1 00:00:00,449 --> 00:00:03,948 (lively orchestral music) 2 00:00:12,419 --> 00:00:13,720 - This is where we've come 3 00:00:15,089 --> 00:00:18,332 by way of certain mediating doublets. 4 00:00:27,059 --> 00:00:31,503 Right, we saw how values are made by this peculiar, 5 00:00:33,869 --> 00:00:34,859 what do you call it? 6 00:00:34,859 --> 00:00:38,222 Union of incompatibles I would like to call it. 7 00:00:43,380 --> 00:00:44,590 We saw how 8 00:00:56,850 --> 00:00:59,530 concrete labor becomes the bearer 9 00:01:01,350 --> 00:01:04,739 'cause it makes use values of abstract labor, 10 00:01:04,739 --> 00:01:07,229 which has to go through. 11 00:01:07,230 --> 00:01:08,340 You'll notice that these, 12 00:01:08,340 --> 00:01:10,740 I don't like to call this dialectics exactly 13 00:01:10,739 --> 00:01:12,390 because it isn't exact. 14 00:01:12,390 --> 00:01:14,852 Hegel really wanted dialectics to be exact. 15 00:01:16,109 --> 00:01:19,200 The kinds of pairings 16 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:20,700 and the kinds of transformations 17 00:01:20,700 --> 00:01:23,850 that happen here are not regular. 18 00:01:23,849 --> 00:01:25,979 But nonetheless, this will help you see a little bit 19 00:01:25,980 --> 00:01:27,302 what has happened so far. 20 00:01:28,829 --> 00:01:30,719 Forms of value, what are they? 21 00:01:30,719 --> 00:01:31,552 Do you remember? 22 00:01:33,540 --> 00:01:34,623 The two main ones. 23 00:01:37,950 --> 00:01:39,040 The equivalent form 24 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:42,693 and the relative form. 25 00:01:44,849 --> 00:01:46,379 They work together in a certain way 26 00:01:46,379 --> 00:01:48,060 to make money precipitate out. 27 00:01:48,060 --> 00:01:50,850 You can see how the way the result comes out 28 00:01:50,849 --> 00:01:53,519 of this strange doubling process 29 00:01:53,519 --> 00:01:55,352 is not the same in every case. 30 00:01:57,959 --> 00:01:59,559 Thank you for turning that down. 31 00:02:02,909 --> 00:02:05,459 This is not all that happens, but it's a kind of a skeleton. 32 00:02:05,459 --> 00:02:08,409 And then the question is, how do you get from here to here? 33 00:02:13,709 --> 00:02:17,209 And that's what we're talking about today. 34 00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:23,673 In the end, we get a formula, which is something like this. 35 00:02:30,669 --> 00:02:32,252 And it also goes... 36 00:02:33,569 --> 00:02:34,402 Let's see. 37 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:41,223 It goes in all dimensions at once, right? 38 00:02:42,090 --> 00:02:44,400 Not exactly sure how, but there is a... 39 00:02:44,400 --> 00:02:47,189 It's probably like 40 00:02:47,189 --> 00:02:51,659 this money gets used for something else altogether. 41 00:02:51,659 --> 00:02:54,719 In any case, I would want to just point out to you again 42 00:02:54,719 --> 00:02:57,930 that the use process 43 00:02:57,930 --> 00:03:02,552 and the capital process are the same and different. 44 00:03:04,020 --> 00:03:08,280 This is commodity exchange. 45 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:11,763 This is money exchange. 46 00:03:13,740 --> 00:03:15,570 This is what Marx will focus on 47 00:03:15,569 --> 00:03:18,709 as the signature of capitalism, 48 00:03:18,710 --> 00:03:20,070 of the capital system. 49 00:03:20,069 --> 00:03:21,599 He calls it the general formula, 50 00:03:21,599 --> 00:03:23,609 and it will have a lot of problems. 51 00:03:23,610 --> 00:03:26,130 It can't dispense with commodity exchange, 52 00:03:26,129 --> 00:03:28,500 especially because what this produces 53 00:03:28,500 --> 00:03:33,300 is everything we consume to keep going, 54 00:03:33,300 --> 00:03:35,550 but our consumption is now... 55 00:03:35,550 --> 00:03:39,453 So this is, you could call it a consumption formula, 56 00:03:40,439 --> 00:03:44,159 and you could call this a production formula, 57 00:03:44,159 --> 00:03:46,022 but it's a production of value. 58 00:03:47,460 --> 00:03:49,320 And this is a consumption 59 00:03:49,319 --> 00:03:54,319 for the purposes of surviving. (laughs) 60 00:03:55,469 --> 00:03:59,210 Surviving becomes the handmaid 61 00:03:59,210 --> 00:04:01,323 of the production of value. 62 00:04:03,449 --> 00:04:05,673 You survive in order to produce value. 63 00:04:07,259 --> 00:04:12,239 This is how, incidentally, the commodity formula 64 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:15,240 and the money formula are the same and different 65 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:17,939 at the same time as the economic structure 66 00:04:17,939 --> 00:04:20,129 of society is the same and different 67 00:04:20,129 --> 00:04:21,600 as the social structure of society. 68 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:25,470 You begin to see that social things like surviving, 69 00:04:25,470 --> 00:04:28,800 what you have to eat, what you have to live with, 70 00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:32,160 and producing value 71 00:04:32,160 --> 00:04:34,620 come out of the particular change 72 00:04:34,620 --> 00:04:37,322 from one economy to the next, 73 00:04:38,279 --> 00:04:41,312 from a commodity economy to a money or value economy. 74 00:04:46,290 --> 00:04:49,560 There's another feature here that's really important, 75 00:04:49,560 --> 00:04:52,780 that a merchant 76 00:04:58,649 --> 00:05:01,139 looks at the capital system from here. 77 00:05:01,139 --> 00:05:03,689 A merchant, an investor, and a businessperson, 78 00:05:03,689 --> 00:05:07,170 and all the economists that Marx was arguing against, 79 00:05:07,170 --> 00:05:09,753 they look at it from this particular chain. 80 00:05:10,589 --> 00:05:12,299 They don't look at it from here. 81 00:05:12,300 --> 00:05:14,460 This is what Marx is adding. 82 00:05:14,459 --> 00:05:17,069 These are the operations that go on 83 00:05:17,069 --> 00:05:20,219 to turn products 84 00:05:20,220 --> 00:05:22,173 into capital. 85 00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:29,790 The economist and the businessperson looks at it 86 00:05:29,790 --> 00:05:32,043 from circulation, 87 00:05:34,230 --> 00:05:37,080 and they don't see what Marx calls the difference 88 00:05:37,079 --> 00:05:38,942 in content lurking in the form. 89 00:05:40,980 --> 00:05:44,970 This form seems the same until you break it in two, 90 00:05:44,970 --> 00:05:46,260 and then it's drastically different. 91 00:05:46,259 --> 00:05:49,209 You have different starting points and different endpoints, 92 00:05:51,029 --> 00:05:53,309 and the difference in content is significant. 93 00:05:53,310 --> 00:05:56,579 One concentrates on producing commodities 94 00:05:56,579 --> 00:05:58,620 and supporting consumption. 95 00:05:58,620 --> 00:06:00,810 The other concentrates on producing money 96 00:06:00,810 --> 00:06:02,552 and supporting value production. 97 00:06:08,879 --> 00:06:10,050 You need the one for the other, 98 00:06:10,050 --> 00:06:11,850 but you don't need the other for the one. 99 00:06:11,850 --> 00:06:15,330 This is where socialism would enter into something more. 100 00:06:15,329 --> 00:06:17,849 It wouldn't dispense with money necessarily. 101 00:06:17,850 --> 00:06:19,379 It might not even dispense with value, 102 00:06:19,379 --> 00:06:21,629 but it certainly would dispense with capital. 103 00:06:26,879 --> 00:06:28,319 I love this. 104 00:06:28,319 --> 00:06:31,052 Humanists don't have so many blackboards usually. 105 00:06:33,149 --> 00:06:35,526 I just want to point out that there is a simple... 106 00:06:35,526 --> 00:06:37,860 Oh, this is not what I want. 107 00:06:37,860 --> 00:06:42,449 There is a simpler formula, commodity to commodity, 108 00:06:42,449 --> 00:06:45,360 in which you might have the mediation of money, 109 00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:48,750 but that would be money of account only, 110 00:06:48,750 --> 00:06:52,560 where you would say a banana's worth three tires. 111 00:06:52,560 --> 00:06:53,639 Three would be money there, 112 00:06:53,639 --> 00:06:56,159 but it just keeps the account of the value 113 00:06:56,160 --> 00:06:59,460 so you know how much you need to give of bananas for tires 114 00:06:59,459 --> 00:07:00,602 or tires for bananas. 115 00:07:02,430 --> 00:07:03,263 Here, 116 00:07:05,610 --> 00:07:07,129 you have money as... 117 00:07:10,829 --> 00:07:14,979 Remember the different functions of money? 118 00:07:14,980 --> 00:07:17,879 Money as a standard of value or money of account. 119 00:07:17,879 --> 00:07:20,339 So this, if there was money in here, 120 00:07:20,339 --> 00:07:22,986 it would just be like, I'd say, 121 00:07:22,987 --> 00:07:25,290 "You know, give me 20 bananas for those tires." 122 00:07:25,290 --> 00:07:28,189 20 would be the money of account or the standard of value. 123 00:07:31,019 --> 00:07:33,959 This would be money as a means of circulation. 124 00:07:33,959 --> 00:07:34,799 You need it in there. 