ALB
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You are right. When introducing the concept of labour-power and its value in chapter 6 of Volume I of Capital Marx explains that, unlike other commodities, the value of labour-power contains “a historical and moral element” that varies from country to country and depends “to a great extent on the level of civilization attained by a country”. However, “at any given period” this is fixed. What this suggests is that the value of labour-power can change over a longer period, either up or down. In other words, as you point out, the value of labour can change through this historical and moral element coming to be reduced.
Marx is also fairly explicit about what paying workers less than the value of their labour-power over a long period would mean:
The minimum limit of the value of labour-power is determined by the value of the commodities, without the daily supply of which the labourer cannot renew his vital energy, consequently by the value of those means of subsistence that are physically indispensable. If the price of labour-power fall to this minimum, it falls below its value, since under such circumstances it can be maintained and developed only in a crippled state. But the value of every commodity is determined by the labour-time requisite to turn it out so as to be of normal quality.
It also means that reducing wages below the value of labour power is not likely to increase profits in the long run, as is being suggested, but rather to reduce them as a sub-normal quality of labour-power won’t be able to produce as much surplus value as labour-power of normal quality would.
Revealing tweet yesterday on the EU Brexit summit:
Too bad that the European Union is being so tough on the United Kingdom and Brexit. The E.U. is likewise a brutal trading partner with the United States, which will change. Sometimes in life you have to let people breathe before it all comes back to bite you!
Maybe this should have been posted on the Trade War thread but maybe it also provides a clue as to where the dark money to finance the media campaign for No Deal might be coming from, e.g. capitalist interests who want to weaken the EU by detaching the UK from it and drawing it into the US orbit instead.
Not quite sure, though, what the cryptic comment in Trump’s last sense means.
So Assange was right all along as to what might happen if he didn’t seek political asylum somewhere out of the US government’s reach.
I can’t understand how it would be possible for workers to be paid less than the value of their labour-power for a period of some ninety years. Wages are supposed to cover the cost of maintaining a worker’s skill and health, i.e to reproduce their working skills, and the cost of doing this is the value (in the Marxian sense) of their skills. So, if they are paid less than this they can’t reproduce their labour-power properlt and their working skills and health will deteriorate, which would be detrimental to the capitalist class by reducing their productivity. The capitalists would be weakening, if not killing, the golden goose. The whole idea is preposterous and hasn’t been the case because it couldn’t have been.
More likely, yes, but still not definite. May’s plan seems to be to reach a deal in the next few weeks and certainly before 22 May and then cancel the elections.
The countdown to the elections has already begun, with the Notice of Poll being published on Monday and nominations closing on Thursday 25 April and voting on 23 May (in fact postal voting even before that). So all parties, including us, will have to get their lists in by then. But what happens if the elections are cancelled half way through? Presumably all the parties will get their deposits back, but what about the money spent on leaflets?
Neither the Tories nor Labour want to take part in these elections, especially not the Tories who know they are going to be decimated. Perhaps this will be an incentive for them to come to some agreement on the UK capitalist class’s trading arrangements and jointly push a deal through. Then there’d be no Euroelections..
On the other hand, a delay till the end of October also allows time for a general election and/or a referendum, an incentive for those MPs who favour one or the other an incentive to prevent an early deal.
I said it was going to become a saga:
He makes some odd claims here. First, that workers have been paid less than the value of their labour power since the 1930s and, second, that the labour-time content of most commodities has not been falling. Hardy dealt with this last point in this article from 1957:
ttps://www.marxists.org/archive/hardcastle/1957/risingprices.htm
For those would might be interested, here is Jehu’s reply in what is promising to be a saga:
We still don’t know at the moment whether or not Euroelections will take place in Britain on 23 May. That depends, apparently, on whether the government and the Labour Party can agree on the future trading arrangements of UK plc outside the EU. An opinion poll has suggested that a quarter of electors have decided to boycott them. Which quarter would that be? As more than 60% of electors have boycotted these elections in the past. In fact a quarter boycott even general elections.
