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Nick - Pre-Exam Studying

I was planning to be in the student lounge upstairs in the LLA building studying some last minute material for the exam. I should be there tomorrow around 11:00-11:30 AM if anyone is interested in meeting and discussing anything relevant to the test.

See you there~

Study Questions

Part 2

Could surplus value be considered an addiction? how or how not?

Part 3

What two things do Capitalists have to buy on the Market to exist?

Part 4

How can a machine be a "Strike Breaker"?

Part 6

How do wage workers, slaves and serfs appear to be paid differently? What are the actual circumstances vs. the apparent circumstances?

Part 7

Why does it take so much work to be poor under Capital?

Questions from David

Why does the continuation of production require input of some past surplus capital?

What composes the dual sense of capital in the process of accumulation?

How can production increase while the amount of labor-power remains constant?

Under wage labor how are workers subjected to the creation of surplus-value?

What is the relationship between the demand of higher wages and the implementation of machinery?

Peter's Questions

i know there late but here they are anyway

part2
if the capitalist pays for all the raw material and means of production required to produce a commodity why does he not come out even in the end? where does surplus value come from?

part3
when considering the production of value how is the workers day divided?

part 4
when would a capitalist replace variable capital, the source of surplus value, with constant capital, machinery?

Part 6
when paid by piece work why does it not pay off to work above the average pace in the long run?

part 7
what social relation is necessary for the reproduction of capital?

Kyle's Questions

Part 2: The capitalist views the worker in terms of the commodity the worker is selling to the capitalist (labor-power). What prompts the worker to sell him/herself? Is there any basis in natural history for this relationship? Any basis in the history of social production?

Part 3: Under capital does the capitalist have any obligation to the welfare of the worker? Does the capitalist pay the worker for his labor-power—for the value that worker infuses into the commodity in which he/she has objectified his/her labor? If not, on what are the worker’s wages based? What ‘service’ is the capitalist supplying to the process of production—the service for which he/she demands compensation?

Part 4: At what point does the worker relinquish his/her labor-power to the capitalist? At what point does the capitalist pay for the labor power he/she has purchased? In the selling of his/her labor-power, according to Adam Smith, what of him/herself is the laborer giving to the manufacturing process? Is the capitalist paying for these things?

Part 6: What is the difference between time-wages and piece-wages? Under which wage system is it easiest to use the worker’s own motivations against him/her with the ultimate goal of creating more surplus value?

Part 7: For the capitalist system to continue, what two things must it constantly be creating? Why must it have these two things to survive? Why is the cry for more capitalist economic development as a cure for unemployment ultimately a cry for more unemployment?

Scott's Review Questions

Part II/Chapter 5- Marx argues that exchange of commodities doesn't create new value. How does labor create new value?

Part III/Chapter 11- How do you increase the rate of surplus value?

Part IV/Chapter 15 - (this is true) Target Corp. recently created a new machine that loads the trucks that supply the store with its commodities. Before this machine was brought into the fold, it took 40 man hours to load a single truck. With the machine it takes from 25-45 minutes. Explain the compensation/worker displacement theory in terms of this new machine.

Part VI - Which type of wage measures productivity more accurately, time wages or piece wages?

Part VII - In regards to the general law of capitalist accumulation, what is the situation needed to make productivity and accumulation stagnant?

leah's review ?'s

part 2-why do fries cost more per pound than raw potatoes?

part 3-what is the difference between the rate of profit and the rate of exploitation?

part 4-although capitalism requires cooperation, why is it also potentially detrimental to capitalism? and once it has adversely affected capitalism, how is cooperation potentially detrimental to workers?

part 6-which kinds of societies (or forms of production) must produce a surplus?

part 7-why would a rise in wages (or the price of labor-power) be a negative situation for workers?

Nick's Review Questions

So, I'm trying to get on the ball lately. Let's hope I can come up with some good questions~

Part Two / Chapter 6:

• How is the value of labor-power determined?

Part Three / Chapter 7:

• Under the process of valorization, what are the two conditions that need to be met in order to produce value?

Part Four / Chapter 14:

• What purpose does the division of labor serve to Capitalist? That is to say, why do certain jobs become isolated when creating a commodity?

Part Six / Chapter 20:

• Time wages seem to demonstrate that working harder results in being more successful. What does Marx think is really happening?

