Marx writes in the chapter on the working day that “[n]othing characterizes the spirit of capital better than the history of English factory legislation from 1833 go 1864.” (390.) In the German Marx ends the sentence emphatically, with an exclamation point, and the term for “spirit” is “Geist.” Not sure that means much. Let’s assume Marx means the remark to mean at a minimum that this is a set of historical events which say something important about capitalism. That makes this twenty some odd pages (section 6 of ch10) a fairly important section of the book. I need to get to bed but as a start, here are a few characteristics of capitalism as depicted in the section.
- Limited efficacy of laws in curbing (the effects of) power relations
- Class conflict
- Division within the working class
- The continuing presence of effectively unfree workers (formally/legally speaking) including women and children
- Organization of the capitalist class in the face of (in response to?) working class organization
- Repression of the workers’ movement
- Factory inspectors provide information to collective capital (the state) about the working class both as class in itself and class for itself
At the beginning of section 7 Marx repeats the point about free labor: “it is only the independent worker, a man who is thus legally qualified to act for himself, who enters into a contract with the capitalist as the seller of a commodity.” The remark is ambiguous. Legally speaking, this is probably true. One can not, legally speaking, sell something which it is not legal to sell. For instance, one can not sell one’s neighbor’s child. That sale would be illegal. At the same time, if someone makes an illegal sale they have still made a sale. (If someone were to make an arrangement in which they accepted a sum of money in return for delivering their neighbor’s child, someone who said “that person sold their neighbor’s child” could not be making a mistake. That is, they might be making perhaps a grammatical mistake, perhaps being emotionally callous, perhaps taking a risk by naming the crime of a possibly dangerous criminal, but not a mistake in fact - the person did indeed, at least in a sense, sell their neighbor’s child even if the act was illegal.) At a minimum, I would say women workers whose husbands took their wages were still sellers of their labor power as commodities. If their husbands took their wages then the women were stolen from or otherwise had something unpleasant done to them (dominated?), but they did sell their labor power. I would say the same of child laborers, though child laborers I think begin to get closer to “being sold” as much as “selling,” which is to say, they begin to get closer to slavery. In any case, I have the same confusion as in my earlier post on slavery and free labor about what Marx’s claim is.
Marx continues, writing that “the labour of those who are physically and legally minors” is “only a particularly striking example” of exploitation. (411.) Taking exploitation to mean production of surplus value in the way in which waged workers produce surplus value, this is means that capitalism proper can include unfree labor. That is, waged labor and formally free labor are not the same thing. (Other evidence of this is I believe included in the book Divided Mastery by Jonathan Martin, about slaves who were rented by their owners to someone else. I’ve not read it myself, so I don’t want to make too much of it. I know of at least one other example of slaves paid wages, I’ll have to look up the details on that.)
Now, following up my comment to the preceding post, what of the question who can sell whose labour-power and the legality of such transactions. Children? Marx cites this evidence, “In the notorious district of Bethnall Green, a public market is held every Monday and Tuesday morning, where children of both sexes from 9 years of age upwards, hire themselves out to the silk manufacturers.” Since the legal age for employment seems to have been 13 these contracts are illegal in even more ways than you have suggested. Other people’s children? Marx cites a report of the Children’s employment commission, “It has also occurred in England, that women have taken ‘children from the workhouse and let any one have them out for 2s.6d. a week’” Just for good measure, Marx includes another outcome not based on families found in agricultural labor, “Married women, who work in gangs along with boys and girls, are, for a stipulated sum of mopney, placed at the disposal of the farmer, by a man called the “undertaker,” who contracts for the whole gang.
Since Marx introduces the very cases you have mentioned as evidence for his analysis, we should consider his method again. The real issues here should be addressed in response to the first post on ‘free labor.’ So in a condensed form. Marx argues simulataneously about the historical and the logical constitution of capital. Historically, the contractual exchange between the moneyowner and the ‘free’ labor-powerowner is the historical precondition for the birth of capital. It is what comes before capital. Logically, the contract remains the superficial and legalistic basis for vulgar economy and political economy.
Over the course of “Capital” Marx analyzes the myriad ways in which capital historically destroys, replaces, as well as maintains and refunctions its social and productive preconditions. He demonstrates how these developments exceed and escape the analytical catergories of political economy.
Comment by Chuckie K — February 13, 2008 @ 11:57 pm
Nate, I’m missing your daily musing when you were trying to write 500 words a day. My list of wholesome internet distractions (as opposed to unwholesome myspace and law & order reruns) is growing shorter.
Comment by Adam W. — February 15, 2008 @ 2:09 am