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Marx on Commodities, Labor Power, and Capital: Week 1 Notes

Overview: Marx’s Capital and the Impersonal Nature of Capitalist Power

  • Marx offers a social theory of modern capitalist society. It abstracts from particular observations to build an ideal model for explanation.
  • The defining feature is that power is exercised impersonally through things like money, private property, and wage labor, rather than through direct personal domination.
  • The focus today: the commodity, labor power, and how value and surplus are produced within capitalism; also the relationship between private household labor and the wider social production process.

Core Concepts: Commodity, Use Value, and Exchange Value

  • A commodity is something that is bought and sold. It has two essential attributes:
    • Use value: the usefulness or utility of the thing (e.g., a table used for eating, working).
    • Exchange value: what it can be traded for in the market; its price in relation to other commodities.
  • Commodities are not just a heap of unrelated items; they exist in a web of interrelations within capitalist society (the idea of a “collection” of commodities with social interrelations).
  • Commodities are produced through a labor process, using means of production (objects of labor and instruments of labor) and living labor power (the worker).

The General Formula for Capital: M-C-M'

  • The core idea of capital accumulation is captured by the simple formula: M\;C\;M'
    • M = Money that the capitalist starts with.
    • C = A commodity (means of production, labor power, etc.) that money buys to start the production process.
    • M' = More money obtained after selling the produced commodity.
  • The crucial moment is the sale: the commodity must be sold for more money than was put into its production, i.e., the capitalist seeks surplus value.
  • The only way to realize this surplus is through a special kind of commodity: labor power.
  • In the production chain, one cannot simply transfer value from inputs to output; there must be a surplus generated via labor that adds more value than was paid for it.
  • The transformation from money into a commodity and back into more money hinges on the productive consumption of labor power in the production of value.

Labor Power: The Unique Commodity

  • Labor power is the capacity to labor; it is a commodity bought by the capitalist on the market.
  • It is uniquely productive of new value beyond its own cost of reproduction.
  • Labor power is not a natural or timeless thing; its existence is tied to historical processes (accumulation, separation of workers from means of survival).
  • Dual sense of freedom: workers are “free” to sell their labor power (not enslaved) but there is a broad social unfreedom because workers depend on wages to survive.
  • Reproduction costs: the wage must cover the costs of reproducing the worker (and dependents)—food, housing, clothing, transport, etc.—so that workers can return to work.
  • This reproduction aspect links commodity exchange to the broader social structure, including family dynamics and gendered labor.

Socially Necessary Labour Time and Value

  • Exchange value is tied to socially necessary labour time (SNLT): the amount of labor time required to produce a use value under normal conditions with the average skill and intensity in a given society.
  • If productivity increases (more output per unit of time) without changing used value, the SNLT for a given output falls, reducing value and price over time.
  • Example: diamonds are expensive not because of their use value but because their exchange value reflects high SNLT due to rarity, mining, and processing labor.
  • Lab-grown diamonds illustrate how reducing the human labor time required to produce a commodity can reduce its exchange value and price.
  • The value of a commodity is determined by congealed (accumulated) labour time, not by subjective preferences or the specific desires of buyers.

Productive vs. Unproductive Labour; Productive Consumption

  • Not all labor is classified as productive by the capitalist; classification is technical, not a moral judgment.
  • A singer who performs publicly to make money for a capitalist is a productive worker because the activity contributes to capital accumulation (the creation of surplus value).
  • Private, self-directed, or non-market labor may be unproductive in Marx’s technical sense if it doesn’t contribute to the social product or surplus value.
  • Productive consumption vs individual consumption:
    • Individual consumption uses up a good without creating new value.
    • Productive consumption uses inputs to produce new value (e.g., labor power as consumed in production to yield surplus value).
  • The concept is not about valuing art or creative work positively or negatively; it is about whether the labor contributes to the production of value within the capitalist system.

The Household and the Social Product; Impersonal vs Personal Domination

  • Marx emphasizes the distinction between impersonal, market-mediated relations and personal/household labor.
  • Household labour (cooking, cleaning, caring) operates outside the wage relationship and isn’t directly tied to the social product via wages. It is not exploitation in the technical sense because it does not involve wage labor in the capitalist enterprise.
  • But this distinction does not erase the presence of gendered and patriarchal power relations; feminist critiques (e.g., De la Costa and others) extend Marx’s categories to better account for household labor and its exploitation or undervaluation.
  • In capitalist society, private labor is coordinated through money as a universal equivalent, integrating disparate private labors into a social product.
  • The social product is the total mass of social labor and its products, which under capitalism are coordinated through markets and capital, rather than through purely personal exchange.

