Today, I am going to address a discussion which we have alluded to in the Anti-Capitalist Meetup. Specifically, the issue of Capitalist relation of production and the exploitation of labour in capitalism. This is the first part of a discussion of looking for the economic foundations of women’s oppression under capitalism and how it differs from earlier systems. But in order to understand that discussion, we need to understand the capitalist system of production and how workers are exploited in this system as compared earlier systems. Part of what I am doing today, I have raised in an earlier discussion of the circuits of commodities and capital in Marx’s Capital, Volume I, in chapters 4 and 5. What I am then going to address is the working day, the impact of machinery and the production of surplus value.
After that I am going to discuss labour power as a commodity and the value of labour power and then the wage.
1. Capitalist Relations of Production
Let’s begin by examining the nature of capitalist relations of production. This is a big topic and I am going to give it short shrift unfortunately or you would have to listen to me literally babble for weeks forget the short time I have today.
What distinguishes capitalism from earlier modes of production? In class societies (e.g., ancient slave societies, feudalism and capitalism) there is a producer class and an appropriator class; the former directly produces goods and the latter that appropriates the surplus product produced in these economies. In these earlier societies, the relationship between direct producers and appropriators is based upon laws, custom and habits of the society. In all cases, the direct producers not only need to be maintained, but also need to be reproduced; in the absence of human labour, fields lie fallow and capital is neither produced nor reproduced. It is human labour that not only creates what it needs for its own maintenance and reproduction, but also produces a value above and beyond that subsistence and reproduction. How much of a surplus (and whether it appears as value or physical surplus itself) is produced and who appropriates it depends on the mode of production of the economic system.
How capitalist society differs from earlier class based modes of production comes down to 3 distinct things:
- Private ownership and control over means of production is in the hands of the capitalist class;
- The owners of labour power (the working class, the direct producers) must be freed from ties to the land (that characterised feudal production), it must be free to migrate where it is needed (see the elimination of the 1622 Laws of Settlement in Britain), the workers themselves cannot have their labour alienated from themselves (see slavery) and they must be dispossessed (as much as possible) of ownership of the means of production such that they are forced to sell their ability to labour in order to survive (in the absence of a social welfare state and pension system). As such, exploitation of labour occurs in the production process itself. In order for exploitation to exist, the labour power of workers must be sold in the labour market to obtain a wage. In the absence of this, labour power that is not sold in the labour market is not exploited in the capitalist economic system;
- As such, production is socialised, but appropriation of the product and the surplus product is privatised. Production of goods takes place to ensure the highest possible surplus produced. Goods will not be produced in the private sector if they cannot yield sufficient surplus and also be sold on the market to realise that surplus (the surplus will take the form of profits, rent, and if the working class through struggle can win it, a surplus portion of wages over and above the social subsistence level of wages).
The Circuit of Commodities and the Circuit of Capital
We will begin our discussion of the properties of commodities. Commodities possess two things: Use values which relate to the good fulfilling or satisfying a human need or want (or a societal one), it is often used to describe the goods themselves; Exchange value which is what the good exchanges for in the market which expresses the value of the good and which must satisfy a profitability condition or the capitalist will not lay out the money for the production of that good and to bring it to market.
Marx assumes that when people enter into exchange, they already know the exchange value of what they are exchanging (this holds for commodities and the sale of their labour power); this is a very important assumption. The exchange value is not determined in exchange, its value is realised in exchange. The exchange value of commodities (abstracting from random events which would impact its market price or the price in the market and not its exchange value itself) is determined by the value of direct and indirect labour used in its production process and contains a surplus element created by labour.
Marx begins chapter 4 (the general formula for capital) of Volume I of Capital by saying that the circulation of commodities is the starting point of capital. What he says is that trade historically presupposes how capital arises, trade predates industrial capitalism. It is a trade from which capital develops.
All trade he argues (irrespective of what the actual use values are) has as its ultimate product money, that in the first forms of capital (merchants and usurers capital), the final consideration is money and it is in the form of money that capital makes its first appearance.
The difference between money as money (i.e., unit of account, medium of circulation) and money as capital relates to the difference in their form of circulation.
The circuit of commodities takes the form of C-M-C which is the transformation of commodities into money (the seller gets money for commodities) and money into commodities (the seller becomes the buyer takes that money and buys goods with it). This is selling in order to buy.
