Theorizing the Division of Labor (Marx) Flashcards
How was Marx’s Britain?
Urbanization
Industrialization
New ways of workings becoming popular and more difficult
Factory becoming more specialized, new machinery, new forms of energy, new technologies
Living conditions and working conditions pretty bad
What is Marx’s question?
The division of labor is more advanced than ever. But I see human misery all around me. Where’s the universal opulence?
Who is the wage-laborer?
The proletariat; a person that works for a certain amount and then receives a wage from their work
Use their wages to purchase their means of subsistence
What is the means of subsistence?
The needs to live like food, shelter
What is labor-power?
The capacity to work over a given period of time
This is what the wage laborer has and it is used by the capitalist
Who are the capitalist?
The bourgeois; they own the raw materials and the means of subsistence
Marx’s system of exchange
Capitalist exchange wage for the labor power of the wage laborer
Believes this is an unequal exchange
The capitalist benefits more than the laborer
It looks like both people get something from the exchange but it is unequally distributed
Capitalist double their capital
From cooperation to competition
When capitalists are competing, they are trying to compete with each other to get consumers to buy their products. This is through marketing and cheaper prices.
If you sell stuff cheaper then you have to produce things cheaper through innovation- specialization and machinery (production of labor has to become more affordable)
What is the relationship between wage labor and capital?
Workers must immediately consume the means of subsistence (wages) in order to live
May seem equal exchange but it is not
Capitalists need workers and workers need capitalists to live
The material of the working class might be improving
But the capitalists keep getting richer as their capital is growing, but the worker (stagnant) doesn’t since it has to use its wage and starts at zero (big gap between worker and capitalist)
The dynamics of capitalism effect on workers
Expansion of the division of labor and increased application of machinery causes competition between workers to expand, less employment, lower wages, and simplification of work .
What’s wrong with Marx’s theory?
The theory mentions downward mobility, but what of upward mobility
It doesn’t reference the middle class
