Chapter 6. The One-Sidedness of Wage-Labour Since capital as such is indifferent to every particularity of its substance, and exists not only as the totality of the same but also as the abstraction from all its particularities, the labour which confronts it likewise subjectively has the same totality and abstraction in itself. Marx 1 I. The Abstraction of Wage-Labour What is this thing we have called wage-labour, about which we have theorised? Clearly, it is that which stands opposite to capital within capitalism. Wage-labour is the necessary mediator for capital in capital's thrust to grow. The reproduction of capital requires the reproduction of a body of wage-labourers, a mass of human instruments of production who must enter into a relation in which they perform surplus labour for capital. Thus, wage-labour is a necessary moment within the reproduction of capital. At the same time, however, we have seen that wage- labour is more. The wage-labourer enters into this relation with capital for her own goals. Considered from the side of the worker, wage-labour is the means by which it is possible to secure use-values necessary for her reproduction (both simple and expanded). In short, wage-labour is more than just "means"; it is also its own movement. In this respect, capital is a mediator for wage-labour, a necessary moment within the reproduction of wage-labour. Thus, we have argued that an adequate understanding of capitalism as a whole requires us to recognise explicitly that the capital/ wage-labour relation is two-sided and that Capital is one-sided insofar it merely explores the relation from the perspective of capital. Only by considering the struggle over expanded reproduction (that of both capitalist and wage-labourer), the struggle between two "oughts", do we grasp the basis for the specific laws of motion of capitalism. The development of this second side is necessary to understand properly the mutual interaction of the different moments and the distinctions within capitalism as an organic system. The conception of capitalism as a whole we have offered, accordingly, is one in which there is both K-WL-K ____________________ 1 Grundrisse, p. 296. 2 and WL-K-WL. It is one where capital and wage-labour constitute a whole (as represented in Figure 4.1) characterised by inimical mutual opposition, by a two-sided class struggle which drives capitalism along its specific trajectory. [PUT FIGURE 4.1 HERE] Yet, something rather important is missing from this picture. If this conception of the totality is meant to represent the real concrete totality, then it must be admitted that it fails to do so. Many of the questions raised by critics of Marxism and posed in Chapter 1 remain as relevant as ever. About this newly constructed totality in which presumably all presuppositions are results and all results are presuppositions, we can still say: Not only the absence of socialist revolution and the continued hegemony of capital over workers in advanced capitalist countries, but also the theoretical silence (and practical irrelevance) with respect to struggles for emancipation, struggles of women against patriarchy in all its manifestations, struggles over the quality of life and cultural identity--- all these point to a theory not entirely successful. Even though we have risen above a conception of political economy which considers the worker "as just as much an appendage of capital as the lifeless instruments of labour are," the totality developed here still appears to exclude from its field of enquiry anything other than the immediate class struggle between capital and wage-labour.2 Measured by the real concrete totality, the representation of capitalism as a whole is "defective." The problem, of course, is that our conception of wage- labour is merely an abstraction. It has been a "rational abstraction" insofar as it has permitted us to consider what is common to all wage-labourers in their relation to capital.3 Yet, there is no such animal---wage-labour as such. Wage-labour exists only insofar as a living human being enters into this relation; its existence presupposes, therefore, human beings who are wage-labourers. But human beings as such have not been our subject. Just as in Marx's Capital, "the characters who appear on the economic stage" heretofore are considered merely as the bearers and repositories of a particular economic relation. For Marx, this delimitation was explicit: "individuals are ____________________ 2 Capital, Vol. I, p.719. 3 Grundrisse, p.85. 3 dealt with here only insofar as they are the personifications of economic categories, the bearers of particular class-relations and interests."4 Thus, despite our passage beyond Capital's treatment of the wage-labourer, we have not completely transcended it; rather than as human beings who are wage-labourers, the workers we have considered are only wage-labourers. In this respect, our discussion thus far remains infected by Marx's treatment. Is that really a problem? The Young Marx certainly thought so. "The political economist," he noted, "reduces everything... to man, i.e., to the individual whom he strips of all determinateness so as to classify him as capitalist or worker."5 This was no casual remark. It was a precise charge--- that political economy was concerned with only one Ground (or sufficient basis) of the individual. Yet, as Hegel had argued, any determinate being may have a variety of Grounds: A Something is a concretion of such a manifold of determinations, each of which manifests itself in it in equal permanence and persistence. Each, therefore, as much as any other, can be determined as Ground, that is, as essential, the other consequently in comparison with it being merely posited.6 Any particular determination, in short, could be selected as the Ground while all others were treated as non- essential. "Again, an official has a certain aptitude for his office, has certain relationships as an individual, has such and such acquaintances, and a particular character; he could show himself in such and such circumstances and occasions, and so on. Each of these characteristics may be, or be regarded as, the Ground of his holding his office." Indeed, every one of those characteristics could be identified as essential to the official "because he is the determinate individual that he is, by virtue of them."7 Nevertheless, there was an inherent problem in focussing upon particular grounds: in their form of essentiality one is as valid as another; it does not contain the whole volume of the thing, and is therefore a one-sided Ground, and each of the other particular sides has again ____________________ 4 Capital, Vol. I, pp.179,92. See, however, ibid.,pp.739-40 for a discussion of a departure of the capitalist from this relation as pure personification of an economic category. 5 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, p.317. 6 Hegel, Science of Logic, Vol.II, p.92. 7 Science of Logic, Vol.II,p.93. 