Alongside the circuit of commodities there is another distinct form with another object; that is the circuit of capital. That is M-C-M. The transformation of money into commodities and its reconversion back into money again. Here is money as money capital.
In the M-C part of the movement, the purchase, the money is changed into a commodity. In the C-M phase, the commodity is changed into money. The circuit of capital is essentially the exchange of money for money. Marx argues that this circuit would be empty, if in the exchange, we have put forward a certain amount of money and obtain equivalent amounts of money in the exchange. Wouldn’t it make more sense to hold onto the money rather than risk losing some due to the vagaries of circulation?
In the commodity circuit (C-M-C), money is converted into a commodity and that is its final form. The money has been spent and that is it. In the circuit of capital, M-C-M, the buyer lays out money that he expects as a seller to recover the money at the end. Money is not spent here, money is advanced and it is expected that he will get his money back again at the termination of the circuit; this is buying in order to sell.
What is the purpose of money in these two circuits? In C-M-C, money serves the intermediate role between the buyer and seller. In M-C-M, the return of the money is the final aim of the circuit when the commodity is sold for money and that returns to the person who laid out the money. In the circuit of commodities, consumption of use values, the satisfaction of needs, is the final goal. In the circuit of capital, on the other hand, the final goal is not consumption. Instead, it is concerned with exchange values, that is, this circuit is solely concerned with the return of the money and is dependent upon the sale of the goods that the money is advanced for.
In the circuit of commodities, you as seller bring your commodity to market and get money and then you buy commodities with it. What you receive is essentially traded for an equivalent amount of something else with money standing in as a unit of account between the two distinct commodities. The seller gets money and uses that money as a buyer to buy something of the same value. The end is the consumption of commodities.
In the circuit of capital, if you get the same amount of money at the end of the circuit, then the circuit has failed. The amount you obtain for the sale of the commodity must be greater than that laid out for the purchase of a commodity in the beginning of the circuit. So, the complete form of this circuit is not M-C-M but rather M-C-M.’ Why would you enter the risks of circulation if you were not going to gain from it? It is change from M-M’, the change in the amount of money that it the concern, this change in money is what Marx calls surplus value, you get back the original sum plus an increment.
In C-M-C , there is an exchange of equivalent values; if there is a situation where you do not get an exchange of equivalents, that is due to random or accidental circumstances; this circuit is concerned with the satisfaction of human needs. This discussion relates to the notion of reciprocal justice or the equality of exchange of goods in Aristotle’s discussion of exchange. Aristotle argued (and this has been accepted by economists analysing the capitalist economic system) that when goods are traded between people, these goods exchange for an equivalent value.
However, in M-C-M’ if you do not get the incremental sum at the end of the circuit, you have failed, moreover, if you then only spend that money and take the money out of circulation (and do not reinvest it), then that incremental sum and money are no longer capital (it becomes a hoard and is removed from increasing itself again). This new sum is then taken and a new cycle starts again with the aim of making more money than you have originally laid out. It is part of a process that is limitless. As a part of this movement, the possessor of money which is invested and earns surplus value; becomes a capitalist.
The aim of the capitalist, the valorisation of value, is his aim and it is the appropriation of more wealth that is his concern. The production of use-values (or commodities) is not the aim of the capitalist, nor is the specific return on a single transaction. Instead, it is the unceasing movement of profit-making. But (and in this he differs from a miser who withdraws money from circulation) this is a ceaseless process which requires the capitalist to throw his money into circulation again and again.
However, that increment, that surplus value, cannot be created in the process of exchange or in the circulation of commodities where things are bought and sold due to the fact that in the circulation process there is always an exchange of equivalents. It comes from the process of production from the use of human labour in the production process.
2. Necessary and Surplus Labour Time: The working Day
The easiest way to think about this is that one part of the working day concentrates on the working class producing the goods socially necessary to reproduce the economy at the same level. That would be the part that is used for covering the wages and reproduction of the working class and replacing capital used up in the production process (include both constant circulating capital and a portion of the constant fixed capital used to replace machinery; depreciation and amortisation of constant fixed capital).
The second part of the working day is the production of that value over and above the replacement of the economy at the same level by the working class. Those are hours of work which go beyond those needed to cover worker’s wages and replacement. That is the surplus labour time in which the value of the surplus product is produced.
Capitalists are concerned with increasing the production of the value of the surplus product, that will (if the product is sold) form the basis of profits when the goods are sold in the market at a price which ensures realisation of the surplus value contained in the commodity (it will also include rent which comes from the surplus, but we will not discuss rent at this point).
