Talk:Surplus labour

Removed text

 * It is sometimes argued that in a modern, advanced, post-industrial and service-oriented economy, the distinction between necessary and surplus labour just does not make much sense. In the case of skilled, specialised services, for example, it may be more important that certain tasks are performed within a flexible time limit, than the exact time it takes to perform them.

I removed the paragraph above because it did not relate to the topic of the article. It seems to have something to do with flextime, but it's not really clear what it's about. But it certainly does not relate to surplus labour. --Cplot 04:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Another criticism of Marx's concept of surplus labor is that it ignores the investment by capitalists to purchase capital improvements, such as buildings, machinery, etc.[citation needed] The worker, by himself, could not obtain all of the capital required for his position. Therefore, the capitalist enables the worker to produce more for himself, by giving him access to capital improvements. The capitalist is rewarded by a return on his capital investments, and is therefore encouraged to increase production, and therefore employment, again benefiting the worker.

I deleted the paragraph above because a) there's no citation or even reference to any specific critic or school of thought and b) this isn't really so much a criticism of Marx as a misunderstanding of him. The concept of surplus labour does not ignore capitalists' investment in the machinery of production; Marx deals with that extensively. More to the point here, the basic thrust of Marx's critique of capital accumulation is precisely that the worker does not produce for himself, but rather for the one who owns the machinery of production: the capitalist. It's absurd to "critique" Marx by saying that "the capitalist enables the worker to produce more for himself," since the whole point of the concept of surplus labour is that it is labour that produces more for the capitalist, and not more for the worker. There are plenty of good grounds for a critique of Marx, and plenty of critiques have been made, but the deleted paragraph offered neither. --Ira —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.50.231.200 (talk) 07:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Surplus labour and unequal exchange
I think this section would be better suited for the surplus value article. It's only remotely related to surplus labour. --Cplot 04:31, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Reply by author
A theoretical reason why it's discussed here, is that unequal exchange in trade, like surplus labour, is not something that is specific to capitalism or the capitalist mode of production. Because the article on surplus value I worked on is already long, maybe best to leave it here. Admittedly Marx did not work out the concept of unequal exchange in detail (though Marxian economists have) but he does mention it. It is also directly related to the controversy about Roemer's "fundamental Marxian theorem". I think the nature of unequal exchange in all its dimensions already means that this theorem cannot be true. I think it is possible to demonstrate instances of unequal exchange even presupposing no production, which invalidates the theorem. The counterargument above is not essential to the article. User: Jurriaan 18:30 14 June 2007 (UTC)

"Modern"? criticism?
This section is really confusing, because the points listed are either consistent with Marxism, display an ignorance of Marxist economics, or were already addressed by Marx.


 * Points consistent with Marxist economics are not criticisms and should not be listed.


 * Points that misunderstand Marxist economics are irrelevant.


 * Points already addressed by Marx (are certainly not modern, and) are not really valid criticisms unless they address the arguments Marx already laid out.

Since I'm new to this page, I won't edit anything until someone can clarify what was meant by this section.

  The first point is consistent with Marxism, and is thus not a criticism:

profit in a capitalist operation was "ultimately" just a financial claim to products and labour services made by those who did not themselves produce those products and services, in virtue of their ownership of private property (capital assets).

 In the second point, I have to guess that "trading processes" refers either to merchants (people who only buy and sell goods but do not produce them,) or financial speculators:

profits could be made purely in trading processes, which themselves could be far removed in space and time from the co-operative labour which those profits ultimately presupposed.

In the case of merchants, there is certainly labor involved in conducting this business (stocking, pricing, conducting transactions, etc.) so this "criticism" amounts to a narrow and incorrect interpretations of what "labor" means and what "production" means--and thus is not a valid criticism.

The case of speculators is a little more technical, and less obvious. But it actually relies on the first point--that financial speculation is simply a form of redistributing claims to profits. It doesn't create profit that didn't exist already.

 The thrid point is inapplicable because it incorrectly assumes that Marx implies that all surplus labor necessarily leads to profit:

surplus labour could be performed, without this leading to any profits at all, because e.g. the products of that labour failed to be sold.

The idea of surplus labor is to explain where profits come from, when they exist; nowhere does Marx claim that ALL labor necessarily results in profit. In fact, the existence of Capitalism (the profit system) begs us to answer this question--where does profit come from? This criticsm would only be valid if Capitalism were to not exist.

 The fourth point, like the second point, confuses speculation with profit.

profits could be made without any labour being involved, such as when a piece of unimproved land is sold for a profit.

