surplus labour

Das Kapital ("Capital") is a very large treatise of political economy written by Karl Marx in German. The book is a critical analysis of capitalism, its economic practices and the theories which economists made about it. As noted by S. S. Prawer in "Karl Marx and World Literature" (1978), it has not only scientific but also important literary merits. Marx bases his work on that of the classical economists like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill and even Benjamin Franklin. However, he reworks these authors' ideas ...

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• Das Kapital - Online editions

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The category of surplus product is a transhistorical economic category, meaning it applies to any society with a stable division of labour, and a significant labour productivity, regardless of how exactly that surplus product is produced, what it consists of, and how it is distributed. That depends on the social relations and relations of production specific to a society, within the framework of which surplus labour is performed. Thus, the exact forms taken by ...

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Surplus product, Surplus product - Marxian interpretation of the historical origin of the surplus product, Surplus product - Surplus product and socio-economic inequality between people, Surplus product - Surplus product in capitalist society, Surplus product - Measurement of the surplus product, Surplus product - Surplus product and the social valuation of labor, Surplus product - Surplus product and decadence, Surplus product - Criticism

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Marx built on, and critiqued, the best-known economists of his day, the British classical economists. These were the same "bourgeois economists" that modern pro-capitalist economists credit as the founding fathers of their discipline, such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Marx (and Ricardo and Smith) based much of their work on the labor theory of value. Most economists no longer subscribe to the labor theory of value, which has been superseded by the Austrian theory of subjectivism. Subjectivism states that things do not have inherent ...

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Marxian economics, Marxian economics - Marxian versus Marxist, Marxian economics - Marx and classical economics, Marxian economics - Marx's economic theories, Marxian economics - Liberal Challenge, Marxian economics - Current theorizing in Marxian economics

Read more here: » Marxian economics: Encyclopedia II - Marxian economics - Marx and classical economics

In a market economy, labour expenditures producing outputs and the market demand for those outputs are constantly adjusting to each other. This is a complex process, in which enterprises operating at varying levels of productivity and unit-costs compete with each other in responding to the expansion and contraction of market demand for their output. In the third volume of Das Kapital, Marx discusses how the market value (or "regulating price") ...

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Socially necessary labour time, Socially necessary labour time - Simplified explanation of the concept, Socially necessary labour time - Operation of the law of value, Socially necessary labour time - Marx and Ricardo, Socially necessary labour time - Criticism, Socially necessary labour time - Useful commentaries, Socially necessary labour time - Note

Read more here: » Socially necessary labour time: Encyclopedia II - Socially necessary labour time - Simplified explanation of the concept

Marxian political economy uses the concept of "socially necessary abstract labor-time" to modify the Ricardian LTV. To some, this modification is profound enough to support the claim that Marx's theory is not, after all, a labor theory of price of the Ricardian sort, but a new type of value theory. This aspect of value as a social process, unexamined by Marx's predecessors in classical political economy, cannot be reduced to magnitudes. The phrase "socially necessary", far from being an arbitrary adjunct to the theory (as charg ...

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Labor theory of value, Labor theory of value - The theory’s development, Labor theory of value - The theory explained, Labor theory of value - Some definitions, Labor theory of value - “Exploitation”, Labor theory of value - Böhm-Bawerk’s critique, Labor theory of value - The transformation problem, Labor theory of value - An alternative interpretation, Labor theory of value - Opposing Theory

Read more here: » Labor theory of value: Encyclopedia II - Labor theory of value - The theory explained

As mentioned, Marx never explicitly summarised his definition of capitalism, beyond some suggestive comments in manuscripts which he did not publish himself. This has led to controversies among Marxists about how to evaluate the "capitalist" nature of society in particular countries. Supporters of theories of state capitalism such as the International Socialists reject the definition of the capitalist mode of production given above. In their view, claimed to be more revolutionary (in that true liberation from capitalism must be the se ...

