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Question
Asked 26th Jun, 2018

Marxism: Does Exploitation through Increase in Intensity really exist?

I've been spending a great deal of time studying the topic of capitalist exploitation via increase in intensity and I'm having issues with the mathematics behind it.
Now, in the paper Duration, Intensity and Productivity of Labour and the Distinction between Absolute and Relative Surplus-value by Stavros Mavroudeas there is a formula which defines the how a total working time in a day from all workers is dealt out.
T= V+S
Where T is our total labor hours from all workers that day, V is the value paid out to workers and S is the surplus value gained from that working day.
Now total labor hours T can be broken down to the number of laborors that day and the hours each laborer works. mathematically this is:
T=hl
where h is the number of hours worked by each worker and l is the number of laborers working,it follows our identity is now:
lh=S+V
dividing both sides by lh.
1=(S+V)/lh
this negates what was taught by Dr. Stephen Resnick that capital intensity is:
I=(SV+V)/lh
where there is possibility of varying I, by Mavroudeas formulation of the problem this is impossible.
Based on this simple exercise, does exploitation via "speed up" or increase in labor intensity really exist?
Harry Cleaver
University of Texas at Austin
Saverio, there's the value concept of rate of profit s/(c+v) and there are monetary rates of profit, such as net revenue/costs of production. The latter are the concern of capitalists for obvious reasons. "Prices of production" are fictional prices derived by those preoccupied with "the transformation problem", i.e., the "problem" of transforming values into prices. Personally, I find both the problem and the lengthy literature on the problem to be a waste of time and energy by those who worry about economists' complaints that Marx's theory doesn't do what they want theory to do, i.e., help determine market prices. Recognizing that market prices are rarely equal to the values of commodities, when Marx talked about market prices, he used the concepts of supply and demand available at the time. Using those available today also serves. What value analysis adds in an entirely different perspective and a basis for evaluating the implications of market price differing from value. In my view, the whole discussion in Vol. III about tendencies to a general rate of profit is about how capital redistributes itself across profit rate differentials (e.g., economists' entry and exit) and that about the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is not about monetary rates of profit but about (as I said above) "how the replacement of labor by machinery (and other tech) undermines capital's ability to impose labor and surplus labor" and thus the very basis of capitalist social control.