2.3.2 Digital Technology and Relative Surplus-Value Production
In the Grundrisse, Marx (1857 [1858]) introduced the notion of surplus-value, by which he means that during a portion of the work, workers produce unpaid labour that capitalists appropriate and turn into monetary profit. Marx (1867, 645) distinguishes two methods of surplus-value production: “The production of absolute surplus-value turns exclusively on the length of the working day, whereas the production of relative surplus-value completely revolutionises the technical processes of labour and the groupings into which society is divided”. Absolute surplus-value production means the lengthening of the unpaid part of the working day. Relative surplus-value production is the increase of productivity so that more value is produced during a certain time period than before. Engels anticipated both concepts in CWCE.
Engels gives many concrete examples of the increase of productivity through the introduction of new technologies. In the cotton industry, the invention of the jenny “made it possible to deliver more yarn than heretofore” (CWCE, 18). The introduction of the powerloom further increased the productivity of the English cotton industry: “In the years 1771–1775, there were annually imported into England rather less than 5,000,000 pounds of raw cotton; in the year 1841 there were imported 528,000,000 pounds, and the import for 1844 will reach at least 600,000,000 pounds” (CWCE, 21). Similar productivity increases could be observed in other industries, for example, the manufacturing of wool: “In 1738 there were 75,000 pieces of woollen cloth produced in the West Riding of Yorkshire; in 1817 there were 490,000 pieces, and so rapid was the extension of the industry that in 1854, 450,000 more pieces were produced than in 1825. In 1801, 101,000,000 pounds of wool (7,000,000 pounds of. it imported) were worked up; in 1855, 180,000,000 pounds were worked up, of which 42,000,000 pounds were imported” (CWCE, 22–23).
Engels describes the phenomenon of relative surplus-value production but did not have a theoretical concept naming this process. Marx later introduced based on Engels the concepts of surplus-value and the methods of surplus-value production.
Since the middle of the 20th century, the capitalist invention and the capitalist application of digital production technologies has led to significant increases in productivity. Just like Engels observed the impacts of technologies such as the steam engine and the power loom, today we can observe the effects of the digitalisation of production that has increased productivity.
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Theorists