125 00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:37,020 It would actually facilitate the handing over 126 00:07:37,019 --> 00:07:38,639 because, as you remember, 127 00:07:38,639 --> 00:07:43,082 CM is separated in space and time from MC. 128 00:07:44,610 --> 00:07:46,083 These are really the same M. 129 00:07:47,730 --> 00:07:50,009 Someone gives money for something, 130 00:07:50,009 --> 00:07:52,980 and that person would go and buy another commodity 131 00:07:52,980 --> 00:07:54,120 at a different space and time. 132 00:07:54,120 --> 00:07:58,079 So without money in that size of economy, 133 00:07:58,079 --> 00:07:59,969 you could not do your economy. 134 00:07:59,970 --> 00:08:01,470 You couldn't get your bananas. 135 00:08:02,370 --> 00:08:04,649 So we're talking very different sizes of economy, 136 00:08:04,649 --> 00:08:06,179 but you can see how the different functions 137 00:08:06,180 --> 00:08:10,079 of money are used in different kinds of economies, right? 138 00:08:10,079 --> 00:08:12,689 Money of account could just be a number. 139 00:08:12,689 --> 00:08:14,490 It could be you're counting these things in dates, 140 00:08:14,490 --> 00:08:15,900 but no dates have to change hands. 141 00:08:15,899 --> 00:08:17,429 You don't even have to have dates there. 142 00:08:17,430 --> 00:08:19,650 You're just like, "Okay, this is worth 20 dates. 143 00:08:19,649 --> 00:08:21,179 That's worth 30 dates. 144 00:08:21,180 --> 00:08:23,370 I'll give you, you know, 145 00:08:23,370 --> 00:08:27,536 I'll give you 2/3 of my thing for your other thing." 146 00:08:28,649 --> 00:08:31,589 This, money takes on a different function. 147 00:08:31,589 --> 00:08:32,970 It's very odd that the same thing 148 00:08:32,970 --> 00:08:34,230 can be functionally different, 149 00:08:34,230 --> 00:08:36,980 but this is the way Marx is beginning to see the world. 150 00:08:38,159 --> 00:08:41,009 Money still functions as a money of account 151 00:08:41,009 --> 00:08:42,269 or standard of value, 152 00:08:42,269 --> 00:08:46,893 but it has to be there in some sort of form to mediate, 153 00:08:48,090 --> 00:08:52,200 to stretch space and time so that the transaction can occur. 154 00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:53,850 There was a question which I missed. 155 00:08:53,850 --> 00:08:55,379 Yeah, Tomas. 156 00:08:55,379 --> 00:08:58,529 - For the first one we see C? 157 00:08:58,529 --> 00:08:59,362 - Yeah. 158 00:09:00,240 --> 00:09:01,933 - What sort of economy is that? 159 00:09:01,933 --> 00:09:03,449 - I mean, it could be like a barter economy, 160 00:09:03,450 --> 00:09:06,629 but nonetheless you could still have a standard of value, 161 00:09:06,629 --> 00:09:08,340 and normally you would, 162 00:09:08,340 --> 00:09:10,470 but because you could trade the thing for the thing 163 00:09:10,470 --> 00:09:12,180 because you were close enough, 164 00:09:12,179 --> 00:09:13,259 you'd only need to refer 165 00:09:13,259 --> 00:09:15,513 to the standard of value notionally. 166 00:09:17,220 --> 00:09:20,370 - On the side notation, referring to C and C, right? 167 00:09:20,370 --> 00:09:23,370 - This is a commodity economy, which is larger, 168 00:09:23,370 --> 00:09:25,230 and you need money to mediate. 169 00:09:25,230 --> 00:09:26,430 And there is something like, 170 00:09:26,429 --> 00:09:29,793 there's value in a more robust sense. 171 00:09:32,399 --> 00:09:34,653 So you notice that in this, 172 00:09:40,500 --> 00:09:44,389 in the middle one, money is a mediator. 173 00:09:44,389 --> 00:09:46,649 In this, you have a special verb. 174 00:09:46,649 --> 00:09:48,687 You say, "I spend money." 175 00:09:49,950 --> 00:09:52,983 You spend money to buy, 176 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:58,200 and you gain money when you sell, 177 00:09:58,200 --> 00:09:59,730 and the exchange is equal. 178 00:09:59,730 --> 00:10:03,123 You end up with the same value on either side. 179 00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:05,520 Does that make sense? 180 00:10:05,519 --> 00:10:08,159 It starts with production and ends with consumption. 181 00:10:08,159 --> 00:10:10,019 And it's only about use values, 182 00:10:10,019 --> 00:10:12,903 although use values are mediated by value. 183 00:10:17,009 --> 00:10:18,059 And as we said last time, 184 00:10:18,059 --> 00:10:19,979 the same piece of money changes place twice, 185 00:10:19,980 --> 00:10:22,019 and it moves in an eccentric fashion 186 00:10:22,019 --> 00:10:26,403 away from the original owner of the money. 187 00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:30,090 The disposition of each buyer, as I said last time, 188 00:10:30,090 --> 00:10:31,649 is, "I don't need my money. 189 00:10:31,649 --> 00:10:33,299 I want a banana. 190 00:10:33,299 --> 00:10:34,132 Take it. 191 00:10:34,133 --> 00:10:35,410 Do what you want with it." 192 00:10:40,440 --> 00:10:43,143 In this, the commodity is the mediator for money. 193 00:10:44,250 --> 00:10:47,220 It's a vehicle to bring the money back to you, 194 00:10:47,220 --> 00:10:50,133 and money returns in a reflux. 195 00:10:52,350 --> 00:10:54,029 The commodity is a mediator, 196 00:10:54,029 --> 00:10:56,100 and money, as Marx said, is the alpha 197 00:10:56,100 --> 00:10:57,870 and omega of this religion. 198 00:10:57,870 --> 00:11:00,722 It begins, it creates, and it redeems. 199 00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:04,379 In this, money is not spent. 200 00:11:04,379 --> 00:11:06,269 It is advanced. 201 00:11:06,269 --> 00:11:08,673 This is what capitalists call it. 202 00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:11,790 I don't think I've ever advanced money. 203 00:11:11,789 --> 00:11:15,000 That's why I guess I'm in the situation I'm in, 204 00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:17,730 unless you count advancing it to my teenager. (laughs) 205 00:11:17,730 --> 00:11:22,200 There's no reflux there except his joy and health, 206 00:11:22,200 --> 00:11:23,552 and, right, that's okay. 207 00:11:24,690 --> 00:11:27,270 In this case, the same commodity changes place twice, 208 00:11:27,269 --> 00:11:28,562 but the money comes back, 209 00:11:30,330 --> 00:11:32,700 and this makes circulation 210 00:11:32,700 --> 00:11:35,070 into a circuit that has to be completed. 211 00:11:35,070 --> 00:11:36,780 It's not commodities flying off 212 00:11:36,779 --> 00:11:39,929 into people's mouths or backyards. 213 00:11:39,929 --> 00:11:43,079 It is money returning to the account 214 00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:44,613 of the original advancer. 215 00:11:47,730 --> 00:11:49,920 But the problem, as Marx says, 216 00:11:49,919 --> 00:11:51,689 is that the buyer ends up with the same... 217 00:11:51,690 --> 00:11:54,450 I mean, the capitalist ends up 218 00:11:54,450 --> 00:11:56,640 with the same thing that they started with. 219 00:11:56,639 --> 00:12:00,720 Give money away, you get a commodity. 220 00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:02,580 You sell that commodity, you get the money back 221 00:12:02,580 --> 00:12:05,280 because everything trades at its value. 222 00:12:05,279 --> 00:12:07,829 This, he says, is absurd, 223 00:12:07,830 --> 00:12:09,810 and yet all of the people 224 00:12:09,809 --> 00:12:11,729 who only see the circulation system, 225 00:12:11,730 --> 00:12:14,220 who see that as the source of value, 226 00:12:14,220 --> 00:12:18,210 imagine that out of the same, you can get more. 227 00:12:18,210 --> 00:12:22,410 This is the fantasy, pernicious fantasy, 228 00:12:22,409 --> 00:12:25,949 of the traders, 229 00:12:25,950 --> 00:12:27,450 the business owners, 230 00:12:27,450 --> 00:12:30,690 and the economists who take their perspective 231 00:12:30,690 --> 00:12:32,260 or their standpoint 232 00:12:33,539 --> 00:12:35,913 because the general formula, as you know, 233 00:12:38,399 --> 00:12:39,896 like "The Wizard of Oz," 234 00:12:42,990 --> 00:12:44,669 is MCM prime, 235 00:12:44,669 --> 00:12:48,929 or MC delta M, delta meaning change. 236 00:12:48,929 --> 00:12:50,969 There has to be a change in the advance. 237 00:12:50,970 --> 00:12:52,050 Otherwise, why would you do it? 238 00:12:52,049 --> 00:12:54,809 Because the use value of money is to bring more money, 239 00:12:54,809 --> 00:12:57,559 just like the use value of a seed is to bring a carrot. 240 00:12:58,649 --> 00:13:01,379 If your stuff doesn't grow... 241 00:13:01,379 --> 00:13:03,059 My one foray into gardening, 242 00:13:03,059 --> 00:13:05,819 I tilled this giant garden when I was in college, 243 00:13:05,820 --> 00:13:06,840 planted the whole thing, 244 00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:09,753 and one sprout of tomatoes came up in the compost heap. 245 00:13:11,820 --> 00:13:16,353 So, I was a very bad gardener/capitalist. 