Marx’s Theory of Labor Subsumption: Restatement and Critical Assessment

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to offer a comprehensive restatement and critical assessment of Marx’s theory regarding the subsumption of labor under capital (SLC). The core hypothesis of this account asserts a correspondence between forms of SLC and forms of surplus value extraction that is not evidently supported by his historical comparisons of capitalist production with antecedent forms of the circuit of capital. Moreover, Marx’s comparative historical analysis of SLC does not establish a distinct and necessary role for direct capitalist oversight of production in the process of surplus value extraction. Possible theoretical foundations for inferring such a role are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Marxian
• subsumption
• exploitation
• surplus value

JEL CODES:

• B14
• B31
• B51

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Steve Pressman and three anonymous referees for extremely helpful comments on two prior drafts of this paper. Remaining errors of representation, interpretation or inference are solely the author’s responsibility.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A translator’s footnote refers the reader to the appendix for ‘Marx’s own exposition of the concepts of formal and real subsumption’ (Marx 1976, p. 645n), but as noted presently, Marx deliberately excluded this exposition from the first volume of Capital.

2 Published in English in volumes 30–34 of Marx and Engels’ Collected Works (respectively, Marx and Engels 1988, 1989a, 1989b, 1991, and 1994).

3 Possible reasons for Marx’s decision are discussed in Skillman (2013).

4 Such as the Verlager or ‘putting-out’ system, a particular form of proto-industrial production and distribution arrangements (Ogilvie and Cerman 1996).

5 Skillman (2014) studies the role of collateral in proto-industrial capitalist exploitation.