Historically, the value of the surplus product was first increased through extending the length of the working day. That is called the production of absolute surplus value; you directly increase the amount of time devoted to producing the value of the surplus product.
But that has historically run into difficulties through demands by the working class calling for shorter working days; from 12 to 10 to 8 hour days. You could of course run shift work, where you can actually have different shifts of labour working 10 hours each and of course that was introduced and still exists. But back in the 19th century, the Factory Acts were passed which placed limits on how many hours workers could be forced to work (and also forbade the use of children in some work and the type and time of work that women did as well. There is a reason for this and it is not humanitarian concern for the lives of children and women; child labour as chimney sweeps were not regulated as they were needed to be used in narrow chimneys. So while factories could be run around the clock due to the use of shift work, the amount of hours that each shift would work was steadily reduced.
If you cannot increase the amount of surplus value directly by increasing the length of the working day, what can be done instead to serve the same purpose of increasing the amount of surplus value produced?
What can be done instead is to decrease the amount of time socially needed to reproduce the economy at the same level; that is to decrease the socially necessary labour time. So that would increase the amount of surplus value produced indirectly; this is called the production of relative surplus value. To decrease the amount of the working day spent on reproduction of variable capital (the labour of the working class), replacement of constant circulating capital (capital goods that are used up in one production period, e.g., raw materials) and to ensure that a portion is set aside for reproduction and replacement of the portion of constant fixed capital (e.g., machinery, factory buildings, constant fixed capital is not used up in one period of production but lasts for several) what could you do?
Just to be clear, the production of absolute and relative surplus value can occur at the same time. Machinery can be introduced in production while the working day is still increasing; these are often used together to produce the highest possible surplus value.
The Production of Relative Surplus Value: The introduction of Machinery into the Production Process
That leads us to the introduction of machinery into the production process and changing the division of labour and putting workers into factories.
Initially tools were developed by human beings (think of e.g., bows and arrows, fishing nets, hand looms, spinning wheels) and owned by them. The difference between a tool and a machine as Marx points out is the change in the forces setting in motion of the tool and the machine, the first being human hands and the second being an external force, such as steam and electricity.
“The implements of labour in the form of machinery necessitate the substitution of natural forces for human force and the conscious application of science, instead of rule of thumb. In manufacture, the organisation of the social labour process is purely subjective; ; it is a combination of detail labourers. In the machinery system, modern industry has a productive organisation that is purely objective, in which the labourer becomes a mere appendage to an already existing material condition of production. In simple cooperation and even in that found on division of labour, the suppression of the isolated by the collective, workmen still appears to be more or less accidental. Machinery, with a few exceptions […] operates only by means of associated labour, or labour in common. Hence the cooperative character of the labour process is, in the latter case, a technical necessity dictated by the instruments of labour itself (Marx (18670, Capital, Volume I, p. 386, International Publishers edition).”
When we look at this transformation we see the alienation of humans from producing things themselves with tools and implements of their own in an isolated manner with their hands under their control to a situation where machines are using them which shifts production out of their control not only physically (due to changes in the motion power of the machines) but also the product out of their control.
The next point that Marx raises relates to the value transferred by the machine to the product as an intermediary in production.
The productive resulting from cooperation and the division of labour cost nothing to the capitalist. They are the material forces of social labour. The physical forces, steam, water, when appropriated to productive processes also cost nothing. But that does not remove the fact that it is the work of human beings that is required to consume the physical forces in a productive manner. Once a technique of production or the ability is discovered and put into the production process, it then becomes a cost.
Machinery itself (like all other components of constant capital) creates no new value itself. What it does is give up the value embedded in it (the human labour required to produce it) to the value of the product. As it contributes to the value of the product, it then forms a part of the value of the product. The product is not cheaper due to the introduction of the machine; rather the product has more value in proportion to the value of the machine. As such, the implement of labour used in modern industry are far more loaded with value compared to those used in handicrafts and manufacturing.
The machinery does not transfer its value all at once into the labour process, rather it is transferred partly. It doesn’t add more value than is lost, on average, due to wear and tear (depreciation). So, there is a difference between the value of the machine and the value that is transferred to the product and the longer the life of the machine, the greater the difference between the two. The difference between a machine and a tool is the length of time that the machine lasts compared to the tool (durability of metal, the greater economy in the wear and tear of the machine compared to the materials it consumes in production, and also we need to take into account that the field of production is much greater for a machine than a tool. What modern industry has done is made the product of past labour work on a large scale.
