The Part Played by Labor in the Reproduction of Labor-Power

Abstract

In a faux calculation it will be demonstrated that, using the Marxian Law of Value, the teacher is a significantly lesser factor in such a production process than might previously be conjectured. P7.

It is also demonstrated that the student herself is a major factor in the production of herself as a commodity, the wage-worker. P9.

An argument is made that the student's (and other's) unpaid labor ought be recognized and compensated. P11.

It is also advanced that the intent of the process of production is the transformation of variable capital into constant capital (in the form of commodities).

The Part Played by Labor in the Reproduction of Labor-powers

The factors of production of any commodity1 consist, on the one hand, of human labor (l) and, on the other, the materials upon which it works, the tools with which it works and the ancillaries necessary for that work to proceed in its proper manner (e.g. buildings, fuels, chemicals, water, etc.). In short, all these last save labor, are the means of production, or what Marx referred to as constant capital (c). The value of all of the constituents (both l + v), and thereby the value of the commodity itself, may be determined by an assay of the amount of human labor in the abstract that it contains, by which is meant nothing more than average human labor,2 transferred to the commodity in its process of production. The calculation of the value of that peculiar commodity, labor- power, the worker herself, is, in no way, an exception to this rule.3 While, given the

1 And if we step away from this examination of a particular product, the commodity labor-power, in a particular mode of production, capitalist commodity production, it is to be seen that these are the factors of production of any product.

2 “Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour spent on it, the more idle and unskillful the labourer, the more valuable would his commodity be, because more time would be required in its production. The labour, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labour, expenditure of one uniform labour-power. The total labour-power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labour-power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units. Each of these units is the same as any other, so far as it has the character of the average labour-power of society, and takes effect as such; that is, so far as it requires for producing a commodity, no more time than is needed on an average, no more than is socially necessary. The labour-time socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time.” Marx. “Capital. Vol 1. Chap 1”. P39. International Publishers. NY, NY. 1967. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

3 “The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article.” Marx.

1 average laborer (or the Abstract Human Laborer (AHL)), the amount of living human labor directly expended during the production cycle is prima facie, the amount of congealed (previously done) labor requires a more detailed accounting of:

a. the amount of labor previously embodied in the utilized means of production; and, b. the amount (per cent) of these means transferred; as some of the means will be totally used up; while others contribute only a portion of their value due to wear-and-tear over several or many cycles of production. The complications of the calculation are notwithstanding. It can be done and, indeed, is done daily by the capitalists so as to ensure pricing in proportion to production costs. All of these inert materials and forces, that is excepting human labor, may be classified as objects in production. Labor alone is the subject in production, the seat of consciousness, planning and directing, if not directly, participating in the process. In almost all methods of production, excepting multi-part final assembly and certain chemical processes, there is usually a principal object in production: a material that is acted upon, changed, modified, transformed from raw material into finished product. This designation as principal object depends, of course, upon the level of production that is being analyzed as the finished objects of one level may then be brought into a second step as mere raw material.4 As example, in the fashioning of cloth the principal object may be cotton; however, the cloth that is produced at this level may then be forwarded into an arena where shirts are manufactured. In such a case what was once finished product (as the cloth in the first stage) now becomes anew a principal object in production to be acted upon. In the production of labor-powers, that is the varied skills and abilities offered for-hire in the labor market by humans sans means of production, the laborer-to-be (or, labor-power-in-the-making) is this principal object. We will see that the consciousness above ascribed to this commodity-in-the-making differentiates the commodity, labor-power, from all the other commodities and again stamps it sui generis.5 It will be seen that the laborer-to-be differs from all other such principal objects in production in the fact that it not only is acted upon by the other factors of its production, being conscious, it also acts upon itself. And, to the extent that it does so, it must be viewed as self-creating.

“Capital. Vol 1.” Chap VI. P 170. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm

4 “Though a use-value, in the form of a product, issues from the labour-process, yet other use values, products of previous labour, enter into it as a means of production. The same use-value is both the product of a previous process, and a means of production in a later process...“Whenever therefore a product enters as a means of production into a new labour-process, it thereby loses its character of product, and becomes a mere factor in the process...the fact that (it is a) product of previous labour is a matter of utter indifference...” Marx: Ibid Chap VII. Pp181-182. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm

5 Labor-power’s other unique ability (as contrasted with all other factors of production) is the power to transfer more than its own value during production.