Part Seven / Chapter 23:

• Why does Marx think simple reproduction is so important? What does it refer to?

Review Sheet for Exam 2

By Sunday night, post your review questions to the blog. Also be sure to bring copies of your review questions with you to class next Tuesday. Write one, specific review question dealing with some topic from each of the following parts: Parts Two, Three, Four, Six, and Seven.

Below is a list of some of the terms and ideas we have studied so far this semester. This list is intended only as a starting point for your study, not as a comprehensive guide.

constant capital
variable capital
C = c + v
C´ = c + v + s
rate of surplus-value = s / v
rate of exploitation
rate of profit = s / C or s / (c + v)
necessary labor-time
surplus labor-time
surplus product
working day
absolute surplus-value
class struggle
mass of surplus-value
relative surplus-value
co-operation
division of labor
machinery
intensity of labor
wages
time-wages
piece-wages
simple reproduction
organic composition of capital
industrial reserve army of the unemployed
the general law of capitalist accumulation
crisis

Chapter 14: The Division of Labour and Manufacture

In section I, “The Dual Origin of Manufacture” Marx identifies two ways in which manufacture originates. The first method occurs when a series of workers with different trades are brought together to work for one capitalist under the same roof, in such a way that a single product passes from one worker to the next. Under this method tradesmen find themselves making only one type of product: “so that a locksmith working for a carriage company would make locks only for carriages when he used to make locks for a variety of different products ”.ibid. 455. The second form occurs when a capitalist hires a number of workers, each worker making an entire product himself. Under the external circumstance of requiring a need to speed up production this method changes so that each worker is given a specific task within the making of a product”.ibid. 456. Isolated jobs on each commodity can start to be assigned to one worker and a division of labour can be created in this manner. In section 2, “The Specialized Worker and His Tools” Marx argues that a worker who performs only one task throughout his life will perform his job at a faster and more productive rate, forcing Capital to favor the specialized worker to the traditional craftsmen”.ibid. 458. In this section Marx also demonstrates that a specialized worker doing only one task can use a more specialized tool, which cannot do many jobs but can do the one job well, in a more efficient manner than a traditional craftsman using a multi-purpose tool on any specific task ”.ibid. 460. Marx considers this a basic element of manufacture. In Section 3, “The Two Fundamental Forms of Manufacture- Heterogeneous and Organic” Marx argues that the production of various commodities produces a hierarchy of skilled and unskilled labor. Skilled labor requires large amounts of training or skill and tends to command a higher value of labor-power, while unskilled labor, which any man can do, takes little to no training and commands a lower value of labor-power”.ibid. 470. Keeping these highly specialized workers focused on keeping there highly valued job skills along with keeping them divided from their trade as a whole making of one commodity further devalues there labor power to each of them. Also one item with several menial processes (each assigned to one worker) helps to divide the workers from the value of their own labor power. In section 4, “The Division of Labour in Manufacture and the Division of Labour in Society” Marx argues that the division of labor in society has existed long before capitalism. However, Marx sees the division of labour within a factory or workshop as something totally unique to the capitalist mode of production”.ibid. 480. While physiological and social circumstances may mediate the division of labour in society, it is the need to produce surplus value which creates the need for a division of labour within manufacture. In section 5, “The Capitalist Character of Manufacture” Marx considers the way in which a division of labour within manufacture limits the mind and education of a worker. Marx also points to the revolution of machinery as a way to increase surplus-value by increasing the productivity of each worker thereby reducing the number of unskilled workers necessary.

Sweatshop Info

You can find a good discussion of recent events over on WataugaWatch:

The students want the university to sign on to the "Designated Suppliers Program" (DSP), which is affiliated with the Workers Rights Consortium and is dedicated to ensuring that apparel made with university logos is produced under humane conditions. As of the first of March, some 181 American colleges and universities have affiliated, including Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill.

We won't go into the evils of sweatshop labor here, except to point out that Appalachian State University claims it has taken steps to avoid the use of it through membership in something called the Fair Labor Association, which the United Students Against Sweatshops considers a sham org dominated by big corporations (like Nike) and which offers "a weak code that fails to provide for women's rights, a living wage, the full public disclosure of factory locations, or university control over the monitoring process."