It is an incorrect interpretation (as implied by the criticism) that profit is identical with the increase of value of an asset. The notion of surplus value applies in the context of the productive process, where something of value (distinct from price) is created. This example explicitly states that no new value is created, and thus is concerned merely with an increase in price of an asset.  The fifth point confuses profit with wages:

profits could be made by a self-employed operator who did not perform surplus labour for somebody else, nor necessarily appropriated surplus labour from anywhere else.

This criticism is a purely semantic argument: of the money the self-employed person makes, any money that does not go towards his or her capital costs is a reward for his or her own labor. This is the very definition of the value of labor! In this example, no one makes money that is not the result of his or her own labor--which is the concept that surplus labor was invented to explain. Thus, there is no profit in this example. 

Likewise, the following paragraph confuses what Marx means by surplus and necessary labor:

In wealthy countries with a complex division of labour, it may become debatable what labour is really "necessary" and what labour forms a "surplus"; a large number of people can live off the labour of others e.g. through government benefits or the generosity of others, or some kind of "deal" unrelated to productive activity.

This is really a simple matter of accounting, and not at all a criticism of the concept of surplus value. This criticism interprets "necessary" in a way inconsistent with what Marx means; the technical definition of necessary labor is total labor - surplus labor. It is intended to imply that the resulting wages will be at subsitence level, but this is heavily qualified (as described earlier in this same article.)

For example, if money is taken from the capitalist via taxes, and redistributed to workers by the state, this is simply an indirect way of distributing workers' wages, and capitalists will likely reduce the wages they pay workers by this amount. While you may debate the wisdom of the choice of term "necessary labor" when describing a "wealthy" country with social services, this in no way represents a serious criticsm of the topic of the concept of surplus labor.

Similarly, Marx discusses the notion of unpaid labor performed (mostly) by women. It is entirely consistent with the explanatory notion of surplus labor as the source of profit. Like the "wealthy country" example, it requires thinking through the accounting, but does not invalidate the basic notion.

(For example, everyone agrees that house work is "necessary" labor, in the literal sense of being necessary for the upkeep of the work force. However, on the face of it, it would count as "surplus" in the sense that the capitalist does not pay for this labor directly.  Yet, in a household thus structured, the wage-earner's wage covers the entire family's needs, so the wage earner is getting paid more than the "necessary" amount for an individual's survival, and thus the "unpaid" worker at home is indirectly getting paid through his or her wage-earning partner.)

Finally, any criticism of Marx that claims that Marx ignores "investment by capitalists to purchase capital improvements, such as buildings, machinery, etc." is by someone thorougly unfamiliar with Marx's theory. Marx explicitly deals with capital costs, improvement of productively due to advances in technology, and a host of related concerns with the relation of fixed and variable capital.

I would suggest limiting the criticisms to the 'feminist' one (although with a depth that helps to explain what Marx meant, rather than implying that this is a new and 'modern' critique) and the one about the divergence of wage rates around the world, which is dicussed reasonably well. I'd even say the "wealthy country" example has some utility, if presented in more depth.

However, the best I can say for the rest is that they fail to add anything to what Marx already considered, and actually display a confusion between the technical use of the terms Marx introduced and the everyday use of the terms "necessary" and "surplus". This does not help the discourse, and therefore I think these others should be removed.

I look forward to some discussion about this. Absent any, I will edit boldly.

Wikibird 09:59, 9 October 2007 (UT)

The reason workers in developed countries earn so much compared with workers in poorer countries is very simple- employers in the rich countries SUPEREXPLOIT workers in the Third World, so they SIMPLY CAN AFFORD to pay their "own workers" higher wages. So, the theory of surplus labour still stands. Besided, that is the only theory that can explain why those First World employers who own businesses in Third World countries get to earn so much compared with other who don't. If "marginal productivity" in places like Bangladesh is so low, how come British employers who own factories there- either directly or through their subsidiaries, earn so much? "Marginal productivity" theory cannot account for these enormous profits. So, there has to be a surplus labour in Bagladesh that is appropriated by British employers, sufficiently enough for them to AFFORD to pay higher wages in Britain. RaduFlorian (talk) 11:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Proudhon and surplus labour
"Surplus labour is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy, first introduced in a polemic against Pierre-Joseph Proudhon called The Poverty of Philosophy"

Not sure that is true. Marx does attack some of Proudhon's ideas on surplus-labour, but I do not recall him explaining his own theory of surplus labour. Perhaps someone can point to his discussion of how capitalists appropriate surplus-labour from that book?