246 00:13:17,700 --> 00:13:20,643 A supplement has to enter the picture somewhere, 247 00:13:21,509 --> 00:13:24,539 and Marx wants to argue that this supplement 248 00:13:24,539 --> 00:13:27,269 cannot possibly enter in circulation 249 00:13:27,269 --> 00:13:29,429 no matter how high you sell your stuff 250 00:13:29,429 --> 00:13:32,309 because as we said last time, 251 00:13:32,309 --> 00:13:34,019 and we'll say over and over, 252 00:13:34,019 --> 00:13:38,370 all overages and all underages are passed on. 253 00:13:38,370 --> 00:13:40,919 Someone will make it up out of somewhere 254 00:13:40,919 --> 00:13:44,163 because the economy in these terms is a zero-sum game. 255 00:13:45,149 --> 00:13:48,209 If I buy dear, 256 00:13:48,210 --> 00:13:49,980 then I have to get something else cheaper 257 00:13:49,980 --> 00:13:51,960 'cause I only have a limited amount. 258 00:13:51,960 --> 00:13:53,940 If someone gets something for more, 259 00:13:53,940 --> 00:13:55,140 they can pay more for something, 260 00:13:55,139 --> 00:13:57,419 and someone's gonna raise the price. 261 00:13:57,419 --> 00:14:00,269 Supply and demand equal out over time. 262 00:14:00,269 --> 00:14:04,389 You cannot get what Marx will now call surplus value 263 00:14:05,370 --> 00:14:07,440 out of the circulation sphere. 264 00:14:07,440 --> 00:14:10,920 The sphere of circulation doesn't make more of anything. 265 00:14:10,919 --> 00:14:12,959 It just passes around the same. 266 00:14:12,960 --> 00:14:16,143 You must have it, but it's not the productive source. 267 00:14:17,490 --> 00:14:21,149 It's the location of the realization of value. 268 00:14:21,149 --> 00:14:22,860 But the productive source has to be elsewhere. 269 00:14:22,860 --> 00:14:24,930 We don't know yet where it is. 270 00:14:24,929 --> 00:14:27,242 It could be in your dreams, in your fantasies. 271 00:14:32,820 --> 00:14:35,460 Those people who live in a commodity society, 272 00:14:35,460 --> 00:14:38,673 which is all of us, we all live in a commodity society, 273 00:14:39,899 --> 00:14:41,906 we say, "Well, you can't eat money." 274 00:14:44,429 --> 00:14:46,889 And those people who live in a value society, 275 00:14:46,889 --> 00:14:48,360 which we all do, 276 00:14:48,360 --> 00:14:51,210 it's just layered on top of the commodity society, 277 00:14:51,210 --> 00:14:53,697 you say, "We can't eat our commodities." 278 00:14:54,690 --> 00:14:56,670 You see the difference? 279 00:14:56,669 --> 00:14:58,319 The people who are out for value want 280 00:14:58,320 --> 00:14:59,610 to preserve their commodities 281 00:14:59,610 --> 00:15:01,529 to make value before they're eaten. 282 00:15:01,529 --> 00:15:04,682 If you eat what you produce, you're not a capitalist. 283 00:15:06,299 --> 00:15:08,939 So he needs a new form change. 284 00:15:08,940 --> 00:15:10,620 He needs a kind of form change 285 00:15:10,620 --> 00:15:12,990 that brings more from the same 286 00:15:12,990 --> 00:15:14,822 or finds a new source. 287 00:15:17,220 --> 00:15:21,000 Under capital, all of these processes transform 288 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:23,519 to be headed towards M prime, 289 00:15:23,519 --> 00:15:25,769 headed towards this more or this plus, 290 00:15:25,769 --> 00:15:27,153 the plus of value. 291 00:15:29,850 --> 00:15:31,710 Now if we ask what capital means, 292 00:15:31,710 --> 00:15:34,860 we go back to the definition of one very good economist, 293 00:15:34,860 --> 00:15:36,033 Kit Sims Taylor. 294 00:15:36,929 --> 00:15:40,379 Capital is value held over time. 295 00:15:40,379 --> 00:15:42,090 We start to think, "Well, there's something missing 296 00:15:42,090 --> 00:15:43,590 from that." 297 00:15:43,590 --> 00:15:45,330 I've held a lot of things over time, 298 00:15:45,330 --> 00:15:47,030 and they tend to lose their value. 299 00:15:48,809 --> 00:15:52,769 If capital is what brings more or the more that comes, 300 00:15:52,769 --> 00:15:54,122 it can't simply be that. 301 00:15:56,759 --> 00:15:58,860 What you need is a commodity, 302 00:15:58,860 --> 00:16:03,100 a special commodity that brings more than it costs 303 00:16:04,919 --> 00:16:07,173 because of its special qualities. 304 00:16:08,220 --> 00:16:09,990 A couple of stipulations. 305 00:16:09,990 --> 00:16:13,649 When you get to studying the capital system in these terms, 306 00:16:13,649 --> 00:16:16,559 you can no longer say profit until the very end. 307 00:16:16,559 --> 00:16:18,989 We're not concerned with the genesis of profit. 308 00:16:18,990 --> 00:16:22,680 The terms that Marx uses are capital and surplus value. 309 00:16:22,679 --> 00:16:24,899 Capital is made up of surplus value. 310 00:16:24,899 --> 00:16:26,669 Profit is mystified. 311 00:16:26,669 --> 00:16:29,339 It doesn't tell you anything about where it comes from. 312 00:16:29,340 --> 00:16:32,399 It doesn't even tell you that it's a surplus. 313 00:16:32,399 --> 00:16:34,049 This is huge. 314 00:16:34,049 --> 00:16:37,709 In a zero-sum system, where does the surplus come from? 315 00:16:37,710 --> 00:16:40,650 We know one place it comes from, nature, 316 00:16:40,649 --> 00:16:44,523 which is thought of in capitalism as a bottomless abundance. 317 00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:47,702 We know how this is not true in many ways. 318 00:16:50,931 --> 00:16:52,920 And in fact, all surplus will come from nature. 319 00:16:52,919 --> 00:16:56,099 It's just it also comes from the nature of human beings. 320 00:16:56,100 --> 00:16:57,873 That is their capacity to labor. 321 00:17:00,389 --> 00:17:01,222 Okay. 322 00:17:02,669 --> 00:17:04,923 Capital is not just value held through time. 323 00:17:06,359 --> 00:17:10,829 It is value that is in movement here, 324 00:17:10,829 --> 00:17:13,859 but it's not just in movement through space and time. 325 00:17:13,859 --> 00:17:16,052 It does have to circulate to get realized. 326 00:17:17,609 --> 00:17:19,889 It's in movement within itself. 327 00:17:19,890 --> 00:17:23,940 It transforms within itself in an increasing way. 328 00:17:23,940 --> 00:17:25,563 It valorizes itself. 329 00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:30,809 We go from a production process here 330 00:17:30,809 --> 00:17:32,429 in which you produce a commodity. 331 00:17:32,430 --> 00:17:33,960 You use money to get it somewhere, 332 00:17:33,960 --> 00:17:35,880 and someone consumes it. 333 00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:36,780 This would be, 334 00:17:36,779 --> 00:17:39,539 the production of commodities would start this out 335 00:17:39,539 --> 00:17:42,339 to a system in which you are producing value 336 00:17:44,609 --> 00:17:46,712 that has to come back with more, 337 00:17:48,930 --> 00:17:51,120 and Marx calls that valorization. 338 00:17:51,119 --> 00:17:53,159 So every time you see valorization, 339 00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:56,110 it's where something is getting what it didn't have before. 340 00:17:57,599 --> 00:17:58,432 And Marx 341 00:18:00,119 --> 00:18:03,119 holds to Occam's razor, 342 00:18:03,119 --> 00:18:07,589 or holds to Spinoza and Leibniz. 343 00:18:07,589 --> 00:18:10,862 He believes everything has to have a sufficient reason. 344 00:18:12,539 --> 00:18:15,809 If you have more, it has to come from somewhere. 345 00:18:15,809 --> 00:18:17,252 Nothing comes from nothing. 346 00:18:18,900 --> 00:18:20,730 You can argue with this, but Marx doesn't. 347 00:18:20,730 --> 00:18:24,460 That's his instrument to show that the economists are silly 348 00:18:26,369 --> 00:18:28,559 or blind or... 349 00:18:28,559 --> 00:18:30,690 And you will notice how many of them he quotes 350 00:18:30,690 --> 00:18:32,227 in the footnotes and in the body like, 351 00:18:32,227 --> 00:18:34,660 "Condillac and others who say, 352 00:18:34,660 --> 00:18:37,620 'Yes, the one who sells something gets more back, 353 00:18:37,619 --> 00:18:39,299 and the one who buys something gets more back.'" 354 00:18:39,299 --> 00:18:42,539 And Marx was like, "Huh, that's interesting." (laughs) 355 00:18:42,539 --> 00:18:45,240 A lot of fantasies among the people 356 00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:48,450 who are thinking about the economy because it's a mystery. 357 00:18:48,450 --> 00:18:52,049 It was the biggest mystery, and Marx solved it, 358 00:18:52,049 --> 00:18:53,639 and he solved it by giving names 359 00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:55,380 to the parts that nobody had thought of, 360 00:18:55,380 --> 00:18:56,730 one of which is surplus value. 361 00:18:56,730 --> 00:18:58,620 Now we have to ask where it comes from, 362 00:18:58,619 --> 00:19:00,782 which is in our reading this week, 363 00:19:02,430 --> 00:19:04,230 but I want to make sure you understand this stuff 364 00:19:04,230 --> 00:19:05,063 before we go on. 365 00:19:05,063 --> 00:19:07,713 Questions while I sip my cold brew? 366 00:19:11,220 --> 00:19:12,870 You notice that the capitalist fuels 367 00:19:12,869 --> 00:19:16,173 are getting stronger and stronger? (chuckles) 368 00:19:18,779 --> 00:19:19,623 This all clear? 369 00:19:21,509 --> 00:19:23,670 - Does cold brew valorize? 370 00:19:23,670 --> 00:19:25,860 - Cold brew of course valorizes, yeah, 371 00:19:25,859 --> 00:19:28,132 by the poor guys who are pulling shots all day. 372 00:19:29,009 --> 00:19:29,910 - Is it monetized? 