2 Overview: The Social Reproduction of Labor-power

Assuming the equality of the exchange and, further, the existence of a general rate of surplus-value (S’)6, which we must if when we look at averages then, by virtue of these assumptions, there exists a dynamic quadrilectic of proportionality between and among (a.) labor-power’s cost-of-production (the value of labor-power), (b.) the value the labor- power adds during production7, (c.) the wages such a labor-power is paid and (d.) the sustenance derived by the worker from the items of subsistence purchased by those wages. In a few words it will be seen that all of these are manifestations of the same thing, value, in the different spheres of social production: a. the factors market (or, what Marx termed the first sphere of circulation, or Circulation 1); b. Production; c. Distribution (Circulation 2); and, d. Consumption, respectively:

Value of labor-power (Circulation 1) / \

Utility Value added by labor (Consumption) (Production) \ / Wage 8 (Circulation 2)

Value, human labor (in the abstract (i.e. average human labor)) expended and congealed into commodity form at first enters into the social reproduction process in the factors market in the form of the capital (reified value) of the capitalist where it confronts the factors (labor-power and materials (themselves values produced by a previous process of production)). The capital is exchanged for an equal proportion of these latters. In the second sphere, production, these factors are united and react upon each other such that what issues from the process, while greater (because of unpaid labor) than the value of the inputs stands in direct proportion to these inputs (esp labor-power) because of the above posited general rate of surplus-value (i.e. the laborer’s toil preserves the value of the inert factors and reproduces its own value while simultaneously, because there is unpaid labor, produces a surplus-value that by virtue of the wage-bargain belongs to the capitalist. The commodities (goods for sale) produced are of the same value as that of the factors used up in its fashioning plus this surplus. These, in the second circulation sphere 6 Marx viewed exploitation (i.e. the division of labour (l) into unpaid (s) and paid segments (v)) as tending towards equalization in all the sectors of a given market. This “general rate of surplus-value” is then the average ratio between s and v, or s/v:

“…a general rate of surplus-value -- viewed as a tendency, like all other economic laws -- has been assumed by us for the sake of theoretical simplification. But in reality it is an actual premise of the capitalist mode of production…” “Capital. Vol 3.” Chap X. P175. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch10.htm

7 Labour transmits to its product the value of the means of production consumed by it.” “Capital. Vol 1.” Chap XXIV. P605 www.marxists.org\archive\marx\works\1867-c1\ch24.htm 8 “For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer.” Vol 1. Chap IX. P171. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm

3 are exchanged for their equals in purchasing power and are consumed in the sphere of circulation providing an equivalent in sustenance.

The below charts the changes occurring in the different spheres:

C1 P C2 K 1. Sphere Circulation 1 Production Circulation 2 Consumption 2. Value-form Exchange-value Value Exchange-value Use-value 3. Body-Form Money Factors Commodities Goods (Services) 4. Measure Purchasing power Hrs of labor Price Satisfaction units

Accepting this:

The value of the sum total of the worker’s consumption is her cost-of-production. The actual production of the labor-power to-be takes place in the sphere of consumption for it is here that is found the factory within which the proto-labor-powers are fashioned, enskilled and developed. Here is the factory from which birthed, fed, nurtured, healed, clothed, educated, bred and buried pours forth the mass of humans with amassed talents, knowledge and skills. This gigantic social factory, fashioner not only of machines but men, recreates itself, re-populates itself and re-propagates itself with the reproduction of its wage-slaves.

The Calculation of the Value of Commodities

Under the system of capitalism production is geared towards the fashioning of commodities (i.e. items made not for immediate use by their producers but for exchange with the commodities of other producers (usually through the mediation of money). Accepting the labor theory of value this would mean that items fashioned with equal amounts of embodied labor (in both forms of c (previous labor embodied in the means of production) and l (living labor) ought exchange in a 1 to 1 ratio. Developed capitalism transforms the law of value such that equal quantities of arrayed capitals necessary to produce different commodities yield equal profits.9 Though this complication is itself quite interesting, on the point at hand, it merely makes more difficult but does not disprove what follows. Therefore, so as to make things simpler, we will assume that the law of value operates and that goods exchange in proportion to embodied labor. So that we might do away with this objection at one stroke we will note that the capital assumed below is of average organic composition and there fore yields a commodity whose price is the same as its value.10

9 "What the competition among the various masses of capital — invested in different spheres of production and differently composed — is striving for is capitalist communism, namely that the mass of capital employed in each sphere of production should get a fractional part of the total surplus value proportionate to the part of the total social capital that it forms." -Marx-Engels Correspondence London, 30 April1868 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_04_30.htm

10 “The capital invested in some spheres of production has a mean, or average, composition, that is, it has the same, or almost the same composition as the average social capital.

