Response to DemocraticMarxist01

No subtitle this time

DemocraticMarxist01 recently made a video critiquing Xexizy’s video on the question of whether profit is theft. Here I respond to DemocraticMarxist01. I assume the reader has watched both videos, which are linked at the end of this post; if you haven’t, do that now. I respond primarily to the claim that profit is theft, and I go on a few tangents at the end.

The first argument is based on a quote from Engels’ ‘Anti-Dühring’ (introduction, chapter 1, paragraph 25). The quote, in full, is as follows:

“This was done by the discovery of surplus-value. It was shown that the appropriation of unpaid labour is the basis of the capitalist mode of production and of the exploitation of the worker that occurs under it, that even if the capitalist buys the labour-power of his labourer at its full value as a commodity on the market, he yet extracts more value from it than he paid for; and that in the ultimate analysis this surplus-value forms those sums of value from which are heaped up the constantly increasing masses of capital in the hands of the possessing classes. The genesis of capitalist production and the production of capital were both explained.”

The context of this quote does not change its meaning in any way that is significant for this discussion. As to what it means, DemocraticMarxist01 takes it to mean that the production of profit, aka surplus value, is theft, as the worker is not being paid for their labour; in this reading, the phrase “unpaid labour” is essential. My interpretation is that Engels did not intend that interpretation. Later in the above passage, Engels writes that

“even if the capitalist buys the labour-power of his labourer at its full value as a commodity on the market, he yet extracts more value from it than he paid for”

This is essential for clarifying the phrase “unpaid labour”. A distinction is drawn by Engels between the value of labour as a commodity on the one hand and the value it produces on the other. Engels is arguing that the capitalist extracts more value than he paid; he is not arguing that he paid less than it was worth. The essential point here is that the value of a commodity is not the value the commodity can produce, but the amount of labour required to produce the commodity. Put differently, the capitalist is buying labour-power, not labour-time. Labour-time is the amount of time the worker performs on labour; labour-power is the worker’s capacity to perform labour. The worker’s labour-power requires particular necessities of life to produce (food, etc.), and these necessities embody a particular amount of labour-time. But, and this is the most important point, the labour-time required to produce a particular labour-power is less than the amount of time the worker can labour on the basis of that labour-power. An example to illustrate: the labour-power of the worker takes 4 hours of labour to produce, embodied in the form of food, housing, etc. The worker, using those resources, is capable of working for 8 hours. What Engels calls the value of labour-power as a commodity is the cost (in labour-time) of producing that labour-power, and labour-power is what the capitalist buys. From this, the capitalist gets more labour-time than he spent, hence the phrase “unpaid labour”, but he has not stolen from anyone because he paid the full value of the labour-power. Of course, one could object that I haven’t proven that labour-power produces more labour than it takes in, and that’s a fair criticism. Nevertheless, my goal is not to prove this statement correct, but to demonstrate that it’s what Marx and Engels meant; proving it to be true is the job of Marxists.

The second argument is based on a quote from Marx’s ‘Capital’ (volume 1, part 7, chapter 24, section 1, paragraph 12). The quote, in full, is as follows:

“The original capital was formed by the advance of £10,000. How did the owner become possessed of it? “By his own labour and that of his forefathers,” answer unanimously the spokesmen of Political Economy. And, in fact, their supposition appears the only one consonant with the laws of the production of commodities.

But it is quite otherwise with regard to the additional capital of £2,000. How that originated we know perfectly well. There is not one single atom of its value that does not owe its existence to unpaid labour. The means of production, with which the additional labour-power is incorporated, as well as the necessaries with which the labourers are sustained, are nothing but component parts of the surplus-product, of the tribute annually exacted from the working class by the capitalist class. Though the latter with a portion of that tribute purchases the additional labour-power even at its full price, so that equivalent is exchanged for equivalent, yet the transaction is for all that only the old dodge of every conqueror who buys commodities from the conquered with the money he has robbed them of.”

