ProleWiki - User contributions [en]

Monopoly capitalism

2025-11-12T06:15:07Z

Comwik: Changed redirect target from Imperialism to Economics#Marxist

#REDIRECT [[Economics#Marxist]]

Economics

2025-11-12T06:11:41Z

Comwik: /* Marxist */

'''Economics''' is a social [[science]] that studies how production, distribution, and consumption are organized. Economic views that connect to [[politics]] form the field of [[political economy]]. Since the beginning of [[capitalism]], various schools of economics have developed, including classical political economy, [[Marxism]], [[Keynesianism]], and [[reactionary]] [[neoclassical economics]].

== Schools ==

=== Pre-capitalist economic views ===

==== Slavery ====
Ancient philosophers such as [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] considered [[slavery]] a necessity for society, and Plato included slaves in his [[Idealism|ideal]] [[Utopia|utopian]] society. Aristotle coined the term ''oikonomía'' (οἰκονομία), the basis of the modern word economics, to refer to the science of managing resources. He promoted a primarily [[Natural economy|natural (subsistence) economy]] combined with trade when necessary. He condemned profit-oriented trade and [[usury]], viewing them as sources of unlimited wealth in contrast to agriculture and manufacturing.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Slave-Owning Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Slave-Owning_Period|section=Economic Views of the Slave-Owning Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

In [[Maurya Empire (322–184 BCE)|India]], [[Buddhism]] promoted non-resistance to the [[ruling class]] and was used to defend slavery.<ref name=":2" />

==== Feudalism ====
In [[Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE)|China]], [[Confucius]] viewed merchants as parasites that did not produce anything. He considered [[Peasantry|peasants]] and manufacturing workers to be necessary to society but believed they should be under the rule of [[Intelligentsia|scholar-officials]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Kenneth J. Hammond|year=2004|title=From Yao to Mao|chapter=Economy and Society in Southern Song|page=19|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceb23hyrkqoj556y6mpuygt7hapqps6e3v7fhhwi3ll5mjjsebj6w6?filename=Kenneth%20J.%20Hammond%20-%20From%20Yao%20to%20Mao_%205000%20Years%20of%20Chinese%20History.%20part%202-Teaching%20Company%20%282004%29.pdf|publisher=New Mexico State University}}</ref>

One of the most influential philosophers of [[Feudalism|feudal]] Europe was [[Thomas Aquinas]], who believed that feudalism was [[Divine mandate|mandated by God]] and that everyone should stay in their proper position in the feudal hierarchy. He believed that [[Commodity|commodities]] should be sold at "just" prices based on the labor used to produce them and the estate of the producer. Unlike ancient slave owners, he believed masters should not kill their serfs. Medieval theologians condemned usury at first until the [[Catholic Church]] began to benefit from it. Rebellious [[Serf|serfs]] were also deeply influenced by religion and quoted the [[Bible]] to justify their demands.<ref>{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Feudal Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Feudal_Period|section=Economic Views of the Feudal Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

=== Mercantilist ===
[[Mercantilism]] was an early stage of bourgeois political economy and of the economic policy of the states in the era of the [[Primitive accumulation of capital|original accumulation of capital]] (15th–18th centuries); it reflected the interests of commercial capital when the latter was still linked to industrial capital.

The mercantilists considered that profit is created in the sphere of circulation and that the wealth of nations is based on money. Hence, the mercantilist policy tended to attract the country as much gold and silver as possible. Mercantilism considered that the source of wealth lies in foreign trade, and since it was the artisans who supplied the goods that were exported, the conclusion was reached that it was essential to promote artisan production. Capitalist production was in its beginnings and the ideas of the mercantilists were conditioned by the level of economic development of that time.

Mercantilism implies a set of economic theories and practices developed during the Modern Age. In this historical context, a significant association was observed between the national states, which sought ways to strengthen their political power, and the bourgeois class, responsible for the development of activities of a commercial nature. This long-term experience was of great importance for the primitive accumulation of capital.<ref name=":1">History of economic thoughts - Luis Perdices de Blas -Editorial Sintesis - <nowiki>ISBN 8497561082</nowiki> </ref>

* [[William Petty]]
* [[John Locke]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Colbert]]
* [[Thomas Mun]]

In his time, the policy of mercantilism was progressive as it contributed to the development of the first large capitalist companies: manufacturing; it facilitated the progress of the productive forces, the victory of capitalism over feudalism. Mercantilism as a current of economic thought of the bourgeoisie is followed by the theory of the physiocrats.

=== Physiocracy ===
Physiocracy as an economic school appeared in the 18th century, as one of the manifestations of enlightened despotism, to which they adhered, opposing mercantilism, arguing that the wealth of nations was not measured by its accumulation in gold and silver, but by land and agricultural development, which provide a surplus between raw materials and what is produced, which would not occur in other activities, such as commerce or industry, which they considered sterile.

For this ideology, human life, both individual and social, should be governed by natural laws, following that order predetermined by a superior divine will, and therefore perfect, and not involve the State in economic life, but instead people should be able to carry out their activity freely ([[laissez faire]]). The role of the state was to ensure the right to education, the peaceful enjoyment of liberties and the carrying out of public works. Within the natural social order, the social class of peasants was the most important, since it was the only one that originated wealth. The taxes levied on rural exploitation were very low.<ref name=":1" />

* [[François Quesnay]]
* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti

The father of classical economics, Adam Smith was greatly influenced by the physiocrats.<ref name=":1" />

=== Classical ===
Classical political economics emerged during the era of [[Bourgeois revolution|bourgeois revolutions]] and discredited the old economic ideas of the [[Feudalism|feudal]] aristocracy. It played a progressive role against feudalism and held a [[Labor theory of value|labour theory of value]] but included limitations due to its lack of [[historical materialism]]. The classical political economists never questioned the historical origin of [[money]], [[capital]], and [[Commodity|commodities]].<ref name=":0">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|chapter=Economic Doctrines of the Capitalist Epoch|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/pe-ch22.htm|section=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

* [[David Ricardo]]
* [[Adam Smith]]

=== Marxist ===
[[Karl Marx]] (1818-1883) and [[Friedrich Engels]] (1820-1895) developed classical political economy in an anti-capitalist direction. They saw political economy as being historically grounded, and dependent on class relations – aspects of the subject generally ignored by their classical predecessors. Marx deployed the classical political economists' labour theory of value to argue that workers did not recieve the full value they created with their labour, with the part they did not receive, which he called the [[Surplus-value|surplus value]], flowing to the capitalists and being the basis of the [[exploitation]] of the working class by the capitalist class. Marx and Engels saw capitalism as tending toward ever-increasing irrationality and crisis, due to the logics of competition and of the [[Accumulation of capital|accumulation]], centralisation and [[concentration of capital|concentration]] of capital.

Following Marx and Engels, Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) and others identified [[imperialism]] as being the ultimate development of capitalism, the process they observed having been that early 19th century competitive capitalism developed in the direction of highly centralised [[joint-stock companies]], giving rise to [[monopoly capitalism]] and then, competition within countries having been thereby greatly curtailed, to [[state monopoly capitalism]], a situation in which capitalist competition takes the form mainly of competition between states, each acting on behalf of its respective group of capitalist corporations. Since the means of peacefully adjudicating competition between states are limited, this type of competition leads to warfare, WWI and WWII both being attributable to this cause, in the Marxist view.

Another notable feature of imperialism or late capitalism is the predominance of [[finance capital]] (banks, insurance companies, trusts, etc.) over productive capital (manufacturing, resource extraction, etc), with the capitalists in the productive industries being essentially the servants of the finance capitalists.<ref name=":0" />

=== Post-classical bourgeois ===
In reaction to the Marxist critique as well as that of the [[Ricardian socialism|Ricardian socialists]], and as the class struggle intensified, bourgeois economists dropped the labour theory of value and and de-emphasised the political and social aspects of their subject, favouring instead idealised, and abstract, if not to say [[mystification|mystified]] and [[reification|reified]], theory. Elaborate, but barely grounded, mathematical modelling became a major area of activity. In the post-Marx period most bourgeois economists ceased referring to the subject as ''political economy'' and adopted the "modern" term, ''economics'', thus distancing themselves from awkward political and ethical realities. (The term "political economy" still tends to be preferred, however, by those who consider the social and historical part of the subject to be indispensable.)

In place of the labour theory of value, which had been turned against the capitalists by Marx and others, post-Marxist political economy, or economics, adopted a [[utility theory of value]] or one based on [[supply and demand]] or on production costs.

