Marx’s “Human Capital” Thinking and Its Contemporary Interpretation

Abstract. Marx’s labor value theory and the theory of human's comprehensive development contain a wealth of thinking on “human capital”. Although being not clearly defined by Marx, many aspects related to this concept are discussed, such as the basic meaning, value formation and added-value of human capital, property rights of human capital, its functions in social production and etc. In order to always put people first and implement the Scientific Outlook on Development, it is necessary to thoroughly perceive the Marxian humanistic thoughts and deeply understand its spiritual essence which is of instructive significance for the construction of a harmonious socialist society and the all-round building of a well-off society.

Key words:Marx； Human Capital； Female Human Capital

1.“Human Capital” Thinking’s Intonation And Value Manifestation

The concept of “labor power” is often mentioned in Marx’s The Capital. He proposes that “By labour-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description.” Human, as an existing labour power, is also a natural object, a matter while a living matter with consciousness. Labour is then the material expression of this power.

In terms of the formation of labour power, Marx reveals that the value of labour power, being the same with any other commodity, is decided by the socially necessary labour-time of its production and reproduction. The total value of labour power should consist of three parts: A. Value of the means of livelihood necessary to maintain the labourers’ subsistence under normal condition, so as to compensate for their physical and intellectual consumption. B. Value of means of livelihood which is necessary for the labourers to feed their families and offspring, aiming at guaranteeing the continuity and upgrading of the commodity of labour power. C. Expenditure for the education and training of labourers. Thus it can be seen that, instead of perceiving it as an existing “natural resource”, Marx takes that labour power is produced and reproduced by human. Among the three components of labour power value, the first two are human capital investment for survivability, and the last is for development.

Marx also values education and training’s function of increasing human capital. He considers education, training and healthcare knowledge and skills and physical quality as the source of human capital. Labourers of different human capitals, undertake labours of different complexities these labours can be divided into simple labour and complex labour. The usage of different human capitals will result in different magnitudes of value. “All labour of a higher or more complicated character than average labour is expenditure of labour-power of a more costly kind, labour-power whose production has cost more time and labour, and which therefore has a higher value, than unskilled or simple labour-power. This power being higher-value, its consumption is labour of a higher class, labour that creates in equal times proportionally higher values than unskilled labour does.” Besides, “Skilled (or complex) labour counts only as simple labour intensified, or rather, as multiplied simple labour, a given quantity of skilled being considered equal to a greater quantity of simple labour.” He claims that: “In order to modify the human organism”, “a special education or training is requisite, and this, on its part, costs an equivalent in commodities of a greater or less amount. This amount varies according to the more or less complicated character of the labour-power. The expenses of this education (excessively small in the case of ordinary labour-power), enter pro tanto into the total value spent in its production.” It is also pointed out by Marx that as the development of the great industry, the creation of real wealth is less determined by the time of labour and consumed labour volume, while more determined by the power of agents used during the labour time. However, the agents themselves their great efficiency are not in proportion with the time consumed to produce them, but instead, determined by the normal scientific level and technological advancement, or the application of science in production.

Besides, he reveals the geographical differences among human capitals and analyzes the factors involved in the value-adding of human capitals. He thinks the prescriptions of labour values, with a historical and moral factor involved, varies in terms of their scopes, quantities and qualities in different areas or at different times; for means of livelihood necessary for the production of labour-power are determined by different material conditions, cultural traditions and manners and customs. And as the development, education and culture levels of social labour-power improve, the quantities and qualities of means of livelihood needed by labourers and their families also increase, thus the value of labour-power tends to increase.

2.Marx’s Analysis Of “Human Capital” Property Right

The property right of human capital is also studied by Marx. He considers the property right as a kind of legal-right relation, a legal representation of production relations in its essence. So the property relations of labour-power is actually legal-right relations in the labour-power market, firstly being presented as natural physiological relations in which labourers, being the owners of labour-power capital, are the sum of physical and mental powers which exists in their living personalities. The ownership of labour-power capital “naturally” belongs to the labourers themselves, being a “unique ownership”. This kind of naturalness determines that the privacy of human capital property right cannot be cancelled in various institutional structures. Even in the ideal socialist society, when all the non-human capitals are returned to be owned by the whole society, the different personal gifts of labourers, their natural privileges, which means different working capabilities” should still be admitted. The “bourgeois rights” should also be reserved to allocate means of consumption to labourers according to their actually provided labours.

Secondly, considering from the economic perspective, the ownership and right of use of labour-power can be either totally united or completely separated. Marx studied to find out that two situations exist in terms of their unification. The first is that, both the ownership and right of use of labour-power belong to labourers themselves, such as individual farmers and handicraftsmen. The second is when both the ownership and right of use belong to others, as for slaves in the slave society. However, in capitalist society, the ownership of labour-power can only belong to labourers, that can be purchased through the labour-power market is only the “right of use of the labour-power”.

3.Marx’s Elaboration On His Outlook Of Comprehensive Development Of People

In Marx’s mind, the comprehensive development of people firstly should be a comprehensive development of his labour capacity. Marx understands labour-power or labour capacity as a sum of physical and mental powers existing in human body, meaning living people, which is used in each production of a use value. In order to comprehensively develop the labour capacity, “a kind of mental and physical deformity” should be avoided, as well as the labour status which “extremely destroys one’s nervous system, suppress various exercise of muscles, and embezzle all the free physical and mental activities”. A comprehensive development must firstly realize the full application and development of mental and physical powers in the labour process and their organic integration on the fully developed basis.

The comprehensive development of people means also a comprehensive development of people’s social relations. The essence of people is not a fixed abstraction of an individual; instead, in terms of its reality, it means the sum of all social relations. Various social relations are formed in people’s practical activities, each people survives and develops in certain social relations. The society mentioned by Marx means not an abstract entity but a relation created by human in their practical activities a communicative approach formed by interactions among people. As he points out in Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy (1857 1858), the comprehensiveness of an individual means not an imagined or envisaged one, but that between his real relations and attitudinal relations. As production develops, the social relations of people are expanded and enriched in terms of their spaces, times, scopes and forms. “Observing from the perspective of trend and possibility, the universal development of productivity or general wealth becomes a foundation. Likewise, the universality of exchanges makes the world market as its foundation, which means the possibility of the comprehensive development of mankind.”

The richness and comprehensiveness of people and their developments are decided by those of the social relations. Actually, social relations can determine the developing degree of people. One’s development is determined by the developments of all the people whom he is directly or indirectly interact with. Marx proposes that in early stages of development, individuals seem to be more comprehensive, for he hasn’t created rich relations for himself, and set them as individual social powers and relations opposite to himself. Apart from certain social relations and organizations, it turns out to be unrealistic to abstractly talk about capabilities and development of people.

Marx understands wealth as diversified material needs, people are satisfying needs by producing or creating wealth. The ever-changing wealth shows exactly the variety and richness of people’s needs. Needs, as a human nature, develop infinitely. Therefore, the appearance and satisfaction of one’s needs is necessarily a ever-changing and developing dynamic process. In Marx’s mind, people’s needs can be divided into three categories: The first category is demands for production. The second is those for scientific research and artistic creation. When the survival is guaranteed, people turn to have various other demands. Marx considers that once direct labour ceases to be the great source of wealth, labour time will necessarily not be the measurement of wealth. At that time, because “a great many times at free disposal, apart from necessary labour time, are created for the whole society and each social member ”, “times and methods are provided for all the people, individuals can get developed in terms of arts, science and etc.”It means that, after getting survived, people will gradually have demands for scientific researches and artistic creation. The third type of human needs is the free and comprehensive development of people, which is the demands of self-improvement and perfection and increase of free personality. Marx and Engels consider the richness and universality of human needs as a characteristic of the future society: “the prerequisite of socialism is that workers have higher life demands”. Only in the socialist and communist society when productivity is highly developed, social products are greatly enriched and people’s needs are rich and diverse, can people pursue all the reasonable demands according to their own personalities and realize their comprehensive developments.

Observing from the perspective of historical materialism, Marx considers the comprehensive development of people as not only the objective of the future society, but also a long-term historical developing process. He points out that the prerequisite and basis for people’s comprehensive development lies in the highly developed productivity. As the productivity develops and production efficiency improves, the increasingly-enriched material subsistence provides a material foundation for people’s comprehensive development. When the qualities and quantities of people’s food, drink, shelters and clothing cannot be sufficiently guaranteed, people can not get liberated at all. Marx proposes in The Capital that the production development on the basis of capital requires making comprehensively developed persons; it is an objective trend that only this kind of talents can make the further development of capitalism possible.