373 00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:34,410 - (laughs) No, I'm not invested, if that's what you mean. 374 00:19:34,410 --> 00:19:37,110 I always think it would be good to invest in something, 375 00:19:37,109 --> 00:19:39,236 and I think, "How does one do that?" 376 00:19:40,319 --> 00:19:42,769 - Will you say more about (speaks faintly) topic? 377 00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:47,039 - Sure. 378 00:19:47,039 --> 00:19:49,559 I will say also that I taught this book. 379 00:19:49,559 --> 00:19:52,802 In prison, one of the guys asked me if when they got out, 380 00:19:53,819 --> 00:19:56,250 they use it to start a business. 381 00:19:56,250 --> 00:19:58,410 You might learn how to invest. 382 00:19:58,410 --> 00:20:00,720 I mean, it is real economics, 383 00:20:00,720 --> 00:20:05,720 so you might learn how to invest here, but I resist. 384 00:20:06,839 --> 00:20:08,282 Why not profit? 385 00:20:10,470 --> 00:20:12,299 Because profit seems to be the thing 386 00:20:12,299 --> 00:20:16,113 that comes from trade. 387 00:20:16,950 --> 00:20:17,783 That's what it means. 388 00:20:17,782 --> 00:20:18,899 It seems to emerge 389 00:20:18,900 --> 00:20:21,423 at the moment where you're selling something. 390 00:20:22,559 --> 00:20:24,779 Profit is what you get back. 391 00:20:24,779 --> 00:20:27,242 Surplus value is what goes in. 392 00:20:28,230 --> 00:20:31,180 So if you're asking where's this extra coming from 393 00:20:32,724 --> 00:20:36,839 in a ontologically sufficient universe, 394 00:20:36,839 --> 00:20:39,149 then it has to come from somewhere, 395 00:20:39,150 --> 00:20:41,130 and profit denies that. 396 00:20:41,130 --> 00:20:44,940 Profit is the most mystified concept. 397 00:20:44,940 --> 00:20:47,037 Wait, there was a question up here. 398 00:20:47,037 --> 00:20:51,480 - Right, so my question is about value in society. 399 00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:54,450 When you're buying a commodity with money, 400 00:20:54,450 --> 00:20:56,109 and then you exchange the commodity, 401 00:20:56,108 --> 00:20:57,982 you know, and you leave it there, 402 00:20:57,982 --> 00:21:01,409 are you using the commodity as a store of value? 403 00:21:01,410 --> 00:21:02,243 - Yeah. 404 00:21:02,242 --> 00:21:05,692 - And so M prime is a newer value? 405 00:21:05,692 --> 00:21:07,139 - Uh-huh, it comes from somewhere, 406 00:21:07,140 --> 00:21:08,630 extra value. - Right, okay. 407 00:21:08,630 --> 00:21:09,463 - Yep. 408 00:21:09,462 --> 00:21:10,829 Yep, commodities store value too. 409 00:21:10,829 --> 00:21:13,769 If these things didn't hold value and preserve value... 410 00:21:13,769 --> 00:21:15,480 Now we're gonna see in the labor process 411 00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:17,190 how preserving the value 412 00:21:17,190 --> 00:21:20,880 of the semi-products that come in 413 00:21:20,880 --> 00:21:22,890 and also of your means of production, 414 00:21:22,890 --> 00:21:24,870 your tools and your equipment, 415 00:21:24,869 --> 00:21:28,949 is one of the chief jobs of the capitalist 416 00:21:28,950 --> 00:21:32,430 to ensure by/through two methods, 417 00:21:32,430 --> 00:21:36,029 discipline, called supervising, 418 00:21:36,029 --> 00:21:39,482 and propaganda, 419 00:21:40,410 --> 00:21:42,033 Marx calls real subsumption. 420 00:21:43,049 --> 00:21:47,879 You preserve your stuff at work much more carefully 421 00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:49,830 and with much less effort on the part of the owner 422 00:21:49,829 --> 00:21:51,153 when you love your work. 423 00:21:53,910 --> 00:21:56,130 - So you say value and mainly while, I guess, 424 00:21:56,130 --> 00:21:57,780 still talking like simple society. 425 00:21:57,779 --> 00:22:00,389 You say this added value, this valorization, 426 00:22:00,390 --> 00:22:02,460 can't come from circulation. 427 00:22:02,460 --> 00:22:04,413 - Oh, well, Marx says that. 428 00:22:08,099 --> 00:22:10,740 - But if we bring something from a market in which, 429 00:22:10,740 --> 00:22:12,375 say, if we bring a commodity from a market, right, 430 00:22:12,375 --> 00:22:13,952 in which it's very easy to produce 431 00:22:13,952 --> 00:22:16,202 to a place where it's much harder to produce, 432 00:22:17,250 --> 00:22:21,000 then doesn't value simply come from that circulation? 433 00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:23,789 Or are we saying that, like, transporting the commodity... 434 00:22:23,789 --> 00:22:26,609 Say we bring bananas from a very sunny place to a very cold. 435 00:22:26,609 --> 00:22:29,699 - You mean, imagine that, let's say, 436 00:22:29,700 --> 00:22:32,130 a shirt is made much more cheaply in Bangladesh? 437 00:22:32,130 --> 00:22:35,610 Just imagine (student speaks faintly) 438 00:22:35,609 --> 00:22:37,589 it's made more cheaply in Bangladesh than here. 439 00:22:37,589 --> 00:22:39,359 Yeah, it just means that the market switches 440 00:22:39,359 --> 00:22:40,979 to get all the fashion from Bangladesh, 441 00:22:40,980 --> 00:22:44,009 so you're not really comparing anything there. 442 00:22:44,009 --> 00:22:46,529 - But we're getting this delta M 443 00:22:46,529 --> 00:22:48,452 from moving something, right? 444 00:22:50,452 --> 00:22:52,470 Like, you bought it- - Well, yeah, I mean, it's... 445 00:22:52,470 --> 00:22:54,750 Well, you're getting the shirt from there, 446 00:22:54,750 --> 00:22:56,039 but you're no longer comparing it 447 00:22:56,039 --> 00:22:58,529 to shirts made in the US, for example, 448 00:22:58,529 --> 00:22:59,972 except as a luxury good. 449 00:23:01,170 --> 00:23:03,810 So there's no added value to getting it from there. 450 00:23:03,809 --> 00:23:05,190 It's just that when you go 451 00:23:05,190 --> 00:23:07,620 to a place where labor is much cheaper 452 00:23:07,619 --> 00:23:11,459 or technology is much more efficient, 453 00:23:11,460 --> 00:23:14,043 then the cost of production goes down. 454 00:23:15,630 --> 00:23:17,640 Sorry, Richard and then Tomas. 455 00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:19,470 - I'm trying to think about the relationship 456 00:23:19,470 --> 00:23:21,990 between production and consumption here 457 00:23:21,990 --> 00:23:24,720 because it's all in one circuit, basically, 458 00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:26,220 in throughout the society. 459 00:23:26,220 --> 00:23:30,990 So does circulation conceal production? 460 00:23:30,990 --> 00:23:33,599 - Yes, circulation conceals production 461 00:23:33,599 --> 00:23:35,730 and consumption, actually. 462 00:23:35,730 --> 00:23:37,113 In this circuit, 463 00:23:38,339 --> 00:23:40,349 the question is about production and consumption. 464 00:23:40,349 --> 00:23:43,449 In this circuit, Marx says consumption happens 465 00:23:44,930 --> 00:23:46,140 outside of circulation. 466 00:23:46,140 --> 00:23:48,333 This is for private consumption. 467 00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,521 I can't load this anymore, can I? 468 00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:53,354 Ah. 469 00:23:54,599 --> 00:23:55,619 It's big, the economy. 470 00:23:55,619 --> 00:23:56,792 You noticed? 471 00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:00,579 Private consumption 472 00:24:03,660 --> 00:24:04,493 here. 473 00:24:05,579 --> 00:24:08,339 In this, there's a kind of consumption, as you'll notice, 474 00:24:08,339 --> 00:24:10,352 that he calls productive consumption, 475 00:24:12,180 --> 00:24:16,740 which money uses to make a commodity 476 00:24:16,740 --> 00:24:18,480 to make more money, 477 00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:23,163 and that is raw materials and means of production. 478 00:24:24,210 --> 00:24:26,670 Those are consumed in the production process. 479 00:24:26,670 --> 00:24:28,623 So there's two types of consumption. 480 00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:31,709 It is true that circulation, 481 00:24:31,710 --> 00:24:36,120 at least historically for the economists, 482 00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:38,549 has concealed the abode of production 483 00:24:38,549 --> 00:24:39,839 or the place of production, 484 00:24:39,839 --> 00:24:41,429 and that's where we're going today. 485 00:24:41,430 --> 00:24:44,580 Marx makes it very dramatic in this version of the book. 486 00:24:44,579 --> 00:24:46,740 In other versions of the book, it's much drier. 487 00:24:46,740 --> 00:24:49,380 But he wanted this to captivate you. 488 00:24:49,380 --> 00:24:50,970 So he says, "We will now move 489 00:24:50,970 --> 00:24:52,947 into the hidden place of production." 490 00:24:53,849 --> 00:24:55,709 Production is hidden historically 491 00:24:55,710 --> 00:24:57,150 because economists have just thought 492 00:24:57,150 --> 00:25:00,509 that magically the more comes out of there. 