Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 18:22:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: glevy-AT-acnet.pratt.edu
Subject: Moral Depreciation in Marx


I've been looking for the appropriate passages from "Capital" on this 
topic.  "Moral depreciation" is, I believe, referred to in all three 
volumes.  It is introduced in the following passage:

   "The physical deterioration of the machine is of two kinds.  The one 
arises from use, as coins wear away by circulating, the other from lack 
of use, as a sword rusts when left in its scabbard.  This second kind is 
its consumption by the elements.  Deterioration of the first kind is more 
or less directly proportional, and that of the second kind to a certain 
extent inversely proportional, to the use of the machine.

   But in addition to the material wear and tear, a machine also 
undergoes what we might call a moral depreciation.  It loses 
exchange-value, either because machines of the same sort are being 
produced more cheaply than it was, or because better machines are 
entering into competition with it.  In both cases, however young and full 
of life the machine may be, its value is no longer determined by the 
necessary labour-time actually objectified in it, but by the labour-time 
necessary to reproduce either it or the better machine.  It has therefore 
been devalued to a greater or lesser extent.  The shorter the period 
taken to reproduce its total value, the less is the danger of moral 
depreciation; and the longer the working day, the shorter that period in 
fact is.  When machinery is first introduced into a particular branch of 
production, new methods of reproducing it more cheaply follow blow upon 
blow, and so do improvements which relate not only to individual parts 
and details of the machine, but also to its whole construction.  It is 
therefore in the early days of the machine's life that this special 
incentive to the prolongation of the working day makes itself felt most 
acutely."  (CAPITAL, Volume 1, Penguin edition, page 528)

     I would suggest that any theory which treats fixed capital in a 
linear way can not incorporate the very REAL way in which "moral 
depreciation" takes place.  It is self-evident that this is an important 
aspect of technological change in practice.  Why then haven't we used 
this concept more to understand the process of technological change?


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