====Vulgar economics====
Vulgar economics was the dominant form of bourgeois or "mainstream" economics during the 1830s and 1840s.
While claiming to defend "freedom of labour," the vulgar economists attacked [[Trade union|trade unions]] and [[Strike action|strikes]]. <ref name=":0" />

* [[Frédéric Bastiat]]
* [[Henry Charles Carey]]
* [[John Bates Clark]]
* [[Thomas Malthus]]
* [[Alfred Marshall]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Say]]

==== Austrian ====
{{Main article|Austrian economics}}
Austrian economics is a form of vulgar bourgeois economics that bases economic laws on [[Idealism|subjective psychology]] instead of [[Materialism|social relations]]. It promotes a [[marginal utility]] theory of value.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Eugen Böhm-Bawerk]]
* [[Carl Menger]]
* [[Friedrich Wieser]]

==== Historical ====
The historical school of economics denies the existence of economic laws and instead focuses on separate historical facts. It has often supported reactionary policies. Many of its followers praised the [[German Empire (1871–1918)|German monarchy]].<ref name=":0" />

* [[Bruno Hildebrand]]
* [[Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher]]
* [[Gustav Schmoller]]

==== Keynesian ====
During the [[Great Depression]], [[John Maynard Keynes]] proposed an idealist explanation for [[unemployment]] and economic crises. Keynes believed the [[state]] should decrease the wages of workers and increase capitalist profits in order to increase employment.<ref name=":0" />

==== Social ====
Unlike the Austrians, the social school of economics deals with social relations between people. It sees these relations as idealistic legal relations instead of material relations and considers capitalist activities to be service to society.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Adolf Ammon]]
* [[Othmar Spann]]
* [[Rudolf Stolzmann]]

=== Petty-bourgeois ===
A [[Petty bourgeoisie|petty-bourgeois]] economic trend began in the early 19th century and criticized capitalism while idealizing the small-scale production of the [[peasantry]] and [[Artisan|artisans]]. These economists promoted [[utopian socialism]] and failed to see the inevitable growth of capitalism and expropriation of the peasantry.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]
* [[Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi]]

== References ==
[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Science]]

Economics

2025-11-12T06:00:32Z

Comwik: /* Vulgar (post-classical bourgeois) */ Organisation. You can't subsume all post-Marxian bourgeois economics under the term "vulgar economics" and at the same time say "vulgar economics was the dominant form of bourgeois economics in the 1830s and 1840s".

'''Economics''' is a social [[science]] that studies how production, distribution, and consumption are organized. Economic views that connect to [[politics]] form the field of [[political economy]]. Since the beginning of [[capitalism]], various schools of economics have developed, including classical political economy, [[Marxism]], [[Keynesianism]], and [[reactionary]] [[neoclassical economics]].

== Schools ==

=== Pre-capitalist economic views ===

==== Slavery ====
Ancient philosophers such as [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] considered [[slavery]] a necessity for society, and Plato included slaves in his [[Idealism|ideal]] [[Utopia|utopian]] society. Aristotle coined the term ''oikonomía'' (οἰκονομία), the basis of the modern word economics, to refer to the science of managing resources. He promoted a primarily [[Natural economy|natural (subsistence) economy]] combined with trade when necessary. He condemned profit-oriented trade and [[usury]], viewing them as sources of unlimited wealth in contrast to agriculture and manufacturing.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Slave-Owning Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Slave-Owning_Period|section=Economic Views of the Slave-Owning Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

In [[Maurya Empire (322–184 BCE)|India]], [[Buddhism]] promoted non-resistance to the [[ruling class]] and was used to defend slavery.<ref name=":2" />

==== Feudalism ====
In [[Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE)|China]], [[Confucius]] viewed merchants as parasites that did not produce anything. He considered [[Peasantry|peasants]] and manufacturing workers to be necessary to society but believed they should be under the rule of [[Intelligentsia|scholar-officials]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Kenneth J. Hammond|year=2004|title=From Yao to Mao|chapter=Economy and Society in Southern Song|page=19|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceb23hyrkqoj556y6mpuygt7hapqps6e3v7fhhwi3ll5mjjsebj6w6?filename=Kenneth%20J.%20Hammond%20-%20From%20Yao%20to%20Mao_%205000%20Years%20of%20Chinese%20History.%20part%202-Teaching%20Company%20%282004%29.pdf|publisher=New Mexico State University}}</ref>

One of the most influential philosophers of [[Feudalism|feudal]] Europe was [[Thomas Aquinas]], who believed that feudalism was [[Divine mandate|mandated by God]] and that everyone should stay in their proper position in the feudal hierarchy. He believed that [[Commodity|commodities]] should be sold at "just" prices based on the labor used to produce them and the estate of the producer. Unlike ancient slave owners, he believed masters should not kill their serfs. Medieval theologians condemned usury at first until the [[Catholic Church]] began to benefit from it. Rebellious [[Serf|serfs]] were also deeply influenced by religion and quoted the [[Bible]] to justify their demands.<ref>{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Feudal Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Feudal_Period|section=Economic Views of the Feudal Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

=== Mercantilist ===
[[Mercantilism]] was an early stage of bourgeois political economy and of the economic policy of the states in the era of the [[Primitive accumulation of capital|original accumulation of capital]] (15th–18th centuries); it reflected the interests of commercial capital when the latter was still linked to industrial capital.

The mercantilists considered that profit is created in the sphere of circulation and that the wealth of nations is based on money. Hence, the mercantilist policy tended to attract the country as much gold and silver as possible. Mercantilism considered that the source of wealth lies in foreign trade, and since it was the artisans who supplied the goods that were exported, the conclusion was reached that it was essential to promote artisan production. Capitalist production was in its beginnings and the ideas of the mercantilists were conditioned by the level of economic development of that time.

Mercantilism implies a set of economic theories and practices developed during the Modern Age. In this historical context, a significant association was observed between the national states, which sought ways to strengthen their political power, and the bourgeois class, responsible for the development of activities of a commercial nature. This long-term experience was of great importance for the primitive accumulation of capital.<ref name=":1">History of economic thoughts - Luis Perdices de Blas -Editorial Sintesis - <nowiki>ISBN 8497561082</nowiki> </ref>

* [[William Petty]]
* [[John Locke]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Colbert]]
* [[Thomas Mun]]

In his time, the policy of mercantilism was progressive as it contributed to the development of the first large capitalist companies: manufacturing; it facilitated the progress of the productive forces, the victory of capitalism over feudalism. Mercantilism as a current of economic thought of the bourgeoisie is followed by the theory of the physiocrats.

=== Physiocracy ===
Physiocracy as an economic school appeared in the 18th century, as one of the manifestations of enlightened despotism, to which they adhered, opposing mercantilism, arguing that the wealth of nations was not measured by its accumulation in gold and silver, but by land and agricultural development, which provide a surplus between raw materials and what is produced, which would not occur in other activities, such as commerce or industry, which they considered sterile.

For this ideology, human life, both individual and social, should be governed by natural laws, following that order predetermined by a superior divine will, and therefore perfect, and not involve the State in economic life, but instead people should be able to carry out their activity freely ([[laissez faire]]). The role of the state was to ensure the right to education, the peaceful enjoyment of liberties and the carrying out of public works. Within the natural social order, the social class of peasants was the most important, since it was the only one that originated wealth. The taxes levied on rural exploitation were very low.<ref name=":1" />

* [[François Quesnay]]
* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti

The father of classical economics, Adam Smith was greatly influenced by the physiocrats.<ref name=":1" />

=== Classical ===
Classical political economics emerged during the era of [[Bourgeois revolution|bourgeois revolutions]] and discredited the old economic ideas of the [[Feudalism|feudal]] aristocracy. It played a progressive role against feudalism and held a [[Labor theory of value|labour theory of value]] but included limitations due to its lack of [[historical materialism]]. The classical political economists never questioned the historical origin of [[money]], [[capital]], and [[Commodity|commodities]].<ref name=":0">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|chapter=Economic Doctrines of the Capitalist Epoch|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/pe-ch22.htm|section=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

* [[David Ricardo]]
* [[Adam Smith]]

=== Marxist ===
[[Karl Marx]] (1818-1883) and [[Friedrich Engels]] (1820-1895) developed classical political economy in an anti-capitalist direction. They saw political economy as being historically grounded, and dependent on class relations – aspects of the subject generally ignored by their classical predecessors. Marx deployed the classical political economists' labour theory of value to argue that workers did not recieve the full value they created with their labour, with the part they did not receive, which he called the [[Surplus-value|surplus value]], flowing to the capitalists and being the basis of the [[exploitation]] of the working class by the capitalist class. Marx and Engels saw capitalism as tending toward ever-increasing irrationality and crisis, due to the logics of competition and of the [[Accumulation of capital|accumulation]], centralisation and [[concentration of capital|concentration]] of capital.