4 its group of Grounds; but not one exhausts the thing itself, which constitutes their connexion and contains them all. Not one is sufficient Ground, that is, the Notion.8 The Young Marx's criticism of political economy for stripping individuals of all determinateness and presenting them merely as capitalist or worker, thus, was a clear statement that only the human being as a whole, the connection which contains all particular Grounds, was a sufficient basis for study. In this respect, to examine the human being only insofar as he is wage-labourer is clearly one-sided; that is the problem of the political economy of capital which treats the proletarian "only as a worker" and "does not consider him when he is not working, as a human being."9 So, did the mature Marx, as E.P. Thompson has argued, forget all this and fall here into "the trap baited by 'Political Economy'?"10 Did he also forget about the worker as human being? It is difficult to reconcile such a conclusion with the evidence that Marx continued to stress the multiple determination of individuals. Not only is the Grundrisse filled with comments such as those about the many-sided needs of the social human being but there is as well the quite explicit statement in Theories of Surplus Value that "all circumstances, therefore, which affect man, the subject of production, more or less modify all his functions and activities, and therefore too his functions and activities as the creator of material wealth, of commodities." In short, for Marx, insofar as human beings are the subjects, we necessarily are concerned with "all human relations and functions, however and in whatever form they may appear."11 Let me suggest, therefore, a simple alternative. Rather than accepting the one-sided premise of political economy, Marx explicitly did in this case exactly what he had done with respect to the standard of necessity--- he assumed in Capital that the individuals considered were only the bearers of a particular class relation, only the personifications of economic categories.12 It no more means ____________________ 8 Science of Logic, Vol.II, p.94. 9 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, p.241. 10 E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory,pp.60-3. 11 Theories of Surplus Value, Vol.I.,p.280. 12 Thus, in discussing the time the capitalist himself spends on the circulation of commodities, Marx says in the Grundrisse (634-5) the following: 5 that Marx believed that this assumption was sufficient, however, than that he thought the standard of necessity was indeed constant. As he had noted to Engels in the latter case, "only by this procedure is it possible to discuss one relation without discussing all the rest."13 The problem, of course, is that Marx did not himself subsequently proceed to release this assumption and to consider human beings as subjects. Only when we go beyond Capital to interrogate Marx's intended book on wage-labour can we explore all those "human relations and functions, however and in whatever form they may appear" which produce the determinateness of the worker. It has always been implicit in our discussion of wage- labour that the person is more than merely wage-labourer. In the consideration of the "second moment" of production, the production of wage-labourers, there is clearly a side which goes beyond the capital/wage-labour relation. We have seen glimpses of such a region in the discussion of use-values for workers originating from outside capitalist relations, in the positing of Nature as a source of wealth for workers and in a concept of productive labour for workers which includes activities nurturing the development of human beings. The very concept of wage-labour, in short, includes within it that which is necessary to wage-labour but which is not exhausted and encompassed within wage-labour as such. Wage-labour contains a distinction; it divides into the wage-labourer as wage-labourer and the wage-labourer insofar as she is non-wage-labourer. Thus, rather than the relation shown earlier in Figure 4.1, capitalism as a whole is more appropriately represented as two overlapping sets as in Figure 6.1. This representation corresponds to the overlapping sets implied in the discussion of wealth and productive labour in the preceding chapter. [PUT FIGURE 6.1 HERE] II. The Wage-Labourer as Non-Wage-Labourer ____________________________________________________________ The time a capitalist loses during exchange is as such not a deduction from labour time. He is a capitalist---i.e. representative of capital, personified capital.... Circulation time--- to the extent that it takes up the time of the capitalist as such--- concerns us here exactly as much as the time he spends with his mistress.... The capitalist absolutely does not concern us here except as capital. 13 See the discussion in Chapter 2. 6 What can we say about this other side of the wage- labourer (and, thus, the determinateness of the worker) within the framework of Marx's theory? Return to the concept of the production of the worker as a labour process (explored in Chapter 3). Like every other product of human activity, the specific nature of workers produced depends upon both the nature of the inputs and the process by which those inputs are transformed into a final product. As we have seen, Marx proposed that human beings not only produce themselves by consuming food but also do so through "every kind of consumption which in some way or another produces human beings in some particular aspect." It follows, then, that the nature of the product of labour will vary in accordance with the process of production. "Hunger is hunger, but the hunger gratified by cooked meat eaten with a knife and fork is a different hunger from that which bolts down raw meat with the aid of hand, nail and tooth." Clearly, for Marx the quality of the human being produced is not independent of the precise character of the inputs consumed: "The object of art--- like every other product--- creates a public which is sensitive to art and enjoys beauty."14 Of course, the inputs, the use-values which workers consume in the process of producing themselves, correspond to a "manifold variety of needs." Not only are they material inputs necessary for physiological reproduction but they encompass as well those required for "the higher, even cultural satisfactions"--- the newspaper subscriptions, the lecture attendance, the development of taste that Marx describes. Not only are these use-values things (the need for which arises from "the stomach or from the imagination") but they are also intangibles such as the "fresh air and sunlight" available from Nature. 15 But, how are those use-values secured? Obviously, in the case of the wage-labourer, some are obtained through the purchase of articles of consumption with money resulting from the sale of labour-power. Others may be accessible by virtue of the worker's membership within society---just as the Roman citizen had an "ideal claim (at least) to the ager publicus and a real one to a certain number of iugera of land,etc."16 Thus, for example, Marx in the Critique of Gotha Programme noted the existence in "present-day society" of "that which is needed for common satisfaction of needs, such as schools, health services,etc." 17 Still other use- values for the worker (such as fresh air and sunlight) may ____________________ 14 Grundrisse, pp. 90, 92. 15 Capital, Vol.I, pp.375-6. 16 Grundrisse,p.490. 17 He also referred there to "funds for those unable to work,etc., in short, for what is included under so-called official poor relief today." Critique of the Gotha Programme, p.22. 