Part 4 of Capital is a pretty beefy one, especially with the chapter on covering machinery and large scale industry. It starts off with a couple components that lead up to this, namely a dive into relative surplus value, as well as co-operation and how the capitalist aims to squeeze as much out of each worker as they can. The last of the four chapters covered here is extremely dense with a lot of statistics and analyzations of factory work, so I'll do my best to summarize that in a digestible fashion.
Chapter 12: The Concept Of Relative Surplus Value
Opposite of absolute surplus value, which involves the lengthening of the workday to gain more surplus value (a concept touched on in the next part), relative surplus value comes from the alterations of the limits within the working day to decrease necessary labor time. As we know now, the necessary labor time is the amount of time it takes for the worker to produce the value of his wage. So if the capitalist can find ways to make this difference in relation to the full working day go up, he will. Changing the division of labor, decreasing wages, and other means can achieve this. In other words, cheapening the value of the commodities factored into labor power without cheapening the price to match.
Marx observes this on an individual level to make it a little more simple. Suppose the necessary labor time to make a pie is two hours, but then you find a way to make that same pie in only one hour. You're now producing twice as many pies as a competitor bakery, yet can sell it close to the social market value of pies. It's an increase in the productivity that allows the cheapening of commodities for a better sale ratio, yet the amount of surplus value still goes up. There are more use values from the same amount of overall value (socially necessary labor time), and that's what is meant by "the cheapening the value of commodities." There is less value in each one.
Chapter 13: Co-operation
Co-operation is exactly how it sounds, the cooperation of more than one worker by applying the relative surplus value we just covered to more workers. Capital truly begins its motion when a capitalist employs a large number of workers to produce a great number of commodities. The system of working is unchanged, just that now you have many people working in this process at the same time to allow for a larger amount of surplus value being generated. This material base at its core is working separately on the common means of production.
It then moves to show the common force of workers and how this amps up productivity even if every worker is not working on their own individual project. Think about four grocery clerks stocking their own pallets of groceries vs. four clerks stocking one massive pallet. Or for a personal case, one person cannot lift a couch themselves, but several people together can. In any case, the productivity increases, as does the surplus value.
Something important to note is that as this working class grows, the collectivity factor is more easily realized, and capitalists don't realize they can dig their own graves. Resistance to the domination of capital will grow as more workers come together and recognize the exploitation of the capitalist. We've seen it all throughout history, and we certainly see it today, even if not every worker is conscious of it. Counter-pressure will be needed from up top to overcome demands of the workers, and this is when you begin seeing strikes, protests, stoppages, and other forms of the contradictory nature in this economic model. Workers are the ones who create everything in the world, and it becomes easy to recognize that a boss is not needed for production once it's in motion. Working as a collective is an engrained human trait, and always has been in history. Capital will just try to force the individualization of everybody to work against each other and protect themselves, even though day after day workers come together to produce. Workers are not paid a higher wage for this higher output, yet it costs the capitalist nothing more than the necessary wages of each worker. In a way, all of the extra value is like a gift to the capitalist. Co-operation preceded capitalism, and it will succeed capitalism, which is really the bread and butter of this whole part.
The only thing left out is the special kind of wage labor that we know as managers and supervisors. This makes the workforce into an army-like strata, where a small rank of workers are caught between the interest of the workers they oversee and the capitalist. On one hand, at the end of the day, they do not own capital, and are still selling their labor time to the capitalist, so the interests should lie with the workers. On the other, bowing to the capitalist and enforcing his interests are what keep him in good relation and paid higher. Ever notice that in most workplaces, the less work you do, the more money you make?
Chapter 14: The Division Of Labor And Manufacture
Manufacture is a step that comes in between the handicraft production and large industry based on machines. Seizing on the handicraft production and subjecting it to the factory-like setup is how the capitalist subjects it. This can be done in two ways. One of them is bringing in multiple handicrafts to produce one commodity, and the other is bringing in several handicrafts that don't rely on each other to make something.
Skill is the basis here, and more often than not, different skills are needed for the same capitalist's production. With manufacture, workers typically only work on one aspect of a finished product instead of the whole product. In a way, their body is worked into a part of a grander machine for the sake of generating profit, not for the common need for commodities. If the capitalist can't profit from something, it's a no-go. The more a worker does this one task, the better and faster they become, producing innovation through their work. Special tools with precise purposes are produced for labor, skill and knowledge to come together. Production of the instruments of labor themselves are also a part of this process. At the end, somebody focusing on one part of the process may not even know how it will look when it's finished. That's probably less common now than it was in Marx's time.