Given that the machine transfers it value to the product over time, the amount of value transferred depends on the total value of the machine. The less labour it contains, the less value it transfers to the product; the less value it gives up, the more productive it is and the more its services approximate those of natural forces. But the production of machinery by machinery lessens its value relatively to its extension and efficiency.
Looking at handicrafts and manufactures and of prices of the same commodities produced there compared to those produced by machinery; in the product of machinery the value due to the instruments of labour increases relatively, but decreases absolutely. The absolute amount decreases, but its amount relative to the total value of the product increases).
So, as long as the labour spent on a machine and consequently the portion off its value added to the product remains smaller than the value added by the workman to the product with his tool, there is always a difference of labour saved in favour of the machine.
Summing up, using a machine to cheapen the product means that less labour must be spent on producing the machinery that is displaced by the employment of the machine. For the capitalist, instead of paying for the labour, he only pays the value of labour power employed. Given the division of the working day into necessary and surplus labour (which differs in the same industry in different countries, in the same country at different times and in different branches of industry) and given that the actual wage of labourers can rise above or fall below the value of labour power, the difference between the price of machinery and the prices of the labour power replaced by that machinery will vary as well. But the difference between the quantity of labour required to produce that machine and the quantity of labour replaced by that machine is constant.
It is capitalist competition which determines whether the capitalist will introduce the machine and what will determine whether it is used is the relationship between the wage and the value of labour power; the capitalist is concerned with wages paid. So, if it is more expensive to employ the machine rather than pay labour itself, why do it? An obvious additional consideration is whether a technique of production that is known but is not employed due to insufficient demand for the product (a classic example is the use of coal rather than charcoal in iron production; the technique is known early and used by The Darby works from 1708 to make cast iron), but it is not until the general use of machines increases the demand for iron (and railroad production for that matter) that the industry is shifted from forests to near iron and coal mines in order to produce the better grade of iron needed for machinery production; this also necessitated better blast furnaces to get a better grade of iron.
Marx next discusses the impact of the introduction of machinery on workers:
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The appropriation of the labour of women and children. Machinery changes the amount of strength needed to produce something. As such, men’s labour is needed less as the machinery can be run by women and children. The use of machinery itself leads to the deskilling of labour and enables the capitalist to substitute the labour of women and children and for that matter unskilled male labour which cheapens the cost of producing commodities. As much as possible, if capitalists can eliminate the differentiation in skills required in the production process, the more they can reduce their costs of production. Deskilling is an essential process for capitalists – it removes the differentiation of concrete labour (the labour of a blacksmith, a weaver) and creates the possibility of turning labour into an amorphous mass of undifferentiated labour power.
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Prolongation of the working day. The transformation of the labour process beyond what could normally be done with tools and implements to that done with machinery in factories means that not only is there an increase in productivity of labourers and hence more output, it means that the working day itself is extended.
Given the length of the working day, all other things remaining the same, the exploitation of double the number of workmen demands not only the doubling of the capital invested in machines and buildings, but also double the amount of raw and intermediate goods used in production (think of 2 factories instead of one) (constant returns to scale argument). If you can extend the working day, this allows production on an extended scale without changing the amount of capital laid out in building and machinery (as they are already there). This will mean an increase in surplus value produced but the fixed capital outlay remains the same or may even decrease.
Machinery increases the production of relative surplus value:
- by directly depreciating the value of labour power (it decreases the time spent on producing the workers consumption bundle);
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by cheapening the value of labour power by cheapening the commodities that enter into its reproduction, and
- when it is first introduced into an industry (before generalisation) it converts the labour employed by the owner of the machine into labour of a higher degree and efficiency by raising the social value of the article produced above the individual value which enables the capitalist to replace the value of a day’s labour power by a smaller portion of the value of a day’s product (so we reduce the amount of the product needed to be given out of the total product to labour). This is a super-profit before generalisation of the machine throughout the industry under examination (that means all producers of this good utilise this machine).
Once the machine is generalised throughout the industry, the social value sinks to individual value and the law that surplus value arises from the labour of those working the machine asserts itself. Surplus value arises only from the use of variable capital (labour) and the amount of surplus value depends on the rate of surplus value (s/v) and the number of workmen employed.