I should also note that Proudhon raised an analysis of exploitation based on the capitalist appropriating the surplus-labour of the worker:

“I have proven, in dealing with value, that every labour must leave a surplus; so that in supposing the consumption of the labourer to be always the same, his labour should create, on top of his subsistence, a capital always greater. Under the regime of property, the surplus of labour, essentially collective, passes entirely, like the revenue, to the proprietor: now, between that disguised appropriation and the fraudulent usurpation of a communal good, where is the difference?

“The consequence of that usurpation is that the labourer, whose share of the collective product is constantly confiscated by the entrepreneur, is always on his uppers, while the capitalist is always in profit. . . and that political economy, that upholds and advocates that regime, is the theory of theft, as property, the respect of which maintains a similar state of things, is the religion of force.” (Systéme des Contradictions Économiques, vol. 2, pp. 246-7)

Marx does not comment on this aspect of Proudhon's ideas. So I think, unless a quote can be provided, that the start of this entry be changed. I would also suggest that Proudhon's similar, but earlier, analysis of surplus-labour be included as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.40.192.31 (talk) 15:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it is true that Proudhon also mooted a concept of surplus labour (although Marx already had that concept in 1844, and as far as I know did not borrow it in the first instance from Proudhon - the notion of an economic surplus was already used by the classical political economists). It is merely that because Marx developed this concept much further, and made it wellknown, that the concept is associated with Marx in the literature.Jurriaan (talk) 18:23, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

minor points
What is the difference between 'the intensity of work' and 'the productiveness of the work (which also depends on the technologies used)'? Are they not the same thing?

And in the criticism section, instead of claiming "(John Roemer) proves that this theorem is logically false" we could say Roemer ATTEMPTS to prove... It doesn't make much sense to say Roemer proves a theorem false and then follow that claim up with "but Marx never ..."

And I would recommend either using the English title (Capital) or the German one (Das Kapital) but not both as the article does.

24.84.68.252 (talk) 08:10, 3 December 2013 (UTC)ditc


 * The productivity of work is a relationship between the number of hours worked (often per worker) and the output produced, either the value of output or the physical amount of output. The intensity of work is much more difficult to measure. It refers basically to how hard workers actually work, i.e. how many work tasks are completed by the worker in a given time interval. If, for any given production process, the number of workers performing the work that has to be done is reduced, we could infer that the intensity of work has increased, since each of the workers that remains must then do some additional work. However, the difficulty is, that such job cuts may not be the only thing that is happening. It could also be the case, that new technologies or more efficient work methods are introduced, in which case the intensity of work does not rise, or does not rise in proportion to the job cuts. If the intensity of work increases, then other things being equal, productivity will rise, but this need not necessarily be the case, since workers may work very intensively while for some reason this does not translate into a proportional amount of output (for example, a harvest is destroyed by bad weather). The fundamental Marxist theorem is false, since the creation of profits may have nothing to do directly with production, or with surplus labour. Profits can arise from trade in already existing assets, or trade in second-hand goods, for example. It is merely that surplus labour is the general and ultimate prerequisite for profits in Marx's view.Jurriaan (talk) 22:55, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Beware of Bob Rayner's "editing"
The scam editor Bob Rayner User:Bobrayner specializes in cutting large bits out of articles that he doesn't like, for no reason at all or for some spurious reason. He doesn't understand anything about the subjectmatter. The article then has to be reset to what is was before his vandalism. This article is still being worked on from time to time and Rayner's destructive habits are unwanted here. Jurriaan (talk) 19:23, 6 July 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.64.48.162 (talk)
 * Yes, yes, you can hit the revert button and you can writer angry rhetoric. That does not exempt you from WP:V or WP:V. The sooner you follow these policies, the less work other editors will have to do cleaning up these articles. bobrayner (talk) 19:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

neutral POV
the article reads like it was written by someone who 'really' knows his Marx and is not shy about making bold assertions without any references to the secondary literature.

The Analytical Marxist John Roemer challenges what he calls the "fundamental Marxian theorem" (after Michio Morishima) that the existence of surplus labour is the necessary and sufficient condition for profits. HE PROVES [really? no one proves anything in science or social science for that matter] that this theorem is logically false. However, MARX HIMSELF NEVER ARGUED [according to who? the guy who 'really got' Marx?] that surplus labour was a sufficient condition for profits, only an ultimate necessary condition (Morishima aimed to prove that,starting from the existence of profit expressed in price terms, we can deduce the existence of surplus value as a logical consequence). Five reasons were that: — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.79.143.139 (talk) 07:52, 7 February 2015 (UTC)