My guess is that the first arrow, running from the top of the clock down to the 6, represents the 6 hours of socially necessary labor time needed to reproduce the value of labor-power, while the second arrow running from the 6 back up to the 12 represents the additional 6 hours of surplus labor. (12 hour work-day = the suck.) The gnarled hand in back of the clock is the labor driving the mechanism, and the little satchel in the foreground would I suppose be the bag of money representing the value produced in the six hours of surplus labor-time, realized as profits. Where is this from?
What do you think is the thing in the hand? It looked kind of like a coin used in hypnotizing someone to me, but I am visually challenged.
And here's another question: does anyone up and say that SL=necessary labor in quantity? I guess it's just a matter of representing it graphically that makes the two things consecutive rather than interspersed?
I actually took it from the wikipedia article on surplus-value. The caption on it is "The production of surplus value," from Karl Marx's 'Capital' in Lithographs, by Hugo Gellert, 1934
I think it's just the dial of the clock-hand, and my visual read on it is that it's not in the hand, just in front of it. I could be wrong, though.does anyone up and say that SL=necessary labor in quantity?
If anyone did, they'd be pretty daft. I suspect Gellert just made it that way for the sake of aesthetic symmetry. Marx's exposition of absolute vs. relative surplus value makes it pretty clear that both necessary and surplus are independent variables, respectively conditioned by technical development and the history of the class struggle.I guess it's just a matter of representing it graphically that makes the two things consecutive rather than interspersed?
In part, though it may also stem from a weakness in Marx's presentation, in that he focused so much on the work-day as the basic unit of wage labor. This stemmed from the prevailing norms of 19th century capitalism, wherein the worker would be hired for the day, worked for as much of the day as possible, and paid just enough to keep body
( ... )
Thanks for the feedback. I dread interpreting pictures because whatever abilities I have with language are completely inapplicable to anything pictoral. On a sort of unrelated note, do you have an opinion about the ongoing theoretical battle over whether "political economy" makes sense as a category or not? (since you mention a political economy of flexibilization, suggesting that you might feel it was relevant to write one). I'm thinking of how Mbembe, Foucault, Althusser and their thousand disciples have spent a few decades insisting that economy and politics ought properly to be separated, surgically, in order to get at that which is not economics in politics and vice-versa.
MARXIST QUIZ SHOWmendaciloquentNovember 30 2006, 22:18:57 UTC
Okay...
So, the hand (of the worker) is turning the clock. Because that's what workers do. A clock is the sort of thing that is supposed to move of its own accord, I guess, like magic, but it's actually the working-man inside the clock making it happen. It's not like the hand is obeying some force outside of itself (the clock) in order to make things move. The clock doesn't move the hand. The hand moves the clock. It's the agency of movement the whole time.
The other and more important thing is that the bag of loot is outside the clock, and the hand is inside the clock. So I guess that little baggie is the surplus being extracted from the cycle of labor and placed in a world outside, the world of the rich fuckers who don't work for a living. And stare at the clock. I guess.
Re: MARXIST QUIZ SHOWnuncstansNovember 30 2006, 23:04:32 UTC
Do you think the worker's hand is moving time itself or just the clock. e.g. labor as responsible for the forward flow of days or just for the workday (as in productivity/time or similar)?
Re: MARXIST QUIZ SHOWmendaciloquentDecember 1 2006, 04:14:04 UTC
I couldn't guess, but I think it's a sad picture, so I'd pick the latter, like the headless hand doesn't even seem to know it's inside the clock, turning it around like an idiot, when it should smash through the clockface and grab hold of the observer like the neck of a startled goose (before grabbing the baggy of loot).
If the picture was explicitly meant to be an article of Marxism, then the hand presumably is labor. The hand is the backdrop to the clock. It's a clenched fist, it's a stable source, but it's not moving the clock. It's a fist, it's just potential. The only movement in the picture is represented by the arrows cycling around the twelve hour day. The sack, bulgy with value, is separated from the hand by the clock face. The bag is positioned so as to seem to be a part of the twelve hour cycle, which passes into the sack o' value just after the work day is complete.
It's mapping the basic set of relations that are involved in producing surplus value.
Then again, the bag could be bread, in which case there's not really any surplus value involved in the picture, which itself becomes more of a statement about sustenaining oneself in a capitalist system.
Comments 14
Where is this from?
Reply
What do you think is the thing in the hand? It looked kind of like a coin used in hypnotizing someone to me, but I am visually challenged.
And here's another question: does anyone up and say that SL=necessary labor in quantity? I guess it's just a matter of representing it graphically that makes the two things consecutive rather than interspersed?
I actually took it from the wikipedia article on surplus-value. The caption on it is "The production of surplus value," from Karl Marx's 'Capital' in Lithographs, by Hugo Gellert, 1934
Reply
I think it's just the dial of the clock-hand, and my visual read on it is that it's not in the hand, just in front of it. I could be wrong, though.does anyone up and say that SL=necessary labor in quantity?
If anyone did, they'd be pretty daft. I suspect Gellert just made it that way for the sake of aesthetic symmetry. Marx's exposition of absolute vs. relative surplus value makes it pretty clear that both necessary and surplus are independent variables, respectively conditioned by technical development and the history of the class struggle.I guess it's just a matter of representing it graphically that makes the two things consecutive rather than interspersed?
In part, though it may also stem from a weakness in Marx's presentation, in that he focused so much on the work-day as the basic unit of wage labor. This stemmed from the prevailing norms of 19th century capitalism, wherein the worker would be hired for the day, worked for as much of the day as possible, and paid just enough to keep body ( ... )
Reply
Reply
So, the hand (of the worker) is turning the clock. Because that's what workers do. A clock is the sort of thing that is supposed to move of its own accord, I guess, like magic, but it's actually the working-man inside the clock making it happen. It's not like the hand is obeying some force outside of itself (the clock) in order to make things move. The clock doesn't move the hand. The hand moves the clock. It's the agency of movement the whole time.
The other and more important thing is that the bag of loot is outside the clock, and the hand is inside the clock. So I guess that little baggie is the surplus being extracted from the cycle of labor and placed in a world outside, the world of the rich fuckers who don't work for a living. And stare at the clock. I guess.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
It's mapping the basic set of relations that are involved in producing surplus value.
Then again, the bag could be bread, in which case there's not really any surplus value involved in the picture, which itself becomes more of a statement about sustenaining oneself in a capitalist system.
Ta-da!
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment