Labor intensity (Marxism)

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The work intensity or the degree of work intensity indicates the volume of work that is performed in a certain working time . The intensification of labor , along with lengthening working hours and increasing productivity, is a way of increasing surplus value , which enables capitalists to make higher profits .

General

The economic key figure of labor intensity is a comparative variable that, despite appropriate attempts at Taylorism, cannot be determined independently, but only by changing it. It can therefore only compare units with one another, for example

  • the number of workers doing a specific job at specific times (before - after) or
  • the number of work tasks that a single worker has to perform at certain times (before - after).

This makes the work intensity measurable; its change can be shown as a ratio or as a percentage. When a worker at a certain time, a machine needs to operate and after a rationalization three machine, then the labor intensity for him in the ratio 3: 1 has, or to 300% and to increase 200%.

Labor intensity at Marx

Hence the labor intensity at Karl Marx is one

"Enlarged labor expenditure at the same time, < a > increased tension in the labor force < a > denser fill the pores of the working hours, d. H. < A > Compaction work ".

The competition forces companies to generate as much profit as possible in the shortest possible time in order to gain an advantage over their competitors. In addition to introducing more effective machines and / or processes, this is also done by lengthening the working day and / or intensifying the work, which can take place in three forms:

  1. either by a worker having to do more work than before or
  2. by having fewer workers doing the same number of jobs as before, or
  3. by combining these two possibilities.
Karl Marx , Theories of Added Value , 1956

Marx describes the connection between labor intensity and the increase in profit in " Das Kapital Volume III":

“The degree of exploitation of the work depends on the average intensity of the work for a given working day and on the length of the working day for a given intensity. The level of the rate of surplus value depends on the degree of exploitation of labor, i.e. with a given total mass of variable capital the size of the surplus value , and thus the size of the profit . "

Marx describes the consequences of intensification in " Theories of Added Value " Volume III:

"< After > the exploitation" [= exploitation] "of the work ... then both < the > extension of the working day and < as well as > the intensification" (in Marx: "intensification") "[compression] of the same, if it is not shortened at the same time (as by < the eight-hour day >). ”“ The worker shortens the duration of his labor capacity, exhausts it in a much greater proportion than his wages grow and becomes even more of a mere work machine. But apart from the latter, if he lives maybe 20 years with the normal working day, with the other "[= condensed]" only 15, then he sells the value of his labor in one case in 15 years, in the other in 20. One time it has to be replaced in 15 years, the other < time > in 20 ".

literature

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Cf. also a “greater tension in labor”; Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program (MEW 19) , page 25.
  2. ↑ Marx, “ Das Kapital ” Volume I. (MEW 23), page 432; Text edited, insertions in angle brackets
  3. ↑ "Das Kapital" Volume III (MEW 25), page 207 (text edited)
  4. ↑ In Marx: "the ten hours bill ", the legal reduction of the working day to ten hours in the 19th century in England.
  5. ↑ Marx, “Theories of Added Value”. (MEW 26.3), page 303; Text edited, insertions in angle brackets