I missed half of this class so I don’t know if this was addressed to your better understanding. I’m working it out for myself as well here.

He starts off by explaining how this reproduction is ensured. “It is ensured by giving labour power the material means with which to reproduce itself: by wages (as in money). He then goes on to say that “this quantity of value (wages) necessary for the reproduction of labour power is determined not by the needs of a biological guaranteed minimum wage alone, but by the needs of a historical minimum…” In saying this, I feel that he means this is determined by the individual. They need to gain these wages in order to buy the essentials that are needed to live (argh! Why does this always sound better in my head?!)

My take on the Althusser quote you chose is that minimum wage is determined by the opposite of what you describe. The labor force doesn’t get to declare its biological needs. Minimum wage, instead, is determined by the absolute least amount of capital investment required to produce a product worth more than the cost of it’s labor to produce. Since profit is the only mark of success in capitalism, labor value (people) must be exceeded (exploited) by sales. The whole system is driven by a quest for money, not the folks just getting by.

The historical minimum comes in here and can be demonstrated by current events. Typing “minimum wage” into Yahoo News produces hundreds of articles, mostly from local newspapers, discussing what it takes to survive on so little. This one from Madison Wisconsin points out the blatant fact that minimum wage hasn’t been raised for eight years. This is the same historical precedent Althusser presents, one which allows the status quo to exist even though survival on so little becomes difficult.

The recent proposal to raise minimum wage is still hung up because giving a break to those people who struggle with so few earnings is attached to a tax break for corporations. Guess who comes out ahead (by a long shot) even if the minimum wage is increased. Look at this sickening fact found at http://www.epinet.org/:

Last year, the average CEO was paid $10.9 million a year, or 262 times an average worker’s earnings of $41,861, the Economic Policy Institute said. The group includes salary, bonuses, stock options and other payments in its definition of CEO pay.

And the machine continues to churn…
-Kim