| This question <616|528> overall <526|528> Wight: <422|55>. |
| Term Paper 299: Essay about Chapter Twenty-Five |
| [527] Wight: termpaper submission For my termpaper essay, I chose to write a paragraph by paragraph abstract of the first section of Chapter 25. This chapter explores the impact of the growth of capital on the working class, focusing on the process of accumulation and composition of capital. |
| Composition of capital has two general aspects. Firstly, as value, it is divided into constant capital or the value of the means of production. This is the value composition or organic composition. Secondly, as material, all capital is divided into means of production and living labor power. This is the technical composition. |
| The average of all the average compositions in all areas of production gives us the composition of the total social capital of a country. This is an aggergate of all capital means in a country. |
| Growth of capital implies a growth in labor power. Sometimes, the demand for workers may exceed the supply, leading to a rise in wages during the process of rapid capital accumulation. The accumulation of capital may surpass the growth in labor power. The result is more capitalists and more wage-laborers. Accumulation of capital is the multiplication of the working class. |
| In a free country where slaves are not allowed, the wealthy survive on a multitude of laborious poor. Without the working poor, no country would be valuable or successful. To make a society, it is necessary that a great number of citizens remain ignorant and poor. Knowledge enlarges and multiplies our desires. |
| The mechanism of the accumulation process itself increases the amount of capital as well as the mass of the laboring poor. The laboring poor are wage laborers who turn their labor power into a force to aid in increasing capital and are compelled to make their relationship of dependence on their product an eternal relationship. Persons of independent fortunes owe their superior advantages to the industry of others. The ability to command labor distinguishes the rich from the poor. Workers are placed in a state of easy and liberal dependence. |
| Instead of workers relationship of dependence becoming more intensive with the growth of capital, it becomes more extensive. The sphere of capital's exploitation and dominance extends with the number of people subjected to it. The rise in wages as a result of capital accumulation only allows the workers a minimal amount of additional freedom. The aim of the capitalist is the production of commodities which contain more labor than he paid for. Therefore, containing a portion of value which cost him nothing and is realized in the sale of the commodities. The law of this mode of production is surplus value, or additional profits. Wages imply that workers will always provide a certain quantity of unpaid labor. So, an increase in wages means a decrease in the amount of unpaid labor. |
| A rise in the price of labor resulting from accumulation of capital implies the following alternatives. Either, the price of labor keeps on rising, because the rise doesn't interfere with the progress of accumulation. The increase in capital made the exploitable labor power insufficient. Or, accumulation slackens as a result of the price of labor rising, because the stimulus of gain is blunted. The rule of accumulation lessens. The relative reduction in the amount of capital caused the exploitable labor power i.e. its price, to be in excess. The rate of capital accumulation is the independent variable, and the rate of wages in the dependent variable. |
| The relation between capital accumulation and the rate of wages is the relation between the unpaid labor which has been transformed into capital and the additional paid labor necessary to set in motion this additional capital. It is a relation of the paid and unpaid labor of the same working population. The rise in wages is therefore confined within limits that leave intact the foundations of the capitalist systems as well as securing its reproduction on an increasing scale. The law of capitalist accumulation expresses the situation that the very nature of accumulation excludes every diminution in the degree of exploitation of labor and every rise in the price of labor, which could seriously interfere with the continual reproduction of the capital relation on a larger scale. |
| Hans: What you are saying is right, and it is also well written, but should have put more emphasis on the connections between the different topics which you are reporting about. When Marx makes his summary statements trying to pull it all together, you just quote him literally, instead of exploring with your own words and your own thoughts whether such a connection really exists. |
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