So how do we break down the two processes of manufacture? Heterogeneous and serial production. Heterogeneous production is when different products are produced under the same roof but not necessarily for the exact same purpose. Nonetheless, it's all still owned by one person. Serial production is when one commodity is produced, but it's broken down to discrete parts. For example, you hire a machinist to make metal parts, and a welder to assemble them together. In both cases, manufacture organizes a space by concentrating workers into that one space to reduce gaps of time between switching trades, tools, tasks, etc. If a handicraft is someone building parts of a car and assembling them, manufacture is having one person per part and then bringing it all together, or having many people each building their own car, depending on the direction seem as most efficient. The car is then sold for a high price, which the workers only see a little bit of. The surplus goes to the capitalist, rinse and repeat.
One last note on this section is that this shows how the worker becomes alienated from the product and process itself, thanks to it all being for the purpose of making someone else rich while they often times only scrape by. Transforming labor power and knowledge into a single motion of a greater process for someone else leaves less to be desired.
Chapter 15: Machinery And Large Scale Industry
And here we have it, all of this in practice. Returning to the cheapening of commodities that was mentioned earlier, machinery plays a large part in that. Yet, somehow the amount of work for the worker isn't decreased. If that sounds like it doesn't make sense, it's because it shouldn't, and that's touched on heavily in the next section on absolute surplus value.
To be a machine, there must be a motor that automates and transmits work into a tool that would have previously been used by a worker. Think of a CNC mill machine taking over the control of a bit that previously would have been done by a person. Collective labor in these technologies changes how we deal with nature, sustain life, form social relations, and mental conceptions (such as going from hand drawing to using AutoCAD). If the productivity in one industry goes this route, it forces another industry to do so in relation or response to this. Again, think back to relative surplus value. This becomes especially true when one mode of production relies on another one in order to advance. Thus, capital moves all over the place, even on a global scale. How many times have you come across something with different parts made in different countries? Furthermore, this is why colonial territory became so important in the days of empire and colonization. Exploiting a raw material in a colony while manufacturing it in the home country maximizes profit, which we saw with emerald mining during Apartheid in South Africa (And endless other examples).
Marx observes the Factory Act, which was a response to some of the crushingly long working hours, especially those forced upon women and children, as well as the deterioration of one's life that this violent mode of production caused. A state-imposed reduction of working hours on children called for more machines, which gives capitalists even more control over production, pay, and who can get goods that they need (people who can afford them).
Looking back, we recall that a machine never transfers more value to a product than it initially has. If a machine is good for 10 years, then 1/10th of the value of the machine is transmitted into commodities each year. This caused a decrease in the value of labor power, which shakes the support of family and social lives, as it's now harder for more people to fulfill their needs. With the invention of machinery, you would think it means now the same amount of workers can all do less work, produce the same amount of output, and live easier. Instead, now fewer workers are worked even harder, and others don't work at all and cannot receive an income. Like I said before, this gets touched on more later. A machine not in use is seen as a loss by the capitalist, which is why workday lengths increased, and why shiftwork has become a concession in response to strikes against this.
Next Marx looks at how labor can get domesticated, or in other words, take place in the worker's household. This isn't only addressing the more common practice of working remotely these days, or the gig economy, but also the patriarchal relationship that came about. Wives and children were sold into the work force in order to assist in survival at home, and lasting effects of this still exist today.
Another way to add more value besides more time or more machines is the intensification of the workday. This is carried out by either making everybody speed up, or putting more machinery into the hands of the same amount of workers. Boom and busts occur during these cycles depending on material conditions at the time; the example Marx uses for the most part is with cotton production, and how a market can reach a crises from outside forces (the U.S. Civil War being one thing brought up). As these boom and bust cycles happen, capitalists who are already at the top can buy out others during the bust cycle, now possessing more means to exploit by concentration of everything into fewer and fewer hands.
Conclusion
Really, this is the part of the book that truly brings to light why capitalism sucks. That was already started in the previous part, but it only goes further into that as we move forward. I think the overall point here is to show how humans are converted into machines for the purpose of producing surplus value for the capitalist to extract. As machinery replaces tools and skills, living labor is almost integrated into the dead labor, and workers become far more replaceable. This is not to say that technology and heavy industry are bad, even though it may sound this way. These things are both good, but when they're used as a means to squeeze out as much profit from workers as possible, the nature of them becomes flipped. Imagine instead of replacing ten workers with ten machines, if you gave each worker a machine to work with, for far less time out of their day and a return of the same wage from the value that they produced.
This section really drives home why capitalism's profit incentive for the capitalist will never allow that, because money matters more than fulfilling needs and getting out commodities to the public. History shows that strikes and stoppages can be a powerful weapon against this, but as long as the capitalist power remains, the workers will only ever win concessions that can be repealed at any time. Sometimes, corporations might even support regulations if they know it will drive out smaller competitors. This individualistic mindset alienates the worker from labor so much, and that's what begins to unfold.
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