4 Under capitalism, labor is added to the principal object in production with the assistance of tools and auxiliary materials and perhaps taking place in a factory or building with all these latters subsumed under the heading of constant capital (c). The living labor, divides itself into two parts: v and s. The v (variable capital) is the purchase price (wage) of the labor-power hired; the s (surplus-value) is the value of the product produced by labor beyond the value of the purchased labor-power.11 Let us now construct, in a thought experiment, a commodity such that we might examine not only its value but also the relationships between the parts.

We will, as above, posit as our principal item (c1) cloth to be used in the fashioning of a finished product (commodity), shirts. Sewing machines (c2) are used to stitch the shirts Also necessary are thread, buttons and a zipper (c3). All of this done in a sheltering building (c4).

We will assume a general (or average) rate of profit (P’)12 of 100% (i.e. the division between paid (v) and unpaid (s) labor is equal). We further assume that our laborer is an average guy and thus the AHL. Further we will assume that 1 unit of variable capital (v) (labor-power) is required to produce 1 shirt per day. The value of the principal object, the cloth (c1), translated into labor units, is also posited as 1. As is the thread, zippers and/or buttons, elastic, etc (c3). The sewing machine (c2) whose value in labor-units is posited at 1000 wears out after 10,000 units and thus transfers 1/10 unit to each shirt. The building (c4) whose value is 1,000,000 lasts for 10,000,000 shirts and thus transfers 1/10 of a unit of value per shirt. We can now calculate the value of the shirt for it consists of:

1(c1) + .1(c2) + 1(c3) + .1(c4) +1v + 1s = 4.2 with the 1s being the surplus-value.

“In these spheres the price of production is exactly or almost the same as the value of the produced commodity expressed in money.” Vol 3. Chap X. P173. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch10.htm

11 “The total working-day of the labourer is divided into two parts. One portion in which he performs the amount of labour necessary to reproduce the value of his own means of subsistence; the paid portion of his total labour, the portion necessary for his own maintenance and reproduction. The entire remaining portion of the working-day, the entire excess quantity of labour performed above the value of the labour realised in his wages, is surplus-labour, unpaid labour…” Vol 3. Chap XLIX. P833-4. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch49.htm

12 “Owing to the different organic compositions of capitals invested in different lines of production, and, hence, owing to the circumstance that -- depending on the different percentage which the variable part makes up in a total capital of a given magnitude -- capitals of equal magnitude put into motion very different quantities of labour, they also appropriate very different quantities of surplus-labour or produce very different quantities of surplus-value. Accordingly, the rates of profit prevailing in the various branches of production are originally very different. These different rates of profit are equalized by competition to a single general rate of profit, which is the average of all these different rates of profit.” Vol 3. Chap IX. Pp 157-8. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch09.htm

5 This analysis of the value of this purported commodity is in no way of note other than in providing a model for the examination of the value of created labor-powers that follows below. What is of note is that in it the principal item in production, cloth, is acted upon by labor and, through labor, is acted upon by the ancillaries but, of course, does not reciprocate and act upon the labor and/or the auxiliaries. Duh.

