Wages

1
Wages

• Capital, Chapters 19-21

2
Wage Value of Labor Power

• Chapter 6 Value of Labor Power
• Chapters 19-21 Value of LP in money
• everything said in chapter 6, also true here
• money wages one form of V
• there are other forms, e.g., payment in kind

3
Wage hides Exploitation

• Wage seems to be payment for labor
• this is concept of neoclassical micro
• this is common sense
• But Marx has shown what K buys is LP
• LP then has to be converted into labor
• that is task of management

4
Exploitation

• Exploitation surplus value (S)
• But wage hides S
• So exploitation disappears
• And labor seems to be fully paid for

5
Hides unpaid labor

• Hides unpaid labor performed by waged
• Hides unpaid labor performed by unwaged
• Working class traditionally defined by wage
• But this ignores essential and unavoidable
  presense of unwaged labor

6
Wage as Strategy

• Some waged
• Some unwaged
• Wage is fundamental means of division
• High waged, low waged, there is always a wage
  hierarchy
• Hierarchy not natural, but means of control

7
Time Wages - Ideology

• Time wages hide existence of unpaid labor
• The longer you work, the more you are paid
• Therefore, pay is proportionate to work

8
Time Wages -Strategy

• With payment by time
• Lower per hour wage will produce more work
• Lowering hourly wage will produce desire for
  overtime
• 1980s success in lowering wages ended demands for
  4-day week

9
Piece Wages - Ideology

• Piece wages payment by piece produced
• e.g., bag of cotton picked, pieces turned
• Piece wages hides unpaid work, the more pieces
  you produce, the more you are paid
• So clearly your pay is a function of your work.

10
Piece Wages - Strategy

• By lowering piece rates, workers have to work
  faster or longer to produce enough pieces to earn
  same wage
• With piece rates no supervision necessary, only
  quality control
• Piece rates result in natural hierarchies
• Read A Worker in a Workers State

11
Piece Wages in School

• For students, grades IOUs on future wage
• grades paid not for hours of work but by pieces
  produced, e.g., tests, papers
• no supervision necessary, only quality control
• teachers are quality control
• For professors
• wages and promotion function of publication,
  I.e., number of pieces produced

12
Piece Wages in Home

• Kids paid for chores performed
• Wives paid by tasks performed
• meals, clothes cleaned, kids reared, sex.
• Advertisements portray husbands, mothers in law,
  bosses, etc as quality control
• ring around the collar
• spots on glasses, silverware

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