(I should say I'm a :LIB: and am reading the abridged Julian Borchardt version of Capital, so maybe there's an excised chapter that explains this or maybe there's a later chapter that does - I'm currently reading Decade of the Rate of Profit from Part II, chapters 13-15)
It seems that he insists surplus value is directly related to variable capital (i.e. labour), but other than semantically defining it that way, is this necessarily so? From the capitalist perspective how is labour really any different from any other input?
For instance, if one has a theoretical FALSC-style factory with no labour, surely one could still add surplus value to goods?
No, they can’t on the level of the whole economy. It’s either one or the other.
From capitalist perspective there is no difference, correct, but capitalists can’t underpay machines, their cost is fixed and known at the start of production.
Can you explain why this is? Why can surplus value be added to labour on the level of the whole economy but not to the work of a machine?
Sure, but isn't surplus value only semantically linked to underpayment? Like couldn't you similarly argue the cost of labour (average across an economy) is fixed and known at the start of production as well?
Imagine whole economy of self-repairing machines. Where would people get money or conversely what would be purpose of exploitation in it? If everything is free, why take human labor at all?
No, its not semantic, it’s the core of the argument of where it comes from. If you take the whole economy, and each production would compensate their workers for products sold, how can you extract profit in it? Let’s say I invest 2 million in restaurant, and pay 200k a month to workers, receiving 400k in sales:
A) I recoup 2 million, continue to pay workers 200k, and start taking 200k to my pocket
B) I recoup 2 million, start paying workers 400k, don’t get profit
Which capitalist would choose?
Of course it’s known, capitalist expects profits and projects it. But argument is without exploitation, there is no profit for capitalist (as a whole)
Over simplified example incoming.
So... think of all the bills that a company has to pay to keep functioning as a business. Think about all the bills/costs that the company has the power to negotiate with.
Can a company underpay the electric bill and still get electricity from a power plant? Not for long.
Can a company underpay its suppliers of raw materials? Sure, but not for long.
So where can a company underpay its "bill" but continue to be a business? Worker wages. If an employee doesn't like the pay, they can leave and another employee replaces them.
You talk about robots. In a horribly ham fisted way, a freezer case in a grocery store is just a big robot that holds and keeps product frozen. It does nothing else. But the company can't get the freezer case until it spends a "fixed" amount of money to get the equipment installed. Then a relatively "fixed" amount of money to keep the electricity to the freezer cases powered. There really isn't any way for the company to "pay the freezer case less" and keep the extra as profit as after the initial cost of installation and maintenance the company pretty much stops spending money on it until it breaks. (I know I know, freezer cases don't actually make anything but I think the sloppy example is simple enough to still be useful.)