The Calculation of the Value of the Commodity Labor-power

With labor-power the calculation is a bit less forthright than the above for it must be done in stages:

Stage 1: Birth to onset of school age (6)

In the calculation of the costs-of-production of the average human laborer (AHL), which is the object of this exercise, it is useful, though by no means necessary, to posit as his parents AHL’s. To further simplify we will assume that there is only one parent, the father (F) whose labor-power, as above, is valued at 1 per day. We subsume, for the moment, what in the above would be c2, c3 and c4 into a bracket category (CC) or all the constant capital costs (e.g. housing, clothing, playthings, medical care, etc) of raising a child paid for by F. Being not only a good but also a fair parent F spends ½ of his wages on himself and the other half on his baby girl (G). In this, he is no different from the average of his fellows in being a ‘good but also a fair’ parent. F works a workweek of 40 and has a work-year of 200 days. As above, he is paid 1 per day. His income is thus 200 per year of which he ‘showers’13 100 on G. G’s cost of production for the first 6 years thus includes these (a) 600 of what amounts to be the constant capital of her labor- power’s production. But wait. There’s more. While F’s away for 8 hours at work, an hour-a-day’s travel in between and one hour at the local establishment to replenish body and soul, G must be watched after. For this, F’s mother (M) a retired AHL, though now only half her average self (and she will tell you as much) looks after G for F. Though retired, M, a spry old bird, is still quite capable and dotes on G showering (no footnote) her with love, affection and lessons in life for the 10 hours a day that her son is away doing work, that were it paid, would be equivalent to that performed by a worker whose value is only half that of an AHL. M is thus a perfect fit for her job. Other than her labor she has no other costs as all of G’s needs are paid by the stipend as noticed above. The point is, of course, that this is non-waged work (VM) that nonetheless contributes its value over and into the proto-AHL. The grandmother performs non-waged work of 200 days per year, 10 hrs a day (NB) or 1¼ of a normal workday. Non-waged work, however, only equivalent, in value-adding terms pre unit of time, to half that of an AHL’s. The calculation is thus 200 x .5 = 100 x 1.25 = 125 and for the 6 years of G’s pre-school (sic) life, (b) 750. And, yes, there is more. For after his quaff, F gathers up G and returns home and spends 4 of his 6 free hours (as he sleeps an average 8 hours) playing with and educating G on the facts of life hat any girl should know: How to catch a baseball with one hand, how to audibly interpret the symbols that are the letters of the language, how to

13 ‘Showers’ is, of course, intended irony as since we are assuming the re-production of the AHL by the AHL. More of a sprinkle, I suppose.

6 calculate batting averages, how to write (scribble, really) those letters, how to turn the double play and throw in stride, use a hammer and open a beer, etc. In short what F knows, in bits and pieces, dribbles over and (pardon the expression) trickles down into G. In this F, though a full-fledged AHL, is not quite acting as one (or his age) but he’s having fun, the kid is having fun and the kid, in spite of what anyone might think, is learning. We will posit then that F is ¼ of an AHL while tending to G after hours. This factor, the father’s weekday labor (VFwd) in G’s production, is thus 200 days x ½ day (4hrs/8hrs) x ¼ AHL = 25. And for the 6 years prior to formal education we must add another (c) 150. And we are still not finished for though F does not work the remaining 150 or so remaining days he does not have those days off from G, though M does. Which means that he puts in the 10 a day supplied by M and the 4 he usually does with G and, in spite of the workload, still performs at the ¼ AHL rate. Thus we must add this (VFwe) of 150 days x 1.75 (14hrs/8hrs) x ¼ AHL = appx 65 per yr which for the entire pre-school time period amounts to appx (d) 330. The total familial costs of G’s production as a proto AHL (which is the re-production of F’s labor-power) is therefore equal to a + b + c + d =

14 600CC + (750VM + 150VFwd + 330VFwe) = 1830

Of these only the first (600CC) comes forth in the guise of purchasing power (i.e. wages earned by F but spent on G). The remaining exertions, in value terms, totaling twice as much are unpaid but must nevertheless be factored in as costs-of-production of labor- power. And thus what will arrive on the first day of school is not a tabula rasa but already a worker-in-the-making. She has been potty-trained, knows how to tie her shoes, knows rudimentary arithmetic functions, recognizes the symbols that make up the written language and has become accustomed to the existences of others (i.e. been socialized). Some of those others who now join her in that process as fellow students or as teachers. She has a combined better than 1800 of value already embodied. The posit will be that professionally administered and executed education adds value to the proto-worker at a rate that is twice that of the average home pre-schooling and thus these 1800 (or, on average, 300 per year) are equal in value to 3 years of the schooling to come. Thus the value-added per school or ‘learning year’ is appx 600 or 7200 for the entirety of the 12 years of the formal education of the average human laborer.

