D) i. Fuel is a Part of the Means of Production
D) i. Fuel is a Part of the Means of Production
Petromarxism
[{Intro}, {A}, {B}, {C}, {D)i.}, {D)ii.}, {E)i.}, {E)ii. Conclusion}]
Here we must take the time to make sure everyone is on the same page. Marx teaches that for money capital to become productive, and thereby to ‘valorize itself.’ it must buy the two types of commodities used in any system of production: the means of production, and the labour. The total capital (C) invested equals the sum of the cost of the means of production (constant capital, c) and the cost of labour (variable capital, v). C=c+v.
The means of production itself is of (at least) two types: raw material, and the conditions of production. We’ve already discussed the former. For the most part, the conditions of production are the necessary upfront capital investments that must be paid in full, and therefore are beyond the reach of private citizens: factories, machines. Trucks. These things depreciate over time: that is, they reproduce a tiny part of their own value in the value of the final commodity. In Volume II, Marx explains that these things embody “fixed capital,” as opposed to “circulating capital” which are ongoing costs that must be paid out month after month, like wages and the purchase of raw materials. This is the only separation in the type of capital recognized by the capitalist himself, but Marx points to a more fundamental differentiation between “constant capital” which is what is invested into the means of production, and “variable capital” which buys labour.
Since the means of production reproduces its value as an ‘aliquot part’ of the value of the produced commodity, either all at once as in the case of raw materials, or slowly over time, as in the case of the conditions of production, all of the extra value that makes up the rest of the value of the finished commodity, arises from variable capital, which always pays less for labour than the work it actually receives, since workers always produce more value than the cost of their wages. This is why it is consequential to ascertain whether oil falls into the category of means of production or labour. This essay is here to argue, both: but it should be counted on the variable capital side of the ledger. Which is perhaps contrary to what Marx himself thought.
If we continue with the traditional practice of considering fuel as an element of the means of production, then this passage applies to it: “means of production never transfer more value to the product than they themselves lose during the labour process by the destruction of their own use-value. If an instrument of production has no value to lose, i.e., if it is not the product of human labour, it transfers no value to the product. It helps to create a use-value without contributing to the formation of exchange-value. This is true of all those means of production supplied by nature without human assistance, such as land, wind, water, metals in the form of ore, and timber in virgin forests.” Oil only has value insofar as human labour is required to extract it, refine it, and ship it. If that value is $4/gallon and ¼ gallon is used in the production of one widget, the oil contributes $1 to the exchange value of the finished product, and the capitalist who burned that oil in his own production process makes no surplus on that dollar. “If we look at the creation and the alteration of value for themselves, i.e. in their pure form, then the means of production, this physical shape taken on by constant capital, provides only the material in which fluid, value-creating labour power has to be incorporated” (vol. 1, 323).
Marx wrote around the question of fuel without ever addressing it directly (had he, there would be little need for this essay). In a previous post, I referred to fuel as a part of the means of production. This is clearly the category into which it belongs in the text of Capital. At different points in the text, he lists both coal and oil as overhead costs, like ground rent, and, elsewhere, as a component part of the machinery that drives industrial capitalism, and elsewhere as an auxiliary substance. So within the text of Capital, fuel is:
a) Ground Rent
When fuel, coal specifically, is referred to as ground rent, Marx has in mind the context of the pre-industrial manufacturing period, when coal was primarily used to heat buildings, including workshops. This first practice, where energy (especially in the form of heat for climate control) is a utility that comes with a piece of property, maintains dominance today. We often think of utilities as a part of our rent. This makes sense, but is obviously not an exhaustive treatment of the issue.
b) An Auxiliary or Ancillary Substance
When the dust settles by volume 3 of Capital, coal gets most consistently categorized along with lubricating oils and other substances that get consumed by the production process, for example, flour which was used in weaving textiles, as substances that are auxiliary or ancillary to the means of production.
“Both in the case of the machine and of the tool, we find that after allowing for their average daily cost, that is, for the value they transmit to the product by their average daily wear and tear, and for their consumption of auxiliary substances like oil, coal, and so on, they do their work for nothing, like the natural forces which are already available without the intervention of human labour” vol 1, 510. Tellingly, this category here appears as a second exception to a rule that would otherwise be true: that machines work for nothing. But they don’t do their work for nothing,they cost money in at least these two different ways. The auxiliary costs may be considered as costs of the machine itself, it would seem. Elsewhere, these substances are referred to as “accessories to be consumed by the instruments of labour” vol 1, 288.
