Exploitation in the era of automation: the importance of Marx

ENAristotle’s brilliant thesis on automation is instructive: if our instruments moved on their own accord and each of them did its own work, “at the word of command or by intelligent anticipation”, master builders would need neither slaves nor servants. Today, contrary to Aristotle, we live in the era of automation, yet wage-slavery does exist. It has been argued that neoliberal wage-compression contributed to a record low levels of private investment. Even if we cannot draw a negative correlation between the investment in the development of automatization and the levels of exploitation, the increases in the exploitation of labour have an adverse effect on the level of investment in automation. It is therefore important to return to Marx’s theory of exploitation. According to Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Marx’s conceptualisation of exploitation in terms of the appropriation of surplus labour time is no longer relevant today given the post-modern transition from material to immaterial labour and the blurred distinction between leisure-time and worktime. Even if there is some truth in their claims, I will argue against them and in favour of Marx’s theory of exploitation. Following Capital Vol. I, the concept of Exploitation Calculus (EC) will be spelled out in the paper. Given that the source of surplus value and of exploitation lies in the appropriation of surplus labour time (SLT) at the expense of necessary labour time (NLT), EC will be defined as the ratio between SLT and NLT (i.e., EC=SLT/NLT). Marx assumes that EC is 1 in Capital Vol. I. I will then spell out the rational as to how to calculate EC in each capitalist company when the following three variables are known: number of workers, workers’ average salary, and the annual revenue of a company. Finally, several companies’ ECs will be revealed by way of illustration. [lvb.lt]