Following Marx and Engels, Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) and others identified [[imperialism]] as being the ultimate development of capitalism, as early 19th century competitive capitalism developed in the direction of highly centralised [[joint-stock companies]], giving rise to [[monopoly capitalism]] and then, as competition within countries greatly decreased, to [[state monopoly capitalism]], a situation in which capitalist competition takes the form mainly of competition between states, each acting on behalf of its respective group of capitalist corporations. Since the means of peacefully adjudicting competition between states are limited, this type of competition leads to warfare, WWI and WWII both being attributable to this cause, in the Marxist view.

Another notable feature of imperialism or late capitalism is the predominance of [[finance capital]] (banks, insurance companies, trusts, etc.) over productive capital (manufacturing, resource extraction, etc), with the capitalists in the productive industries being essentially the servants of the finance capitalists.<ref name=":0" />

=== Post-classical bourgeois ===
In reaction to the Marxist critique as well as that of the [[Ricardian socialism|Ricardian socialists]], and as the class struggle intensified, bourgeois economists dropped the labour theory of value and and de-emphasised the political and social aspects of their subject, favouring instead idealised, and abstract, if not to say [[mystification|mystified]] and [[reification|reified]], theory. Elaborate, but barely grounded, mathematical modelling became a major area of activity. In the post-Marx period most bourgeois economists ceased referring to the subject as ''political economy'' and adopted the "modern" term, ''economics'', thus distancing themselves from awkward political and ethical realities. (The term "political economy" still tends to be preferred, however, by those who consider the social and historical part of the subject to be indispensable.)

In place of the labour theory of value, which had been turned against the capitalists by Marx and others, post-Marxist political economy, or economics, adopted a [[utility theory of value]] or one based on [[supply and demand]] or on production costs.

====Vulgar economics====
Vulgar economics was the dominant form of bourgeois or "mainstream" economics during the 1830s and 1840s.
While claiming to defend "freedom of labour," the vulgar economists attacked [[Trade union|trade unions]] and [[Strike action|strikes]]. <ref name=":0" />

* [[Frédéric Bastiat]]
* [[Henry Charles Carey]]
* [[John Bates Clark]]
* [[Thomas Malthus]]
* [[Alfred Marshall]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Say]]

==== Austrian ====
{{Main article|Austrian economics}}
Austrian economics is a form of vulgar bourgeois economics that bases economic laws on [[Idealism|subjective psychology]] instead of [[Materialism|social relations]]. It promotes a [[marginal utility]] theory of value.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Eugen Böhm-Bawerk]]
* [[Carl Menger]]
* [[Friedrich Wieser]]

==== Historical ====
The historical school of economics denies the existence of economic laws and instead focuses on separate historical facts. It has often supported reactionary policies. Many of its followers praised the [[German Empire (1871–1918)|German monarchy]].<ref name=":0" />

* [[Bruno Hildebrand]]
* [[Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher]]
* [[Gustav Schmoller]]

==== Keynesian ====
During the [[Great Depression]], [[John Maynard Keynes]] proposed an idealist explanation for [[unemployment]] and economic crises. Keynes believed the [[state]] should decrease the wages of workers and increase capitalist profits in order to increase employment.<ref name=":0" />

==== Social ====
Unlike the Austrians, the social school of economics deals with social relations between people. It sees these relations as idealistic legal relations instead of material relations and considers capitalist activities to be service to society.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Adolf Ammon]]
* [[Othmar Spann]]
* [[Rudolf Stolzmann]]

=== Petty-bourgeois ===
A [[Petty bourgeoisie|petty-bourgeois]] economic trend began in the early 19th century and criticized capitalism while idealizing the small-scale production of the [[peasantry]] and [[Artisan|artisans]]. These economists promoted [[utopian socialism]] and failed to see the inevitable growth of capitalism and expropriation of the peasantry.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]
* [[Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi]]

== References ==
[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Science]]

Economics

2025-11-12T05:54:05Z

Comwik: /* Vulgar (post-classical bourgeois) */

'''Economics''' is a social [[science]] that studies how production, distribution, and consumption are organized. Economic views that connect to [[politics]] form the field of [[political economy]]. Since the beginning of [[capitalism]], various schools of economics have developed, including classical political economy, [[Marxism]], [[Keynesianism]], and [[reactionary]] [[neoclassical economics]].

== Schools ==

=== Pre-capitalist economic views ===

==== Slavery ====
Ancient philosophers such as [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] considered [[slavery]] a necessity for society, and Plato included slaves in his [[Idealism|ideal]] [[Utopia|utopian]] society. Aristotle coined the term ''oikonomía'' (οἰκονομία), the basis of the modern word economics, to refer to the science of managing resources. He promoted a primarily [[Natural economy|natural (subsistence) economy]] combined with trade when necessary. He condemned profit-oriented trade and [[usury]], viewing them as sources of unlimited wealth in contrast to agriculture and manufacturing.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Slave-Owning Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Slave-Owning_Period|section=Economic Views of the Slave-Owning Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

In [[Maurya Empire (322–184 BCE)|India]], [[Buddhism]] promoted non-resistance to the [[ruling class]] and was used to defend slavery.<ref name=":2" />

==== Feudalism ====
In [[Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE)|China]], [[Confucius]] viewed merchants as parasites that did not produce anything. He considered [[Peasantry|peasants]] and manufacturing workers to be necessary to society but believed they should be under the rule of [[Intelligentsia|scholar-officials]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Kenneth J. Hammond|year=2004|title=From Yao to Mao|chapter=Economy and Society in Southern Song|page=19|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceb23hyrkqoj556y6mpuygt7hapqps6e3v7fhhwi3ll5mjjsebj6w6?filename=Kenneth%20J.%20Hammond%20-%20From%20Yao%20to%20Mao_%205000%20Years%20of%20Chinese%20History.%20part%202-Teaching%20Company%20%282004%29.pdf|publisher=New Mexico State University}}</ref>

One of the most influential philosophers of [[Feudalism|feudal]] Europe was [[Thomas Aquinas]], who believed that feudalism was [[Divine mandate|mandated by God]] and that everyone should stay in their proper position in the feudal hierarchy. He believed that [[Commodity|commodities]] should be sold at "just" prices based on the labor used to produce them and the estate of the producer. Unlike ancient slave owners, he believed masters should not kill their serfs. Medieval theologians condemned usury at first until the [[Catholic Church]] began to benefit from it. Rebellious [[Serf|serfs]] were also deeply influenced by religion and quoted the [[Bible]] to justify their demands.<ref>{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Feudal Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Feudal_Period|section=Economic Views of the Feudal Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

=== Mercantilist ===
[[Mercantilism]] was an early stage of bourgeois political economy and of the economic policy of the states in the era of the [[Primitive accumulation of capital|original accumulation of capital]] (15th–18th centuries); it reflected the interests of commercial capital when the latter was still linked to industrial capital.

The mercantilists considered that profit is created in the sphere of circulation and that the wealth of nations is based on money. Hence, the mercantilist policy tended to attract the country as much gold and silver as possible. Mercantilism considered that the source of wealth lies in foreign trade, and since it was the artisans who supplied the goods that were exported, the conclusion was reached that it was essential to promote artisan production. Capitalist production was in its beginnings and the ideas of the mercantilists were conditioned by the level of economic development of that time.

Mercantilism implies a set of economic theories and practices developed during the Modern Age. In this historical context, a significant association was observed between the national states, which sought ways to strengthen their political power, and the bourgeois class, responsible for the development of activities of a commercial nature. This long-term experience was of great importance for the primitive accumulation of capital.<ref name=":1">History of economic thoughts - Luis Perdices de Blas -Editorial Sintesis - <nowiki>ISBN 8497561082</nowiki> </ref>

* [[William Petty]]
* [[John Locke]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Colbert]]
* [[Thomas Mun]]

In his time, the policy of mercantilism was progressive as it contributed to the development of the first large capitalist companies: manufacturing; it facilitated the progress of the productive forces, the victory of capitalism over feudalism. Mercantilism as a current of economic thought of the bourgeoisie is followed by the theory of the physiocrats.

=== Physiocracy ===
Physiocracy as an economic school appeared in the 18th century, as one of the manifestations of enlightened despotism, to which they adhered, opposing mercantilism, arguing that the wealth of nations was not measured by its accumulation in gold and silver, but by land and agricultural development, which provide a surplus between raw materials and what is produced, which would not occur in other activities, such as commerce or industry, which they considered sterile.