The Family, Reproduction, and the Social Wage

  • The wage system requires a flow of resources to reproduce workers and their dependents, a cost captured in the price of labor power.
  • The total price of labor power in society represents the cost of reproducing the working class: the social wage that enables future workers to exist and work.
  • This links to broader discussions of how capitalism organizes reproduction and the distribution of unpaid or underpaid household labor.
  • The concept of social reproduction is central to later feminist and critical theories that expand on Marx’s framework.

Theoretical Implications: Impersonal Domination, Competition, and Relative Surplus Value

  • Impersonal domination: capitalism enforces domination through market relations, money, and the wage system rather than direct personal control by a lord or master.
  • Competition and productivity: firms compete by increasing productivity to reduce socially necessary labor time, which lowers value and prices, sustaining profits in a dynamic system.
  • Relative surplus value: driven by productivity gains; to stay in business, capitalists must continually raise productivity to outcompete others and reduce the labor time required to produce output.
  • Absolute surplus value: discussed as a related concept; the course will cover how it is expanded via longer working hours or intensified labor.
  • An important tension: while the model emphasizes impersonal forces, in practice coercion, legal frameworks, and social structures shape workers’ choices and opportunities.

The Dialectic of Personal and Impersonal: Feudalism, Household, and Capitalist Modernity

  • Feudalism features more personal ties of domination (lord–vassal) with direct control over the worker’s life and labor.
  • Capitalism introduces impersonal, market-mediated relations through private property and wage labor, with money as a universal mediator.
  • Household labor sits outside the wage relation but is essential for sustaining the labor force; this raises questions about the full reach of Marx’s categories and the need for extending them to incorporate gendered and domestic labor.
  • The discussion invites engagement with readings like Ferreira da Costa and others who extend Marx to household labor and social reproduction.

Encouraged Questions and Next Steps in the Course

  • Students are encouraged to ask questions about Essay 1: focus on reconstructing Marx’s argument from weeks 2–3 readings and reconstructing the argument using the other categories to help contemporary readers grasp the text.
  • Scope of the selection: can be a small page or a larger section (e.g., a portion of commodity fetishism or entire chapter 7), as long as it remains within the syllabus.
  • The main aim is a reconstruction and interpretation of the text, with secondary application to outside arguments if you wish.
  • The course will cover surplus value in earnest next week: absolute vs relative surplus value, and competition’s role in perpetuating relative surplus value through productivity gains.

Quick Recap: Why This Matters for Understanding Capitalism

  • The commodity form and the labour process reveal how value is created and redistributed in capitalist production.
  • Labor power is a unique commodity because it can generate more value than its own cost, driving profit and accumulation.
  • The social reproduction of the labor force is integral to capitalist functioning, linking private households and the overall social product.
  • Impersonal market relations shape power and domination in modern economies, while household labour and gender dynamics highlight limits and extensions of Marx’s framework.

Film Introduction (End of Class)

  • The instructor introduces a film: a 1983 French film titled Money (often referred to simply as "Money" in English-speaking contexts).
  • The film will be used to illustrate or provoke thought about monetary relations and capital in a visual medium, contrasting with the theoretical framework discussed.

Citations and Essay Conventions (From the Lecture)

  • Quotations should be brief: no long blocks; aim to paraphrase and then quote short passages no longer than two lines.
  • Citations: no Works Cited page required. Cite from the provided edition (Penguin, Capital Volume I PDF). Include a page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence containing the quotation, e.g., (Marx, p. 10).
  • If drawing inspiration from secondary authors, credit them in a parenthetical citation, e.g., (Wendy Brown, p. 3).
  • The act of writing is a process: leave time to edit, ensure the introduction reflects what you actually argue, and make sure your reconstruction matches the text.
  • Essay rubric mentioned: 15 points overall, with separate criteria for writing quality and understanding.

Key Equations and Formulas to Remember

  • General formula for capital: M \; C \; M'
  • Labor power as a commodity and its unique role is captured in discussions of value production, though no single equation is given for its price beyond reproduction costs.
  • Socially Necessary Labour Time (SNLT): the labour time required to produce a use value under normal production conditions in a given society; value is tied to SNLT: V \propto L_s
  • Diamond example: price/value reflects SNLT rather than use value: P{diamonds} \propto Ls^{diamonds} (illustrative; used to explain exchange value driven by labor time).
  • Productive consumption vs consumption of the consumer: distinctions used to explain how labor power can be consumed productively to generate surplus value.

References to Weeks and Readings (Conceptual Anchors)

  • Weeks 2–3 selections on commodity fetishism and labor power help reconstruct the argument and make it legible to a contemporary reader.
  • Reading notes on the social product and the universal equivalence of money anchor discussions about private labor and the social reproduction of the working class.
  • Future readings (e.g., Maria Rosa De la Costa) will extend Marx’s framework to household labor and gendered division of labor within capitalism.