7 be available as the "free service" provided by the forces of nature.18 We cannot assume, however, that these use-values are already in a form appropriate for workers to consume in the process of their own production. Where they are not, workers clearly must act upon those use-values to adapt them to their needs. Marx did not ignore such activities; he stressed, however, that they were dependent upon the previous performance of labour for capital. The working class, he noted, "can only cook meat for itself when it has produced a wage with which to pay for the meat; and it can only keep its furniture and dwellings clean, it can only polish its boots, when it has produced the value of furniture, house rents and boots."19 Consistently, Marx described such activity by the worker which satisfied his own needs as "unproductive" (which, of course, it is---for capital). Activities which are "absolutely necessary in order to consume things" Marx classified as "costs of consumption."20 Everyone, he indicated, has a number of functions to fulfil which are not productive and which in part enter into the costs of consumption. "The real productive labourers have to bear these consumption costs themselves and to perform their unproductive labour themselves."21 Insofar as they perform such activities for themselves, it lowers their money requirements. "The cost of production of the working-class family," Marx recognised, is lowered by the existence of domestic work rather than the "purchase of ready-made articles." Conversely, "diminished expenditure of labour in the house is accompanied by an increased expenditure of money outside."22 Implicit in all this is that there is more than one production process outside the sphere of capital--- not only the production of human beings but also the production of various use-values as inputs. And, that of course raises the question of the nature of the relations of production characteristic of such production processes. In the case where workers perform these operations themselves, they do so as the owners of their own labour- power and of the use-values which serve as means of production; they thus are as well the owners of the product of labour. Of course, while such labour performed is "absolutely necessary" labour, it is also "private labour" which is outside the capital/wage-labour relation. Thus, this labour (which Marx acknowledged and deemed "unproductive") is "invisible" for the capitalist insofar as ____________________ 18 Capital, Vol.I, pp.751,757. 19 Theories of Surplus Value, Vol. I, p.161. 20 Theories of Surplus Value, Vol. I, p.179. 21 Theories of Surplus Value, Vol. I, p.288. 22 Capital, Vol. I, p.518n. 8 he does not have to pay for it.23 On the other hand, to the extent that this labour has products of capital as its presupposition, "this unproductive labour never enables them to repeat the same unproductive labour a second time unless they have previously laboured productively."24 The treatment of the individual worker as isolated is, however, a special case and serves us mainly as a heuristic device. As Marx and Engels early noted, individuals need "connections with one another, and since their needs, consequently their nature, and the method of satisfying their needs, connected them with one another (relations between the sexes, exchange, division of labour), they had to enter into relations with one another."25 What is the nature, however, of those relations? There are many possible relations under which the use- values required for the production process of the wage- labourer can be obtained. Equal exchange between two wage- labourers who "recognize each other as owners of private property" is one such possibility. In this case, each owner of his own labour-power continues to perform this necessary private labour (which remains unproductive for capital) but there is a division of this labour between the two.26 Another possible division of labour is one in which "unproductive labour" becomes "the exclusive function of one section of labourers and productive labour the exclusive function of another section." Marx described the paid activities of cooks, maids, physicians and private teachers as falling under the heading of this "unproductive labour" and noted that a considerable portion of services belonged to the "costs of consumption."27 Here again, not only does the continuation of this "unproductive labour" require the continuation of wage-labour but also that labour "absolutely necessary in order to consume things" does not change its character simply as the result of a division of labour; it remains private and is counted as "social" only insofar as the wage-labourer succeeds in passing these costs of consumption to the capitalist.28 ____________________ 23 The workday from the perspective of the worker thus significantly exceeds the workday from the perspective of capital. One interesting result is that the rate of surplus value can be seen as an inadequate form of the rate of exploitation (the ratio of surplus labour to necessary labour); the latter is lower insofar as the worker performs necessary labour for himself (i.e., privately). See Michael A. Lebowitz, "The Political Economy of Housework: A Comment," Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists, Vol.VI (March 1976). 24 Theories of Surplus Value, Vol.I, p.161. 25 German Ideology, p.437. 26 Capital, Vol. I, p. 178. 27 Theories of Surplus Value, Vol. I, pp. 288,,179, 392-3. 28 Theories of Surplus Value, Vol. I,pp.181, 288. 9 Let us focus (for reasons which will become apparent), however, on one particular relation under which this "unproductive" labour may be performed. Through the ownership of a slave, it is possible to secure necessary use-values without either working to produce them or exchanging for them. In this case, the use-values required as inputs for the process of production of labour-power are obtained through a process of exploitation--- defined simply as compelling the performance of surplus labour. In the slave relation, a dependent producer "belongs to the individual, particular owner, and is his labouring machine." Labour-power here does not "belong" to the dependent producer, and the disposition of its expenditure (as well as the enjoyment of the fruits of its activity) are the right of the owner.29 In this case, rather than economic compulsion, it is "direct compulsion" which maintains the slave in his position. He works under the spur of fear--- although "not for his existence which is guaranteed even though it does not belong to him."30 Exploitation means that the slave "must add to the labour-time necessary for his own maintenance an extra quantity of labour-time in order to produce the means of subsistence for the owner of the means of production."31 It means that the master benefits by receiving surplus products and/or "free time"---the reduced requirement to perform that labour "absolutely necessary in order to consume things." Of course, the very benefits of the slave relation to the wage- labourer may be captured by capital in the form of an increased intensity of the capitalist work-day or reduced wage requirements. Yet, this no more alters the character of slave exploitation than the character of capitalist exploitation is changed in the case where a capitalist is unable to realise all the surplus value generated in the process of production. Again, we may note that, while the slave's labour is indeed productive for the slave-owner, in itself it remains private and unproductive with respect to capital. Only insofar as the wage-labourer is successful in securing the money-requirements for the slave's means of subsistence which take a commodity-form will there be any representation under the heading of "social" labour. Similarly, the ability of the master to secure these money-requirements through wage-labour will be a condition for the maintenance of the slave relation. However, the value of labour-power will not include provision for the necessities consumed by the slave because capital wants wage-labourers to have slaves! (This ____________________ 29 Grundrisse,p.464. 