For this ideology, human life, both individual and social, should be governed by natural laws, following that order predetermined by a superior divine will, and therefore perfect, and not involve the State in economic life, but instead people should be able to carry out their activity freely ([[laissez faire]]). The role of the state was to ensure the right to education, the peaceful enjoyment of liberties and the carrying out of public works. Within the natural social order, the social class of peasants was the most important, since it was the only one that originated wealth. The taxes levied on rural exploitation were very low.<ref name=":1" />

* [[François Quesnay]]
* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti

The father of classical economics, Adam Smith was greatly influenced by the physiocrats.<ref name=":1" />

=== Classical ===
Classical political economics emerged during the era of [[Bourgeois revolution|bourgeois revolutions]] and discredited the old economic ideas of the [[Feudalism|feudal]] aristocracy. It played a progressive role against feudalism and held a [[Labor theory of value|labour theory of value]] but included limitations due to its lack of [[historical materialism]]. The classical political economists never questioned the historical origin of [[money]], [[capital]], and [[Commodity|commodities]].<ref name=":0">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|chapter=Economic Doctrines of the Capitalist Epoch|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/pe-ch22.htm|section=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

* [[David Ricardo]]
* [[Adam Smith]]

=== Marxist ===
[[Karl Marx]] (1818-1883) and [[Friedrich Engels]] (1820-1895) developed classical political economy in an anti-capitalist direction. They saw political economy as being historically grounded, and dependent on class relations – aspects of the subject generally ignored by their classical predecessors. Marx deployed the classical political economists' labour theory of value to argue that workers did not recieve the full value they created with their labour, with the part they did not receive, which he called the [[Surplus-value|surplus value]], flowing to the capitalists and being the basis of the [[exploitation]] of the working class by the capitalist class. Marx and Engels saw capitalism as tending toward ever-increasing irrationality and crisis, due to the logics of competition and of the [[Accumulation of capital|accumulation]], centralisation and [[concentration of capital|concentration]] of capital.

Following Marx and Engels, Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) and others identified [[imperialism]] as being the ultimate development of capitalism, as early 19th century competitive capitalism developed in the direction of highly centralised [[joint-stock companies]], giving rise to [[monopoly capitalism]] and then, as competition within countries greatly decreased, to [[state monopoly capitalism]], a situation in which capitalist competition takes the form mainly of competition between states, each acting on behalf of its respective group of capitalist corporations. Since the means of peacefully adjudicting competition between states are limited, this type of competition leads to warfare, WWI and WWII both being attributable to this cause, in the Marxist view.

Another notable feature of imperialism or late capitalism is the predominance of [[finance capital]] (banks, insurance companies, trusts, etc.) over productive capital (manufacturing, resource extraction, etc), with the capitalists in the productive industries being essentially the servants of the finance capitalists.<ref name=":0" />

=== Vulgar (post-classical bourgeois) ===
In reaction to the Marxist critique as well as that of the [Ricardian socialism|Ricardian socialists]], and as the class struggle intensified, bourgeois economists dropped the labour theory of value and and de-emphasised the political and social aspects of their subject, favouring instead idealised, and abstract, if not to say [[mystification|mystified]] and [[reification|reified]], theory. Elaborate, but barely grounded, mathematical modelling became a major area of activity. In the post-Marx period most bourgeois economists ceased referring to the subject as ''political economy'' and adopted the "modern" term, ''economics'', thus distancing themselves from awkward political and ethical realities. (The term "political economy" still tends to be preferred, however, by those who consider the social and historical part of the subject to be indispensable.)

In place of the labour theory of value, which had been turned against the capitalists by Marx and others, post-Marxist political economy, or economics, adopted a [[utility theory of value]] or one based on [[supply and demand]] or on production costs.

While claiming to defend "freedom of labour," the vulgar economists attacked [[Trade union|trade unions]] and [[Strike action|strikes]]. Vulgar economics was the dominant form of bourgeois or "mainstream" economics during the 1830s and 1840s.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Frédéric Bastiat]]
* [[Henry Charles Carey]]
* [[John Bates Clark]]
* [[Thomas Malthus]]
* [[Alfred Marshall]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Say]]

==== Austrian ====
{{Main article|Austrian economics}}
Austrian economics is a form of vulgar bourgeois economics that bases economic laws on [[Idealism|subjective psychology]] instead of [[Materialism|social relations]]. It promotes a [[marginal utility]] theory of value.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Eugen Böhm-Bawerk]]
* [[Carl Menger]]
* [[Friedrich Wieser]]

==== Historical ====
The historical school of economics denies the existence of economic laws and instead focuses on separate historical facts. It has often supported reactionary policies. Many of its followers praised the [[German Empire (1871–1918)|German monarchy]].<ref name=":0" />

* [[Bruno Hildebrand]]
* [[Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher]]
* [[Gustav Schmoller]]

==== Keynesian ====
During the [[Great Depression]], [[John Maynard Keynes]] proposed an idealist explanation for [[unemployment]] and economic crises. Keynes believed the [[state]] should decrease the wages of workers and increase capitalist profits in order to increase employment.<ref name=":0" />

==== Social ====
Unlike the Austrians, the social school of economics deals with social relations between people. It sees these relations as idealistic legal relations instead of material relations and considers capitalist activities to be service to society.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Adolf Ammon]]
* [[Othmar Spann]]
* [[Rudolf Stolzmann]]

=== Petty-bourgeois ===
A [[Petty bourgeoisie|petty-bourgeois]] economic trend began in the early 19th century and criticized capitalism while idealizing the small-scale production of the [[peasantry]] and [[Artisan|artisans]]. These economists promoted [[utopian socialism]] and failed to see the inevitable growth of capitalism and expropriation of the peasantry.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]
* [[Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi]]

== References ==
[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Science]]

Economics

2025-11-12T05:08:05Z

Comwik: /* Marxist */

'''Economics''' is a social [[science]] that studies how production, distribution, and consumption are organized. Economic views that connect to [[politics]] form the field of [[political economy]]. Since the beginning of [[capitalism]], various schools of economics have developed, including classical political economy, [[Marxism]], [[Keynesianism]], and [[reactionary]] [[neoclassical economics]].

== Schools ==

=== Pre-capitalist economic views ===

==== Slavery ====
Ancient philosophers such as [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] considered [[slavery]] a necessity for society, and Plato included slaves in his [[Idealism|ideal]] [[Utopia|utopian]] society. Aristotle coined the term ''oikonomía'' (οἰκονομία), the basis of the modern word economics, to refer to the science of managing resources. He promoted a primarily [[Natural economy|natural (subsistence) economy]] combined with trade when necessary. He condemned profit-oriented trade and [[usury]], viewing them as sources of unlimited wealth in contrast to agriculture and manufacturing.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Slave-Owning Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Slave-Owning_Period|section=Economic Views of the Slave-Owning Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

In [[Maurya Empire (322–184 BCE)|India]], [[Buddhism]] promoted non-resistance to the [[ruling class]] and was used to defend slavery.<ref name=":2" />

==== Feudalism ====
In [[Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE)|China]], [[Confucius]] viewed merchants as parasites that did not produce anything. He considered [[Peasantry|peasants]] and manufacturing workers to be necessary to society but believed they should be under the rule of [[Intelligentsia|scholar-officials]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Kenneth J. Hammond|year=2004|title=From Yao to Mao|chapter=Economy and Society in Southern Song|page=19|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceb23hyrkqoj556y6mpuygt7hapqps6e3v7fhhwi3ll5mjjsebj6w6?filename=Kenneth%20J.%20Hammond%20-%20From%20Yao%20to%20Mao_%205000%20Years%20of%20Chinese%20History.%20part%202-Teaching%20Company%20%282004%29.pdf|publisher=New Mexico State University}}</ref>

One of the most influential philosophers of [[Feudalism|feudal]] Europe was [[Thomas Aquinas]], who believed that feudalism was [[Divine mandate|mandated by God]] and that everyone should stay in their proper position in the feudal hierarchy. He believed that [[Commodity|commodities]] should be sold at "just" prices based on the labor used to produce them and the estate of the producer. Unlike ancient slave owners, he believed masters should not kill their serfs. Medieval theologians condemned usury at first until the [[Catholic Church]] began to benefit from it. Rebellious [[Serf|serfs]] were also deeply influenced by religion and quoted the [[Bible]] to justify their demands.<ref>{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Feudal Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Feudal_Period|section=Economic Views of the Feudal Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

=== Mercantilist ===
[[Mercantilism]] was an early stage of bourgeois political economy and of the economic policy of the states in the era of the [[Primitive accumulation of capital|original accumulation of capital]] (15th–18th centuries); it reflected the interests of commercial capital when the latter was still linked to industrial capital.

The mercantilists considered that profit is created in the sphere of circulation and that the wealth of nations is based on money. Hence, the mercantilist policy tended to attract the country as much gold and silver as possible. Mercantilism considered that the source of wealth lies in foreign trade, and since it was the artisans who supplied the goods that were exported, the conclusion was reached that it was essential to promote artisan production. Capitalist production was in its beginnings and the ideas of the mercantilists were conditioned by the level of economic development of that time.

Mercantilism implies a set of economic theories and practices developed during the Modern Age. In this historical context, a significant association was observed between the national states, which sought ways to strengthen their political power, and the bourgeois class, responsible for the development of activities of a commercial nature. This long-term experience was of great importance for the primitive accumulation of capital.<ref name=":1">History of economic thoughts - Luis Perdices de Blas -Editorial Sintesis - <nowiki>ISBN 8497561082</nowiki> </ref>

* [[William Petty]]
* [[John Locke]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Colbert]]
* [[Thomas Mun]]

In his time, the policy of mercantilism was progressive as it contributed to the development of the first large capitalist companies: manufacturing; it facilitated the progress of the productive forces, the victory of capitalism over feudalism. Mercantilism as a current of economic thought of the bourgeoisie is followed by the theory of the physiocrats.

=== Physiocracy ===
Physiocracy as an economic school appeared in the 18th century, as one of the manifestations of enlightened despotism, to which they adhered, opposing mercantilism, arguing that the wealth of nations was not measured by its accumulation in gold and silver, but by land and agricultural development, which provide a surplus between raw materials and what is produced, which would not occur in other activities, such as commerce or industry, which they considered sterile.

For this ideology, human life, both individual and social, should be governed by natural laws, following that order predetermined by a superior divine will, and therefore perfect, and not involve the State in economic life, but instead people should be able to carry out their activity freely ([[laissez faire]]). The role of the state was to ensure the right to education, the peaceful enjoyment of liberties and the carrying out of public works. Within the natural social order, the social class of peasants was the most important, since it was the only one that originated wealth. The taxes levied on rural exploitation were very low.<ref name=":1" />

* [[François Quesnay]]
* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti

The father of classical economics, Adam Smith was greatly influenced by the physiocrats.<ref name=":1" />

=== Classical ===
Classical political economics emerged during the era of [[Bourgeois revolution|bourgeois revolutions]] and discredited the old economic ideas of the [[Feudalism|feudal]] aristocracy. It played a progressive role against feudalism and held a [[Labor theory of value|labour theory of value]] but included limitations due to its lack of [[historical materialism]]. The classical political economists never questioned the historical origin of [[money]], [[capital]], and [[Commodity|commodities]].<ref name=":0">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|chapter=Economic Doctrines of the Capitalist Epoch|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/pe-ch22.htm|section=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

* [[David Ricardo]]
* [[Adam Smith]]

=== Marxist ===
[[Karl Marx]] (1818-1883) and [[Friedrich Engels]] (1820-1895) developed classical political economy in an anti-capitalist direction. They saw political economy as being historically grounded, and dependent on class relations – aspects of the subject generally ignored by their classical predecessors. Marx deployed the classical political economists' labour theory of value to argue that workers did not recieve the full value they created with their labour, with the part they did not receive, which he called the [[Surplus-value|surplus value]], flowing to the capitalists and being the basis of the [[exploitation]] of the working class by the capitalist class. Marx and Engels saw capitalism as tending toward ever-increasing irrationality and crisis, due to the logics of competition and of the [[Accumulation of capital|accumulation]], centralisation and [[concentration of capital|concentration]] of capital.

Following Marx and Engels, Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) and others identified [[imperialism]] as being the ultimate development of capitalism, as early 19th century competitive capitalism developed in the direction of highly centralised [[joint-stock companies]], giving rise to [[monopoly capitalism]] and then, as competition within countries greatly decreased, to [[state monopoly capitalism]], a situation in which capitalist competition takes the form mainly of competition between states, each acting on behalf of its respective group of capitalist corporations. Since the means of peacefully adjudicting competition between states are limited, this type of competition leads to warfare, WWI and WWII both being attributable to this cause, in the Marxist view.

Another notable feature of imperialism or late capitalism is the predominance of [[finance capital]] (banks, insurance companies, trusts, etc.) over productive capital (manufacturing, resource extraction, etc), with the capitalists in the productive industries being essentially the servants of the finance capitalists.<ref name=":0" />

=== Vulgar (post-classical bourgeois) ===
As the [[class struggle]] intensified, bourgeois economists rejected the scientific aspects of classical economics while upholding its flaws. They replaced the labour theory of value with unscientific theories including the [[utility theory of value]], [[supply and demand]], or production costs. While claiming to defend "freedom of labour," they attacked [[Trade union|trade unions]] and [[Strike action|strikes]]. Vulgar economics became the dominant form of mainstream economics during the 1830s and 1840s.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Frédéric Bastiat]]
* [[Henry Charles Carey]]
* [[John Bates Clark]]
* [[Thomas Malthus]]
* [[Alfred Marshall]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Say]]

==== Austrian ====
{{Main article|Austrian economics}}
Austrian economics is a form of vulgar bourgeois economics that bases economic laws on [[Idealism|subjective psychology]] instead of [[Materialism|social relations]]. It promotes a [[marginal utility]] theory of value.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Eugen Böhm-Bawerk]]
* [[Carl Menger]]
* [[Friedrich Wieser]]

==== Historical ====
The historical school of economics denies the existence of economic laws and instead focuses on separate historical facts. It has often supported reactionary policies. Many of its followers praised the [[German Empire (1871–1918)|German monarchy]].<ref name=":0" />

* [[Bruno Hildebrand]]
* [[Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher]]
* [[Gustav Schmoller]]

==== Keynesian ====
During the [[Great Depression]], [[John Maynard Keynes]] proposed an idealist explanation for [[unemployment]] and economic crises. Keynes believed the [[state]] should decrease the wages of workers and increase capitalist profits in order to increase employment.<ref name=":0" />

==== Social ====
Unlike the Austrians, the social school of economics deals with social relations between people. It sees these relations as idealistic legal relations instead of material relations and considers capitalist activities to be service to society.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Adolf Ammon]]
* [[Othmar Spann]]
* [[Rudolf Stolzmann]]

=== Petty-bourgeois ===
A [[Petty bourgeoisie|petty-bourgeois]] economic trend began in the early 19th century and criticized capitalism while idealizing the small-scale production of the [[peasantry]] and [[Artisan|artisans]]. These economists promoted [[utopian socialism]] and failed to see the inevitable growth of capitalism and expropriation of the peasantry.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]
* [[Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi]]

== References ==
[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Science]]

Economics

2025-11-12T03:57:00Z

Comwik: /* Classical */

'''Economics''' is a social [[science]] that studies how production, distribution, and consumption are organized. Economic views that connect to [[politics]] form the field of [[political economy]]. Since the beginning of [[capitalism]], various schools of economics have developed, including classical political economy, [[Marxism]], [[Keynesianism]], and [[reactionary]] [[neoclassical economics]].

== Schools ==

=== Pre-capitalist economic views ===

==== Slavery ====
Ancient philosophers such as [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] considered [[slavery]] a necessity for society, and Plato included slaves in his [[Idealism|ideal]] [[Utopia|utopian]] society. Aristotle coined the term ''oikonomía'' (οἰκονομία), the basis of the modern word economics, to refer to the science of managing resources. He promoted a primarily [[Natural economy|natural (subsistence) economy]] combined with trade when necessary. He condemned profit-oriented trade and [[usury]], viewing them as sources of unlimited wealth in contrast to agriculture and manufacturing.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Slave-Owning Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Slave-Owning_Period|section=Economic Views of the Slave-Owning Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

In [[Maurya Empire (322–184 BCE)|India]], [[Buddhism]] promoted non-resistance to the [[ruling class]] and was used to defend slavery.<ref name=":2" />

==== Feudalism ====
In [[Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE)|China]], [[Confucius]] viewed merchants as parasites that did not produce anything. He considered [[Peasantry|peasants]] and manufacturing workers to be necessary to society but believed they should be under the rule of [[Intelligentsia|scholar-officials]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Kenneth J. Hammond|year=2004|title=From Yao to Mao|chapter=Economy and Society in Southern Song|page=19|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceb23hyrkqoj556y6mpuygt7hapqps6e3v7fhhwi3ll5mjjsebj6w6?filename=Kenneth%20J.%20Hammond%20-%20From%20Yao%20to%20Mao_%205000%20Years%20of%20Chinese%20History.%20part%202-Teaching%20Company%20%282004%29.pdf|publisher=New Mexico State University}}</ref>

One of the most influential philosophers of [[Feudalism|feudal]] Europe was [[Thomas Aquinas]], who believed that feudalism was [[Divine mandate|mandated by God]] and that everyone should stay in their proper position in the feudal hierarchy. He believed that [[Commodity|commodities]] should be sold at "just" prices based on the labor used to produce them and the estate of the producer. Unlike ancient slave owners, he believed masters should not kill their serfs. Medieval theologians condemned usury at first until the [[Catholic Church]] began to benefit from it. Rebellious [[Serf|serfs]] were also deeply influenced by religion and quoted the [[Bible]] to justify their demands.<ref>{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Feudal Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Feudal_Period|section=Economic Views of the Feudal Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

=== Mercantilist ===
[[Mercantilism]] was an early stage of bourgeois political economy and of the economic policy of the states in the era of the [[Primitive accumulation of capital|original accumulation of capital]] (15th–18th centuries); it reflected the interests of commercial capital when the latter was still linked to industrial capital.

