Understanding Marx’s Capital Volume 1 Chapter 15 – Machinery And Modern Industry (Sections 4-7)
In one, the collective laborer or social body of labor appears as the dominant subject and mechanical automation is the object in the other. The automation itself is the subject and the workmen are merely conscious organs, coordinated with the unconscious organs of the automaton and, together with them subordinated to the central moving power In this section, Marx further develops the idea that, under a capitalist mode of production, the machine now Uses the worker, rather than the other way around A factory, becomes a vast, automated process or a self-regulating force, as workers are reduced to being a cog in the machine.
Marx argues that, because of the supportive role that workers now play in the labor process, with machines requiring little to no skill to operate, then social distinctions and hierarchies regarding skill and knowledge of labor are removed and instead replaced with hierarchies of age, sex, and health as those That cannot work as long or as intensely are seen as easily replaceable broken cogs Marx points out that machinery also creates a new distinction and hierarchy of workers.
Both the small group of scientifically educated engineers, mechanics, and joiners, who look after the machinery and the small group of overseers or managers that ensure the factory, runs with military barrack-like discipline Throughout history.
Machines under capitalism have been used not only to replace workers causing mass unemployment and the loss of craftsmanship but also as a threat against worker-organized strikes.
If laborers refuse to go to work until their demands are met, then a capitalist could now simply replace them with a machine or threaten to do so.
For these reasons, many workers and labor movements saw machinery as a direct threat to their jobs and lives.
Marx details.
Many of them, One of the more famous, is the Luddite movement in the early 1800s, which was a secret oath, based organization of English textile workers that destroyed the newly introduced textile machinery.
Marx goes on to note, however, The large-scale destruction of machinery which occurred in the English manufacturing districts during the first 15 years of the 19th century, largely as the result of the employment of the power loom, gave the anti-Jacobin government a pretext for the most Violent and reactionary measures It took both time and experience before the workers learned to distinguish between machinery and its employment by capital and therefore to transfer their attacks from the material instruments of production to the form of society which utilizes those instruments.
The laborers that are thrown out of work in any branch of industry can no doubt seek employment in some other branch If they find it and thus renew the bond between them and the means of substance. This takes place only by the intermediary of a new and additional capital that is seeking investment, not at all by the intermediary of the capital that formally employed them and was afterward converted into machinery As capitalists continually replace laborers with cheaper and cheaper machinery.
Unemployment grows depreciating.
The value of labor power, If we understand that the wages these unemployed workers previously received were representative of the labor they performed producing the commodities they needed for their reproduction, then those wages represented those laborers as buyers of commodities, With unemployment and replacement by machinery.
They no longer become representative as Buyers 39, but anon Buyers 39.
So the demand for those commodities falls, but the commodities production will continue, Essentially the laborers or 39.
The market can no longer afford to buy or absorb the commodities that are being produced.
This is a subject we’ll return to in a later chapter.
However, Marx also highlights that, with a large number of people unemployed, if other capital is available elsewhere, it can now take advantage of the cheaper labor force in the new areas of production, most notably the production of machinery and technology itself.
The labor, however, for the production of these machines that give the machinery its value must always be cheaper than the labor that the machine will replace As the production of machinery grows, and is also followed by the growing production of machines by machines.
Then an increase in materials for their production must also be found. Increased supplies of metals must be mined from the earth, and new, cheaper supplies of labor, for its extraction must be sourced from around the world.
The increase in productivity likewise means more.
Commodities are now being produced, so more raw materials for their production must also be found.
Marx here gives a few examples of how these processes are linked together.
England’s rapidly growing cotton and textile manufacturing industries required new supplies and production of cotton.
The American south’s climate was perfect for growing it, and slavery provided cheap labor.
As England’s, production grew and grew more and more cotton and cheaper and cheaper labor was continually required, leading to the massive growth of the Atlantic slave trade.
Similarly, England’s: wool factories are directly linked to the depopulation of England and Ireland.
Agricultural areas are transformed into land purely for sheep pastures, As more people lose their jobs as farmers and agricultural laborers.
They are forced to move to towns and cities to work in the factories which leads to further increased development and then further requires land for sheep pastures. Marx notes that, at the time of his writings within the last 20 years, Ireland had reduced its entire population by half With increasing productivity, comes increased amounts of commodities being produced requiring more people and new markets around the world to purchase them.
This leads to the development of new technologies in infrastructure in transport and communications New canals, the development of railways, telegraphs, and transportation ships all became developments of necessity.
What we see under a capitalist mode of production is that all these elements are linked together.
They’re not separate instances, but are all part of the same process that unfolds from each other, as history is shaped by its relationship to production and exchange.
In this short section, which Marx will return to in greater detail in Volume, 3 of Capital Marx discusses that capitalism is elastic.
The expansion discussed in the previous section is not always a constant.
There can be periods of mass unemployment or the need for vast employment.
New machinery or raw materials may not have arrived yet in all areas of industry, causing its growth to be slower or when it does appear in all branches of industry.
We see massive booms in its growth Today.
These are usually discussed as Business Cycles 39. So soon, however, as the factory system has gained a certain breadth of footing and a definite degree of maturity, and especially so soon as its technical basis, machinery is itself produced by machinery so soon as coal, mining, and iron mining, the metal industries and the means of Transport have been revolutionized so soon, in short, as the general conditions requisite for production by the modern industrial system have been established, this mode of production acquires an elasticity a capacity for sudden extensions by leaps and bounds that finds no hindrance, except in the supply of raw materials and the disposal of the produce, On the other hand, the cheapness of the articles produced by machinery and the improved means of transport and communication furnish the weapons for conquering foreign markets By ruining handicraft production in other countries.
Machinery forcibly converts them into fields for the supply of raw materials.
In this way, East India was compelled to produce cotton wool, hemp, jute, and indigo for Great Britain By constantly making a part of the hands supernumerary.
Modern industry, in all countries where it has taken root, gives a spare to emigration and to the colonization of foreign lands which are thereby converted into settlements for growing the raw material of the mother country.
Just as Australia was converted into a colony for growing wool, A new and international division of labor, a division suited to the requirements of the chief centers of modern industry springs up and converts one part of the globe into a chiefly agricultural field of production for supplying The other part, which remains a chiefly industrial field,
Your Kidney Disease Solution starter pack [INSIDE] ACT FAST – to improve your kidney health You can reverse kidney disease. But it’s going to take some work. Thankfully, world-class naturopath, Dr. Duncan Cappichiano has done all the work for you. He’s collected peer-reviewed medical journals. He’s sourced from top-level supplement companies. He’s learned from thousands of use cases. And he’s put it all into 1 easy-to-read digital resource: The Kidney Disease Solution. Since it’s digital you could wait forever to get it…. …but given the supply chain and economy lately, should you wait? While the entire roadmap to reversing kidney disease is in this resource… …you’ll still need to stock up on certain ingredients, supplements, teas, and more. This all takes time in today’s world. So grab your copy of the Kidney Disease Solution to learn what you need in your kitchen pantry ASAP for an all-natural boost to your kidney health. ➯➱ ➫ ➪➬ See what’s inside The Kidney Disease Solution ← https://twitter.com/leaman_ralph/status/1637920351324626947 яαℓρн ℓєαмαи