30 Capital, Vol.I, p.1031. Although all use-values produced by the slave are themselves the property of the master, a portion of these must be allocated to his "labouring machine" in order to preserve the natural conditions of his existence as master. 31 Capital, Vol. I, p. 344. 10 would be yet another absurdity consistent with the one-sided concept of the value of labour-power described in the last chapter.) Rather, the value of labour-power includes such provisions insofar as the wage-labourer has been successful in struggling for them. Although it is possible to explore this particular relation and its inherent dynamics further, the obvious question is--- why even raise the spectre of slave-ownership in the context of our discussion of the production of the wage-labourer? Of course, the answer is that it is precisely the way in which Marx described relations within the family at the time. In the German Ideology, he spoke of the "latent slavery in the family", where "wife and children are the slaves of the husband;" the latter in this case had "the power of disposing of the labour-power of others."32 Similarly, in the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels emphasized that the programme of the Communists would do away with both the "exploitation of children by their parents" and "the status of women as mere instruments of production."33 Marx explicitly returned to this theme in his notes for Capital. "In private property of every type," he indicated, "the slavery of the members of the family at least is always implicit since they are made use of and exploited by the head of the family."34 As well, Engels would subsequently note that "the modern individual family is based on the open or disguised domestic enslavement of the woman."35 In defining the relationship within the family as one of slavery, Marx was clearly stating that "the family labour necessary for consumption," that "independent labour at home, within customary limits, for the family itself" (including the exercise of "economy and judgement in the consumption and preparation of the means of subsistence") occurs in a situation where the producer in the household is exploited within a slave relation.36 How could it be denied that this is what Marx was arguing? Yet, this is a point that Marxists have resisted. As Nancy Folbre comments, there has been a "reluctance to consider the possibility of exploitation within the realm of reproduction" with the result that such exploitation was "largely defined out of existence in the domestic labor debates."37 Further, the very designation of the relation by ____________________ 32 German Ideology in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, Vol.5, p.46. 33 Communist Manifesto in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, Vol.6, pp.501-2. 34 Capital, Vol. I, p.1083. 35 Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State in Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing, 1962), p.232. 36 Capital, Vol. I, pp. 517-8,518n. 37 Nancy R. Folbre, "A Patriarchal Mode of Production," in Randy Albelda, Christopher Gunn and William Waller,eds., 11 Marx and Engels as one of slavery has been described "as more metaphorical than scientific"--- and, indeed, as evoking "dangerous metaphors."38 Yet, not only does this assertion display a curious selectivity in drawing upon Marx but it also ignores the consistency in his argument. Consider what happens to this "old family relationship" characterised by patriarchal authority ("patria potestas") when the degree of immiseration increases--- either because of a fall in real wages or because of a growth in social needs.39 One option is an increase in exploitation within the household--- i.e., an increase in the extra quantity of labour performed by wife and children. An increased expenditure of labour in the house, we know, will be accompanied by a reduced expenditure of money outside. Referring to the exploitation of children, Marx noted that "this exploitation always existed to a certain extent among the peasants, and was the more developed, the heavier the yoke pressing on the countryman."40 Yet, there is another possible response when wages are too low to satisfy requirements (one likely to occur when increased domestic labour is inadequate to satisfy needs)--- an extension of the labour-time performed directly for capital. Just as for the individual worker there is a backward-sloping supply of labour such that the supply of labour is "to a certain extent independent of the supply of workers," so also do we find this in the case of the worker's family "when the quantity of labour provided by the head of the family is augmented by the labour of the members of the family."41 More labour can be furnished to capital (and more money thereby secured) "by enrolling, under the direct sway of capital, every member of the worker's family, without distinction of age or sex."42 In itself, this development does not change the nature of the relation between "the head of the family" and those whom he exploits--- any more than the slave-owner of antiquity ceased to be the owner of the person of others when he rented his slaves out. From slaves within the household, the chattels of the head of the family become income-earning slaves as the result of the need for additional money. And, this is exactly how Marx described this development. Working class parents, he argued, "have ____________________________________________________________ Alternatives to Economic Orthodoxy: A Reader in Political Economy (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1986),p.326. 38 Lise Vogel, Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1983), pp. 61, 130. 39 Capital, Vol I, p. 620. The following discussion draws upon a tentative exploration in an unpublished manuscript, "Notes on Immiseration and Household Labour" (December 1976). 40 Capital, Vol. I, p.385n. 41 Capital, Vol. I, pp. 793,687-8,684. 42 Capital, Vol. I, p. 517. 