The mercantilists considered that profit is created in the sphere of circulation and that the wealth of nations is based on money. Hence, the mercantilist policy tended to attract the country as much gold and silver as possible. Mercantilism considered that the source of wealth lies in foreign trade, and since it was the artisans who supplied the goods that were exported, the conclusion was reached that it was essential to promote artisan production. Capitalist production was in its beginnings and the ideas of the mercantilists were conditioned by the level of economic development of that time.

Mercantilism implies a set of economic theories and practices developed during the Modern Age. In this historical context, a significant association was observed between the national states, which sought ways to strengthen their political power, and the bourgeois class, responsible for the development of activities of a commercial nature. This long-term experience was of great importance for the primitive accumulation of capital.<ref name=":1">History of economic thoughts - Luis Perdices de Blas -Editorial Sintesis - <nowiki>ISBN 8497561082</nowiki> </ref>

* [[William Petty]]
* [[John Locke]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Colbert]]
* [[Thomas Mun]]

In his time, the policy of mercantilism was progressive as it contributed to the development of the first large capitalist companies: manufacturing; it facilitated the progress of the productive forces, the victory of capitalism over feudalism. Mercantilism as a current of economic thought of the bourgeoisie is followed by the theory of the physiocrats.

=== Physiocracy ===
Physiocracy as an economic school appeared in the 18th century, as one of the manifestations of enlightened despotism, to which they adhered, opposing mercantilism, arguing that the wealth of nations was not measured by its accumulation in gold and silver, but by land and agricultural development, which provide a surplus between raw materials and what is produced, which would not occur in other activities, such as commerce or industry, which they considered sterile.

For this ideology, human life, both individual and social, should be governed by natural laws, following that order predetermined by a superior divine will, and therefore perfect, and not involve the State in economic life, but instead people should be able to carry out their activity freely ([[laissez faire]]). The role of the state was to ensure the right to education, the peaceful enjoyment of liberties and the carrying out of public works. Within the natural social order, the social class of peasants was the most important, since it was the only one that originated wealth. The taxes levied on rural exploitation were very low.<ref name=":1" />

* [[François Quesnay]]
* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti

The father of classical economics, Adam Smith was greatly influenced by the physiocrats.<ref name=":1" />

=== Classical ===
Classical political economics emerged during the era of [[Bourgeois revolution|bourgeois revolutions]] and discredited the old economic ideas of the [[Feudalism|feudal]] aristocracy. It played a progressive role against feudalism and held a [[Labor theory of value|labour theory of value]] but included limitations due to its lack of [[historical materialism]]. The classical political economists never questioned the historical origin of [[money]], [[capital]], and [[Commodity|commodities]].<ref name=":0">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|chapter=Economic Doctrines of the Capitalist Epoch|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/pe-ch22.htm|section=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

* [[David Ricardo]]
* [[Adam Smith]]

=== Marxist ===
[[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]] turned [[socialism]] from [[Utopian socialism|utopianism]] into [[Scientific socialism|science]]. They applied [[dialectical materialism]] and improved upon the basis laid by Smith and Ricardo to turn economics into a [[Proletariat|proletarian]] science. Marx and Engels published their discoveries in [[Capital, vol. I (1867)|Capital]], which consisted of three volumes released between 1867 and 1894. They based their analysis on [[Surplus-value|surplus value]] and exposed the fundamental [[contradiction]] between bourgeoisie and proletariat.<ref name=":0" />

=== Vulgar (post-classical bourgeois) ===
As the [[class struggle]] intensified, bourgeois economists rejected the scientific aspects of classical economics while upholding its flaws. They replaced the labour theory of value with unscientific theories including the [[utility theory of value]], [[supply and demand]], or production costs. While claiming to defend "freedom of labour," they attacked [[Trade union|trade unions]] and [[Strike action|strikes]]. Vulgar economics became the dominant form of mainstream economics during the 1830s and 1840s.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Frédéric Bastiat]]
* [[Henry Charles Carey]]
* [[John Bates Clark]]
* [[Thomas Malthus]]
* [[Alfred Marshall]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Say]]

==== Austrian ====
{{Main article|Austrian economics}}
Austrian economics is a form of vulgar bourgeois economics that bases economic laws on [[Idealism|subjective psychology]] instead of [[Materialism|social relations]]. It promotes a [[marginal utility]] theory of value.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Eugen Böhm-Bawerk]]
* [[Carl Menger]]
* [[Friedrich Wieser]]

==== Historical ====
The historical school of economics denies the existence of economic laws and instead focuses on separate historical facts. It has often supported reactionary policies. Many of its followers praised the [[German Empire (1871–1918)|German monarchy]].<ref name=":0" />

* [[Bruno Hildebrand]]
* [[Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher]]
* [[Gustav Schmoller]]

==== Keynesian ====
During the [[Great Depression]], [[John Maynard Keynes]] proposed an idealist explanation for [[unemployment]] and economic crises. Keynes believed the [[state]] should decrease the wages of workers and increase capitalist profits in order to increase employment.<ref name=":0" />

==== Social ====
Unlike the Austrians, the social school of economics deals with social relations between people. It sees these relations as idealistic legal relations instead of material relations and considers capitalist activities to be service to society.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Adolf Ammon]]
* [[Othmar Spann]]
* [[Rudolf Stolzmann]]

=== Petty-bourgeois ===
A [[Petty bourgeoisie|petty-bourgeois]] economic trend began in the early 19th century and criticized capitalism while idealizing the small-scale production of the [[peasantry]] and [[Artisan|artisans]]. These economists promoted [[utopian socialism]] and failed to see the inevitable growth of capitalism and expropriation of the peasantry.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]
* [[Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi]]

== References ==
[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Science]]

Economics

2025-11-12T03:54:14Z

Comwik: Seems to me Marxist economics is best discussed after classical and before the bourgeois reactions to Marxist economics

'''Economics''' is a social [[science]] that studies how production, distribution, and consumption are organized. Economic views that connect to [[politics]] form the field of [[political economy]]. Since the beginning of [[capitalism]], various schools of economics have developed, including classical political economy, [[Marxism]], [[Keynesianism]], and [[reactionary]] [[neoclassical economics]].

== Schools ==

=== Pre-capitalist economic views ===

==== Slavery ====
Ancient philosophers such as [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] considered [[slavery]] a necessity for society, and Plato included slaves in his [[Idealism|ideal]] [[Utopia|utopian]] society. Aristotle coined the term ''oikonomía'' (οἰκονομία), the basis of the modern word economics, to refer to the science of managing resources. He promoted a primarily [[Natural economy|natural (subsistence) economy]] combined with trade when necessary. He condemned profit-oriented trade and [[usury]], viewing them as sources of unlimited wealth in contrast to agriculture and manufacturing.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Slave-Owning Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Slave-Owning_Period|section=Economic Views of the Slave-Owning Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

In [[Maurya Empire (322–184 BCE)|India]], [[Buddhism]] promoted non-resistance to the [[ruling class]] and was used to defend slavery.<ref name=":2" />

==== Feudalism ====
In [[Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE)|China]], [[Confucius]] viewed merchants as parasites that did not produce anything. He considered [[Peasantry|peasants]] and manufacturing workers to be necessary to society but believed they should be under the rule of [[Intelligentsia|scholar-officials]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Kenneth J. Hammond|year=2004|title=From Yao to Mao|chapter=Economy and Society in Southern Song|page=19|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceb23hyrkqoj556y6mpuygt7hapqps6e3v7fhhwi3ll5mjjsebj6w6?filename=Kenneth%20J.%20Hammond%20-%20From%20Yao%20to%20Mao_%205000%20Years%20of%20Chinese%20History.%20part%202-Teaching%20Company%20%282004%29.pdf|publisher=New Mexico State University}}</ref>

One of the most influential philosophers of [[Feudalism|feudal]] Europe was [[Thomas Aquinas]], who believed that feudalism was [[Divine mandate|mandated by God]] and that everyone should stay in their proper position in the feudal hierarchy. He believed that [[Commodity|commodities]] should be sold at "just" prices based on the labor used to produce them and the estate of the producer. Unlike ancient slave owners, he believed masters should not kill their serfs. Medieval theologians condemned usury at first until the [[Catholic Church]] began to benefit from it. Rebellious [[Serf|serfs]] were also deeply influenced by religion and quoted the [[Bible]] to justify their demands.<ref>{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Feudal Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Feudal_Period|section=Economic Views of the Feudal Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

=== Mercantilist ===
[[Mercantilism]] was an early stage of bourgeois political economy and of the economic policy of the states in the era of the [[Primitive accumulation of capital|original accumulation of capital]] (15th–18th centuries); it reflected the interests of commercial capital when the latter was still linked to industrial capital.