Given the length of the working day, the rate of surplus value is determined by the relative duration of the necessary labour and of the surplus labour. The number of workers simultaneously employed depending on the ratio of constant to variable capital (c/v), that is the value of capital laid out as constant capital relative to the value of capital laid out for buying labour power of workers (This is called the capital/labour relationship outside of Marx). However much the use of machinery may increase the amount of surplus labour at the expense of the necessary labour by increasing the productiveness of labour, it is clear that it gets this result by diminishing the number of workmen employed by a given amount of capital. It converts variable capital invested in labour power into machinery which as it is constant capital does not produce surplus value.
The application of machinery to the production of surplus value implies a contradiction; the rate of surplus value cannot be increased except by decreasing the number of workmen. We are beginning to address the basis for the rise of the reserve army of the unemployed as a component part of the laws of motion of the capitalist economic system.
The value of the product produced by most advanced technology regulates the value of the commodity (so the cheapest technique determines price), this drives the capitalist to extend the working day to compensate the decrease of the number of labourers by trying to extend not only relative surplus value, but absolute surplus value as well.
Finally, there is the
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Intensification of Labour: The legal limits to working day forced through by working class actions (i.e., the formation of trade unions, strikes) leads to a further intensification of the working day and to the production of relative surplus value. That is, the mode of producing relative surplus value consists in raising the productive power of the workmen to enable him to produce more in a given time with the same expenditure of labour. This is done in two ways: a) increasing the speed of the machinery and giving the workmen more machinery to run (two instead of one machine); b) improved construction of the machinery is needed as otherwise it is difficult to make the workman be more productive.
3. Labour power as commodity
“Labour power or the capacity for labour must be understood as the aggregate of the of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use value of any description (Marx, Capital, Chapter 6, The Buying and Selling of Labour Power, p. 167)”
Like commodities, the labour power of human beings which is bought and sold in the market has two components: its use value and its exchange value. The use value relates to whether a human action (a skill or a type of labour) actually produces something that satisfies human and societal needs. The exchange value of labour power relates to the costs of socially producing and reproducing this labour power (this is essential and is discussed by both Smith and Ricardo and is rejected by some of the wages-fund writers like Nassau Senior).
The value of labour power, that is, the amount that workers can get for the sale of their ability to labour in the market place is not determined in the market-place. Instead, it relates to historical and social conditions that are accepted by society as that which the worker class needs to continue to be able to do their job and to cover those that are not working (either due to youth, age or disability).
As such, there is a biological element in this discussion and that relates to what exactly can be the lowest wage possible if there is a generational requirement that the working class needs to reproduce itself (note that this is not always necessary, in various times, working the labourer to death knowing you can get more workers elsewhere has been done; moreover, there is immigration which can replenish the working class if needed). What workers can get in the marketplace in the final instance depends on the level of class struggle which is an important element that Marx adds to this determination of wages as compared to Smith and Ricardo who had argued that workers could get a portion of the surplus product automatically (due to increased productivity) where the natural wage would rise higher than the subsistence wage.
The interrelationship between production and consumption in capitalism is important; as producers on a social level, workers produce the goods that they will consume as social consumers, that is, they may not be producing final consumption goods consumed by the working class individually (for example, they may be working intermediate goods production or intermediate stages of final consumption goods) but on a social level, workers actually are an inextricable part of both production and consumption (and hence realisation of profits) they only consume a portion of what they produce, that portion purchased from their wages.
How is labour power different from other commodities?
Labour power is a different form of commodity than other commodities or for that matter other means of production in that it can produce a product or the value of a product over and above what is needed to maintain and replace the society at the same level. That means that labour power is a source of a value and that makes its use especially important for the creation of surplus value in the production process.
Labour power will be employed, if and only if it can be used to produce goods and services that enable capitalists to obtain a product (or its value) over and above costs (a surplus or surplus value) which (when the product produced is sold) can be realised as profits. In the absence of the latter, the labour is not hired by employers as their sole interests are current and future profitability.
As a commodity, labour power is also different from other commodities. Most importantly, unlike other commodities, there is a moral and historical element to the value of labour power; the commodities composing the workers’ consumption bundle differs in different societies and over time as new products enter it and others fall out of the workers’ consumption bundle.
Second, human beings die, they become unable to work due to age and infirmity. It cannot be immediately replaced if it wears out and is unable to continue working; on an individual level another labourer can take its place. In fact, as Marx pointed out the creation of a surplus population due to the introduction of machinery means that there are others to take the place of a labourer and they can be brought into production easily.