493 00:25:00,509 --> 00:25:03,420 But it's also the case 494 00:25:03,420 --> 00:25:07,620 that circulation is very public, 495 00:25:07,619 --> 00:25:10,379 and production is hidden even by capitalists. 496 00:25:10,380 --> 00:25:11,760 It's locked behind doors. 497 00:25:11,759 --> 00:25:13,799 It's hidden for all sorts of reasons. 498 00:25:13,799 --> 00:25:17,039 So there's a factual material concealment 499 00:25:17,039 --> 00:25:18,182 that goes on as well. 500 00:25:19,259 --> 00:25:20,279 What of course is hidden 501 00:25:20,279 --> 00:25:23,940 because we didn't have the analytic tools to see it 502 00:25:23,940 --> 00:25:27,093 is the capital process in its real operations. 503 00:25:28,710 --> 00:25:32,039 Nobody had seen that before, not Ricardo, not Smith, 504 00:25:32,039 --> 00:25:33,332 certainly not Hegel, 505 00:25:36,329 --> 00:25:37,413 according to Marx. 506 00:25:39,779 --> 00:25:41,369 One more question, yeah. 507 00:25:41,369 --> 00:25:43,409 Tomas. - To the previous question, 508 00:25:43,410 --> 00:25:44,243 on value- 509 00:25:44,242 --> 00:25:45,146 - Yeah. - We'd need the (indistinct) 510 00:25:45,146 --> 00:25:46,439 and the dash. 511 00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,380 So when the conditions of productions of, 512 00:25:49,380 --> 00:25:52,680 we have a car that won't (indistinct) change, 513 00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:54,727 which is what today in like, yeah, 514 00:25:54,727 --> 00:25:58,083 "Financial Times" is called adding value, right, 515 00:25:59,039 --> 00:26:01,409 that's no longer the same commodity. 516 00:26:01,410 --> 00:26:04,650 What happens is that the commodity changes entirely anew, 517 00:26:04,650 --> 00:26:06,120 so that's all you can compare, 518 00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:07,739 yeah, right, wouldn't you say? 519 00:26:07,740 --> 00:26:10,019 - No, it's because the conditions of production. 520 00:26:10,019 --> 00:26:15,019 Once you start making cheap Xs in Mexico, 521 00:26:16,140 --> 00:26:17,250 it doesn't matter where it is, 522 00:26:17,250 --> 00:26:20,940 but it does obviously for the lives of the people there 523 00:26:20,940 --> 00:26:22,650 and international relations. 524 00:26:22,650 --> 00:26:25,200 But wherever it is that you're making a thing cheaper 525 00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:26,033 because labor is cheaper 526 00:26:26,032 --> 00:26:28,413 or because there's better technology, 527 00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:34,860 then everything switches to that source. 528 00:26:34,859 --> 00:26:35,692 So, 529 00:26:37,307 --> 00:26:39,957 it may be that it's cheaper for the people to buy it, 530 00:26:41,220 --> 00:26:43,623 for us to buy it here in a core economy. 531 00:26:44,519 --> 00:26:47,789 But, I mean, it's just like any other value production, 532 00:26:47,789 --> 00:26:49,409 just happened to move there, 533 00:26:49,410 --> 00:26:52,713 and the factors of production have changed. 534 00:26:53,819 --> 00:26:56,169 It doesn't change the way value is made at all. 535 00:26:57,674 --> 00:27:00,299 - It's also, like, one market. 536 00:27:00,299 --> 00:27:01,888 There aren't different markets, 537 00:27:01,888 --> 00:27:02,882 so it's just the socially necessary labor time. 538 00:27:04,310 --> 00:27:06,000 - Yeah, exactly, socially... 539 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,700 So I'm trying to call it SNAALT 540 00:27:08,700 --> 00:27:10,799 with a kind of Swedish accent, 541 00:27:10,799 --> 00:27:14,167 socially necessary average abstract labor time, 542 00:27:14,167 --> 00:27:15,902 (laughs) SNAALT. 543 00:27:17,009 --> 00:27:19,680 So hold on to that one, but that's right. 544 00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:24,680 It's just that the parameters of SNAALT have changed, 545 00:27:24,990 --> 00:27:27,960 but anyone who wants to get a shirt 546 00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:30,633 has to compete with Bangladesh. 547 00:27:34,109 --> 00:27:34,942 Okay. 548 00:27:37,710 --> 00:27:39,809 We know that the main contradiction, 549 00:27:39,809 --> 00:27:41,849 what he calls a contradiction in the general formula, 550 00:27:41,849 --> 00:27:45,452 is that in the general formula, 551 00:27:47,670 --> 00:27:51,120 you have to somehow get more out of the same. 552 00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:52,412 That's the contradiction. 553 00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,282 We're looking at chapter four. 554 00:28:00,299 --> 00:28:02,519 If you take a look at the last four or five pages, 555 00:28:02,519 --> 00:28:03,962 they're very important. 556 00:28:09,569 --> 00:28:11,169 They start to tell you some of 557 00:28:14,549 --> 00:28:16,082 the real inputs here. 558 00:28:20,009 --> 00:28:23,970 Buying and selling labor power is an important section. 559 00:28:23,970 --> 00:28:26,519 This will be the special commodity 560 00:28:26,519 --> 00:28:30,240 that allows more to be added 561 00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:32,279 to the money that you circulate. 562 00:28:32,279 --> 00:28:36,423 That means, actually, that the more comes in here. 563 00:28:38,849 --> 00:28:40,379 It's the only place it can come in. 564 00:28:40,380 --> 00:28:41,970 It doesn't come in in consumption. 565 00:28:41,970 --> 00:28:44,430 How am I adding more to it when I consume something? 566 00:28:44,430 --> 00:28:46,529 In fact, I'm using it up. 567 00:28:46,529 --> 00:28:48,750 The value will be gone by the time I'm done, 568 00:28:48,750 --> 00:28:52,259 or slowly over the use of a hammer, 569 00:28:52,259 --> 00:28:54,573 I will waste the value of that hammer. 570 00:28:55,710 --> 00:28:57,180 It doesn't come in in circulation 571 00:28:57,180 --> 00:28:59,039 'cause that's just the exchange of equal values. 572 00:28:59,039 --> 00:29:02,250 There's no way I'm gonna give you my car, 573 00:29:02,250 --> 00:29:04,950 old and crappy as it is, for your banana. 574 00:29:04,950 --> 00:29:08,130 Sorry, you'll have to give me a few bushels 575 00:29:08,130 --> 00:29:09,513 of bananas, at least. 576 00:29:12,509 --> 00:29:17,509 The only place Marx says it can happen is in production, 577 00:29:17,700 --> 00:29:21,210 and particularly in one aspect of production, 578 00:29:21,210 --> 00:29:24,029 in the buying and selling of labor power. 579 00:29:24,029 --> 00:29:26,579 This is the only place the change of value can happen 580 00:29:26,579 --> 00:29:31,470 because of the schizoid nature of labor. 581 00:29:31,470 --> 00:29:32,793 Labor's double. 582 00:29:36,359 --> 00:29:39,990 This is really what makes capital the difference 583 00:29:39,990 --> 00:29:41,942 between labor power and labor. 584 00:29:43,859 --> 00:29:46,173 This you will have noticed from your reading, 585 00:29:48,420 --> 00:29:53,279 that like any commodity, 586 00:29:53,279 --> 00:29:56,067 the capacity to use the commodity 587 00:29:56,067 --> 00:29:58,799 and the using of commodity are different things. 588 00:29:58,799 --> 00:30:01,740 One is kind of stored in it, 589 00:30:01,740 --> 00:30:04,500 and the other is used up when you consume it. 590 00:30:04,500 --> 00:30:08,880 In fact, labor power is consumed when you're laboring. 591 00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:09,963 Does that make sense? 592 00:30:11,009 --> 00:30:13,420 There's no question that labor is a commodity 593 00:30:14,730 --> 00:30:17,039 in a market economy, right? 594 00:30:17,039 --> 00:30:18,599 It's a natural endowment. 595 00:30:18,599 --> 00:30:22,799 It's an enhanced endowment through skill-building 596 00:30:22,799 --> 00:30:24,480 and education and all of those things. 597 00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,779 It's a natural cultural/societal endowment 598 00:30:27,779 --> 00:30:30,482 that can be stretched and built, and waxes and wanes. 599 00:30:31,619 --> 00:30:33,029 But nonetheless, 600 00:30:33,029 --> 00:30:37,232 what makes this all go round is that it's traded. 601 00:30:39,210 --> 00:30:41,340 In fact, if you think of an economy, 602 00:30:41,339 --> 00:30:43,139 if I couldn't trade my labor power, 603 00:30:43,140 --> 00:30:45,690 if I couldn't use my labor power for trade, 604 00:30:45,690 --> 00:30:47,279 I wouldn't get anything back 605 00:30:47,279 --> 00:30:50,913 so that I could go to the supermarket, right? 606 00:30:52,170 --> 00:30:53,003 I must. 607 00:30:53,002 --> 00:30:55,319 My labor power has to become a commodity 608 00:30:55,319 --> 00:30:57,240 in a large exchange economy. 609 00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:00,539 Otherwise, I wouldn't have that thing I need to 610 00:31:00,539 --> 00:31:03,450 unless I started out with a huge amount of capital. 611 00:31:03,450 --> 00:31:07,590 But if I came into this world with nearly nothing, as I did, 612 00:31:07,589 --> 00:31:11,522 I have only my labor power to sell. 613 00:31:13,650 --> 00:31:17,043 And on the other side, commodity sales, 614 00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:21,660 capitalism requires someone with labor power 615 00:31:21,660 --> 00:31:23,370 to sell so that they can have money 616 00:31:23,369 --> 00:31:25,559 to buy the commodities that I'm making. 