disagreement.
Maya
Oct 24 2007 00:53
#22
iirc marx does say constant capital is consumed tho.
oh i'm probably wrong i do remember him going on about something being used up in the bit about machines maybe. sorry.
Oct 24 2007 01:11
#23
Quote:
Machinery produces relative surplus-value; not only by directly depreciating the value of labour-power, and by indirectly cheapening the same through cheapening the commodities that enter into its reproduction, but also, when it is first introduced sporadically into an industry, by converting the labour employed by the owner of that machinery
Quote:
machinery which, being constant capital, does not produce surplus-value.
surely commodities are produced though, he uses that in a sentence countless times.
Quote:
The productiveness of machinery is, as we saw, inversely proportional to the value transferred by it to the product. The longer the life of the machine, the greater is the mass of the products over which the value transmitted by the machine is spread, and the less is the portion of that value added to each single commodity.
Quote:
Labour uses up its material factors, its subject and its instruments, consumes them, and is therefore a process of consumption.
Quote:
In so far then, as its instruments and subjects are themselves products, labour consumes products in order to create products, or in other words, consumes one set of products by turning them into means of production for another set.
so yes constant capital is consumed and in that consumption value is transfered to the product. i don't know about all this reproduction lark tho.
Oct 24 2007 01:28
#24
yeah, I never said value wasn't transfered. In fact, I said it was transfered, as opposed to preserved. It isn't tangible though, and it doesn't just go into the product from the machine through some sort of metamorphosis of matter. It is purely social. What is transfered is an amount of social labor, and therefore something abstract-- and as measurement of time, completely subject to change based on the constantly fluxuating abstraction or average, socially necessary labor time. Preservation, connotes matter to me, like conservation.
Oct 24 2007 01:34
#25
unless you mean preserved in the sense that the machine is still useful. The exact value is not preserved though. Things are devalued.
Oct 24 2007 19:20
#26
marxfan, I wasn't confused about whether you were agreeing or disagreeing, i was just asking if anybody else agreed or disagreed.
Actually, I dont think you are disagreeing with me as much as you maybe think. ( You read a fair bit into my post that wasnt there - eg Marx uses "preserved" throughout Chapter 8 of Capital in the sense you use "transferred", at least he does in my Fowkes translation. I wasnt suggesting the value of the means of production cant fall - but fair play, you were trying to give me a proper answer.)
To see the difficulty that I'm trying to get at with this, go back to the question I raised in my first post.
How come the rising productivity of labour doesnt cancel out the rising value of the constant capital, in proportion to the variable?
I'm not just aiming that at marxfan - any answers to that would be appreciated.
Oct 24 2007 19:46
#27
Because occ is a value forumla, and value is a form of labour [not a form of the produtivity of labour]? My marx is terrible.
Oct 24 2007 20:38
#28
Lem wrote:
My marx is terrible.
You're not alone on this one jack - even Karl Marx's "marx" was terrible. It's really just an antiquated and rather irrelevant set of ideas that border on being either overly complicated or terribly simplistic depending on which boring chapter of the tome you read.
It makes just as little sense to attempt to apply Marxist economics to a capitalist society as it does do explain how communism "can't work" using capitalist economical techniques; they simply don't apply to each other.
In any case, who really cares?
Marxist economics would only be used during the utterly useless "socialist stage" of orthodox Marxism
. A stage that as we all know from historical evidence leads right back into Capitalism.
Considering that even the Leninists of the Soviet Union found out rather quickly that Marxist economics didn't actually work, I think it's time to put this old dog out to pasture - for good.
Before he gives us all rabies.
Oct 24 2007 20:49
#29
i think that your being a bit unfair, tho i'm still not sure what capital was getting at. what exactly is a crisis?
i'm more of a fan of his other works tbh, but capital might show the real nature of production. that would be worth something besides relativism.
Oct 24 2007 21:16
#30
Bill Shatner wrote:
Lem wrote:
My marx is terrible.You're not alone on this one jack - even Karl Marx's "marx" was terrible. It's really just an antiquated and rather irrelevant set of ideas that border on being either overly complicated or terribly simplistic depending on which boring chapter of the tome you read.
It makes just as little sense to attempt to apply Marxist economics to a capitalist society as it does do explain how communism "can't work" using capitalist economical techniques; they simply don't apply to each other.
In any case, who really cares?
Marxist economics would only be used during the utterly useless "socialist stage" of orthodox Marxism
. A stage that as we all know from historical evidence leads right back into Capitalism.
Considering that even the Leninists of the Soviet Union found out rather quickly that Marxist economics didn't actually work, I think it's time to put this old dog out to pasture - for good.
Before he gives us all rabies.
So... you don't know what you're talking about.
Why do you feel the need to announce this sad fact on the internet?
Mike
I actually think the opposite, that constant capital is pretty simple, perhaps the simplest concept in Marx.
I'll try to answer you more fully later, but for now I'll give you quick answers:
I don't think Marx's argument is bad here. This is a notorious objection to his theory, however. (It has been brought up by many people -- Sweezy, Robinson, Helen Bauer (Otto Bauer's wife), and I think it's largely what the Okishio theorem proponents were getting at although in a somewhat different way and if it were true, Okishio would be a lot more damning to Marx than Sweezy, Robinson, and Helen Bauer.)
I used to think there were some holes in his argument even though I thought he was basically correct, but now I don't really even think the holes are there. If any holes exist, they are answered in Part 3 of Vol. 3.
No, I don't think this would express what Marx was getting at, exactly, since Marx is saying something more than that. This idea is already encompassed, more or less, in the concept of the technical composition of capital (TCC). The organic composition of capital (OCC) is supposed to express this in value terms. Saying that "each worker is working with more of other people's labour" isn't able to ground the falling rate of profit argument, and possibly not even the reserve army of labor argument (although I'd have to think about this a little more), since it would be entirely possible that the value of the means of production didn't rise at all. Marx's argument requires that their value rises as a proportion of the total capital.
Like I said, I'll try to be more specific about this later.
Mike