When reading this passage, one should not be distracted by the image of theft Marx uses at the end; that’s a metaphor he’s using, it is not a theoretical elaboration (I will return to this point). The primary point in favour of DemocraticMarxist01’s position is again the use of the phrase “unpaid labour”, but this again proves to be a misinterpretation. Note that Marx describes the capitalist as purchasing “labour-power even at its full price”; I won’t repeat the argument all over again, but Marx is again drawing a distinction between labour-power and labour-time (though he refers to the latter merely as labour). The exploitation Marx describes here comes (again) from the extraction of surplus value, not from underpaying workers. Marx’s point in this passage is that the means of production the capitalist uses (and without which he would not be a capitalist) are produced by the workers and owned by the capitalists, a distinction founded on the extraction of surplus value, which is then used to justify the further extraction of surplus value. As to the image of theft Marx uses, one can call this process of extraction “theft” if one is so inclined, I don’t care. The key point is that surplus value is extracted from the labourer, which is the source of profit, whilst the labour-power is paid for at its actual value. As long as one makes clear the distinction between unpaid labour and the extraction of surplus value, the labels are largely irrelevant.

Finally, the side notes:

Firstly, his citations could use some improvement; quoting a passage from Anti-Duhring is good, as is linking the text, but if people want to check how well he’s represented those texts they need to be able to find the quotes without reading the entire text, and his citations don’t assist with that. The edition of Anti-Duhring he linked has 29 chapters and 3 prefaces, and he quoted one paragraph. Page numbers are good for that, but since it seems like he’s using digital editions he might prefer to use chapters, sections, and paragraphs (my uni’s standardised referencing requires us to specify the number of the paragraph cited when referencing a web page). Obviously this isn’t essential, but it’s a good practice for the sake of those who want to check claims.

Secondly, the claim that “Xexizy has advanced a typical conservative argument, that workers are getting paid for their time which basically means that no exploitation or theft has taken place, an anti-Marxist argument I must say, that I have only heard from conservatives until now” (4:18-4:33) seems unfair, partly because I’d call it a mischaracterisation of Xexizy’s position, and partly because the use of terms like “conservative” and “anti-Marxist” doesn’t add to the discussion at all. Even if we assume it’s a conservative or anti-Marxist position, that statement doesn’t provide any theoretical understanding to the viewer; at worst it risks provoking emotional reactions and personal attacks, which I have seen in the comments, but I can’t tell if that was intentional.

“So do not be fooled by leftcoms and other so-called leftists; Marx and Engels were not utopians, they were thoughtful men whose ideas are grounded in logic” (11:17-11:28). To go on something of a tangent, this passage (and many others like it I’ve come across) is a good example of why I dislike the framing of “utopian” vs “scientific” socialism. Nothing of substance is actually said in this passage, it just reads like “Facts don’t care about your feelings”. Saying their ideas are “grounded in logic” is no different from saying “They were right”. It may well be true, but there’s no semblance of an argument, or even an attempt to characterise different perspectives fairly. It’s a purely rhetorical statement that presents the ideas he already agrees with as the only ones in touch with the world; Marxists aren’t the only ones who use logic or science, and presenting it as such doesn’t benefit anybody.

“I don’t know any country where you can live off welfare. [...] In my capitalist country the welfare system is designed to punish you if you don’t have a job. The amount of money unemployed people get is pitiful, well below the poverty line, and they are often forced to work for these pitiful benefits through workfare schemes. Also, if you are unemployed and are offered a job where conditions are terrible, you are forced to take it or lose your benefits. So I argue that they are forced to enter the labour market, and it tends to lead to severe exploitation.” (5:20-5:57)

This is true. I live in that same country, and I can confirm the claims made. Unfortunately, it’s also irrelevant; Xexizy’s point wasn’t that welfare is great right now, it’s that we can imagine a capitalist society where welfare is good enough to live on. If such a society were to exist, it would be significantly harder to argue that people are forced into work. DemocraticMarxist01 seems incapable of understanding a thought experiment here; I don’t want to be mean, that’s just the only explanation I can think of for this severe of a misinterpretation.

I have significant disagreements with his characterisation of the USSR and definition of capitalism (as generalised commodity production, if I’ve understood the argument correctly), but I won’t get into those here, because that’s a different topic and I don’t have time. It would be interesting to see if the passages from Marx and Engels that he uses to defend the USSR are cited in prominent pieces by Lenin and/or Stalin.

Sources

Xexizy’s video: 

DemocraticMarxist01’s video: 

Anti-Dühring: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/index.htm

The relevant chapter of Capital: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch24.htm