617 00:31:25,559 --> 00:31:27,779 Marx uses the example of the company store. 618 00:31:27,779 --> 00:31:28,829 You go to work. 619 00:31:28,829 --> 00:31:30,476 You make a, what, a shoe. 620 00:31:30,477 --> 00:31:32,759 And then of course to shoe your family, 621 00:31:32,759 --> 00:31:34,319 you need to go to your boss 622 00:31:34,319 --> 00:31:36,119 and buy the shoes at full price, 623 00:31:36,119 --> 00:31:38,429 even though you can make them. 624 00:31:38,430 --> 00:31:40,650 These are the ironies of the capital system. 625 00:31:40,650 --> 00:31:43,560 So if I didn't have labor power to sell, right, 626 00:31:43,559 --> 00:31:45,210 my being able to shoe my family, 627 00:31:45,210 --> 00:31:47,940 though I have the skills to make the shoes, 628 00:31:47,940 --> 00:31:51,303 is now mediated by labor power. 629 00:31:52,319 --> 00:31:53,153 I have this thing. 630 00:31:53,153 --> 00:31:58,022 I promise them I'm gonna give them X amount of my time. 631 00:32:00,779 --> 00:32:01,833 Does that make sense? 632 00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:14,460 The split that makes this not an economy 633 00:32:14,460 --> 00:32:17,130 for the laborer, but a schizonomy, 634 00:32:17,130 --> 00:32:20,100 if you want to be Deleuzian about it or something like that, 635 00:32:20,099 --> 00:32:23,490 what makes it for me as a worker a schizonomy 636 00:32:23,490 --> 00:32:27,692 is that I sell my labor power, but the owner gets my labor. 637 00:32:28,650 --> 00:32:31,230 What's the difference between labor and labor power? 638 00:32:31,230 --> 00:32:33,960 Labor power is what I promise as my capacity to do things, 639 00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:36,090 but labor is as much as they can get out of me 640 00:32:36,089 --> 00:32:39,512 in the time I've contracted to work, actual labor. 641 00:32:43,740 --> 00:32:47,220 My labor power is valued at its cost of reproduction, 642 00:32:47,220 --> 00:32:48,990 just like any commodity. 643 00:32:48,990 --> 00:32:51,660 What does it cost to produce my labor power? 644 00:32:51,660 --> 00:32:53,160 What are the factors in my labor power? 645 00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:54,310 Can you shout them out? 646 00:32:56,190 --> 00:33:00,212 Strength, it's a cost, but what builds strength? 647 00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:03,330 Food, sleep. 648 00:33:03,329 --> 00:33:06,389 So, a house, all of those things, right? 649 00:33:06,390 --> 00:33:07,570 This is called my 650 00:33:12,450 --> 00:33:13,410 means of subsistence. 651 00:33:13,410 --> 00:33:15,783 There's a lot of little monograms. 652 00:33:16,619 --> 00:33:17,549 My means of subsistence. 653 00:33:17,549 --> 00:33:21,220 So labor power is sold 654 00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:24,003 from my means of subsistence. 655 00:33:24,869 --> 00:33:26,669 But you see what the issue is here. 656 00:33:26,670 --> 00:33:30,690 The capitalist has to pay my means of subsistence 657 00:33:30,690 --> 00:33:34,232 and their means of subsistence out of my labor power. 658 00:33:36,359 --> 00:33:39,389 They have to pay for next year's contingencies 659 00:33:39,390 --> 00:33:41,009 out of my labor power. 660 00:33:41,009 --> 00:33:45,299 They have to hedge their bets against weather and thieves 661 00:33:45,299 --> 00:33:47,190 and the up and downs of the markets 662 00:33:47,190 --> 00:33:49,230 all out of my labor power. 663 00:33:49,230 --> 00:33:51,390 So that better be pretty elastic 664 00:33:51,390 --> 00:33:53,580 because it's not just gonna be... 665 00:33:53,579 --> 00:33:55,289 They're not just gonna be getting out of it 666 00:33:55,289 --> 00:33:56,343 what they pay me. 667 00:34:02,460 --> 00:34:04,470 A laborer lives a schizonomy 668 00:34:04,470 --> 00:34:06,539 in which their labor power is what is sold 669 00:34:06,539 --> 00:34:10,440 and that what they get is the cost to reproduce themselves. 670 00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:12,720 What they give, however, is the cost 671 00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:14,163 to reproduce the business, 672 00:34:16,650 --> 00:34:18,780 which might include a higher standard of living 673 00:34:18,780 --> 00:34:21,450 for the owner, but doesn't necessarily have to. 674 00:34:21,449 --> 00:34:23,750 The whole business depends on the value put in 675 00:34:24,989 --> 00:34:27,089 through actual labor. 676 00:34:27,090 --> 00:34:28,920 The value of labor power is determined 677 00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:30,363 by my wants and needs. 678 00:34:32,250 --> 00:34:36,420 It's worth saying that this is not a natural determination, 679 00:34:36,420 --> 00:34:37,860 but a historical determination. 680 00:34:37,860 --> 00:34:42,423 So if my wants and needs include an iPhone, 681 00:34:43,710 --> 00:34:46,409 what else, an umbrella, 682 00:34:46,409 --> 00:34:48,210 what do we need that are historical, 683 00:34:49,559 --> 00:34:52,139 socially determined rather than naturally determined? 684 00:34:52,139 --> 00:34:53,579 Huh? 685 00:34:53,579 --> 00:34:55,773 Tuition for your children, amen. 686 00:34:57,690 --> 00:35:00,179 That's right, the things I've done for tuition, 687 00:35:00,179 --> 00:35:01,730 future tuition for my children. 688 00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:04,230 Yep, depends on the society you live in. 689 00:35:04,230 --> 00:35:06,119 If you live in Argentina, where my partner is from, 690 00:35:06,119 --> 00:35:09,029 you don't save for tuition because the universities are? 691 00:35:09,030 --> 00:35:10,380 - Free. 692 00:35:10,380 --> 00:35:13,950 - You pay taxes, but the state has decided it wants 693 00:35:13,949 --> 00:35:18,159 to allow you to go to these extremely dilapidated buildings 694 00:35:19,349 --> 00:35:21,960 without a charge, right? 695 00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:23,519 So this list of wants 696 00:35:23,519 --> 00:35:27,869 and needs are not just, like, biological. 697 00:35:27,869 --> 00:35:29,789 I don't want you to think that any of this is natural. 698 00:35:29,789 --> 00:35:30,929 It's socially determined, 699 00:35:30,929 --> 00:35:33,902 and it might very well include a car, 700 00:35:35,159 --> 00:35:36,572 a state government, 701 00:35:38,190 --> 00:35:39,450 diapers for your kids 702 00:35:39,449 --> 00:35:41,789 rather than running around pooping all over the place. 703 00:35:41,789 --> 00:35:42,960 Yeah. 704 00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:46,470 - So labor power is based at the (indistinct), 705 00:35:46,469 --> 00:35:48,239 but it's in the (indistinct) sense, right? 706 00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:49,319 - Yeah. 707 00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:54,320 - And goods are priced as their SNAALT. 708 00:35:54,630 --> 00:35:55,463 - Yes. 709 00:35:56,309 --> 00:35:57,559 - How do we... 710 00:35:59,070 --> 00:36:01,590 There's gotta be a difference between 711 00:36:01,590 --> 00:36:04,110 like how we're pricing labor times 712 00:36:04,110 --> 00:36:05,220 and how we're pricing means, 713 00:36:05,219 --> 00:36:07,469 and how we're valuing labor power. 714 00:36:07,469 --> 00:36:08,302 - That's right. 715 00:36:09,420 --> 00:36:10,500 Yeah, you have to... 716 00:36:10,500 --> 00:36:13,260 Well, one of the main controls 717 00:36:13,260 --> 00:36:16,000 when we get to talking about 718 00:36:17,099 --> 00:36:19,409 relative surplus value later, 719 00:36:19,409 --> 00:36:21,389 you'll see that one of the main controls 720 00:36:21,389 --> 00:36:24,900 that a capitalist has to increase their surplus value 721 00:36:24,900 --> 00:36:29,309 is to diminish the cost of those goods 722 00:36:29,309 --> 00:36:32,222 that maintain the means of subsistence. 723 00:36:33,690 --> 00:36:35,460 So it doesn't help the capitalist 724 00:36:35,460 --> 00:36:37,619 to drive down prices anywhere, 725 00:36:37,619 --> 00:36:40,269 but it does help them to drive down the price of rice 726 00:36:41,460 --> 00:36:42,900 because that means they can reproduce 727 00:36:42,900 --> 00:36:44,730 the worker more cheaply. 728 00:36:44,730 --> 00:36:47,519 So there's a lot of pressures on the agricultural sector 729 00:36:47,519 --> 00:36:49,679 and other kind of infrastructure sectors 730 00:36:49,679 --> 00:36:52,739 for individual consumption to go down and down and down. 731 00:36:52,739 --> 00:36:55,649 Technologies in those parts of the economy 732 00:36:55,650 --> 00:36:59,733 actually help profits rise or surplus value increase. 733 00:37:00,809 --> 00:37:02,070 Richard. 734 00:37:02,070 --> 00:37:04,170 - Talking about labor power, 735 00:37:04,170 --> 00:37:06,539 and she says it's like all the capacities 736 00:37:06,539 --> 00:37:07,980 that exist in a person. 