Surplus-Value, Relative Surplus-Value & Co-operation

Lorenzo Fusaro, Jonny Jones (deputy-editor of International Socialism Journal), and John Cooper of the Reading Capital group will introduce a discussion on chapters 11, 12 and 13 respectively:

‘Surplus-Value, Relative Surplus-Value & Co-operation’.

Tuesday March 9th
6pm
F-WB 2.80 Waterloo Campus KCL

"At first, capital subordinates labour on the basis of the technical conditions in which it historically finds it. It does not, therefore, change immediately the mode of production. The production of surplus-value — in the form hitherto considered by us — by means of simple extension of the working day, proved, therefore, to be independent of any change in the mode of production itself. It was not less active in the oldfashioned bakeries than in the modern cotton factories."

"The object of all development of the productiveness of labour, within the limits of capitalist production, is to shorten that part of the working-day, during which the workman must labour for his own benefit, and by that very shortening, to lengthen the other part of the day, during which he is at liberty to work gratis for the capitalist."

"...the sum total of the mechanical forces exerted by isolated workmen differs from the social force that is developed, when many hands take part simultaneously in one and the same undivided operation... Not only have we here an increase in the productive power of the individual, by means of co-operation, but the creation of a new power, namely, the collective power of masses."

"Just as the social productive power of labour that is developed by co-operation, appears to be the productive power of capital, so co-operation itself, contrasted with the process of production carried on by isolated independent labourers, or even by small employers, appears to be a specific form of the capitalist process of production."

N.B. We will be reading chapters 11, 12 and 13 for this session.