There is yet still another labor-power involved during these six years that we pass over for the moment.

Stage 2: School from 1st through 12th Grade

The Value of the Teacher and the Value-added by the Teacher

The teacher (T) comes into the factory with a labor-power greater than that of the AHL. For while the AHL has undergone the equivalent of 15 ‘learning years’ the teacher’s resume includes not only that but also, we posit, some additional 6 (calendar) years of 14 In the below this will be rounded (for convenience) to 1800.

7 education. In this, in talent, disposition and enthusiam, T is no different from the average of his job description.

Sparing the reader (and myself) the minutiae of yet another faux calculation (as will have to be again done below), it is assumed that because of higher education’s higher constant capital costs, similarly the increased costs-of-production of the variable capital (i.e. professors) which it employs, and the increased intensity of study on the part of the student herself, that the elementary and secondary school teachers emerge from their process of production (4 years of undergraduate and 2 years of Ed School) with value- adding capabilities equal to twice that of the high school graduate, the AHL. These 2xAHL’s would thus add value to the commodity (labor-power) they assist in the creation of at twice the rate of the AHL parents and other (AHL) school employees.15 However, even these supermen can only add value to the objects in production (students) to the extent of their value-adding capabilities. What this means is that the exertions on the part of the teacher do not devolve in their entirety to each and every student but are spread over all the students. Consider: the teacher has a work-year (school-year) of 200 days. T’s labors tosses into the mix a daily value equal to 2AHL days. Total: 400 AHL days (or 2 AHL years (as above a 200 day workweek was posited as ‘average’)). He has 5 classes a day composed of 20 students each = 100 students. This means that, on average, the teacher transfers to each student in his class a mere 4 AHL day’s value per year. Now this student has 4 other classes and four other teachers. Teachers, every bit the 2xAHL, and who also contribute their two-bits, er, 4 AHL days per year to the principal object in production, the student. This adds up to 20 AHL days per year and over the course of the 12 years of grade-school education this amounts to 240 AHL days or 240/200 (days the AHL works) = 1.2 school years (value (a.) 720). That is, given the assumptions, the total contribution of the teachers to the value of the AHL is 10% of G’s formal education. Further, taking into account the equivalent of the value of 3 years of formal education embodied in the proto-prole before the onset of schooling this small portion is further diminished to 1 2/15 (equivalent years of schooling) = 8%. The math, in this exposition, though fanciful, yet and still it does not lie. This may not, in terms of accuracy, hit a home run but it is in the ballpark. The teacher is a significantly lesser factor in the production of the commodity labor-power.

Working on multiple students, he adds no more value than he does if he were to be devoting all of his energies and talents upon a single student. It is the same as if a method of production consisting of a worker and a machine that needed full-time attending-to was revolutionized such that the laborer could attend to one, two…many such appliances. In spite of the fact that while the physical output of T may have been multiplied (in the minds of his students), the fact that such was achieved by the same amount of human labor means that the same amount of value was added. No more. No less.16

15 We leave out of the mix the fact that the teacher daily (through learning whileworking) adds to the value of his own labor-power.

16 As obviously should this not be the case then there would be a violation of the equality of the exchange (in this case, between the teacher’s cost-of-production (and thereby wage) and the

8 Calculating the Labor Embodied in the Proto-Labor-power during Formal Education

External Contributors

F, the father, as before continues to donate his 100 per year so that his total post-pre- school financial contribution (Cc) to the development of his daughter G’s production as an AHL is (b.) 1200. And F is already a more significant in his child’s education than T. And if we assume that he continues to share his wisdoms with the growing G, albeit at a lesser rate as G is able to take on more of the care of herself, at say half as much as during G’s pre-school years (previously 80 per year (i.e. 150VFwd + 330VFwe/6 years) and thus chips in an additional (c.) 480Vfwde (40 x 12 years formal education). The grandmother (M), no longer needed to tend to G as she is now in school and having died, need no longer concern us. Given a school, teaching students from grades 1 –12, which cost 6,000,000 to build including additional fixed capital such as desks, lockers, basketball courts, etc. Its average population (of students) is 1200. Its expected life is 50 years. As each student hopefully, and on average, takes 12 years to matriculate then the value added by the school plant (CP) to each student is 6 million/60,000 (total number of students for the life of the building) = (d.) 100. Additional circulating constant capital (CU) in the form of pencils, books, chalk, etc add another, say, another (e.) 200 over the course of the student’s academic career. Assume further that, excluding teachers, the necessary staff such as cafeteria workers, nurse, secretarial and administrative (VS) consists of 100 (on average AHLs) whose value of 20,000/year divided by 1200 students per year thus adds 16.66 per year or over the length of the education cycle a total of (f.) 200 to each student- worker.