If they do take place they will inevitably be a proxy referendum, with the leaders of both the Leave and Remain camps setting out to attract voters. Most pundits expect Farage’s Brexit Party to win, with Tommy Robinson going to Brussels too. Farage’s party can be expected to do well, but at the expense of the Tories. (which is why they are so against them). Labour can be expected to be squeezed too, with many Remainers showing their support for this by voting for unambiguous Remain parties such as the LibDems, the Greens, the Nationalists and even perhaps Chukky Ubama’s “Independents”. If it is a proxy referendum there could well be a higher turnout.
In any event, if these elections do take place, the Socialist Party will be taking part as, on Saturday, our Executive Committee gave the go-ahead for preparations to contest the South East and Wales regions (as we did the last time in 2014).
For the record, here’s some more crazy stuff from Trotskists about Brexit.
This is the best from 3 April issue The News Line, the daily still brought out by one of the WRPs:
INDICATIVE VOTES ARE REJECTED FOR A SECOND TIME — UK MUST LEAVE EU ON APRIL 12th! (… ) The determination of the current British ruling class to put the ‘backward and ignorant people back into their pre-refertendum place’ is now angering millions of workers and inviting the same fate as the previous ruling class. Without a doubt, this arrogance will drive the working class to rise and settle the issue by shutting down parliament and bringing in a workers republic, run by workers councils managing a planned socialist economy.
Yes, without a doubt!
Second best is this from a “Spartacist League” leaflet:
Down with racist, anti-worker EU! No second referendum! Corbyn aids Brexit betrayal ( … ) The decisive leave vote in the 2016 referendum was a stunning defeat for the City of London, whicgh it has been trying to reverse ever since (…) Britain out of the EU now! (…) Our call for a leave vote in the 2016 referendum explained: “Amid the growing chaos besetting the EU, a British exit would deal a real blow to this imperialist-dominated conglomerate, further destabilisiung it and creating more favourable conditions for working-class struggle across Europe — including against a weakened and discredited Tory government in Britain.”
So worse is best. But is it?
Our opponents are:
Folkestone & Hythe District Council Harbour ward (2 Seats): Gurung and Wallace (Tories); Field and Keen (Labourites); Anson (LibDem) and McConnell (Green); Lawes (Foundation Party).
Folkestone Town Council Harbour ward (3 seats): Gurung, Wallace and Wallace (Tories); Field, Keen and Le Fanu (Labourites); Lawes (Foundation Party).
Notable that there are no UKIP candidates. The Foundation Party, however, has been formed by ex-Ukippers.
The Brexiteers are claiming that if Brexit doesn’t happen political democracy in Britain will be crippled and there will be rioting on the streets. The result of the Newport by-election held yesterday shows this to be empty rhetoric. The turnout was only 37%, i.e. 63% are indifferent and couldn’t care less whether or not Brexit happens. True, UKIP increased its share of the vote from 2.5% to 8.6% but, in numbers, this was an increase of only 923 compared with the 2017 general election (from 1100 to 2023). On the other hand, the three pro-Remain parties (LibDems, Greens and the Welsh Nationalists) also increased the number voting for them, by 657.
So, there is some slight increase in both directions of those concerned about the issue, but 63% of the electors take up our position that Brexit is not an issue that concerns them either way. They are just not interested in the trading arrangements of the UK capitalist class. Far from rioting in the streets people will just get on with their life as before.
For the record, despite spending pots of money and favourable press coverage, the Renew party came 7th with 879 votes (3.7% of the votes cast). Hopefully, this means we’ll never hear about them again. But the person with the money who funded their campaign might want to keep on trying.
Support for the view that those Tories calling Corbyn a Marxist are wrong has come from an unexpected source, the Tory-leaning Spectator:
The news that Theresa May is having talks with Corbyn has got some Tory supporters hot under the collar. Some are cutting up their membership cards. ‘Don’t talk to this Marxist!’, they cry, suggesting they’re in dire need of a dictionary so that they might look up what the word Marxist actually means.
The last time MPs voted on holding a referendum it was lost by 292 votes to 280, with all 29 Cabinet ministers abstaining. As you need to get about 310 votes to get something through, the proposal needs another 30 or votes. Where are they going to come from? That would require some of the 292 opponents or those who boycotted the indicative votes to switch or the whole Cabinet to vote for it. It is much more likely that the opponents will find the 20 extra votes they require to defeat the proposition. We’ll see as it’s almost certain to be put to a vote again.