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Capitalist mode of production, Capitalist mode of production - Basic distinctions, Capitalist mode of production - Origins, Capitalist mode of production - Defining structural criteria, Capitalist mode of production - State capitalist interpretation, Capitalist mode of production - Post-Marxist views

Read more here: » Capitalist mode of production: Encyclopedia II - Capitalist mode of production - State capitalist interpretation

For a more detailed treatment, see the Transformation problem. The most common interpretation of the LTV is as a theory of price determination, which makes Marx's theory roughly correspond to that of Ricardo, in which a commodity's price derives from the labor expended on its production. Early in volume III of Capital, Marx presents an analysis of the relationship between values and prices. Most rea ...

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Labor theory of value, Labor theory of value - The justification of the theory, Labor theory of value - The theory’s development, Labor theory of value - Marx's theory, Labor theory of value - Exploitation, Labor theory of value - Böhm-Bawerk’s critique, Labor theory of value - The transformation problem, Labor theory of value - An alternative interpretation, Labor theory of value - Opposing Theory

Read more here: » Labor theory of value: Encyclopedia II - Labor theory of value - The transformation problem

Labour power is a peculiar commodity, because it is an attribute of living persons, who own it themselves. Because they own it, they cannot permanently sell it to someone else; in that case, they would be a slave, and a slave does not own himself. Labour power can become a marketable object, sold for a specific period, only if the owners are constituted in law as legal subjects who are free to sell it, and can enter into labor contracts. Once actualised and consumed through working, the capacity to wor ...

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Labor-power, Labor-power - Definition, Labor-power - Labor-power versus labour, Labor-power - Labor power as commodity, Labor-power - Value of labour-power, Labor-power - Labor power and wages, Labor-power - Consumption of labor power, Labor-power - Reproduction of labor power, Labor-power - Labour power and labour market flexibilisation, Labor-power - Criticism of the concept of labour power

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In various countries at various times, especially during the periods of social unrest, such as French Revolution or Russian Revolution, the whole social classes, such as aristocracy, rentiers, or bourgeoisie were accused of living off unearned income, and hence declared parasitic, as opposed to the working class. The text of The Internationale, the famous socialist song, later adopted as the hymn of the Soviet Union (from 1917 to 1941), in a number of languages contai ...

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Parasitism social offense, Parasitism social offense - Parasitic social classes, Parasitism social offense - Soviet Union, Parasitism social offense - Nazi Germany, Parasitism social offense - Anti-Semitism, Parasitism social offense - Japan

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Constant capital can be measured as a stock magnitude, i.e., the total value of means of production in use at a specific point in time. It can also be measured as a flow magnitude, i.e., the total value of raw materials and fixed means of production used up in an accounting period. Which measure is used depends on the purposes and assumptions of one's analysis, for example whether one is interested in the unit-costs of outp ...

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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

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The ratio, c/v is one measure of the organic composition of capital. As noted above, the distinction between constant and variable capital overlaps with the distinction between fixed capital and circulating capital. Constant capital has both fixed and circulating components: for example, the fixed constant capital would include a factory and the machinery in it, while the circulating constant capital would include the raw m ...

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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

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Other Marxian economists note that, at any time, most of the stock of objects of value in a society has no actual market price, because those objects are not being traded (i.e. they are withdrawn from the market); they are either being used in production or consumption activities, or else stored for later use. This can be easily verified by striking a ratio between gross product and the estimated total asset wealth of a country in money units. In other words, this stock of owned objects has, at best, an ideal price which is estimated or hypothesized (the price it ...

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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 - Value and price

Marx calls the constant part of the capital outlay "constant" because according to his labour theory of value, constant capital inputs - once purchased, withdrawn from the market and used to create new products - do not by themselves add new value to output, or increase in value in the production process. Instead, the value of equipment and materials being used in production is conserved and t ...

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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 - Why constant?