12 assumed characteristics that are truly revolting and thoroughly like slave-dealing." Not only did the male wage- labourer sell his own labour-power. "Now he sells wife and child. He has become a slave dealer."43 Of course, Marx did propose that this very process in which capital assigned "an important part in socially organized processes of production, outside the sphere of the domestic economy, to women, young persons and children of both sexes, does nevertheless create a new economic foundation for a higher form of the family and of relations between the sexes."44 It is not at all contradictory, however, that something undertaken for short-term benefits may have quite different long-term implications.45 In any event, it is not difficult to see why Marx considered this development to be a basis for the potential alteration of social relations within the household. The seller of labour- power is "formally posited as a person," as one who has labour-power as her own property.46 Accordingly, with the entry of women into wage-labour, there is the potential for the end of the "old family relationships": With the slave's awareness that he cannot be the property of another, with his consciousness of himself as a person, the existence of slavery becomes a merely artificial, vegetative existence, and ceases to be able to prevail as the basis of production.47 In the same manner, Engels commented that the shift of women from the household to the labour market removed "all foundation" for male domination in the proletarian home. "The first premise for the emancipation of women is the reintroduction of the entire female sex into public ____________________ 43 Capital, Vol I, pp. 519-20, 519n. In this context, Marx includes "the premium that the exploitation of the workers' children sets on their production" as a reason for high population growth among the industrial proletariat. ibid.,p.795. Quite consistently, Nancy Folbre has stressed the relation between child labour laws and the decline in average family size within capitalism. See, for example, Ann Ferguson and Nancy Folbre, "The Unhappy Marriage of Patriarchy and Capitalism," in Lydia Sargent,ed., Women and Revolution: A Discussion of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1981), p.323. 44 Capital, Vol. I, p.620-1. 45 Consider, for example, the long-term effects of the release by manorial lords of peasants from labour-service requirements in return for money-payments. 46 Grundrisse, pp. 289, 465. 47 Grundrisse, p.463. 13 industry."48 Of course, that is only the first premise, and "a new economic foundation for a higher form of the family" is not equivalent to the realisation of that form. Now, how critical is the precise designation of this relation as one of slavery? Many feminists would be uncomfortable with this term, and certainly not all of the attributes of property in people (such as the right to buy and sell people) were present at the time that Marx wrote. On the other hand, it is well to recall that, as a student of the classics, Marx's primary reference point would have been to slavery in Antiquity (rather than in the New World) and that in the former case slavery displayed a variety of characteristics (including that of individuals entering into that state voluntarily because of the unacceptability of their available options). Nevertheless, the central issue is not the precise term but the essential characteristic--- exploitation. What Marx described is entirely consistent with the argument that, in addition to capitalist relations, wage-labourers also existed within a "patriarchal mode of production", defined by Nancy Folbre as "a distinctive set of social relations, including but by no means limited to control over the means of production, that structures the exploitation of women and/or children by men."49 For our purpose here, which is to explore Marx's consideration of the determinateness of the worker, we need say no more. Whatever the potential future implication of the entry of women and children into wage-labour, it is evident that Marx viewed the male wage-labourer at the time as existing within two relationships, two class relationships: as wage-labourer in relation to capital and as slave-owner. In this respect, the worker we have been considering until now is really not an abstract wage- labourer at all but, rather, the patriarchal wage-labourer! Similarly, wife and children, insofar as they became wage-labourers, also existed in two class relations. In short, to speak of wage-labourers is to describe people who are in no way identical in their relations. They are identical only insofar as they are wage-labourers for capital. As long as our subject is capital, it may be appropriate to consider these human beings only in their characteristic as wage-labourer. Yet, as soon as the subject becomes wage-labour, it is necessary to consider the other relations in which people exist. In positing the existence of male and female wage- labourers who exist within patriarchal relations, we are considering workers with differing goals and differing hierarchies of needs. For the patriarchal wage-labourer, the struggle for higher wages is in part a struggle to permit the reproduction of patriarchy; his increased wages, all ____________________ 48 Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, pp.231,233. 49 Folbre, op. cit.,p. 330. 14 other things equal, will allow for an increased expenditure of labour in the house for him by his wife (and children). (The "family wage" is the condition for reproduction of both relations in which he exists.) For the female wage-labourer, on the other hand, the struggle for higher wages is in part the struggle to escape that set of relations in which men control the means of production within the household and exploit women and/or children. Certainly, there is here the basis for a divergence of interests between wage-labourers of differing age and sex. When we recognise that our subject has been the patriarchal wage-labourer, it places our discussion in Chapter 4 of the struggles of wage-labourers in a somewhat different light. For example, any individual patriarchal wage-labourer ("head of the family") gains, all other things equal, "by enrolling under the direct sway of capital, every member of the worker's family, without distinction of age or sex." Yet, patriarchal wage-labourers as a whole lose as the result of the increased competition (and lower wages) which occur when all patriarchal wage-labourers act in this way. In this context, restrictions (through a form "possessing general, socially coercive force") upon the ability of individual patriarchal wage-labourers to sell their wives and children by voluntary contract to capital appear as the result of the political movement of patriarchal wage-labour as a whole.50 The implications of patriarchy, however, go further. Within this patriarchal (or slave) relation, men and women are produced differently. Since, as we have noted, "their needs, consequently their nature, and the method of satisfying their needs, connected them with one another (relations between the sexes, exchange, division of labour), they had to enter into relations with one another." Yet, the nature of the people produced is not independent of the precise relations into which they have entered. As Marx and Engels continued: since this intercourse, in its turn, determined production and needs, it was, therefore, precisely the personal, individual behaviour of individuals, their behaviour to one another as individuals, that created the existing relations and daily produces them anew.... Hence it certainly follows that the development of an individual is determined by the development of all others with whom he is directly or indirectly associated,....51 ____________________ 50 This does not, of course, mean that such state legislation as child labour laws and restrictions on the workday for women and children were not in the interests of workers as a whole. 