| This question <574|580> overall <576|578> Jimmie: <563-4|578>. |
| Question 700: The only way the worker can improve his lot in society is to increase the productive powers of his labor. Right or wrong? |
| [577] Jimmie: Be careful what you produce. This question can be right or wrong. It depends where the worker finds himself in the labor cycle. If the worker finds that he works harder than all the other workers, he becomes a valuable asset. He might receive a raise but ultimately he keeps his job. If the worker becomes innovative in his job than he creates a new means of production, which would lead to the replacement of the labor force. Dyno makes the point that the worker would be replaced when another worker can work for less. I agree as long as the new worker can produce the same. But since the old worker has had time and experience, he usually can produce more than any new worker. Also if training is involved the company might not want to spend the money and time for a new worker and might hire someone out of their own company who has had some minor experience in the new field. They would then hire in-house and increase the worker's lot in life. |
| Another consideration is social accumulation. This mainly has to do with the long-term effects. If a worker works really hard and produces goods he has produced more capital. If there is more capital to labor then there are labor cutbacks. This leads to unemployment or as Marx puts it “relative surplus-population.” In the sort run it is good to be superior in productivity but there must be someone who wants the capital produced. |
| Hans: Why would an increase in capital lead to labor cutbacks rather than increased demand for labor? You probably think that this is what chapter Twenty-Five says. Chapter Twenty-Five says on a more general level that the system of capital accumulation has integrated the labor-market into its own logic instead of allowing it to be an alien disturbance. Labor demand does not always fall with the investment of more capital; it can sometimes be made to fall, if the functioning of the overall system requires it, but usually more capital does mean more labor. |
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