“The labour power withdrawn from the market by wear and tear and death, must be constantly replaced by, at the very least, an equal amount of fresh labour power. Hence the sum of the means of subsistence necessary for the labourer’s substitutes, i.e., his children, in order that this race of peculiar commodity owners may perpetuate its appearance in the market (Marx, op cit, p. 172).”
But on a social level, it takes time for a child to be able and ready to enter the production process. Part of its subsistence and reproduction of labour power takes place in production in that labour power is paid for its use in the production process (the waged portion or the paid portion). However, the actual physical/biological reproduction of labour itself is not done as part of a capitalist production process. For working class people, the reproduction of labour itself is done in kinship groupings called the family which ensure the continuation of the ability to labour, the physical production of the next generation of workers and caring for those unable to work (food production, nurturing and caring for young and old, education and socialisation of children to prepare them for their future lives as workers). It is not done capitalistically through the aegis of the market. We will return to this topic later when we discuss the oppression of women.
Finally, labour power requires training and development of skills; this schooling and training of labour power (education process, apprenticeships, etc) are part of how the specific needs by capitalists for production are met. As a process (and it is not always complete), the tendency is towards shifting labour from its various concrete forms to a uniform mass of labour that can be switched between different uses and this introduces an important concept of labour mobility and alienation of labourers from their skills as well.
4. The value of labour power and workers’ wages
The value of labour power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour time necessary for the production, and consequently, the reproduction of this special article. So far as it has value, it represents no more than a definite quantity of the average labour of society incorporated in it. The production of labour power presupposes the existence of labour power. On the individual level, the production of labour power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance (Marx, op cit, p. 171).
For Marx, the labour time required for the production of labour power reduces itself to that which is necessary for the production of the means of subsistence of the worker; the value of the means of subsistence which is socially and historically determined that is needed for his maintenance and the reproduction of the working class.
While Lise Vogel argues that this is not clear in Marx’s analysis in Capital, I would disagree. Marx maintains the argument found in Classical Political Economy (Smith and Ricardo) that the wage must cover subsistence and reproduction of the working class (unlike Nassau Senior who argued that this was a form of slavery as all wages were individual in his version of the wages-fund). However, Vogel is completely correct that although Marx does flag up the importance of reproduction of the working class, he leaves undeveloped the way in which this social reproduction is actually done and the impact on women as the primary caretaker in the family.
It is therefore obvious that the value of labour power will vary with the value of goods that the workers need to subsist and reproduce themselves. In terms of the means of subsistence, some of it is produced for immediate consumption and must be replaced daily (food, water, heating). Other things last for a longer time and will be replaced at intervals (clothing, furniture, cooking utensils, pots and pans). What is needed to ensure this daily existence must be covered in the value of labour power and to understand how much of the working day is used to produce this. As was stated earlier in our discussion of the production of relative surplus value, decreasing the amount of labour socially required to produce the workers’ consumption bundle is part of the production of necessary social labour time (it does include replacement of constant circulating and a portion of fixed capital that is put aside for replacement as well).
The minimum limit of the value of labour power is determined by the value of commodities without the daily supply of which the labourer cannot renew their vital energy; that is the value of those means of subsistence that are physically indispensable. If the price of labour power (the wage) falls to this minimum, that means that the wage falls below the value of labour power and the production (and reproduction) of labour itself is endangered. People will not be able to reproduce and the working class itself (if not replenished by immigration) will shrink.
However, if the wage received does not change, the cheapening of the products consumed by the working class can alter the consumption bundle itself as workers will be able to purchase different quantities of commodities and different types of commodities. The wage bundle itself alters, things fall out of the consumption bundle and new products become necessary. An obvious example is the mobile phone compared to a landline (the first has become a necessity while the latter becomes something if there is sufficient wages to cover it).
This discussion will allow us to examine the oppression of women under Capitalism which will occur in Part II. The discussion will primarily use Lise Vogel and Karl Marx to explain in detail the production of necessary social labour time and the social reproduction of the working class, part of which takes place in the context of the capitalist system (waged workers get the value of labour power which contains a biological, social and historical element) and the rest is undertaken as unpaid labour by women in the home.
References
Karl Marx (1867) Capital, Volume I, International Publishers Edition.
Lise Vogel (1983) Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Towards a Unitary Theory, 2nd edition, Haymarket Books, 2013.