The establishment of socialist system and total elimination of private ownership and old-type labour division serves as the institutional foundation to realize the comprehensive development of people. Marx says that, under the private ownership, people’s labour is an “estranged labour”. On the one hand, as the labour division is expanded, on the other hand, as the capitalism accumulates, workers gradually depend totally on their labour which is extremely lopsided and machine-like. Looking at individuals from themselves, they are dominated by the labour division which makes them lopsided and develop abnormally and constraints them. Workers cannot freely do their interested work which is beneficial for the play of their advantages when their labour right turns out to be passive and segmentary.

4.Marx’s Exposition On “Female Human Capital”

Women’s great contribution to human history is clearly mentioned in the famous Marxian theory of two kinds of productions. It is pointed out that: “According to the materialistic conception, the determining factor in history is, in the last resort, the production and reproduction of immediate life. But this itself is of a twofold character: On the one hand, the production of the means of subsistence, of food, clothing and shelter and the tools requisite therefore; on the other, the production of human beings themselves, the propagation of the species. The social institutions under which men of a definite historical epoch and of a definite country live are conditioned by both kinds of production: by the stage of development of labour, on the one hand, and of the family, on the other.”In terms of either kind of production, women perform as well as men by creating great wealth for the society. Therefore, women deserve the equal positions and respects as those of men.

As the private ownership appeared and develops, women are extruded from social production, limited to housework. Marx and Engels study from the perspective of the phylogeny of human society and explore the origins for women to be suppressed. Firstly, the appearance of privately owned means of production made men into the dominator of lands, also of women. This is a “failure of world-historical significance”. Secondly, it is the monogamian family that puts women to the subordinate status. By studying anthropologist Morgan’s Ancient Society, Engels concludes that the monogamy means only for women instead of men, men are at a definitely dominant position in families, so that “The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of wife.” Of course, the physical weakness of women also serves as a reason for the suppression on them. While among all these contribution elements, the economic element, no doubt, is the most crucial one.

Marx claims that women are not born to be suppressed and slaved. The suppression on them is resulted from human history’s developing on a certain stage. The degree of woman liberation is a natural yard stick to measure the universal liberation. Marx and Engels predict that: a sufficient equality between men and women will definitely be achieved in the Communist society. In that society, both the class exploitation and inequality between men and women would disappear. But in a transitory stage like now, women are absolutely included in their ideas of “free and comprehensive development of people” and “the liberation and development of each and every people is the requisite of those of all man kinds”. And “the first premise for the emancipation of women is the reintroduction of the entire female into public industry; and that this again demands that the equality possessed by the individual family of being the economic unit of society be abolished.” For “the emancipation of women and their equality with men are impossible and must remain so as long as women are excluded from socially productive work and restricted to housework, which is private.” The emancipation of women can be achieved “only as a result of modern large-scale industry, which not only permits of the participation of women in production in large numbers, but actually calls for it and, moreover, strives to convert private domestic work also into a public industry.” Participation in social work means a requisite for women’s economic independence; and economic independence is the material foundation for people’s survival and development. Only after achieving economic independence, can one pursue his independence of personality.

ments On Marxian Thinking System Of “Human Capital”

Abundant Marxian thoughts on human capital are included in The Capital, mainly representing in the theory of labour value and surplus value. They are still of great guiding significance in modern society. Being different from classical and neo-classical economists, Marx discusses the human capital and its related issues based on different social outlook and methodology, from a different perspective. The definition and value structure of human capital are analyzed, together with its dominant position in production, its value-creating function, otherness and property-right characteristics. The study on the investment efficiency of human capital from the perspectives of surplus value rate and interest rate broadens the theoretical vision in this field. Based on the theory of labour value and deeming the comprehensive development of people as the ultimate purpose, he elaborates from a philosophical perspective that human is the subject of labour, and natural resources are the object; the two are related through capital resources, therefore the developments of material productivity and human capital should be coordinated.

But Marx’s thinking of human capital is proposed in the analyzing process of capitalist economic system, without sufficient analysis on the production of labour-power and deep research on the efficiency of human capital which belongs to the universal value-creation nature of capitals. Therefore, the Marxian thinking of human capital is to some degree limited by his time.

6. References

[1]The Capital, People’s Publishing House, 2009, Vol.1, P192-193.

[2]The Capital, People’s Publishing House, 2009, Vol.1, P228-229.

[3]The Complete Works of Marx and Engels, People’s Publishing House, 1979, Vol.46, P109.

[4]The Complete Works of Marx and Engels, People’s Publishing House, 1995, Vol.30, P524.

[5]The Complete Works of Marx and Engels, People’s Publishing House, 1995, Vol.4, P2.

[6]Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin’s Works about Women, People’s Publishing House, 1978, P276-278.15:04 2012-4-8