The mercantilists considered that profit is created in the sphere of circulation and that the wealth of nations is based on money. Hence, the mercantilist policy tended to attract the country as much gold and silver as possible. Mercantilism considered that the source of wealth lies in foreign trade, and since it was the artisans who supplied the goods that were exported, the conclusion was reached that it was essential to promote artisan production. Capitalist production was in its beginnings and the ideas of the mercantilists were conditioned by the level of economic development of that time.

Mercantilism implies a set of economic theories and practices developed during the Modern Age. In this historical context, a significant association was observed between the national states, which sought ways to strengthen their political power, and the bourgeois class, responsible for the development of activities of a commercial nature. This long-term experience was of great importance for the primitive accumulation of capital.<ref name=":1">History of economic thoughts - Luis Perdices de Blas -Editorial Sintesis - <nowiki>ISBN 8497561082</nowiki> </ref>

* [[William Petty]]
* [[John Locke]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Colbert]]
* [[Thomas Mun]]

In his time, the policy of mercantilism was progressive as it contributed to the development of the first large capitalist companies: manufacturing; it facilitated the progress of the productive forces, the victory of capitalism over feudalism. Mercantilism as a current of economic thought of the bourgeoisie is followed by the theory of the physiocrats.

=== Physiocracy ===
Physiocracy as an economic school appeared in the 18th century, as one of the manifestations of enlightened despotism, to which they adhered, opposing mercantilism, arguing that the wealth of nations was not measured by its accumulation in gold and silver, but by land and agricultural development, which provide a surplus between raw materials and what is produced, which would not occur in other activities, such as commerce or industry, which they considered sterile.

For this ideology, human life, both individual and social, should be governed by natural laws, following that order predetermined by a superior divine will, and therefore perfect, and not involve the State in economic life, but instead people should be able to carry out their activity freely ([[laissez faire]]). The role of the state was to ensure the right to education, the peaceful enjoyment of liberties and the carrying out of public works. Within the natural social order, the social class of peasants was the most important, since it was the only one that originated wealth. The taxes levied on rural exploitation were very low.<ref name=":1" />

* [[François Quesnay]]
* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti

The father of classical economics, Adam Smith was greatly influenced by the physiocrats.<ref name=":1" />

=== Classical ===
Classical political economics emerged during the era of [[Bourgeois revolution|bourgeois revolutions]] and discredited the old economic ideas of the [[Feudalism|feudal]] aristocracy. It played a progressive role against feudalism and followed the [[Labor theory of value|labour theory of value]] but included limitations due to its lack of [[historical materialism]]. The classical political economists never questioned the historical origin of [[money]], [[capital]], and [[Commodity|commodities]].<ref name=":0">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|chapter=Economic Doctrines of the Capitalist Epoch|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/pe-ch22.htm|section=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

* [[David Ricardo]]
* [[Adam Smith]]

=== Marxist ===
[[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]] turned [[socialism]] from [[Utopian socialism|utopianism]] into [[Scientific socialism|science]]. They applied [[dialectical materialism]] and improved upon the basis laid by Smith and Ricardo to turn economics into a [[Proletariat|proletarian]] science. Marx and Engels published their discoveries in [[Capital, vol. I (1867)|Capital]], which consisted of three volumes released between 1867 and 1894. They based their analysis on [[Surplus-value|surplus value]] and exposed the fundamental [[contradiction]] between bourgeoisie and proletariat.<ref name=":0" />

=== Vulgar (post-classical bourgeois) ===
As the [[class struggle]] intensified, bourgeois economists rejected the scientific aspects of classical economics while upholding its flaws. They replaced the labour theory of value with unscientific theories including the [[utility theory of value]], [[supply and demand]], or production costs. While claiming to defend "freedom of labour," they attacked [[Trade union|trade unions]] and [[Strike action|strikes]]. Vulgar economics became the dominant form of mainstream economics during the 1830s and 1840s.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Frédéric Bastiat]]
* [[Henry Charles Carey]]
* [[John Bates Clark]]
* [[Thomas Malthus]]
* [[Alfred Marshall]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Say]]

==== Austrian ====
{{Main article|Austrian economics}}
Austrian economics is a form of vulgar bourgeois economics that bases economic laws on [[Idealism|subjective psychology]] instead of [[Materialism|social relations]]. It promotes a [[marginal utility]] theory of value.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Eugen Böhm-Bawerk]]
* [[Carl Menger]]
* [[Friedrich Wieser]]

==== Historical ====
The historical school of economics denies the existence of economic laws and instead focuses on separate historical facts. It has often supported reactionary policies. Many of its followers praised the [[German Empire (1871–1918)|German monarchy]].<ref name=":0" />

* [[Bruno Hildebrand]]
* [[Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher]]
* [[Gustav Schmoller]]

==== Keynesian ====
During the [[Great Depression]], [[John Maynard Keynes]] proposed an idealist explanation for [[unemployment]] and economic crises. Keynes believed the [[state]] should decrease the wages of workers and increase capitalist profits in order to increase employment.<ref name=":0" />

==== Social ====
Unlike the Austrians, the social school of economics deals with social relations between people. It sees these relations as idealistic legal relations instead of material relations and considers capitalist activities to be service to society.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Adolf Ammon]]
* [[Othmar Spann]]
* [[Rudolf Stolzmann]]

=== Petty-bourgeois ===
A [[Petty bourgeoisie|petty-bourgeois]] economic trend began in the early 19th century and criticized capitalism while idealizing the small-scale production of the [[peasantry]] and [[Artisan|artisans]]. These economists promoted [[utopian socialism]] and failed to see the inevitable growth of capitalism and expropriation of the peasantry.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]
* [[Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi]]

== References ==
[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Science]]

Economics

2025-11-12T03:51:57Z

Comwik: /* Historical */

'''Economics''' is a social [[science]] that studies how production, distribution, and consumption are organized. Economic views that connect to [[politics]] form the field of [[political economy]]. Since the beginning of [[capitalism]], various schools of economics have developed, including classical political economy, [[Marxism]], [[Keynesianism]], and [[reactionary]] [[neoclassical economics]].

== Schools ==

=== Pre-capitalist economic views ===

==== Slavery ====
Ancient philosophers such as [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] considered [[slavery]] a necessity for society, and Plato included slaves in his [[Idealism|ideal]] [[Utopia|utopian]] society. Aristotle coined the term ''oikonomía'' (οἰκονομία), the basis of the modern word economics, to refer to the science of managing resources. He promoted a primarily [[Natural economy|natural (subsistence) economy]] combined with trade when necessary. He condemned profit-oriented trade and [[usury]], viewing them as sources of unlimited wealth in contrast to agriculture and manufacturing.<ref name=":2">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Slave-Owning Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Slave-Owning_Period|section=Economic Views of the Slave-Owning Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

In [[Maurya Empire (322–184 BCE)|India]], [[Buddhism]] promoted non-resistance to the [[ruling class]] and was used to defend slavery.<ref name=":2" />

==== Feudalism ====
In [[Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE)|China]], [[Confucius]] viewed merchants as parasites that did not produce anything. He considered [[Peasantry|peasants]] and manufacturing workers to be necessary to society but believed they should be under the rule of [[Intelligentsia|scholar-officials]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Kenneth J. Hammond|year=2004|title=From Yao to Mao|chapter=Economy and Society in Southern Song|page=19|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceb23hyrkqoj556y6mpuygt7hapqps6e3v7fhhwi3ll5mjjsebj6w6?filename=Kenneth%20J.%20Hammond%20-%20From%20Yao%20to%20Mao_%205000%20Years%20of%20Chinese%20History.%20part%202-Teaching%20Company%20%282004%29.pdf|publisher=New Mexico State University}}</ref>

