Intensity of Labor

The efficacy and tension of labor, i.e., the degree of the consumption of labor per unit of time.

There is a difference between the intensity of labor and the length of the working-day. The former is the intension of labor and the latter is the extension of labor. An increase in the intensity of labor is an increase in the consumption of labor by the worker (the expenditure of more physical and mental faculties) at one and the same time, i.e., heightened tension of labor-power, and closer filling up of the pores of the working-day. In layman’s terms, it means the condensation of a greater mass of labor into one and the same time. The amount of labor is measured by the duration of labor. This condensation of a greater mass of labor into a given period is counted as a greater amount of labor, i.e., the extension of labor-time. Assuming other conditions are the same, at one and the same time, labor with higher intensity will require more labor and provide more products compared to labor with lower intensity; thus, under the conditions of commodity production, greater value will be created.

Under the capitalist system of wage-labor, increasing the intensity of labor, like lengthening of the working-day, is an important method for increasing the degree of exploitation and extracting more surplus-value from the workers. In proportion as the use of machinery spreads, and the experience of workers habituated to machinery accumulates, the rapidity and intensity of labor increase as a natural consequence. However, this situation reaches a certain level, where extension of the working-day and intensity of the labor mutually exclude one another, in such a way that lengthening of the working-day becomes compatible only with a lower degree of intensity, and a higher degree of intensity, only with a shortening of the working-day. The constant revolt of the working class compelled the bourgeois state to restrict the arbitrary extension of the hours of labor and to provide for a normal working-day, so that the capitalists could not rely on the extension of the working-day alone to increase the production of surplus-value, and so that the increase of the intensity of labor acquired a decisive significance for the capitalists. The efficiency of labor-power is in an inverse ratio to the duration of its expenditure. The shortening of the working-day makes it possible for workers to expend a greater amount of labor in a given period of time, creating subjective conditions of labor intensification, by which the capitalist can make up for the losses suffered as a result of the restriction on the lengthening of the working-day by increasing the intensity of labor. Moreover, machinery in the hands of capitalists also becomes a compulsory means to increase the intensity of labor, the use of which allows capitalists to squeeze out more labor in a given time. Therefore, capitalists usually increase the labor intensity of workers by speeding up machines, increasing the number of the machines tended by the workers, adopting conveyors and the sweatshop wage system, etc. The achievements of natural science and technology are also used by capitalists as a means to increase the intensity of labor of the workers. Marx said: “The increased productivity is owing… to increased intensity of labor.” However, an increase in the intensity of labor will speed up the lead to accelerated wear and tear of labor-power. Up to a certain point, the increased wear and tear of labor-power may be compensated by higher remuneration. But beyond this point, wear and tear increases in geometrical progression and every condition suitable for the normal reproduction and functioning of labor-power is suppressed. Individual capitalists can grab an extra surplus-value by increasing the intensity of labor. When the intensity of labor has once been generally raised to more or less the same level, it becomes the normal intensity for the society, and therefore ceases to be taken account as the extensive magnitude of labor, i.e., as an extension of the labor-time, and, consequently, the degree of exploitation of the working class as a whole by the capitalists is raised with it. As a matter of course, the average intensity of labor varies in different economic epochs of a nation or in different nations during the same epoch. The increase in labor intensity has led to a sharp increase in chronic and occupational diseases among the proletariat, a large number of work-related accidents, excessive wear and tear of labor-power, and serious damage to the normal conditions of the reproduction of labor-power, leading to premature loss of labor-capacity and even death of wage-laborers.