737 00:37:07,980 --> 00:37:11,579 But like, as one notices, like, an office worker, 738 00:37:11,579 --> 00:37:14,043 which is like typing on Excel, saying something, 739 00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:18,420 you know, (speaks faintly), 740 00:37:18,420 --> 00:37:21,570 like, how are they, like, valued typically 741 00:37:21,570 --> 00:37:23,100 if they're valued differently? 742 00:37:23,099 --> 00:37:24,659 - No, they're always valued at the cost 743 00:37:24,659 --> 00:37:27,269 to reproduce the worker regardless of what it is. 744 00:37:27,269 --> 00:37:31,233 This is an another averaging force. 745 00:37:33,210 --> 00:37:35,039 Right, all labor is the same. 746 00:37:35,039 --> 00:37:37,980 That's why the proletariat is ultimately uniform 747 00:37:37,980 --> 00:37:40,260 because they only get... 748 00:37:40,260 --> 00:37:42,270 Their wages get driven down... 749 00:37:42,269 --> 00:37:46,170 Wait till you see the mystification of the wage form. 750 00:37:46,170 --> 00:37:48,000 Their wages get driven down 751 00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,599 to the minimum of their historical means of subsistence 752 00:37:51,599 --> 00:37:53,282 when at all possible. 753 00:37:54,420 --> 00:37:57,480 Workers' groups can fight against that and can raise it, 754 00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,230 but it gets taken out in other places, as he will show. 755 00:38:01,793 --> 00:38:04,769 The capital system eats its limits, including unions. 756 00:38:04,769 --> 00:38:06,840 So what do you do? 757 00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:08,400 Form a union? 758 00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:09,452 Shorten the day? 759 00:38:10,590 --> 00:38:13,380 You can do that, but as he shows in the 19th century, 760 00:38:13,380 --> 00:38:17,250 this increased the pressure to raise productivity 761 00:38:17,250 --> 00:38:19,110 to such a degree that people were just dying 762 00:38:19,110 --> 00:38:20,103 in a shorter time. 763 00:38:22,619 --> 00:38:24,029 We don't have to be cynical about it, 764 00:38:24,030 --> 00:38:27,210 but it is worth showing, understanding how capital, 765 00:38:27,210 --> 00:38:28,949 the capital system, eats its limits. 766 00:38:28,949 --> 00:38:32,730 Or if you try to make a reasonable capital system, 767 00:38:32,730 --> 00:38:34,619 it always backfires. 768 00:38:34,619 --> 00:38:36,119 This is Marx's view. 769 00:38:36,119 --> 00:38:39,269 There is no way to make a better capital system. 770 00:38:39,269 --> 00:38:41,639 It can be better temporarily. 771 00:38:41,639 --> 00:38:43,469 It can be better for certain groups. 772 00:38:43,469 --> 00:38:45,359 But it will always recoup 773 00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:47,220 in one way or the other the misery 774 00:38:47,219 --> 00:38:48,632 that it imposes on people. 775 00:38:50,250 --> 00:38:51,690 This is Marx's position. 776 00:38:51,690 --> 00:38:53,909 It's a structural analytic position. 777 00:38:53,909 --> 00:38:56,252 It's not a moral position by any means, 778 00:38:57,119 --> 00:39:00,869 and this is a very strong challenge to current economics 779 00:39:00,869 --> 00:39:04,589 and liberalism that is worth thinking through, 780 00:39:04,590 --> 00:39:06,750 whether you end up agreeing with it or not. 781 00:39:06,750 --> 00:39:11,070 It is relentlessly and resolutely negative, 782 00:39:11,070 --> 00:39:12,220 the effects of capital. 783 00:39:13,260 --> 00:39:14,850 Though it feeds the world, 784 00:39:14,849 --> 00:39:17,849 it drives the majority of people 785 00:39:17,849 --> 00:39:20,670 into an immiserated circumstance 786 00:39:20,670 --> 00:39:23,550 such that their lives are kind of keeping pace 787 00:39:23,550 --> 00:39:24,663 with their own misery. 788 00:39:27,900 --> 00:39:28,733 AJ. 789 00:39:32,610 --> 00:39:34,079 Sure, you can for a short time, 790 00:39:34,079 --> 00:39:36,150 but as Marx says in one of these chapters, 791 00:39:36,150 --> 00:39:40,079 the quality of their work suffers, (laughs) right? 792 00:39:40,079 --> 00:39:41,639 You can give them less than they need to eat, 793 00:39:41,639 --> 00:39:43,619 but they're gonna wear out faster. 794 00:39:43,619 --> 00:39:46,500 You can see that humans are now a form 795 00:39:46,500 --> 00:39:49,260 of capital that are invested in, 796 00:39:49,260 --> 00:39:53,440 and we end today's session talking about 797 00:39:54,300 --> 00:39:56,130 constant and variable capital. 798 00:39:56,130 --> 00:39:57,390 What used to be called workers 799 00:39:57,389 --> 00:39:59,639 are now called variable capital, 800 00:39:59,639 --> 00:40:02,190 variable because you can get more 801 00:40:02,190 --> 00:40:05,010 and less surplus value out of them 802 00:40:05,010 --> 00:40:07,173 depending how you turn the dials. 803 00:40:09,900 --> 00:40:11,430 Okay, a few more things. 804 00:40:11,429 --> 00:40:12,902 We only have 10 minutes left. 805 00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:17,700 We go to chapter five, 806 00:40:17,699 --> 00:40:20,492 the labor process and the valorization process. 807 00:40:22,710 --> 00:40:25,559 But do reread if you have a chance the last pages 808 00:40:25,559 --> 00:40:26,793 of chapter four. 809 00:40:33,599 --> 00:40:35,670 One irony that comes up in the last pages 810 00:40:35,670 --> 00:40:36,869 of chapter four, which I love, 811 00:40:36,869 --> 00:40:40,109 is that in addition to being exploited, 812 00:40:40,110 --> 00:40:43,740 that is, paid less than the value they actually create, 813 00:40:43,739 --> 00:40:47,369 the workers have to loan their labor to the employer 814 00:40:47,369 --> 00:40:49,289 and get paid at the end of the week. 815 00:40:49,289 --> 00:40:51,119 Isn't that astounding? 816 00:40:51,119 --> 00:40:54,029 The workers, not only are they exploited, 817 00:40:54,030 --> 00:40:57,573 but they're the capitalist's first creditor, 818 00:40:58,769 --> 00:41:01,230 and they have no choice but to lend them to work. 819 00:41:01,230 --> 00:41:02,909 I always found it astounding. 820 00:41:02,909 --> 00:41:06,059 Why do I have to wait till the end of the month to get paid? 821 00:41:06,059 --> 00:41:08,559 Well, because they're extorting the work from you. 822 00:41:11,579 --> 00:41:13,293 Did I tell you the four Xs? 823 00:41:14,190 --> 00:41:18,720 Extortion, expropriation, extraction, exploitation. 824 00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:20,309 This is the relentless negativity 825 00:41:20,309 --> 00:41:23,670 that this book is giving you, the four Xs. 826 00:41:23,670 --> 00:41:28,233 Those are the modes by which capital depletes everything. 827 00:41:33,989 --> 00:41:34,822 Okay. 828 00:41:36,570 --> 00:41:39,600 We're going into the sphere of production now, 829 00:41:39,599 --> 00:41:42,449 but we're going in, first of all, 830 00:41:42,449 --> 00:41:44,489 from the standpoint of the capitalist. 831 00:41:44,489 --> 00:41:46,469 This is what production looks like 832 00:41:46,469 --> 00:41:48,722 for the capitalists from their standpoint. 833 00:41:49,860 --> 00:41:51,480 I'm giving you a lot of formulas today, 834 00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,393 but let's do this one last one. 835 00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:05,103 This is what it looks like. 836 00:42:10,829 --> 00:42:14,252 This is where value is created. 837 00:42:27,809 --> 00:42:31,500 You start with money that's advanced from the capitalist 838 00:42:31,500 --> 00:42:34,952 to get a commodity that's a raw material. 839 00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:38,403 It goes into production. 840 00:42:39,599 --> 00:42:43,409 It gets worked by labor and becomes commodity prime, 841 00:42:43,409 --> 00:42:44,730 that is, you get a lump of iron, 842 00:42:44,730 --> 00:42:47,193 and it comes out cast-iron pot, right? 843 00:42:49,590 --> 00:42:51,150 And that cast-iron pot goes out 844 00:42:51,150 --> 00:42:54,630 and brings more than the money you invested 845 00:42:54,630 --> 00:42:58,480 in the means of production, which is 846 00:43:00,780 --> 00:43:04,200 raw materials and the means of labor, 847 00:43:04,199 --> 00:43:08,522 tools and equipment and objects, 848 00:43:13,079 --> 00:43:15,063 and the labor power you've bought. 849 00:43:17,099 --> 00:43:18,599 You've bought labor power. 850 00:43:18,599 --> 00:43:20,009 You've bought means of production. 851 00:43:20,010 --> 00:43:21,150 It goes into production, 852 00:43:21,150 --> 00:43:23,160 and you get out something more than you got in, right? 853 00:43:23,159 --> 00:43:24,779 That's what we understand work to be. 854 00:43:24,780 --> 00:43:26,010 You've worked something, 855 00:43:26,010 --> 00:43:27,840 and the thing is different, more, 856 00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:30,450 better suited to something than it was before. 857 00:43:30,449 --> 00:43:33,539 It's more developed like the lump, 858 00:43:33,539 --> 00:43:36,483 like iron ore becomes an iron rod. 859 00:43:37,469 --> 00:43:39,089 You just snap your fingers. 