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sider. What capitalists bring to market is money. With this money they purchase
commodities (labour power and means of production) by which other commodities
will be made (suffused with the value that labour imparts to them), and they will
sell these fi nished commodities for money (preserving that value).
M
. . .
C
. . .
M
denotes this series of exchanges. But note that the exchange does not end with
something qualitatively different from its beginning. It begins and ends in money,
a perfectly useless exchange: it is not clear yet why anyone would do it. So, Marx
surmises, the only reason to engage in the exchange of same for same is if more of
the same was actually the goal: more money, profi t, a surplus value. Profi t is built
into the very conception of the capitalist (and of capital, money invested to make
profi t). The notation Marx uses to describe this series of exchanges, inclusive of the
extra increment, the 'delta', the surplus value, is
M
. . .
C
. . .
M
. The series ends
with a quantitative difference rather than a qualitative one. Or rather the point is
that the series does not end. A portion of surplus value is reinvested when money
capital is thrown back into production on a continuing basis:
M
. . .
C
. . .
M
+
Δ
+
Δ
. . .
M
. . .
C
. . .
M
' in a well-developed capitalism?
In short it is that the mass of labour power expended by workers is capable of
making more goods than it actually needs for its own replenishment.
Important questions follow. I have selected from the classic problems that
Marxism presents to capitalism: the relative position of labour vís a vís capital, the
problem of surpluses in capitalism, and the possibility of limits to growth. We can
frame them as follows, showing how each bridges to environmental issues:
Don't workers buy back what they make? Aren't profi ts and wages perfectly
compatible?
No, answers Marx. If this were the case there would be no profi ts for
capitalists. Workers are compensated for their
efforts
(their labour power) not for
the actual value of the goods they produce: the value of labour power is distinct
from the (greater) value of what labour produces (the much vaunted fruits of
labour). This virtually ensures, as labour history verifi es, an ongoing struggle
between the two classes over the fate of that surplus value. It also ensures struggles
over what is considered adequate compensation for supplying labour power on a
continuing basis. That is to say wages must ensure 'social reproduction', access to
the bundle of needs and wants that are central to so much political struggle (Katz,
2001; Mitchell et al., 2004). Clearly, capitalists will not pay more for minimal
efforts expended over the maximum time: they will not pay for workers' time
regardless of how long a worker takes to get a job done. And they will consider
carefully whether a wage needs to cover the cost of dining at expensive restaurants
or health care. Marx argued that, all things being equal, wages are paid out on the
basis of the average amount of time it takes to make a certain amount of goods
under average conditions of production and social reproduction,
in so far as these
are the outcome of specifi c struggles.
2
Environmental questions matter here: what
wage is adequate compensation for living next to toxic wastes? For working with
hazardous chemicals? For taking a job in a place designated specifi cally as environ-
mentally unregulated (see Pulido, 1994; Katz, 2001)? For living amidst blighted and
abandoned urban landscapes (Bunge, 1971)? Whatever the wage, in its rising/falling
state, it cannot be allowed to threaten the conditions for the expansion of value
(Harvey, 1982).
If wages are less than profi ts but profi ts are based on sales, doesn't this imply
more goods on the market than workers' wages to purchase them? What keeps
capitalist economies going?
Yes, basically, to the fi rst, and two short answers to the
+
Δ
. . . . What accounts for the '
Δ
