EXCESS SURPLUS PRODUCT—AN ECONOMIC FORM OF REALIZING THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN SOCIALIST PRODUCTION

P. G. SMIRNOV

The full utilization of the achievements of science and technology in socialist production appears as an objective requirement of the basic economic law of socialism. The continuous improvement of social production on the basis of advanced technology is a defining feature of the socialist economic system, its indisputable advantage over capitalism, which subordinates all economic progress to the growth of the private owner’s income.

The realization of the achievements of scientific and technological progress is always under the determining influence of the social form of production within which it is carried out. Production relations form the corresponding form of movement of the productive forces. It is precisely they that determine the limits of this movement, form the corresponding social interests, and thereby direct the productive forces into the channel of the target function of the economic system. In other words, within production relations there exist certain economic forms that reflect within themselves the development of the material conditions of production.

With respect to the capitalist mode of production, K. Marx expressed these economic forms of realization of the increasing productive power of labor through the categories of relative and additional (excess) surplus value.

In the political economy of socialism, the necessary definitions by means of which production relations concerning the production and distribution of excess surplus product would be characterized have not yet been developed. The very term “excess surplus product” has not yet acquired the necessary rights of citizenship. This is explained both by the insufficient elaboration of the general theory of necessary and surplus labor and product under socialism, and by the objective complexity of the real economic relations that arise in connection with the growth of the productive power of labor.

The production of surplus product is one of the functions of socialist production. But it cannot be assigned to the category of target functions that determine the socio-economic meaning of socialism as a mode of production. Such functions are those that characterize the measure and level of provision of the needs of the working masses. The production of surplus product, however, acts as a means of developing the entire economic system, of its expanded reproduction. Consequently, it appears as one aspect of the economic mechanism that ensures—

which ensures the realization of the basic economic law of socialism.

However, the whole complexity of the question consists not at all in denying the necessity of surplus labor under socialism and its purpose. At this level, the posing of the question and the answer to it practically raise no doubts for anyone. What is important is to identify that concrete complex of economic relations which arises in the very process of producing the surplus product, to establish its economic forms. Moreover, not those economic forms which it acquires on the surface of economic relations and which are in fact transformed forms bearing the imprint of distributive and redistributive relations, but forms expressing the inner nature, the objective essence of these relations.

The determining feature of the social form of socialist production is the fact that labor for oneself is realized through labor for society. Society carries out the direct union of labor power with the means of production, subordinates it to its own interests, and thereby ensures the unity of reproduction both on the part of labor power and on the part of society as a whole.

From this follows an important feature in the characterization of necessary and surplus labor under socialism. Being above all labor for oneself, all labor is necessary and is not fixed in its separateness as necessary and surplus. This ensures the unity of the worker and society, removes from these subjects of relations the traits of antagonism. Here too lies the deepest objective basis for the advantages of socialism in the sphere of opportunities for, and interest in, the growth of the productivity of social labor and the all-round use of the latest achievements of science and technology.

But at the same time, since the immediate subject of appropriation is not the individual but society, the condition is objectively preserved by virtue of which labor for oneself simultaneously assumes the forms of necessary and surplus labor, i.e., within unity, traits of separateness are revealed: the surplus product remains the property of the whole people and does not take the form of personal property.

The singling out of surplus labor and product within the unified form of appropriation by the whole people, and the liquidation under socialism of the fundamental opposition between the worker as the bearer of labor power and society as the subject appropriating the product of his labor, leads to an entirely different way of forming the ratio between necessary and surplus labor than took place under capitalism. There the union of labor power with the means of production is carried out on a commodity basis, as a result of the act of purchase and sale of this labor power preceding the labor process itself.

Consequently, the magnitude of necessary labor appears as the value of labor power and is fixed within definite limits prior to the production carried out by this labor power. In the very process of production, the measure of necessary labor is a given magnitude. It follows from this that the surplus product and its magnitude are the difference between the entire newly created product and the value of labor power.

The orientation of socialist production toward the ever fuller satisfaction of the developing needs of the worker and the non-commodity character of his labor power do not permit the question of the ratio of necessary and surplus product under socialism to be resolved by analogy. The point of view that has become widespread in recent years in Soviet economic literature—that under socialism there exists an objectively determined magnitude of the fund of means of subsistence ensuring the maintenance and development of the worker’s capacity for labor—

practically explains nothing in the specificity of this most important production relation, but merely sidesteps the question.

The basic economic law of socialism directly correlates the production and consumption of the working people with one another and objectively presupposes the growth of consumption following the growth of production. Under these conditions it is decidedly impossible to fix the size of the necessary product as a magnitude given prior to the labor process, or, more precisely, as a magnitude relatively independent of the results of this process. It will be determined entirely by the achieved level of production and by its real possibilities.

Such an understanding of the question opens the way to the solution of a number of subsequent problems, including the question of the excess surplus product.

First of all, attention must be drawn to the circumstance that, apparently, for socialism it is illegitimate to speak of absolute and relative forms of surplus product; instead, it would be more justified to assume the existence of a socially normal surplus product and an excess surplus product.

