Increasing specialization may also lead to workers with poorer overall skills and a lack of enthusiasm for their work. This viewpoint was extended and refined by Karl Marx. He described the process as alienation; workers become more and more specialized and work repetitious which eventually leads to complete alienation. Marx wrote that "with this division of labour", the worker is "depressed spiritually and physically to the condition of a machine". He believed that the fullness of production is essential to human liberation and accepted the idea of a strict division of l ...

See also:

Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

Read more here: » Division of labour: Encyclopedia II - Division of labour - Karl Marx

See also:

Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

Read more here: » Division of labour: Encyclopedia II - Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation

In Plato's Republic we are instructed that the origin of the state lies in that "natural" inequality of humanity that is embodied in the division of labour. "Well then, how will our state supply these needs? It will need a farmer, a builder, and a weaver, and also, I think, a shoemaker and one or two others to provide for our bodily needs. So that the minimum state would consist of four or five men...." (The Republ ...

See also:

Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

Read more here: » Division of labour: Encyclopedia II - Division of labour - Plato

Socialism Part of the Politics series History of socialism Democratic socialism Christian socialism Communism Libertarian socialism Social democracy Egalitarianism Democracy Equality of outcome Class struggle Proletarian revolution Marxism Anarchism Trade unionism Internationalism Utilitarianism Mixed economy Socialist economics Social ...

Including:

• Marxism - The Hegelian roots of Marxism
• Marxism - The political-economy roots of Marxism
• Marxism - The liberal challenge
• Marxism - Class analysis
• Marxism - Marxist revolutions and governments
• Marxism - Marx's views on the structure of communist society
• Marxism - The October Revolution
• Marxism - Criticisms
• Marxism - Other articles about Marxism

Read more here: » Marxism: Encyclopedia - Marxism

The word commodity is a term with distinct meanings in business and in Marxian political economy. For the former, it is a largely homogenous product, whereas for the latter, it refers generically to wares offered for exchange. Linguistically, the word commodity came into use in English in the 15th century, being derived from the French word "commodité" meaning "benefit, profit", similar in meaning to biens (goods). The Latin root meaning is commoditas, referring variously to the appropriate measure of some ...

Including:

• Commodity - Business usage
• Commodity - Definition
• Commodity - Examples
• Commodity - Branding
• Commodity - Marxian usage
• Commodity - General
• Commodity - Characteristics of commodity
• Commodity - Illustration
• Commodity - Historical origins of commodity trade
• Commodity - Forms of commodity trade
• Commodity - Cost structure of commodities
• Commodity - References

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Bureaucracy is a concept in sociology and political science. It refers to the way that the administrative execution and enforcement of legal rules is socially organized. This office organization is characterized by regularized procedure, formal division of responsibility, hierarchy, and impersonal relationships. Examples of everyday bureaucracies include governments, armed forces, corporations, hospitals, courts, ministries, or schools. Bureaucracy - Origin of the concept. Bureaucracy is derived from ...

Including:

• Bureaucracy - Origin of the concept
• Bureaucracy - Karl Marx and bureaucracy
• Bureaucracy - Max Weber on bureaucracy
• Bureaucracy - Criticism

Read more here: » Bureaucracy: Encyclopedia - Bureaucracy

Marx himself considered that all economising reduced to the economical use of human labour-time; "to economise" ultimately meant saving on human energy and effort. However, according to Marx, the achievement of abstract thinking about human labour, and the ability to quantify it, is closely related to the historical development of economic exchange in general, and more specifically commodity trade. In fact, he argues the abstraction in thought is the reflex of a real process, in which commercial trade not only al ...

See also:

Abstract labour and concrete labour, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract treatment of labour-time, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and exchange, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and capitalism, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Controversies

Read more here: » Abstract labour and concrete labour: Encyclopedia II - Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and exchange

In order to make this distinction, it must be possible to think abstractly about human work, and consider it separately from any particular worker performing it. Only on that basis, it is possible to conceive of quantities of labour (X amount of labour hours, or Y amount of workers). In statistical reports, for example, reference is made to "the labour force" and quantities of total hours worked are calculated. This is an abstract way of viewing human work, and the workers that perform it. Or, if we take the concept of an outpu ...

See also:

Abstract labour and concrete labour, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract treatment of labour-time, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and exchange, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and capitalism, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Controversies

Read more here: » Abstract labour and concrete labour: Encyclopedia II - Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract treatment of labour-time

Marx regarded the distinction between abstract and concrete labour as being among the most important innovations he contributed to the theory of economic value, and subsequently Marxian scholars have debated a great deal about its theoretical significance. For some, abstract labour is an economic category which applies only to the capitalist mode of production, i.e. it applies only, when human labour power or work-capacity is universally treat ...

