I think it's just the dial of the clock-hand, and my visual read on it is that it's not in the hand, just in front of it. I could be wrong, though.does anyone up and say that SL=necessary labor in quantity?
If anyone did, they'd be pretty daft. I suspect Gellert just made it that way for the sake of aesthetic symmetry. Marx's exposition of absolute vs. relative surplus value makes it pretty clear that both necessary and surplus are independent variables, respectively conditioned by technical development and the history of the class struggle.I guess it's just a matter of representing it graphically that makes the two things consecutive rather than interspersed?
In part, though it may also stem from a weakness in Marx's presentation, in that he focused so much on the work-day as the basic unit of wage labor. This stemmed from the prevailing norms of 19th century capitalism, wherein the worker would be hired for the day, worked for as much of the day as possible, and paid just enough to keep body and soul together to come in the next day for another round if he or she was needed. The advent of ever more refined time clocks, the hourly or even minutely wage, part-time jobs that are inadequate for the reproduction of labor power, are what necessitate an understanding of the infinitesimal interspersion of surplus and necessary labor (though as I recall I did once read a passage--I forget if it was in Capital or the Grundrisse--in which Marx makes reference to it, but it is not central to his exposition). The political economy of "flexibilization" has, to my knowledge, yet to be written, though many of its elements are already present in Marx.
Thanks for the feedback. I dread interpreting pictures because whatever abilities I have with language are completely inapplicable to anything pictoral. On a sort of unrelated note, do you have an opinion about the ongoing theoretical battle over whether "political economy" makes sense as a category or not? (since you mention a political economy of flexibilization, suggesting that you might feel it was relevant to write one). I'm thinking of how Mbembe, Foucault, Althusser and their thousand disciples have spent a few decades insisting that economy and politics ought properly to be separated, surgically, in order to get at that which is not economics in politics and vice-versa.
I'm thinking of how Mbembe, Foucault, Althusser and their thousand disciples have spent a few decades insisting that economy and politics ought properly to be separated, surgically, in order to get at that which is not economics in politics and vice-versa.
I'm diametrically opposed to that viewpoint. (No time, alas, to elaborate right now.)
I think it's just the dial of the clock-hand, and my visual read on it is that it's not in the hand, just in front of it. I could be wrong, though.does anyone up and say that SL=necessary labor in quantity?
If anyone did, they'd be pretty daft. I suspect Gellert just made it that way for the sake of aesthetic symmetry. Marx's exposition of absolute vs. relative surplus value makes it pretty clear that both necessary and surplus are independent variables, respectively conditioned by technical development and the history of the class struggle.I guess it's just a matter of representing it graphically that makes the two things consecutive rather than interspersed?
In part, though it may also stem from a weakness in Marx's presentation, in that he focused so much on the work-day as the basic unit of wage labor. This stemmed from the prevailing norms of 19th century capitalism, wherein the worker would be hired for the day, worked for as much of the day as possible, and paid just enough to keep body and soul together to come in the next day for another round if he or she was needed. The advent of ever more refined time clocks, the hourly or even minutely wage, part-time jobs that are inadequate for the reproduction of labor power, are what necessitate an understanding of the infinitesimal interspersion of surplus and necessary labor (though as I recall I did once read a passage--I forget if it was in Capital or the Grundrisse--in which Marx makes reference to it, but it is not central to his exposition). The political economy of "flexibilization" has, to my knowledge, yet to be written, though many of its elements are already present in Marx.
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I'm diametrically opposed to that viewpoint. (No time, alas, to elaborate right now.)
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