Such an assumption is well coordinated with the target function of the system of socialist production relations. Since the latter is oriented toward the consumption of the working people and its growth, the objective prerequisite for the formation of a relative surplus product disappears. Even in the case when the need for a more rapid growth of the productivity of social labor as compared with the growth of wages and of the consumption fund as a whole is quite legitimately substantiated, we have no grounds for speaking of the formation of a relative surplus product. In the given case, the outward appearance of the phenomenon and its resemblance to the process of formation of relative surplus product lead consciousness to apply the method of analogy. Its illegitimacy consists in the fact that, for socialism, the quantitative measure of the ratio between necessary and surplus labor and product is, each time, as it were, reproduced anew by the given concrete state of production and, consequently, is inherent only in this state, and only in it do both the dimensions of necessary labor and the dimensions of surplus labor find their justification. If the necessary product were a magnitude given before the labor process, then the analogy could be legitimate not in appearance but in essence.

The category of socially normal surplus labor is precisely intended to express surplus labor and its magnitude, given the given fund of working time, given the already established socially normal productivity and intensity of labor, and also given the relation, established by society, between the rate of growth of production and the rate of growth of consumption.

With respect to each socialist enterprise, and through it with respect to each individual worker, the norm of socially normal surplus labor appears as a most important economic characteristic, showing the social efficiency of their activity.

A change in the socially normal magnitude of surplus labor occurs above all under the influence of changes in labor productivity. But for it to occur, a change in the productivity of social labor as a whole is necessary. It should also be noted that for socialism an individual growth in the productive power of the labor of an enterprise or a worker is sufficient for one to be able to speak of magnitudes of socially normal surplus labor that are different for the given concrete case. The determining moment—

What comes to the fore here is the fact that society, as an economic subject, records a given state of labor productivity and recognizes these labor expenditures as socially permissible and normal. Society accomplishes this by establishing prices, the level and norm of profit, and also labor productivity for the enterprise, and, through the enterprise, output norms and the volume of work for the individual worker. As a result, the magnitudes of socially normal surplus labor and product may be individually different for different enterprises at one and the same time.

At the same time, having a socially established norm of surplus labor, both the enterprise and the individual worker may exceed it by improving equipment and technology, by better organization of labor, and by raising professional skill beyond the measure established in the given norm. On this basis there arises the possibility of forming an additional (excess) surplus product.

By its nature, the additional (excess) surplus product under socialism expresses the creative relation of the labor collective and the worker to the socially established norms of the effectiveness of their activity. By reducing the planned level of production costs and ensuring a larger output of products from a definite volume of material and labor resources, the enterprise obtains a larger mass of net income, which in its basis is the external form of manifestation of excess surplus labor and product.

It should be borne in mind that the excess surplus product cannot be, and in reality is not, the only economic form of realizing the achievements of science and technology in socialist production. It reflects only that side of the process which remains beyond the limits of the socially normal magnitude of surplus labor. The latter, being a social-normative characteristic, includes all planned, i.e., established and financed by society, measures for changes in the equipment and technology of production. The excess product reflects only that result of activity which has arisen as a consequence of initiative and enterprise in the sphere of improving production by the labor collective itself and its members.

Under the conditions of socialist relations of production, the excess surplus product becomes an incentive motive for perfecting and improving economic activity because its formation is carried out on the same fundamental basis as surplus labor in general.

As has already been said, all labor under socialism appears as necessary, and within it the features of separateness are found only because one part of it must inevitably, under any forms and methods of distribution, be preserved as social property, while another must pass into the disposal of the individual, into his personal consumption.

Therefore the additional income received by the enterprise as a result of the causes considered appears only on the surface as the external form of the excess surplus product. In actual fact, this form is more complex and in fact contains elements of both necessary and surplus labor. In essence, we are dealing here not with a form of the surplus product, but with an additional newly created product. This product, like the whole of the newly created product in general, may also assume, and in reality does assume, the forms of necessary and surplus product. In other words, in its unity it also bears certain features of separateness, since with respect to it, too, between society and the worker there takes place

a production relation leading to the division of the product into necessary and surplus parts.

This kind of understanding of the question makes it possible, in a theoretically correct and consistent way, to explain the economic nature of the participation of the enterprise collective and its workers in profits, and to substantiate the formation of an additional consumption fund beyond the measure established by society in the wage fund. It also makes it possible to overcome a frequently encountered misunderstanding, when deductions from profit to material-incentive funds are regarded as the receipt into the worker’s personal consumption of a part of the surplus product created by that same worker.

The disintegration of the additional newly created product into additional necessary and excess surplus parts must take place in the same quantitative measure in which the socially normal surplus product has been formed, since it arises on the same objective basis. Such an approach consequently also provides a theoretical substantiation of the measure of the socialist enterprise’s participation in the above-plan profit it has created for the purposes of the material stimulation of workers.

Thus, the excess surplus product is an economic form in which the social effectiveness of the creative initiative of labor collectives finds its expression—an initiative directed toward assimilating the achievements of science and technology in production, and, on this basis, toward improving the organization of labor and reducing production costs.