The Internal contribution

What is the contribution of the student to her own production as a labor-power? This query can be answered by postulating two assumptions: 1.) that the student is employed in the production of a product, herself as labor-power; and, 2.) that the student learns more each year until upon graduation she emerges as a full-fledged AHL (capable of working as effectively as the next (average) worker. We will assume that this learning occurs evenly such that with each year the student-worker adds the same amount of ability. This learning is a direct parallel to the transformation of variable capital into constant capital in the formal normal processes of production. The sole difference is that the labor (learning) of the laborer (student) is applied so as to embody itself, as the fixed constant capital of knowledge (skill, training, wherewithal, etc), into the principal object in production, the student-worker herself by herself. It is as much a process of production, a manufacture, as that of any of its brethren commodities.

Above it was assumed that during the years from birth to the age of 6 that our baseball- loving, booze-imbibing, child-doting parent F (and his mother M) had combined to embody value equal to 3 years of schooling prior to the entrance of our proto-labor-power

9 into formal education. What this means is that the total amount of training necessary for its production is the equivalent of 15 school years. So in place of a blank slate bravely steps forth G, already a 3/15 AHL, into an educational system where “There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham” where “We shall at last force the secret of profit making.”17

From the two assumptions posed directly above, the schema of the worker-to-be:

Year Additional Total Labor Embodied Pre 3/15 3/15

1 1/15 4/15 2 “ 5/15 3 “ 6/15 4 “ 7/15 5 “ 8/15 6 “ 9/15 7 “ 10/15 8 “ 11/15 9 “ 12/15 10 “ 13/15 11 “ 14/15 12 “ 15/15 (fully functional as an AHL) 117/15 = 7 4/5 = 7.8 AHL years

What emerges from the process, following grade 12 of 12 and the 6 years of existence and experience equal to 3 years of the former, formal education, is the AHL. By now G has contributed the vale of 114/15 = 7 3/5 years of formal education to herself. As the value of AHL labor-power is equal to 200 per year then the total contribution by the student-worker to her own production can be assessed as 1520. Should, we further assume that, G does homework equal to 20% of schoolwork (i.e. 1 hr homework to five 1 hr classes) then an additional 300 or so need be added such that G’s contribution to herself by herself approximates (g.) 1800. Or more than twice the contribution of the teacher during formal education.

These then are some of the contributors to the (re-)production of G who steps forward into the productive process as a full-fledged AHL, for a time being working alongside her progenitor and then replacing F, equal to: a + b + c + d + e + f + g =

720VT + 1200Cc + 480VFwde + 100CP + 200CU + 200VS + 1800VG = appx 4700 of which only 1500 are composed of constant capital. And of the 3200 labor invested in G’s production only 920 are paid.

17 Marx. “Capital. Vol 1”. Chap VI. International publishers. NY, NY. P 176. http://www.marx.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm

10 Summation

The above figures and calculations are fantastical and have no meaning whatsoever outside of this demonstration. They have been posited and used so as to serve as surrogates for actual investigation should such an endeavor arise. The point is, of course, that external labor, in conjunction with the varied elements of constant capital utilized, adds value to this commodity-to-be alongside a self-created element. Something that was generated in of and by the influences of these externalities but which came into its own existence. Something that was not there before. Something we call learning.

It is said that the value of labor-power includes the replication of the worker.18 No. It is payment for a previous process of production, the process which produced the worker himself. If not, then it would be payment of labor-power at a wage above its value and would thus violate the equality of the exchange as posited above. Another thing is this ‘payment above the value of labor-power’, however intended by the capitalist, it’s ‘giver’, as funds for the replication of labor-power, is not necessarily allocated by its recipient as such. She may choose to go childless and therewith be able to send the ‘excess’ on herself. In slavery, strict control was maintained on this ‘excess’. The Master would allocate an extra portion to a household only after the arrival of an additional laborer. Proles, it seems, would then seem to choose to replicate themselves in their condition of wage-slavery. In wage-slavery, according to this view then, the repayment for the worker’s cost-of-production comes with a choice: a miserly replication or, a relatively prosperous, annihilation.

