The conflict between use value and exchange value

Up to now Marxists have drawn attention to the fact that with the general progress of capital accumulation the value of constant capital increases absolutely and relative to variable capital. Yet this phenomenon forms only one side of the accumulation process; it examines the process from its value side. However — and this cannot be emphasised enough — the reproduction process is not simply a valorisation process; it is also a labour process, producing not only values but also use values. Considered from the side of use value, increases in the productivity of labour represent not merely a devaluation of the existing capital, but also a quantitative expansion of useful things.

Earlier I referred to how rising productivity cheapens the use values consumed by workers and, as a result, raises the rate of surplus value. Now we shall examine the impact of increases in the mass of use values, through rising productivity, on the fund for accumulation. Marx proceeds from the empirical fact that:

with the development of social productivity of labour the mass of produced use values, of which the means of production form a part, grows still more. And the additional labour, through whose appropriation this additional wealth can be reconverted into capital, does not depend on the value, but on the mass of these means of production (including means of subsistence), because in the production process the labourers have nothing to do with the value, but with the use value, of the means of production. (1959, p. 218)

Increases in productivity that impinge on the material elements of productive capital, especially fixed capital, mean a higher profitability for individual capitals. The same mechanism operates when we look at the process of reproduction in its totality. Marx writes:

with respect to the total capital ... the value of the constant capital does not increase in the same proportion as its material volume. For instance, the quantity of cotton worked up by a single European spinner in a modern factory has grown tremendously compared to the quantity formerly worked up by a European spinner with a spinning wheel. Yet the value of the worked up cotton has not grown in the same proportion as its mass. The same applies to machinery and other fixed capital ... In isolated cases the mass of the elements of constant capital may even increase, while its value remains the same, or falls. (1959, p. 236)

The expansion in the mass of use values in which a given sum of value is represented is of great indirect significance for the valorisation process. With an expanded mass of the elements of production, even if their value is the same, more workers can be introduced into the productive process and in the next cycle of production these workers will be producing more value. Marx writes that as a consequence of growing productivity:

More products which may be converted into capital, whatever their exchange value, are created with the same capital and the same labour.

These products may serve to absorb additional labour, hence also additional surplus labour, and therefore create additional capital. The amount of labour which a capital can command does not depend on its value, but on the mass of raw and auxiliary materials, machinery and elements of fixed capital and necessities of life, all of which it comprises, whatever their value may be. As the mass of the labour employed, and thus of surplus labour increases, there is also a growth in the value of the reproduced capital and in the surplus value newly added to it. (p. 248)

Elsewhere Marx says:

the most important thing for the direct exploitation of labour itself is not the value of the employed means of exploitation, be they fixed capital, raw materials or auxiliary substances. In so far as they serve as means of absorbing labour, as media in or by which labour and, hence, surplus labour are materialised, the exchange value of machinery, buildings, raw materials, etc, is quite immaterial. What is ultimately essential is, on the one hand, the quantity of them technically required for combination with a certain quantity of living labour, and, on the other, their suitability, ie, not only good machinery, but also good raw and auxiliary materials. (1959, pp. 82—3)

With increases in productivity and the mass of use values, the mass of means of production (and of subsistence) which can function as means of absorbing labour expands more rapidly than the value of the accumulated capital. The means of production can therefore employ more labour and extort more surplus labour than would otherwise correspond to the accumulation of value as such. Marx says that with increases in productivity and a cheapening of labour power the:

same value in variable capital therefore sets in movement more labour power, and, therefore, more labour. The same value in constant capital is embodied in more means of production, ie, in more instruments of labour, materials of labour and auxiliary materials; it therefore also supplies more elements for the production both of use value and of value, and with these more absorbers of labour. The value of the additional capital, therefore, remaining the same or even diminishing, accelerated accumulation still takes place. Not only does the scale of reproduction materially extend, but the production of surplus value increases more rapidly than the value of the additional capital. (1954, p. 566)

This tendency for the mass of use values to expand runs parallel with the opposite tendency for constant capital to increase in relation to variable — and hence for the number of workers to decline. However these ‘two elements embraced by the process of accumulation ... are not to be regarded merely as existing side by side in repose ... They contain a contradiction which manifests itself in contradictory tendencies and phenomena. These antagonistic agencies counteract each other simultaneously’ (Marx, 1959, pp. 248—9). ‘The accumulation of capital in terms of value is slowed down by the falling rate of profit, to hasten still more the accumulation of use values, while this, in its turn, adds new momentum to accumulation in terms of value’ (p. 250).

In Table 2.2 we saw that with an increase in working population of 5 per cent a year and an expansion of constant capital of 10 per cent, the system would have to collapse in year 35. But because the mass of capital grows more rapidly in use value than in value terms, and because the employment of living labour depends not on the value but on the mass of the elements of production, it follows that to employ the working population at a given level a much smaller capital would actually suffice than shown in the table itself. Increases in productivity and the expansion of use values bound up with them react as if the accumulation of values were at a lower or more initial stage. They represent a process of economic rejuvenation. The life span of accumulation is thus prolonged. But this only means that the breakdown is postponed, which, ‘again shows that the same influences which tend to make the rate of profit fall, also moderate the effects of this tendency’ (p. 236).

It is thus completely inadequate to examine the process of reproduction purely from the side of value. We can see what an important role use value plays in this process. Marx himself always tackled the capitalist mechanism from both sides — value as well as use value.