See also:

Abstract labour and concrete labour, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract treatment of labour-time, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and exchange, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and capitalism, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Controversies

Read more here: » Abstract labour and concrete labour: Encyclopedia II - Abstract labour and concrete labour - Controversies

Marx explains the origin of surplus labour in the following terms: "It is only after men have raised themselves above the rank of animals, when therefore their labour has been to some extent socialised, that a state of things arises in which the surplus-labour of the one becomes a condition of existence for the other. At the dawn of civilisation the productiveness acquired by labour is small, but so too are the wants which develop with and by the means of satisfying them. Further, at that early period, the portion of society tha ...

See also:

Surplus labour, Surplus labour - Origin of surplus labour, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and exploitation, Surplus labour - Surplus labour in capitalist society, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and historical materialism, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and unequal exchange, Surplus labour - Modern criticism of Marx's concept of surplus labour

Read more here: » Surplus labour: Encyclopedia II - Surplus labour - Origin of surplus labour

Karl Marx regarded land and labour as the source of all wealth, and distinguished between material wealth and human wealth. Human wealth was a wealth in social relations, and the expansion of market trade created ever more of those. However, wealth and economic value were not the same thing in his view; value was a purely social category, a social attribution. Both in Das Kapital and in Theories of Surplus-Value, Marx devoted a considerable amount of attention to the concept of "productive and unprod ...

See also:

Productive and unproductive labour, Productive and unproductive labour - Classical political economy, Productive and unproductive labour - A quote from Adam Smith, Productive and unproductive labour - Neoclassical economics, Productive and unproductive labour - National accounts, Productive and unproductive labour - Marx's critique, Productive and unproductive labour - Productive labour as misfortune?, Productive and unproductive labour - Ecological critique, Productive and unproductive labour - Material product accounts in Soviet-type societies, Productive and unproductive labour - New mysteries of wealth creation and the modern mercantilism

Read more here: » Productive and unproductive labour: Encyclopedia II - Productive and unproductive labour - Marx's critique

In feudal society, it was often quite clear how many days a serf or peasant worked for himself or herself (necessary labour), and how many days s/he worked for his or her lord (surplus labour). On this important distinction between a corvée and a capitalist economy, Lenin writes: Necessary labour and surplus-labour (i. e., the labour that pays for the maintenance of the worker and the labour that yields unpaid surplus-value to the capitalist) are combined in the single process of labour in the factory, in a single workin ...

See also:

Surplus labour, Surplus labour - Origin of surplus labour, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and exploitation, Surplus labour - Surplus labour in capitalist society, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and historical materialism, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and unequal exchange, Surplus labour - Modern criticism of Marx's concept of surplus labour

Read more here: » Surplus labour: Encyclopedia II - Surplus labour - Surplus labour in capitalist society

According to economist Fred Moseley, "neoclassical economic theory was developed, in part, to attack the very notion of surplus labor or surplus value and to argue that workers receive all of the value embodied in their creative efforts." Some basic modern criticisms of Marx can be found in the works by Pearson, Dalton, Boss, Hodgson and Harris (see references) It is sometimes argued that in a modern, advanced, post-industrial and service-oriented economy, the distinction between necessary and surplus labour just does not make ...

See also:

Surplus labour, Surplus labour - Origin of surplus labour, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and exploitation, Surplus labour - Surplus labour in capitalist society, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and historical materialism, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and unequal exchange, Surplus labour - Modern criticism of Marx's concept of surplus labour

Read more here: » Surplus labour: Encyclopedia II - Surplus labour - Modern criticism of Marx's concept of surplus labour

If the production process itself becomes organised as a specifically capitalist production process, then the abstraction process is deepened, because production labour itself becomes directly treated and organised in terms of its commercial exchange value, and in terms of its capacity to create new value for the buyer of that labour. Quite simply, in this case, a quantity of labour-time is equal to a quantity of money, and it can be calculated that X hours of labour - regardless of who in particular performs them - create, or are worth, Y amou ...

See also:

Abstract labour and concrete labour, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract treatment of labour-time, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and exchange, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and capitalism, Abstract labour and concrete labour - Controversies

Read more here: » Abstract labour and concrete labour: Encyclopedia II - Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and capitalism

The fact that the productive force of labour appears within capitalism as the productive force of capital was for Marx an example of reification of the relations of production or of commodity fetishism. In other words, property (a "thing") is given human powers and characteristics which it does not truly have. The fetish of capital is broken as soon as all human labour is withdrawn; then it becomes clear that the constant part of capital produces nothing and declines in value, ultimatel ...