After Marx clarifies the difference between fixed and circulating constant capital, it is clear that ancillary materials are paid out of circulating capital. From the point of view of the capitalist, the difference between fixed and circulating capital is of daily importance, but to Marxist economists who can see the big picture, the meaningful difference is between variable and constant capital. Nonetheless, I find it significant that fuel (and other ancillary substances) appear to the capitalist to be of the same category as wages: circulating capital.
My only comment on the categorization of fuel as an ancillary substance is that it erases the differences in the use values of ancillary substances.
c) A Part of the Machine
At times Marx understands coal to be a part of a machine, and therefore quite clearly a part of the conditions of production, and therefore clearly constant capital. Marx takes the example of an industrial steam-hammer: “Since its daily wear and tear, its coal consumption, &tc., are spread over the stupendous masses of iron hammered by it in a day, only a small value is added to a hundredweight of iron.” vol 1, 511. (I think the wear and tear counts differently from its coal consumption. The cost of its coal consumption is passed on in full to the commodity in whose production it was expended, but that cost is so tiny that it barely registers in the value it adds to a hundredweight of cotton. It is a very small cost, even in comparison to the depreciation of the machinery, which is spread over the stupendous masses of iron. But this argument will be taken up in a later section.)
He explains that a machine is an apparatus for turning motive power into specialized forms of labour. Machines have three parts: the motive power itself, the transmitting mechanism, and the tool. Marx has historical memory of both the great waterwheel factories of English industrialism, but also firsthand experience with industrial machines who used somatic motive power, especially in handloom weaving. As Andreas Malm documents in Fossil Capital, although the power loom was invented in 1784, economic conditions conspired to make handloom weaving much more prevalent in the English textile industry through the 1830s. Handloom weavers were distributed throughout the countryside as a “domestic industry” where work was done in households that owned their own looms. “In 1829 there were roughly 240,000 handloom weavers [in England] (each presumably equipped with at least one loom) as opposed to 55,000 power looms… the hand-loom weavers were the largest group of workers connected to any British industry, their lifestyle and experience far more typical than those of the mule-spinners.” And yet it is the story of the mule-spinners that Marx writes about, as he is able to document the transition from foot-powered spinning wheels to steam-powered mills:
“In many manual implements the distinction between man as mere motive power and man as worker or operator properly so called is very striking indeed. For instance, the foot is merely the prime mover of the spinning-wheel, while the hand, working with the spindle, and drawing and twisting, performs the real operation of spinning. It is the second part of the handicraftman’s implement, in this case the spindle, which is first seized on by the industrial revolution, leaving to the worker, in addition to his new labour of watching the machine with his eyes and correcting its mistakes with its hands, the merely mechanical role of acting as the motive power. On the other hand, in cases where man has always acted as a simple motive power, as for instance by turning the crank of a mill, by pumping, by moving the arm of a bellows up and down, by ounding with a mortar, etc., there is soon a call for the application of animals, water and wind as motive powers. Here and there, long before the period of manufacture, and also to some extent during that period, these implements attain the stature of machines, but without creating any revolution in the mode of production.” vol. 1, 496
It is only with the application of steam (coal) that it does rise to the level of a revolution in a mode of production. So although Marx sees that motive power originates outside the machine itself, he nonetheless sees it as a part of the machine, at least at the moment of its combustion or expenditure. And this is why, for Marx, fuel appears a part of the technological apparatus for increasing productivity. Machines increase productivity, and so its component, motive power, must be merely a part of that project.
I don’t think fuel is a part of the machine. Perhaps only at the moment of its combustion, but prior to that it clearly had a life as a commodity outside the machine, and a natural one before that. Correspondingly, I think that machines can increase productivity, but fuel has the ability to create value, and therefore, surplus value. But we’ll get into what I think later – for now, we must first understand productivity as a consequence of machinery.
Both fuel and workers operate machinery, but are not parts of the machine itself, except as considered within the larger apparatuses in which all three are embedded.