For Your Information

Workers' Capacity to Work and the Contradiction between Its Exchange-Value and Use-Value

The Statscan definition of a worker is broader than that of federal and provincial labour laws, which introduce issues such as control of the conditions of work and whether those who sell their capacity to work have any input into the terms of employment or own any of the equipment used in the work. All these definitions are in contradiction with the concrete conditions of the imperialist economy and its mode of production and state structure dominated by a financial oligarchy that exploits the working class.

The imperialist economy consists of two main social classes, the working class and financial oligarchy. The working class, to acquire a living through work, sells its capacity to work, and goes to work for those who buy it. Those who buy the capacity to work of the working class, led by the financial oligarchy, control the main means of production, the state structure and its enterprises, and the social product workers produce, including the added-value, which forms the basis for profit.

Generally no activity within the imperialist economy is considered legitimate or desirable unless it falls under the control of the financial oligarchy and serves to expand or preserve its private social wealth through the expropriation of a portion of the new value workers produce, the added-value. In sum, no economic activity under imperialism holds any utility for the financial oligarchy in control unless it can increase or preserve its social wealth and power.

Capacity to Work

Similar to all commodities on the market, the capacity to work of the working class has an exchange-value and use-value. Unlike other commodities, the use-value of the capacity to work is always greater than its exchange-value. The exchange-value is equivalent to the value that has gone into forming the capacity to work of workers since birth and adjusted according to its supply and demand on the labour market and the level of class struggle the working class has organized to defend its claims and rights.

The use-value is equivalent to the new value the capacity to work produces within the imperialist economy. The new value workers produce consists of an equivalent of its exchange-value, called reproduced-value, plus an additional value, called added-value, which forms the profit those who buy the capacity to work expropriate.

Workers in the imperialist labour market sell their exchange-value. Those who buy the capacity to work put workers' use-value to work and seize the social product the use-value produces. The social product contains the transferred-value from already-produced value consumed during the production process and new value, which consists of a reproduced amount equivalent to the exchange-value of the capacity to work and an additional amount, the added-value, that those who buy the capacity to work expropriate as profit.

Workers who sell a service or good they produce themselves outside the imperialist labour market have negligible presence in the economy. In this instance, they do not sell their capacity to work as exchange-value to a buyer who takes control of it. They may sell their capacity to work on the labour market regularly or not, and produce their own goods and service as supplementary income, which they may or may not report to the CRA. This depends in large measure on whether the buyer of the good or service demands a receipt for income tax purposes.

Workers Outside the Imperialist Labour Market

Workers engaged in directly selling their own goods and services receive payment for the value of the commodity they produce, which includes the use-value of their capacity to work for the particular period of work and any already-produced (old) value they may use. If fully realized, the total received is equivalent to the price of production of the good or service the worker produced and sold. In this way, workers do not sell their capacity to work as exchange-value to someone else. They retain control of the use-value of their capacity to work and directly sell whatever they produce. Their capacity to work is not alienated to another who buys its exchange-value and in doing so gains control of the use-value and the full value of production, which is greater than the amount paid for the exchange-value.

Statscan writes, "The methodological approach taken in this study is not without limitations. Admittedly, this approach is unlikely to capture activities such as occasional babysitting, dog walking, lawn care, (house sitting, housecleaning and home renovations), or similar informal activities usually settled between family members, friends and neighbours. These activities have always been part of daily life, but are not usually considered labour market activities, and are therefore a lesser priority for researchers interested in labour market dynamics. According to a recent Canadian study based on data from the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations, about 30 per cent of respondents reported that they participated in some form of paid informal activity. However, when those who participated in such activities for fun were excluded, the share dropped to 18 per cent."

Work done outside the imperialist labour market and a social relation with those who buy workers' capacity to work may be the only work a worker engages in, or as a means to earn extra money in conjunction with selling their capacity to work on the labour market part-time or full-time or while studying. This often basic work outside the imperialist labour market and the exploitive social relation predicts in a crude form a new direction for the economy where a modern working class controls its capacity to work without having to sell and alienate it on a labour market. This requires the working class organizing itself as a powerful independent economic and political force to free itself from the exploitive social relation with the financial oligarchs, negate their control of the main means of production and state structure, and build new forms and institutions leading to the complete emancipation of the working class and elimination of all forms of exploitation of humans by humans.

Social Relation Between Those Who Sell Their Capacity to Work
and Those Who Buy It

Workers within the imperialist economy and its labour market exist in a social relation with those who buy their capacity to work. The buyer or employer pays workers for the exchange-value of their capacity to work. Once purchased, the capacity to work is alienated from the seller. The buyer takes control of the seller's capacity to work, transforms it into a use-value and puts it to work.

The realization of the exchange-value of the capacity to work through a wage or other form of payment transforms the exchange-value into a use-value under the control of the buyer. The use-value of the capacity to work for a given period is equivalent to the new value workers produce, which is greater than the exchange-value paid for the same period. The use-value at work reproduces its exchange-value and produces an additional amount called added-value, which forms the basis of profit. The sum of the reproduced-value and added-value is the new value equal to the use-value of the capacity to work for a given period.