51 German Ideology, pp. 437-8. 15 Not only do men and women produce themselves differently in the course of the labour "absolutely necessary to consume things" as it is carried out under patriarchal relations, but they also produce themselves differently through the consumption of the output of that process. For, although the specific material use-values produced may be independent of relations of production, the content of those use-values is not. Marx touched upon this question in considering the difference between purchasing a coat from a "jobbing tailor" who performs the work in the buyer's home and having a domestic servant. In both cases, there was a relation of buyers and sellers. But there was a critical difference in these two exchanges. In the case of the domestic servant, he noted: But the way in which the use-value is enjoyed in this case in addition bears a patriarchal form of relation, a relation of master and servant, which modifies the relation in its content, though not in its economic form, and makes it distasteful.52 In the course of producing ourselves, in short, we consume not only specific use-values but also the social relations under which those use-values are produced. There is a difference between consuming a use-value produced by the independent owner of labour-power and one produced in a patriarchal form of relation. Just as the object of art creates "a public which is sensitive to art and enjoys beauty," so also do human beings who consume patriarchal relations produce themselves in a particular way. "The development of an individual is determined by the development of all others with whom he is directly or indirectly associated." Thus, from the time of their birth, males and females produce themselves by consuming not only the use-values provided under a gendered division of labour but also the patriarchal relations that determine that division. Implicit in this process, then, is the production of different persons, different personalities, differing natures with respect to domination and nurturance. As Sandra Harding has emphasised, "the kinds of persons infants become are greatly influenced by the particular social relations the infant experiences as it is transformed, and transforms itself, from a biological infant into a social person."53 ____________________ 52 Theories of Surplus Value, Vol. I, p. 287. Emphasis added. 53 Sandra Harding, "What is the Real Material Base of Patriarchy and Capital?" in Sargent, op.cit., p.147. The path-breaking work on the relationship between patriarchy and the social construction of gender personality is Nancy 16 We are here considering a subject upon which Marxist feminists have made and continue to make major contributions. At this point, therefore, it seems appropriate to comment upon the limitations of Marx's discussion. Despite Marx's description of the existing relationship within the working-class household as slave in nature, there is no consideration of this class relation as one of struggle (now open, now hidden) nor of the wives (and children) as subjects and actors.54 All of this is precluded, of course, by Marx's subject in Capital. Yet, it would be naive to think that any of this would have appeared in the missing book on Wage-Labour if Marx had ever written it. True, Marx hoped for a "higher form of the family and of relations between the sexes." And, certainly, he found the existing arrangement personally "distasteful" and repugnant (as he did slavery in the New World). Yet, there is little reason to assume that he would have explored these questions in any detail. There is no indication that he was able to go beyond Victorian conventions in a manner similar to his contemporary John Stuart Mill, who specifically criticised the Factory Acts' restriction of women's labour "in order that they might have time to labour for the husband, in what is called by the advocates of restriction, his home."55 In raising these questions, therefore, it is not my goal to present Marx, the historical individual, as having been adequate. That would be rewriting history. Rather, it is to demonstrate that within the Marxian framework there is the theoretical space to develop these questions. In short, one does not have to add alien elements onto Marxian theory in an eclectic manner in order to create a "usable" Marx. It certainly is also not my intention to suggest that the questions raised here constitute an adequate treatment; that is a project that many feminist Marxists are currently undertaking with important results.56 So, the issues raised ____________________________________________________________ Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). 54 Vogel points out that, in all Marx's comments about slavery, women and children are portrayed "as passive victims rather than historical actors." Vogel, op.cit.,p. 61. 55 John Stuart Mill, quoted in Michele Pujol, Economic Efficiency or Economic Chivalry? Women's Status and Women's Work in Early Neo-Classical Economics. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Simon Fraser University, 1989. 56 In particular, it is important to stress that concerns over patriarchy go far beyond consideration of its underlying basis and must properly include exploration of matters which can not be addressed here such as the place and significance of rape. 17 here are not what would have been in Wage-Labour but, rather, point to what belong in it. It may appear as if we have gone somewhat far afield in our discussion of the wage-labourer as non-wage-labourer. Yet, consideration of these issues is essential if we are to explore the determinateness of the wage-labourers who face capital. It similarly underlines the significance of a missing book on wage-labour. For, certainly the specific exploitation of women will always remain peripheral and non- essential for one-sided Marxism so long as the implications of that missing book are not recognised. Patriarchy is necessarily secondary as long as workers are stripped "of all determinateness" and regarded only as abstract wage- labourers. Of course, the wage-labourers who face capital are not only distinguished as men and women. Once we acknowledge that "every kind of consumption... in one way or another produces human beings in some particular aspect," then it is not a great leap to extend the discussion of differently- produced wage-labourers to differences based on age, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, historical circumstances and, indeed, on "all human relations and functions, however and in whatever form they may appear." Marx did not take this step. He limited his comments to the matter immediately at hand--- the question of the value of labour-power. Thus, he acknowledged that "historical tradition and social habitude" played an important part in generating different standards of necessity for different groups of workers.57 Not only do necessary needs vary over time; they also vary among individuals and groups of workers at any given time. An obvious example was the situation of the Irish worker, for whom "the most animal minimum of needs and subsistence appears to him as the sole object and purpose of his exchange with capital."58 Marx argued that their low necessary needs (compared to those of the English male worker) reflected the historical conditions under which Irish workers entered wage-labour, conditions which drove the standard of necessity to which they became accustomed to the level of physiological needs.59 Yet, differences in the value of labour-power reflect more than differences in "the social conditions in which people are placed and reared up." These are merely the "historical" premises; and, on this basis, we could never explain alterations in relative wages---e.g., the equalisation (upward or downward) of the value of labour- power of differing groups of workers. Limited to these ____________________ 57 Value, Price and Profit, p.145. Marx also noted the role of differences in the "extent of the prime necessities of life in their natural and historical development" in explaining national differences in wages. Capital, Vol. I, p.701. 