ALB
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Ironically both Alan and PGB are quoting from the same 1847 Marx article.
I am not sure how PGB missed the key passage which states the situation from the point of view of what is now called Marxian Economics (and of Classical Political Economy).
Writing in 1847 Marx would have had in mind indirect taxes on the goods workers bought not a direct tax on their wages. No workers paid that then. In fact
capitalists didn’t either.That taxation is not a burden on the working class is a consequence of the “Law of Wages” which states that the price of labour power tends to reflect the money cost of creating and maintaining it. Insofar as paying taxes is part of this cost then this will be reflected in the price of labour power, by increasing it. Another corollary of this Law is the opposite — that anything paid to the wage worker or provided for them free will have the effect of decreasing the price of labour power as it reduces the money cost of reproducing it.
So while taxes that workers pay are passed on to the employer as higher money wages (so that in effect they are a burden on employers), monetary and non-monetary benefits paid to workers benefit employers (as this reduces the money wages they need to pay).
Some provisos:
1. We are talking about the working class as a class and so the average cost of reproducing and maintaining labour power and not about individual workers.
2. The Law of Wages is not an “iron law” but can be influenced by the struggles of workers. They can bring about a wage rise quicker than market forces otherwise would and they can delay a fall and maybe prevent it falling as far as it otherwise would. Changes in the cost of reproducing labour power brought about by changes in taxes, up or down, are not automatically immediately reflected in changing money wages.
3. The wealth which goes to the government as taxes comes ultimately from the unpaid labour of the working class, even if only indirectly via the employing class.
As to the claim in the 1853 article Marx wrote for the American newspaper that “under our present social system of employer and employed, the middle class man generally indemnifies himself for additional taxation in diminished wages or increased prices,” it is wrong.
According to his own economic writings, employers cannot arbitrarily reduce wages below the cost of reproducing labour power (at least not for long without negative consequences such as reduced productivity). Nor can they arbitrarily raise their prices; they can only pass on a tax on what they sell if that’s what the market can bear (and if it can’t and they raise the price they will lose trade). In both cases, they have bear the burden of taxes.
I am guessing that Marx wrote that article for the money and was writing what he thought the editor would like his readers to read. But, anyway, that passage is wrong.
The article’s conclusion should help decide the matter, Alan:
“The working class needs to be conscious of its history and to have a programme for the creation of the new society. To achieve this a revolutionary political organisation, rooted in the working class, which can operate as a guide to a new society is required. While we cannot control the material conditions which precipitate future struggles, we can direct our efforts to forming a class political organisation. This is the key issue today. It is also the only hope for a successful fight against the climate crisis.”
It’s the same as what the Trots all say is the answer to everything: “Build the Vanguard Party”.
And how can you “fight against the climate crisis” under capitalism ? Nothing lastingly effective can be done to tackle the problem until we have a society based on the common ownership of productive resources. Getting there is the priority—and we don’t need a vanguard party to “guide” us there.
While Monbiot is doing a good job confirming “capitalism” as a dirty word, he still has to take the last step from “tax the rich” to “abolish the division of society into rich and poor by making the means for producing useful goods and services the common property of all the people under their democratic control.”
What’s the point of allowing the rich to exist and get rich by exploiting the rest of us and then taxing away the proceeds to provide better amenities? Why not cut out passing via them and directly use commonly-owned resources to provide the better public amenities?
I too thought that that was a strange way of putting it. We don’t want to “dampen down” young people thinking that a better world is possible, only to point out that this is not possible without getting rid of capitalism. And we need to encourage them to blame “capitalism” by name, so as to open a conversation on what capitalism is and what its abolition would have to involve.
You are right that passage is not very clear. David Fernbach in the 1981 Penguin translation translates it a bit differently, presumably to try to make it clearer:
“An increase in absolute surplus-value or any extension of surplus labour and hence the working day, with variable capital remaining the same and thus the same number of workers being employed at the same nominal wage, causes a fall in the value of constant capital compared with the total capital and compared with the variable capital, and thus raises the rate of profit, quite apart from the growth in the mass of surplus-value and a possibility rising rate of surplus-value. (It is immaterial here whether overtime is paid or not.)”
Marx seems to be explaining the empirical fact, as noted for instance by the Factory Inspector quoted in a footnote, that prolonging the working day and running the machines longer results in a greater (amount of) profit:
“Since in all factories there is a very large amount of fixed capital in buildings and machinery, the greater the number the hours that machinery can be kept at work the greater will be the return.”
Running the machinery and using the buildings more means they depreciate more quickly, irrespective of whether the amount of profit increases and of whether or not the workers are paid overtime. Later in the following sentences Marx points out, as you note, that this means
“the value of the fixed capital is now reproduced in a shorter series of turnover periods, and the time for which it has to be advanced in order to make a certain profit is reduced.”