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Constant capital, Constant capital - Measurement, Constant capital - Why constant?, Constant capital - Variable capital, Constant capital - Criticism, Constant capital - Marxist response, Constant capital - Value and price, Constant capital - The fetish of capital, Constant capital - Different capital compositions

Read more here: » Constant capital: Encyclopedia II - Constant capital - The fetish of capital

In Das Kapital Vol. 3, Marx highlights the central role played by surplus labour: "The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political form. It is always the d ...

See also:

Surplus labour, Surplus labour - Origin of surplus labour, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and exploitation, Surplus labour - Surplus labour in capitalist society, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and historical materialism, Surplus labour - Surplus labour and unequal exchange, Surplus labour - Modern criticism of Marx's concept of surplus labour

Read more here: » Surplus labour: Encyclopedia II - Surplus labour - Surplus labour and historical materialism

Some scholars, such as the Japanese Marxian scholar Kozo Uno, have criticised Marx's presentation of the labour theory of value on the ground that Marx adduces arguments in the wrong order. Marx tries to prove logically that human labor-time is the "common substance" of commodities, as the basis of economic exchange. But, critics point out, it could just as well be argued that what commodities have in common is e.g. that they have a price (real or notional), and that ...

See also:

Exchange value, Exchange value - Exchange value and price according to Marx, Exchange value - Exchange value and commodification, Exchange value - Marx's quote on commodities and their exchange, Exchange value - Exchange value and the transformation of values into prices, Exchange value - Criticism of Marx's interpretation of commodity exchange, Exchange value - Other theories of exchange value

Read more here: » Exchange value: Encyclopedia II - Exchange value - Criticism of Marx's interpretation of commodity exchange

According to some Marxists, this type of objection cuts to the heart of the main dispute between Marx and mainstream economic theory -- their different conceptions of value. For Marx's critics, value, if it exists at all, is a technical feature of economic calculus or is simply another word for the price of a product. For Marx, however, economic value is a social attribution, which expresses a social relation between people specific to certain historical conditions. Inanimate objects can only feature in value relations as token ...

See also:

Constant capital, Constant capital - Measurement, Constant capital - Why constant?, Constant capital - Variable capital, Constant capital - Criticism, Constant capital - Marxist response, Constant capital - Value and price, Constant capital - The fetish of capital, Constant capital - Different capital compositions

Read more here: » Constant capital: Encyclopedia II - Constant capital - Marxist response

In a case history of England, Marx looks at how the serfs became free peasant proprietors and small farmers, who were, over time, forcibly expropriated and driven off the land, forming a propertyless proletariat. He also shows how more and more legislation is enacted by the state to control and regiment this new class of wage workers. Meantime, the remaining farmers became capitalist farmers operating more and more on a commercial basis; and gradually, legal m ...

See also:

Primitive accumulation of capital, Primitive accumulation of capital - Reason for the concept, Primitive accumulation of capital - The myths of Political Economy, Primitive accumulation of capital - The basic meaning of primitive accumulation, Primitive accumulation of capital - Marx's case history, Primitive accumulation of capital - The link between primitive accumulation and colonialism, Primitive accumulation of capital - Primitive accumulation and privatisation, Primitive accumulation of capital - The essence of capitalist production relations revealed, Primitive accumulation of capital - The past and the future, Primitive accumulation of capital - Ernest Mandel's theory of primitive accumulation, Primitive accumulation of capital - Schumpeter's critique of Marx's theory, Primitive accumulation of capital - Modern primitive accumulation and the Washington Consensus, Primitive accumulation of capital - Modern criticism of Marx's theory, Primitive accumulation of capital - Primitive accumulation and the spreading of civilisation, Primitive accumulation of capital - Where to now with development studies?

Read more here: » Primitive accumulation of capital: Encyclopedia II - Primitive accumulation of capital - Marx's case history

Simple commodity production is compatible with many different relations of production, ranging from self-employment where the producer owns his means of production, and family labour, to forms of slavery, peonage, indentured labour, and serfdom. The simple commodity producer could aim just to trade his products for others with an equivalent value, or he could aim to realise a profit. That is to say, simple commodity production is not specific to any particular mode of production, and might be found in many different modes of pr ...

See also:

Simple commodity production, Simple commodity production - Origins, Simple commodity production - Relations of production, Simple commodity production - From simple commodity production to capitalist production, Simple commodity production - Marxian economics

Read more here: » Simple commodity production: Encyclopedia II - Simple commodity production - Relations of production