Marx called "relative surplus value". It relied on reducing the proportion of the work time that went into covering the cost of replenishing worker's capacity to work, that is, their labour power.
This took three forms. The first was to introduce new machinery into the workplace, so as to increase productivity and reduce the amount of time it took for the workers to produce goods whose sale would cover their wages. In effect, instead of, say, four hours work covering the cost of their labour power, two hours would do so-with two hours extra going to produce surplus value.
Marx saw this as the method of increasing exploitation capitalists turned to as they faced difficulties in extending the working week any further in the mid-19th century. The productivity of the workforce per hour became central, rather than extending the number of hours worked.2• But it was in itself only a short-term expedient for the capitalist. The first capitalist to introduce new machinery would be able to produce the same amount of value with less hours of labour. Once other capitalists also introduced new machinery, the socially necessary time needed for production fell and with it the value of the goods he sold and the excess surplus value he obtained.
The second form it took was increased productivity in the consumer goods industries and agriculture. This would reduce the amount of labour time needed to produce their output and the prices workers had to pay for their means of livelihood. This meant that the cost to the capitalists everywhere of providing workers with their accustomed living standard (of paying for their labour power) fell, and the amount of surplus value extracted could be increased without cutting real wages or extending the working day.
The third method was to intensify the pressure on workers to work harder. As Marx puts it, the only way to "change the relative magnitudes" of the working day going to the capitalist rather than the worker without cutting real wages was to "change either the productivity of labour or its intensity" .27 There was a drive to impose "on the workman increased expenditure of labour in a given time, heightened tension of labour-power, and closer filling up of the pores of the working-day. "28 Or again, "What is lost by shortening the duration is gained by the increasing tension of labour power" .29
The drive for increased productivity became an obsession for big business, as was shown by the movement for "scientific management" founded by the American F W Taylor in the 1 890s.
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Understanding the System: Marx and Beyond