58 Grundrisse, p.285. 59 Capital, Vol. I, pp. 854-70. 18 historical premises as an explanation, "the more or less favourable conditions" under which various groups of workers "emerged from the state of serfdom" would appear as original sin.60 In short, just as in the case of changes in the standard of necessity over time, differences in that standard for different groups of workers are the result of class struggle--- the result of capitalist and worker pressing in opposite directions. The historical premises (insofar as they have affected the level of social needs) may explain why particular workers do not press very hard against capital; however, it is what workers accept in the present rather than the historical premises which determines the level of their necessary needs. The principle, of course, goes beyond the case of Irish and English workers. It encompasses not only workers of differing ethnic and national background but also male and female workers. Unless, for example, we recognise the central place of class struggle in the determination of the value of labour-power, we are left with an explanation of male/female wage differentials which rests on the assumption of lower subsistence requirements for women. Just as it is absurd, however, to assume that Marx believed that the value of labour-power of Irish workers would always be below that of English workers, it is equally absurd to retain a flawed concept of the value of labour-power (which ignores the "peculiarity" of that commodity)--- one which must imply that lower wages for women reflect their lower subsistence requirements (requirements given once and for all by the social conditions in which they are placed and reared up). Rather than believing that all workers were identical, Marx's conception was that every individual is an ensemble of the social relations in which she acts. That has its implications. Given that workers produce themselves as heterogeneous human beings (with differing hierarchies of needs) and that the needs they are normally able to satisfy reflect the results of struggle, it is clear that at any given point there exist differing degrees and dimensions of immiseration.61 Although the point was not developed in Capital, once we begin to explore workers insofar as they are non-wage-labourers, we see that, rather than abstract ____________________ 60 Value, Price and Profit, p.145. 61 Differing hierarchies of needs--- even with identical "necessary needs" (considered broadly), will yield differing degrees of immiseration. Alternatively, since the particular needs normally satisfied by workers will differ depending on their success in struggles (and their individual ranking of needs), there will be different degrees of immiseration even if hierarchies of need are identical. The two cases are analogous in a two-commodity indifference map (such as Figure 2.1) to the cases of differing "bliss points" and differing real wages, respectively. 19 wage-labourers, the workers in question are human beings in all their determinateness. III. The Production of the Worker as a Whole It would be wrong, however, to view the process of production of the worker as occurring only outside wage- labour. If we think of the household as the site in which the production of the worker takes place, then there remains an implicit view of the process as natural and physical rather than as social. If every activity of the worker produces her in some particular aspect, however, then this must include as well the process of capitalist production. Recall the discussion of capitalist production in Chapter 2. A certain type of human being is produced under the alienating conditions of capitalist production--- one with the need to possess alien commodities. And, as noted, those needs are generated not only by production proper but also through capital's sales efforts to expand the sphere of circulation. Those needs are needs which, within capitalist relations, can only be secured by the sale of labour-power. Capital, thus, necessarily appears as the mediator for the wage-labourer. The worker, accordingly, is produced as one conscious of his dependence upon capital. And, everything about capitalist production contributes not only to the relation of dependence but also to the "feeling of dependence."62. The very nature of capital is mystified--- "all the productive forces of social labour appear attributable to it, and not to labour as such, as a power springing forth from its own womb." Having surrendered the right to his "creative power, like Esau his birthright for a mess of pottage," capital, thus, becomes "a very mystical being" for the worker because it appears as the source of all productivity.63 Fixed capital, machinery, technology, science--- all necessarily appear only as capital, are known only in their capitalist form: The accumulation of knowledge and of skill, of the general productive forces of the social brain, is thus absorbed into capital, as opposed to labour, and hence appears as an attribute of capital....64 Thus, as Marx noted, this transposition of "the social productivity of labour into the material attributes of capital is so firmly entrenched in people's minds that the ____________________ 62 Capital, Vol. I, p. 936. 63 Capital, Vol. III, p.966. 64 Grundrisse, p. 694. 