Workers in the imperialist economy produce added-value that their employer expropriates as profit. Workers who sell their capacity to work and those who buy it form a dialectical social relation. The social relation is the fundamental condition or social relation under imperialism for workers to acquire a living and for the financial oligarchy to expropriate profit.

The buyer of the exchange-value of the capacity to work dominates the social relation because buyers dominate the imperialist mode of production; they own or control the means of production and the social product workers produce and the state structure.

Sellers of their capacity to work, the working class, must organize collectively to defend themselves and their claims and rights within the concrete conditions of the exploitive social relation. To extricate themselves from this despotic situation requires the working class freeing itself from the social relation with the buyers of the exchange-value of its capacity to work. Resolving the dialectic demands an organized class struggle to break out of the social relation and bring into being a modern working class, a synthesis that gains control of its capacity to work within a new mode of production and state structure and is no longer captured within a social relation with those who buy its capacity to work. With this synthesis and new direction for the economy, modern workers will own and control the means of production and entire social product they produce and state structure, and be in a position to plan and utilize their capacity to work and the social product they produce to guarantee the rights of all and society, and humanize the social and natural environment.

Uber and Lyft Buy the Exchange-Value of the
Capacity to Work of Their Drivers

Workers who drive for Uber or Lyft sell the exchange-value of their capacity to work to the companies that own and control the ride hailing software platforms and the realized (paid) rides and other services the drivers produce. Uber and Lyft use the capacity to work, which they have purchased as exchange-value, and employ it as use-value to produce social product, mostly rides from point A to point B but also for other services such as delivery, cleaning, hotel and warehouse work and public services.

The passenger/buyer of the service, the ride, pays with a credit card for the use-value the driver produces and for the transferred-value of already-produced value such as a car and gas, and other prorated associated charges per length and duration of the ride for insurance, licensing and other fees. The company realizes the payment of the exchange-value of the driver using a portion of the amount the passenger pays for the ride; the company pays an agreed upon portion for transferred-value and fees, and expropriates the remaining new value the driver has produced as profit (the added-value).

The ride hailing companies and others using software platforms are not subject to the market prices that public authorities may have in place for taxi companies or the number of cars they can deploy or the established exchange-value for the capacity to work of those employed. Uber and Lyft can undercut the market prices and steal market share from the already established taxi companies and drive them out of business as they are already doing in Los Angeles and New York. The software platform companies use the new productive forces to favour the financial oligarchy and not to favour the working class and economy. Their increasing predatory attacks on the working class, such as worker trafficking and precarious work, drive down workers' wages and terms of employment.

Within the social relation between workers who sell their capacity to work and those who buy it, the method used to determine the particular amount of the exchange-value in money can vary considerably. Payment of the exchange-value of the capacity to work can be for a specific time -- such as one hour, a day or longer -- called a wage or salary; or for a certain volume of goods or services called piecework; or payment for a particular task or service, which resembles the practice of hiring workers-on-demand or gig work that may combine both time and volume (i.e. the time and distance of a ride). The payment of the exchange-value of the capacity to work comprises only a portion of the new value workers produce from the use-value of their capacity to work in action. Those who buy the exchange-value of the capacity to work expropriate the other portion of the new value as profit (the added-value).

Whether workers own their own tools, clothes or even certain equipment used in the work, such as a car, does not alter the exploitive social relation they enter into with those who buy their capacity to work. Workers' ownership or not of certain fixed and circulating material consumed in the course of work does not change the social relationship between workers who sell the exchange-value of their capacity to work and those who buy it. In fact, forcing workers to buy certain fixed and circulating already-produced value used in work, which Uber and Lyft do with regard to vehicles, increases the rate of profit for those who buy workers' capacity to work.

Workers do not have the individual social wealth to buy and own larger more expensive means of production, such as factories and machinery, although this could be done collectively as a front of class struggle to augment the independent economic strength of the working class in preparation for freeing itself generally from the despotic social relation with the financial oligarchy.

Issues of control and terms of employment while working, including the amount received as exchange-value and certain aspects of how the job is performed, form part of the dialectical social relation workers enter into with those who buy their capacity to work. These are determined in part through class struggle and can result in workers having very little or substantial control over working conditions, according to the effectiveness and strength of their organized defence of their rights. For example, safety committees workers organize and enforce through their terms of employment can play a substantial role in controlling how work is performed. The degree of control workers may exercise through organized class struggle does not change the fundamental exploitive social relation with those who buy their capacity to work. By breaking out of the despotic social relation and organizing a new direction for the economy, the working class can free itself from the imperialist economy and financial oligarchy and chart a new pro-social path forward for humanity.

This article was published in

Volume 50 Number 3 - February 8, 2020

Article Link:
: Workers' Capacity to Work and the Contradiction between Its Exchange-Value and Use-Value

    

Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  editor@cpcml.ca