In other words, less capital needs to be advanced for buildings and machinery as part of total capital, reducing the proportion of constant capital in total capital and so increasing the rate of profit (even if total profit remains the same, which in practice it won’t but will increase).
Of course the whole of volume 3 of Capital was stitched together by Engels from Marx’s unrevised manuscripts. So, it is not surprising that it contains many passages which are not immediately clear as to what Marx was getting at.
Alan, looks as if you have a recruit to your theory about collapse of civilisation. In fact he seems more apocalyptic than you:
“Boris Johnson has issued an apocalyptic warning that civilisation could collapse “like the Roman Empire” unless runaway climate change is stopped.
En route to the G20 summit in Rome, the prime minister said the world could “go backwards” – as it did after its famous empire fell – unless a deal to halt the climate emergency is struck at the Cop26 summit.
Humanity, civilisation and society can go backwards as well as forwards and when they start to go wrong, they can go wrong at extraordinary speed,” Mr Johnson said.
“You saw that with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.”
And he added: “It’s true today that, unless we get this right in tackling climate change, we could see our civilisation, our world, also go backwards.”
We could consign future generations to a life far less agreeable than our own,” he said – pointing to shortages of food and shortages of water and conflict caused by climate change.
“There is absolutely no question that this is a reality we must face.”
Pointing again to the example of the end of the Romans, the prime minister said: “People lost the ability to read and write and the ability to draw properly. They lost the way to build in the way that the Romans did.”It’s an extraordinary statement for a capitalist politician and a huge hostage to fortune.
Incidentally, I don’t think he is right, is he, that the Roman Empire collapse with “ extraordinary speed”. I thought it took a couple of centuries.
Now they are employing the language of right-wing populism:
Liam Norton from Insulate Britain said: “In a couple of days COP 26 will start in Glasgow and the eyes of the world will be on this country. Britain should be leading the world with radical plans to decarbonise our society.
“What we have instead is a budget that is yet another act of treason by this government upon its own people. It is a plan that facilitates mass murder. The citizens of this country should be in open revolt. We need change and we need it quickly.
“It is clear that this Government has no intention of getting on with the job that they were elected to do. No intention of protecting the country from climate collapse. Our children’s futures have been trashed. Our country sold out.
“We have been betrayed by the traitors now in power. We ask all decent ordinary people to join us, to rise up and take part in nonviolent civil resistance against tyranny.”
Politicians are not solving the problem of global warming and climate change because they are traitors, but because they have to operate within the capitalist economic system that puts profits first and is geared to endless growth (accumulation of capital).They are not solving it because they can’t.
The electors have set them an impossible task — and so have Insulate Britain.
I know the media are speculating that IB are aiming to embarrass the government by being in prison at the time of COPOUT 26. Maybe, but it could also be part of the original XR theory to get to the 3.5% tipping point at which they believe a civil disobedience movement can succeed. People go to prison, get public support and more volunteers come forth, more go to prison and so on.
That could be the strategy of the IB leaders but many in the rank and file seem to be deluded christians with a martyr-complex taking orders from their imaginary god. They probably won’t mind being sent to prison or even beaten up by angry motorists. In fact they probably welcome this as a way of testing and affirming their “faith”.
The ironic thing is that what they are demanding of the government would make hardly any difference to global warming as the contribution to this from not properly isolated houses in an island of 65 million people off the north west coast of the Eurasian land mass will be fairly minimal.
The fightback against the “hated ecomob” escalates.
I tried to get a discussion going on this with a thread under General Discussion:
Like the article you quote says, Johnson is trying to claim that the labour shortages are part of a deliberate plan to raise wages. But this is just populist talk, though he is right that the shortages are in large part attributable to Brexit.
Business, which traditionally supports his party, is not amused.
Sounds as if Berns wants to create an anarcho-capitalist utopia. If he does, it will fail (who would want to live in it?) and the anarcho-capitalists will no longer be able claim that “capitalism has never been tried !”
Manchester comrades will be covering this event. They picked up their leaflets last weekend.
Other branches will be covering similar events in London, Cardiff, Swansea, Sheffield, Portsmouth and Brighton as well of course as the main one in Glasgow.
Anyone wanting copies of the leaflets to distribute in their area should contact Head Office (spgb at worldsocialism.org)
Another pro-China event today:
https://nocoldwar.org/news/europe-against-the-cold-war-china-is-not-our-enemyonline-event-23-october
Why do leftists always want to choose one side or the other in inter-imperialist conflicts?
Neither Washington nor Peking but International Socialism !
I see that Boris has once again stolen Labour’s clothes, right down to the same words:
https://labour.org.uk/manifesto-2019/a-green-industrial-revolution/
No wonder Starmer is floundering. As the government is saying it will do what he says he would, he can’t say much.
I think in America they call it a Green New Deal.