860 00:43:39,090 --> 00:43:42,597 An iron rod becomes a cast-iron pot (snaps) like that. 861 00:43:42,597 --> 00:43:43,769 You just snap your fingers. 862 00:43:43,769 --> 00:43:46,710 No, there's this labor that happens in the meantime. 863 00:43:46,710 --> 00:43:48,090 So he's adding this in here 864 00:43:48,090 --> 00:43:51,329 and showing you what hides behind circulation 865 00:43:51,329 --> 00:43:55,019 is actually the hidden place of production 866 00:43:55,019 --> 00:43:58,050 in which these factors of production depend 867 00:43:58,050 --> 00:44:01,083 on this difference in order to produce the more, 868 00:44:04,559 --> 00:44:06,539 the difference between labor power 869 00:44:06,539 --> 00:44:08,402 and the actual labor that comes out. 870 00:44:10,019 --> 00:44:12,300 Okay, before we get to surplus value, 871 00:44:12,300 --> 00:44:14,222 which I think we'll get to next time, 872 00:44:17,579 --> 00:44:18,690 and remember, just we're doing 873 00:44:18,690 --> 00:44:20,943 this weird formula dance today. 874 00:44:29,820 --> 00:44:32,580 This is what a laborer sees, 875 00:44:32,579 --> 00:44:35,639 sees their labor power exchanged for money, 876 00:44:35,639 --> 00:44:37,079 which they use to buy a commodity, 877 00:44:37,079 --> 00:44:38,880 which is their means of subsistence. 878 00:44:41,730 --> 00:44:43,659 So this is the standpoint of labor 879 00:44:44,550 --> 00:44:48,150 and the standpoint of capital, 880 00:44:48,150 --> 00:44:50,190 if they knew it, 881 00:44:50,190 --> 00:44:54,003 which they don't, unless they read Marx, 882 00:44:55,739 --> 00:44:56,589 which they don't. 883 00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:02,250 Okay, before we go, I want to just say a few things 884 00:45:02,250 --> 00:45:06,090 about what labor is for Marx, where it comes from, 885 00:45:06,090 --> 00:45:08,193 how it differs from Ricardo and Smith. 886 00:45:09,599 --> 00:45:12,929 I'm gonna leave this up here 'cause it looks so good. 887 00:45:12,929 --> 00:45:15,569 I realize spending a life reading texts like poems 888 00:45:15,570 --> 00:45:18,420 with people, you don't put anything on the board, really. 889 00:45:19,590 --> 00:45:20,740 It's not as impressive. 890 00:45:23,460 --> 00:45:24,932 Okay, what is labor? 891 00:45:32,070 --> 00:45:34,400 Labor is according to Marx... 892 00:45:35,340 --> 00:45:36,570 What is labor? 893 00:45:36,570 --> 00:45:38,070 Do you have a good definition? 894 00:45:40,980 --> 00:45:42,063 Seminar moment. 895 00:45:46,380 --> 00:45:47,403 Labor work? 896 00:45:50,190 --> 00:45:51,023 AJ? 897 00:45:51,023 --> 00:45:53,880 - The thing done to transform a thing. 898 00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:55,740 - Thing done to transform one thing to another. 899 00:45:55,739 --> 00:45:57,329 So if I take a hat, 900 00:45:57,329 --> 00:46:00,989 and I pull a rabbit out of it, that's labor? 901 00:46:00,989 --> 00:46:02,369 Well, maybe. 902 00:46:02,369 --> 00:46:03,989 Could be. 903 00:46:03,989 --> 00:46:05,339 Yeah. - So maybe add to that 904 00:46:05,340 --> 00:46:06,269 it's an ability, 905 00:46:06,269 --> 00:46:10,860 so it's a capacity to make change 906 00:46:10,860 --> 00:46:12,630 or work on something. 907 00:46:12,630 --> 00:46:15,750 - It is true Marx is Aristotelian in this way. 908 00:46:15,750 --> 00:46:19,260 He thinks things go from capacities to actualities. 909 00:46:19,260 --> 00:46:21,120 So, labor, if you can do it, 910 00:46:21,119 --> 00:46:22,222 there was a capacity that preceded it. 911 00:46:22,222 --> 00:46:24,298 This is not the only way to think about things. 912 00:46:24,298 --> 00:46:25,132 Hazal. 913 00:46:25,132 --> 00:46:26,670 - There has to be an idea behind it, 914 00:46:26,670 --> 00:46:29,309 so it's not like the land engages in it. 915 00:46:29,309 --> 00:46:31,380 - Okay, so nature does not do labor. 916 00:46:31,380 --> 00:46:33,390 Nature transforms. 917 00:46:33,389 --> 00:46:36,572 But as he says, quoting Aristotle, 918 00:46:37,829 --> 00:46:41,009 labor, human labor, has an idea 919 00:46:41,010 --> 00:46:44,790 and leads that idea as part of the capacity into actuality. 920 00:46:44,789 --> 00:46:45,623 That's true. 921 00:46:46,530 --> 00:46:47,363 Yeah. 922 00:46:47,362 --> 00:46:48,195 - Is it like energy? 923 00:46:49,530 --> 00:46:51,660 - Labor, that would be a physical definition of it, 924 00:46:51,659 --> 00:46:54,179 that it's energy that does work 925 00:46:54,179 --> 00:46:56,702 or effort that produces a product, yeah. 926 00:46:59,623 --> 00:47:01,679 I'm gonna do another formula. 927 00:47:01,679 --> 00:47:02,639 This is good. 928 00:47:02,639 --> 00:47:03,940 Ooh, I can pull this down? 929 00:47:05,099 --> 00:47:05,932 Is that true? 930 00:47:07,289 --> 00:47:08,130 Yeah, look at that. (object whirring) 931 00:47:08,130 --> 00:47:08,963 Ah. 932 00:47:11,969 --> 00:47:14,822 Labor has a very particular intentional structure. 933 00:47:16,829 --> 00:47:18,273 It's gonna sound insane. 934 00:47:20,969 --> 00:47:21,802 - Wow. 935 00:47:26,396 --> 00:47:27,480 - How's that? 936 00:47:28,650 --> 00:47:31,230 This is the intentional structure of labor. 937 00:47:31,230 --> 00:47:34,143 A worker works a workable into a worked. 938 00:47:35,099 --> 00:47:36,752 It has a temporal structure too. 939 00:47:40,050 --> 00:47:41,730 This is the subjective element, 940 00:47:41,730 --> 00:47:43,579 what he calls the subjective element. 941 00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:48,719 This is the objective element. 942 00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:50,222 And this is a process. 943 00:47:54,179 --> 00:47:56,012 These two belong to nature. 944 00:47:59,849 --> 00:48:02,559 The process of work belongs to human nature 945 00:48:04,199 --> 00:48:05,909 according to Marx. 946 00:48:05,909 --> 00:48:07,649 I'm not sure I agree with this, 947 00:48:07,650 --> 00:48:10,829 but it certainly has a non-natural element, 948 00:48:10,829 --> 00:48:15,512 which is that the way of working changes socially. 949 00:48:17,190 --> 00:48:20,849 But fundamentally, working is a natural, 950 00:48:20,849 --> 00:48:23,699 as is the workable object, 951 00:48:23,699 --> 00:48:24,752 comes from nature. 952 00:48:25,679 --> 00:48:28,269 And the process here he likens to 953 00:48:31,110 --> 00:48:33,059 another natural. 954 00:48:33,059 --> 00:48:36,179 He likens to it, it's a little different, 955 00:48:36,179 --> 00:48:39,119 where at least, in work in socialism 956 00:48:39,119 --> 00:48:42,179 or pre-capitalist formations, 957 00:48:42,179 --> 00:48:43,710 work is like a metabolism. 958 00:48:43,710 --> 00:48:47,130 It takes a workable, and it digests it 959 00:48:47,130 --> 00:48:49,083 and spits it out as a worked, 960 00:48:50,309 --> 00:48:52,619 or as as a work, if you want to put it that way. 961 00:48:52,619 --> 00:48:53,452 Yeah. 962 00:48:53,452 --> 00:48:56,130 - Do capitalists do labor or do work? 963 00:48:56,130 --> 00:48:57,750 - No. 964 00:48:57,750 --> 00:48:59,373 Nope, capitalists never work, 965 00:49:00,630 --> 00:49:03,210 not because they're sitting around either. 966 00:49:03,210 --> 00:49:04,653 Capitalists are, 967 00:49:05,940 --> 00:49:07,710 what do you call them? 968 00:49:07,710 --> 00:49:09,360 What do they call them here? Stewards. 969 00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:11,309 It's a terrible institutional name. 970 00:49:11,309 --> 00:49:12,509 They're stewards of work 971 00:49:12,510 --> 00:49:14,910 or overseers of work, organizers of work, 972 00:49:14,909 --> 00:49:16,799 but always other people's work. 973 00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:19,350 So work is not equivalent to effort. 974 00:49:19,349 --> 00:49:21,549 You make a lot of efforts that are not work. 975 00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:25,293 Richard. - So it's not really labor. 976 00:49:25,293 --> 00:49:27,180 It's laboring. 977 00:49:27,179 --> 00:49:28,172 - Yeah, laboring. 978 00:49:29,159 --> 00:49:30,182 It's a process. 979 00:49:33,539 --> 00:49:35,550 This changes somewhat. 980 00:49:35,550 --> 00:49:39,090 This is the basis for labor under capitalism, 981 00:49:39,090 --> 00:49:40,980 but it changes somewhat, 982 00:49:40,980 --> 00:49:43,079 and we'll talk about that next time 983 00:49:43,079 --> 00:49:44,849 when we get into surplus value, 984 00:49:44,849 --> 00:49:46,230 the different modes of capital. 985 00:49:46,230 --> 00:49:48,030 Just warning you that for next week, 986 00:49:48,030 --> 00:49:49,890 we're talking about the working-day chapter, 987 00:49:49,889 --> 00:49:51,779 which is about 100 pages. 988 00:49:51,780 --> 00:49:54,330 It's not theoretical exactly. 989 00:49:54,329 --> 00:49:55,469 It's historical, 990 00:49:55,469 --> 00:49:57,932 but might want to get started on your reading. 991 00:49:59,713 --> 00:50:01,411 (electronic signal humming) 992 00:50:01,411 --> 00:50:05,996 (electronic device buzzing) (bright music)