Capitalist exploitation is described by Marx with two forms of subsumption: "formal" and "real", as outcome of the historical evolution of capitalism and the continuous metamorphosis of the capital-labor ratio. Those two subsumtions refer to two different concepts of surplus value: absolute and relative. The historical period of formal subsumption corresponds to the period of pre-industrial capitalism which reaches the threshold of the Industrial Revolution and the first stage of capitalism, in which the exploitation of labor and its submission to the capital takes place "on the basis of a working process that pre-exists” (K. Marx, The Capital, 1, ch. VI unpublished, p. 53). In this context, the added value derived from the extensification of labour through the continued lengthening of labour time. With the transition to real subsumption, the process of exploitation and valorization is based on the intensification of the labor process, through parcelization of labour activity and the exploitation of static and size scale economies (Tayloristic mode of accumulation). Nowadays, with the shift towards what some post-workerist scholars define “cognitive bio-capitalism”, we assist to a new metamorphosis of the capital-.labour ratio and the emergence of a new form of subsumption, called life subsumption. This paper tries to define it and the main elements about the new form of valorisation and governance
The concept of Subsumption of Labour to Capital. Towards the Life Subsumption in Bio-cognitive Capitalism
FUMAGALLI, ANDREA MARIA
2015-01-01
Abstract
Capitalist exploitation is described by Marx with two forms of subsumption: "formal" and "real", as outcome of the historical evolution of capitalism and the continuous metamorphosis of the capital-labor ratio. Those two subsumtions refer to two different concepts of surplus value: absolute and relative. The historical period of formal subsumption corresponds to the period of pre-industrial capitalism which reaches the threshold of the Industrial Revolution and the first stage of capitalism, in which the exploitation of labor and its submission to the capital takes place "on the basis of a working process that pre-exists” (K. Marx, The Capital, 1, ch. VI unpublished, p. 53). In this context, the added value derived from the extensification of labour through the continued lengthening of labour time. With the transition to real subsumption, the process of exploitation and valorization is based on the intensification of the labor process, through parcelization of labour activity and the exploitation of static and size scale economies (Tayloristic mode of accumulation). Nowadays, with the shift towards what some post-workerist scholars define “cognitive bio-capitalism”, we assist to a new metamorphosis of the capital-.labour ratio and the emergence of a new form of subsumption, called life subsumption. This paper tries to define it and the main elements about the new form of valorisation and governanceI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