20 advantages of machinery, the use of science, invention, etc. are necessarily conceived in this alienated form, so that all these things are deemed to be the attributes of capital."65 In short, wage-labour assigns its own attributes to capital in its mind because the very nature of the capital/wage-labour relation is one in which it has already done so in reality. In the normal course of things. thus. capital can rely upon the worker's dependence upon capital. The very process of capitalist production produces and reproduces workers who view the necessity for capital as self-evident: The advance of capitalist production develops a working class which by education, tradition and habit looks upon the requirements of that mode as self-evident laws. The organization of the capitalist process of production, once it is fully developed, breaks down all resistance.66 Capital, however, does more than simply produce workers for whom the very thought of going beyond capital appears contrary to natural law. It also produces workers who are separated. In part, this is the result of the conscious effort of capital to divide and separate workers--- both in the labour market and in the process of production. (Both moments of the circuit of capital are characterised by the struggle of capital to divide workers and to equalise their conditions downward versus the struggle of workers to unite and to equalise their conditions upward.) Yet, the separation of workers is produced as well by the form of existence of capital as a whole. The very existence of capital as "many capitals" (i.e., as individual capitals competing against each other) separates workers insofar as they feel dependent not only upon capital as a whole but on particular capitals. In the battle of competition of capitals, there is thus a basis for groups of workers to link their ability to satisfy their needs to the success of the particular capitals which employ them. Thus, there is a classic inversion in competition--- rather than the competition among workers being recognised as a form of the competition of capitals and as a condition of capital securing its goals, the competition of capitals spontaneously appears as a form of the competition of workers and as a means for them to satisfy their goals. In the real existence of capital as many capitals, there exists a basis for separation between workers in different firms ____________________ 65 Capital, Vol. I, p.1058. 66 Capital, Vol. I, p.899. Marx also notes that "the severe discipline of capital, acting on succeeding generations, has developed general industriousness as the general property of the new species." Grundrisse, p.325. 21 (within and without a country) and for "concessions" to capital in the battle of competition.67 Even if outside of wage-labour workers were produced perfectly homogeneously, there thus would still be a basis for divisions among them given by the normal workings of capitalist production. As we have seen in Chapter 4, capital's ownership of the products of social labour serves to hide from both mental and manual labourer their unity as differing limbs of the collective worker. Similarly, we noted in Chapter 5 that the very struggle wherein the worker "measures his demands against the capitalist's profit and demands a certain share of the surplus value created by him" tends to the reproduction of capital's concept of productive labour and to the maintenance of the separation between those who work for capital and those workers who constitute the other limbs of the collective worker. Thus, that unity of workers which is a condition for going beyond capital is precisely what is not produced by capital. Yet, the breaking-down of resistance to the rule of capital and the separation of workers occur not only because capital itself produces the workers who face it. Capital faces workers who have been produced outside of their relation to capital, and that as well contributes to the education, tradition and habit which makes the requirements of capital appear as self-evident. "All human relations and functions," in short, "influence material production and have a more or less decisive influence on it." Thus, drawing upon this very point by Marx, Wilhelm Reich stressed the relationship between patriarchy and the acceptance of the rule of the authoritarian state and capital: The authoritarian position of the father reflects his political role and discloses the relation of the family to the authoritarian state. Within the family the father holds the same position that his boss holds toward him in the production process. And he reproduces his subservient attitude toward authority in his children, particularly in his sons.68 Capital is strengthened in many ways by the production of workers as non-wage-labourers. We have seen that a condition of existence of capital is its ability to divide and separate workers. Yet, the very process by which workers ____________________ 67 Insofar as workers in competing firms cannot co-operate, they are placed in a "Prisoners' Dilemma". In this context, see Michael A. Lebowitz, "Trade and Class: Labour Strategies in a World of Strong Capital," Studies in Political Economy, No.27 (Autumn 1988). 68 Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (New York: Pocket Book, 1976), p.49. See also pp.14-5. 22 are produced outside of their relation to capital ensures that they approach capital as heterogeneous human beings--- i.e., as wage-labourers who are already divided by (among other aspects) sex, age, race and nationality. If we add this to the inherent tendency in capital itself to foster competition among workers, it appears that the conditions for the maintenance of capitalist hegemony are easily satisfied. Consider the case of Irish workers. Their historically- given standard of necessity meant that they were prepared to work for lower wages than those to which English workers were accustomed. The tendency was to drive down the wages of the latter; and, the result, Marx saw, was one which clearly strengthened the rule of capital. There was far more to the matter, however, than a general competition among workers which weakened them in relation to capital: Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he feels himself a member of the ruling nation and so turns himself into a tool of the aristocrats and capitalists of his country against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social and national prejudices against the Irish worker.... The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker at once the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rule in Ireland. Thus, there was not merely the division between competing sellers of labour-power but an "antagonism" which drew for its strength upon all those characteristics (e.g., religious, social and national) which formed the Irish and English workers as differing human beings. Difference became, under the normal workings of capitalism, hostility. In this antagonism, Marx saw "the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organization. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And that class is fully aware of it."69 When one recalls, however, all of the ways in which the hegemony of capital is reinforced, it is uncertain that this ____________________ 69 Marx to S. Meyer and A. Vogt, 9 April 1870 in Marx and Engels, On Colonialism (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, n.d.),p.334. 23 particular separation of workers by itself can be seen as the single "secret" by which capital maintains its power. And, that is the question which comes to the fore once we consider workers as the subject and move away from the concept of an abstract wage-labourer. Once we think about the workers who face capital in all their determinateness, the question before us is--- why did Marx ever think that workers could go beyond capital? -- mike lebowitz E-MAIL ADDRESS: mlebowit@sfu.ca or m_lebowitz@sfu.ca (machines "fraser" or "whistler" may appear in address) SNAILMAIL: Economics Department Simon Fraser University Burnaby,B.C., Canada V5A 1S6 TELEPHONE: (604)291-3508 (department office) (604)291-4669 (my office) (604)255-0382 (home)