The difficulties in this Marxist debate have been both that most participants did not speak Russian, East European languages, Vietnamese, Korean or Chinese, and that dissident Russian or Chinese Marxists seeking to analyse their own country independently were typically silenced in one way or another by the regime. Thus, the political debate has been mainly from a Western point of view, and based on secondary sources, rather than being based directly on the experiences of people living in "actually existing socialist countries". And that debate has typically counter ...

See also:

Capitalist mode of production, Capitalist mode of production - Basic distinctions, Capitalist mode of production - Origins, Capitalist mode of production - Defining structural criteria, Capitalist mode of production - State capitalist interpretation, Capitalist mode of production - Post-Marxist views

Read more here: » Capitalist mode of production: Encyclopedia II - Capitalist mode of production - Post-Marxist views

Critics of Marxian value theory object that this attribution of the source of value-added to labour only is arbitrary and political, not scientific. In various ingenious thought experiments, cases are presented in which constant capital appears as the only possible source of the variability of an entrepreneur's capital. Examples would be devaluations or revaluations of types of assets in response to changing demand conditions, which are influenced by price inflation. In national accounts and business accounts, for example, the change in the value of inventories held is adjusted for changes in their current market ...

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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 - Criticism

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 ...

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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 - Marxist response

Contrary to popular belief, the LTV does not deny the role of supply and demand influencing price. In Value, Price and Profit (1865), Karl Marx quotes Adam Smith and sums up: It suffices to say that if supply and demand equilibrate each other, the market prices of commodities will correspond with their natural prices, that is to say, with their values as determined by the respective quantities of labor required for their production.[1] It is the level of this equilibrium which the LTV seeks to explain. This ...

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Labor theory of value, Labor theory of value - The justification of the theory, Labor theory of value - The theory’s development, Labor theory of value - Marx's theory, Labor theory of value - Exploitation, Labor theory of value - Böhm-Bawerk’s critique, Labor theory of value - The transformation problem, Labor theory of value - An alternative interpretation, Labor theory of value - Opposing Theory

Read more here: » Labor theory of value: Encyclopedia II - Labor theory of value - The justification of the theory

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

The Austrian economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk argued against both the Ricardian labor theory of price and Marx's theory of exploitation. On the former, he contended that return on capital arises from the roundabout nature of production. A steel ladder, for example, will be produced and brought to market only if the demand supports the digging of iron ore, the smelting of steel, the machines that press that steel into ladder shape, the machines that make and help maintain those machines, etc. Advocates of the LTV point out that every s ...

See also:

Labor theory of value, Labor theory of value - The justification of the theory, Labor theory of value - The theory’s development, Labor theory of value - Marx's theory, Labor theory of value - Exploitation, Labor theory of value - Böhm-Bawerk’s critique, Labor theory of value - The transformation problem, Labor theory of value - An alternative interpretation, Labor theory of value - Opposing Theory

Read more here: » Labor theory of value: Encyclopedia II - Labor theory of value - Böhm-Bawerk’s critique

W. Paul Cockshott and Allin F. Cottrell, "Value's Law, Value's Metric", September, 1994 http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/METRIC/metric.htm Ernest Mandel, Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory. Pathfinder Press. I.I. Rubin, Essays on Marx's theory of value. http://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/rubin/ Anwar Shaikh, Market value and Market Price http://homepage.newschool.edu/~AShaikh/pal3.pdf Romand Rosdolsky, The Making of Marx's Capital. Pluto Press. Makoto Itoh, Value and C ...

See also:

Socially necessary labour time, Socially necessary labour time - Simplified explanation of the concept, Socially necessary labour time - Operation of the law of value, Socially necessary labour time - Marx and Ricardo, Socially necessary labour time - Criticism, Socially necessary labour time - Useful commentaries, Socially necessary labour time - Note

Read more here: » Socially necessary labour time: Encyclopedia II - Socially necessary labour time - Useful commentaries