Towards the tip of his 1968 essay, “The Unknown Marx,” Martin Nicolaus quoted Marx’s enumeration of 4 limitations to manufacturing below capital that “expose the premise of overproduction, the elemental contradiction of developed capital.” Nicolaus certified what Marx meant by overproduction to be “[not] merely ‘extra stock’; slightly, he means extra productive energy extra usually.”
‘These inherent limits essentially coincide with the character of capital, with its important determinants. These crucial limits are:
‘1. crucial labour as restrict to the exchange-value of dwelling labour-power, of the wages of the economic inhabitants;
‘2. surplus worth as restrict to surplus labour-time; and, in relation to relative surplus labour-time, as restrict to the event of the productive forces;
‘3. what’s the identical factor, the transformation into cash, into exchangevalue, as such, as a restrict to manufacturing; or: change based mostly on worth, or worth based mostly on change, as restrict to manufacturing. That is once more
‘4. the identical factor as restriction of the manufacturing of use-values by exchange-value; or: the truth that actual wealth should tackle a particular kind distinct from itself, completely not similar with it, so as to change into an object of manufacturing in any respect.’
It “would require a ebook,” Nicolaus then noticed, to current “a correct evaluation of the implications of those slightly cryptic theses.” In lieu of that evaluation, he supplied a synopsis that “these 4 ‘limits’ signify not more than totally different facets of the contradiction between ‘forces of manufacturing’ and ‘social relations of manufacturing’.”
Neither Nicolaus nor anybody else has written that ebook. Nor did Nicolaus once more refer to those inherent limits within the Foreword to his translation of the Grundrisse. As an alternative, he invoked Marx’s dialogue of “the contradiction between the forces of manufacturing and the relations of manufacturing” within the 1859 Preface to his Contribution to a Critique of Political Economic system. “The Grundrisse is one lengthy prolonged commentary upon it; inversely, the 1859 formulation is a abstract, in a phrase, of the Grundrisse.” “One might go on and on,” Nicolaus added within the subsequent paragraph.
One might go on and on… it could require a ebook. Though Grundrisse could also be seen as “one lengthy prolonged commentary” on the contradiction between the forces and relations of manufacturing, there are shorter passages which are notably germaine to the evaluation of the “slightly cryptic theses” on the core of that contradiction. The condensed model — consisting of pages 397-423, 608-610, and 704-711 — is lower than 5% of the whole variety of pages. It’s bracketed by ‘quotations’ from The Supply and Treatment of the Nationwide Difficulties, on web page 397:
‘Wealth is disposable time and nothing extra. … If the entire labour of a rustic have been ample solely to lift the assist of the entire inhabitants, there could be no surplus labour, consequently nothing that may be allowed to build up as capital . . . Really rich a nation, if there’s no curiosity or if the working day is 6 hours slightly than 12 . . . No matter could also be due to the capitalist, he can solely obtain the surplus labour of the labourer; for the labourer should stay.’ (The Supply and Treatment of the Nationwide Difficulties.
And on web page 709:
‘If the complete labour of a rustic have been ample solely to lift the assist of the entire inhabitants, there could be no surplus labour, consequently nothing that may very well be allowed to build up as capital. If in a single yr the folks raises sufficient for the assist of two years, one yr’s consumption should perish, or for one yr males should stop from productive labour. However the possessors of [the] surplus produce or capital . . . make use of folks upon one thing circuitously and instantly productive, e.g. within the erection of equipment. So it goes on.’ (The Supply and Treatment ofthe Nationwide Difficulties, p. 4.)
The primary citation incorporates a montage of paraphrases from pages 6, 4, again to six, and on to 22 of The Supply and Treatment. The citation on web page 709 sticks with web page 4 as Marx had already quoted from web page 6 three pages earlier.
The bracketing quotations come earlier than and after a pair of outstanding paragraphs by Marx. The preliminary one asserts that “[t]he entire growth of wealth rests on the creation of disposable time” and goes on to clarify that “[i]n manufacturing resting on capital, the existence of crucial labour time is conditional on the creation of superfluous labour time.” The paragraph bracketed by the ultimate quote presents an intense evaluation of disposable time through which the English time period, ‘disposable time’, seems seven occasions in Marx’s German manuscript, together with three situations of ‘surplus labour’ in English and two phrases, ‘instrumental in creating the technique of social disposable time’ and ‘to transform it into surplus labour.’
Seine Tendenz aber immer, einerseits disposable time zu schaffen, andrerseits to transform it into surplus labour.
As soon as the mass of employees have appropriated their very own surplus labour, Marx argued in a passage echoing his earlier assertion that growth of wealth rested “on the creation of disposable time”:
…the event of the ability of social manufacturing will develop so quickly that, though manufacturing is now calculated for the wealth of all, disposable time will develop for all. For actual wealth is the developed productive energy of all people. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any approach, labour time, however slightly disposable time.
Actual wealth, then, is “the developed productive energy of all people,” which “rests on the creation of disposable time.” Disposable time thus is integral to the event of the productive forces and the contradiction with the productive relations rests with capital’s tendency to not solely create disposable time however to transform as a lot of it as it might it into surplus labour.
Forces of manufacturing and social relations – two totally different sides of the event of the social particular person – seem to capital as mere means, and are merely means for it to provide on its restricted basis. In truth, nonetheless, they’re the fabric circumstances to blow this basis sky-high.
What comes after “the fabric circumstances to blow this basis sky-high”? 4 out of 5 authors who quote that incendiary passage don’t point out disposable time. But that was Marx’s follow-up in yet one more paraphrase from The Supply and Treatment: “‘Wealth just isn’t command over surplus labour time’ (actual wealth), ‘however slightly, disposable time outdoors that wanted in direct manufacturing, for each particular person and the entire society.’”
Marx was fairly express and repetitive concerning the relationship between disposable time and the productive forces. Moishe Postone nearly acquired it when he described disposable time as, for Marx, a attribute of “a potential publish capitalist society.” It’s certainly that however far more. Disposable time can also be the medium by which the productive forces are developed in capital.
The notorious ‘fetters’ on the event of the productive forces — these 4 “crucial limits” to the event of the productive forces quoted initially of this essay — come up from the compulsion of capital to transform disposable time into surplus labour time. The 4 limits are, the truth is a single, unfolding contradiction that culminates within the non-identity of actual wealth and worth, use-value and exchange-value: “the truth that actual wealth should tackle a particular kind distinct from itself, completely not similar with it, so as to change into an object of manufacturing in any respect.”