In all other productive processes the principal object in production is constant capital. In the process of the production and re-production of labor-powers the principal object (the worker-to-be) combines attributes of both constant and variable capital. As to the first, the elements of pre-school and formal school education (both the constant and variable factors) seem to enter into and thereby exist within this principal object in a manner akin to that of the admixture of constant and variable capitals’ emergence from the normal process of production as constant commodity capital. This ‘hard-wiring’ of the auto- robotic commodity labor-power is that which gives it its value. On the other hand, this laborer’s, the worker-to-be’s, own efforts, paralleling that of variable capital-in-action in conventional production (i.e. that which is the creator of value) must also enter into the costs-of-production of the product and a correct calculation of the value of the

18 “Now in order to allow of these elements actually functioning as capital, the capitalist class requires additional labour. If the exploitation of the labourers already employed do not increase, either extensively or intensively, then additional labour-power must be found. For this the mechanism of capitalist production provides beforehand, by converting the working-class into a class dependent on wages, a class whose ordinary wages suffice, not only for its maintenance, but for its increase.” Vol 1. Chap XXIV. P581 www.marxists.org\archive\marx\works\1867-c1\ch24.htm

“The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution." (Ricardo: Principles of Political Economy. Chapters 1 "On Value" and 5 "On Wages. http://www.econlib.org/library/Ricardo/ricPCover.html

11 commodity produced, its must include this factor. Such unpaid work ought be compensated.

In the capitalist social factory the education system is the incubator of labor-powers where the proto-proles are mentally fed and nourished but, more to the point, also feed and nourish themselves. This is a productive job. The product that is produced is labor- power, a commodity unlike any other in that it is immediately, upon its purchase, worth more than its sale price. This constant capital, under capitalism human capital, the commodity that emerges from this process of the production is the sum total of the knowledge, skills, talents, etc acquired through the 15 learning ‘years’ embodied in the ready-to-worker. The variable capital, matrushka-like embedded alongside this and capable of yielding surplus-value, is this commodity’s ability to think, to create, to do things better, faster, simpler. To do things differently.

Addendum

The reader may note that, given the equality of the exchange19, that there ought be a correspondence between the workers total costs-of-production and the total wages received over the course of the worker’s lifetime. What must emerge from the production process is a commodity equal in value to the inputs that went into the fashioning of it. (Here we are treating the value of labor (as opposed to the value of the labor-power) as the variable input.) Now, it is easy, given this J S Mill ‘steady state’ (wherein nothing changes) economy to calculate the value of the labor-power emergent. If we posit a 50 year average labor-life for our AHL (value 200 per year) then the result is 10,000. That is the value of the AHL as it emerges from the educational productive process upon completion of its 12 ‘learning years’. “Aha!!!” there is a discrepancy!” you say. “But of course,” is the answer. There are many other contributions and contributors to the fashioning of new labor-powers other than parents and teachers. As example, the taxes collected by the state throughout the work-life of the newly minted AHL, if again we invoke the first commandment of ‘the equality of the exchange”, ought recompense (not only for the educational facilities and personnel) but for all sorts of nefarious schemes (e.g. the great expenses involved in the fashioning and implementation of the laws that parametize the behaviors of the AHL (e.g. national defense expenditures; etc, ad nauseum.)) And, finally, the worker must daily (re-)produce herself with the purchase of subsistence. These expenses too continue to contribute to the value of labor-power.

Lastly, we call back to mind the period of ages 0 – 6 wherein was written: “There is yet still another labor-power involved during these six years that we pass over for the moment.” It ought come then as no surprise that we are again speaking of the child- student-worker-to-be’s own labor that, even at this early age, makes lasting contributions to its own creation.

19 As well as given our (and Marx’) assumption that the wages of the worker amount to subsistence (i.e. replication) then the value paid to wage-labor ought just so, on average, equal the value necessary to (re-) produce it.

12 JAI