One of the most influential philosophers of [[Feudalism|feudal]] Europe was [[Thomas Aquinas]], who believed that feudalism was [[Divine mandate|mandated by God]] and that everyone should stay in their proper position in the feudal hierarchy. He believed that [[Commodity|commodities]] should be sold at "just" prices based on the labor used to produce them and the estate of the producer. Unlike ancient slave owners, he believed masters should not kill their serfs. Medieval theologians condemned usury at first until the [[Catholic Church]] began to benefit from it. Rebellious [[Serf|serfs]] were also deeply influenced by religion and quoted the [[Bible]] to justify their demands.<ref>{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|title-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy|chapter=The Feudal Mode of Production|chapter-url=https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Political_Economy#Economic_Views_of_the_Feudal_Period|section=Economic Views of the Feudal Period|pdf=https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PoliticalEconomy.pdf|city=Moscow|publisher=USSR Academy of Sciences|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

=== Mercantilist ===
[[Mercantilism]] was an early stage of bourgeois political economy and of the economic policy of the states in the era of the [[Primitive accumulation of capital|original accumulation of capital]] (15th–18th centuries); it reflected the interests of commercial capital when the latter was still linked to industrial capital.

The mercantilists considered that profit is created in the sphere of circulation and that the wealth of nations is based on money. Hence, the mercantilist policy tended to attract the country as much gold and silver as possible. Mercantilism considered that the source of wealth lies in foreign trade, and since it was the artisans who supplied the goods that were exported, the conclusion was reached that it was essential to promote artisan production. Capitalist production was in its beginnings and the ideas of the mercantilists were conditioned by the level of economic development of that time.

Mercantilism implies a set of economic theories and practices developed during the Modern Age. In this historical context, a significant association was observed between the national states, which sought ways to strengthen their political power, and the bourgeois class, responsible for the development of activities of a commercial nature. This long-term experience was of great importance for the primitive accumulation of capital.<ref name=":1">History of economic thoughts - Luis Perdices de Blas -Editorial Sintesis - <nowiki>ISBN 8497561082</nowiki> </ref>

* [[William Petty]]
* [[John Locke]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Colbert]]
* [[Thomas Mun]]

In his time, the policy of mercantilism was progressive as it contributed to the development of the first large capitalist companies: manufacturing; it facilitated the progress of the productive forces, the victory of capitalism over feudalism. Mercantilism as a current of economic thought of the bourgeoisie is followed by the theory of the physiocrats.

=== Physiocracy ===
Physiocracy as an economic school appeared in the 18th century, as one of the manifestations of enlightened despotism, to which they adhered, opposing mercantilism, arguing that the wealth of nations was not measured by its accumulation in gold and silver, but by land and agricultural development, which provide a surplus between raw materials and what is produced, which would not occur in other activities, such as commerce or industry, which they considered sterile.

For this ideology, human life, both individual and social, should be governed by natural laws, following that order predetermined by a superior divine will, and therefore perfect, and not involve the State in economic life, but instead people should be able to carry out their activity freely ([[laissez faire]]). The role of the state was to ensure the right to education, the peaceful enjoyment of liberties and the carrying out of public works. Within the natural social order, the social class of peasants was the most important, since it was the only one that originated wealth. The taxes levied on rural exploitation were very low.<ref name=":1" />

* [[François Quesnay]]
* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti

The father of classical economics, Adam Smith was greatly influenced by the physiocrats.<ref name=":1" />

=== Classical ===
Classical political economics emerged during the era of [[Bourgeois revolution|bourgeois revolutions]] and discredited the old economic ideas of the [[Feudalism|feudal]] aristocracy. It played a progressive role against feudalism and followed the [[Labor theory of value|labour theory of value]] but included limitations due to its lack of [[historical materialism]]. The classical political economists never questioned the historical origin of [[money]], [[capital]], and [[Commodity|commodities]].<ref name=":0">{{Citation|year=1954|title=Political Economy|chapter=Economic Doctrines of the Capitalist Epoch|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/pe-ch22.htm|section=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/index.htm}}</ref>

* [[David Ricardo]]
* [[Adam Smith]]

=== Vulgar (post-classical bourgeois) ===
As the [[class struggle]] intensified, bourgeois economists rejected the scientific aspects of classical economics while upholding its flaws. They replaced the labour theory of value with unscientific theories including the [[utility theory of value]], [[supply and demand]], or production costs. While claiming to defend "freedom of labour," they attacked [[Trade union|trade unions]] and [[Strike action|strikes]]. Vulgar economics became the dominant form of mainstream economics during the 1830s and 1840s.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Frédéric Bastiat]]
* [[Henry Charles Carey]]
* [[John Bates Clark]]
* [[Thomas Malthus]]
* [[Alfred Marshall]]
* [[Jean-Baptiste Say]]

==== Austrian ====
{{Main article|Austrian economics}}
Austrian economics is a form of vulgar bourgeois economics that bases economic laws on [[Idealism|subjective psychology]] instead of [[Materialism|social relations]]. It promotes a [[marginal utility]] theory of value.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Eugen Böhm-Bawerk]]
* [[Carl Menger]]
* [[Friedrich Wieser]]

==== Historical ====
The historical school of economics denies the existence of economic laws and instead focuses on separate historical facts. It has often supported reactionary policies. Many of its followers praised the [[German Empire (1871–1918)|German monarchy]].<ref name=":0" />

* [[Bruno Hildebrand]]
* [[Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher]]
* [[Gustav Schmoller]]

==== Keynesian ====
During the [[Great Depression]], [[John Maynard Keynes]] proposed an idealist explanation for [[unemployment]] and economic crises. Keynes believed the [[state]] should decrease the wages of workers and increase capitalist profits in order to increase employment.<ref name=":0" />

==== Social ====
Unlike the Austrians, the social school of economics deals with social relations between people. It sees these relations as idealistic legal relations instead of material relations and considers capitalist activities to be service to society.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Adolf Ammon]]
* [[Othmar Spann]]
* [[Rudolf Stolzmann]]

=== Petty-bourgeois ===
A [[Petty bourgeoisie|petty-bourgeois]] economic trend began in the early 19th century and criticized capitalism while idealizing the small-scale production of the [[peasantry]] and [[Artisan|artisans]]. These economists promoted [[utopian socialism]] and failed to see the inevitable growth of capitalism and expropriation of the peasantry.<ref name=":0" />

* [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]]
* [[Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi]]

=== Marxist ===
[[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]] turned [[socialism]] from [[Utopian socialism|utopianism]] into [[Scientific socialism|science]]. They applied [[dialectical materialism]] and improved upon the basis laid by Smith and Ricardo to turn economics into a [[Proletariat|proletarian]] science. Marx and Engels published their discoveries in [[Capital, vol. I (1867)|Capital]], which consisted of three volumes released between 1867 and 1894. They based their analysis on [[Surplus-value|surplus value]] and exposed the fundamental [[contradiction]] between bourgeoisie and proletariat.<ref name=":0" />

== References ==
[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Science]]

Topic:Z2knuzt729s5jpwc

2025-11-12T03:20:39Z

Comwik (talk | contribs) commented on "Why this category?" (It seems to me that the articles in this category ought to be just categorised under "Category:Marxism" or subcategories of that, such as...)

New value-product

2025-11-12T03:08:43Z

Comwik: /* Other works */

'''New value-product''' is a term used by Karl Marx for the value that a worker's labour adds to the (constant) capital she works on to produce a product. It is the amount by which the value of the product is greater than the value of the input materials.

 

In the familiar Marxist expression for the value of a product,

P = C + V + S Where, P is the value of
the product;

C is constant capital
(material inputs);

V is variable capital
(wages);

S is surplus value.

the new value product is equal to V + S.

 

According to the [[labour theory of value]], the new value-product is proportional to the labour time (duration).

The term is roughly synonymous with the bourgeois economics term, ''value-added''.

==Other works==
For an example of the use of the term, see Karl Marx, ''Capital'', Volume II, page 434 in Progress Publishers (Moscow, USSR) edition.

[[Category:Marxist economics]]

Category:Marxian economics

2025-11-12T03:07:17Z

Comwik: Changed redirect target from Marxist economics to Category:Marxist economics

#Redirect [[Category:Marxist economics]]

Category:Marxian economics

2025-11-12T03:05:07Z

Comwik: Redirected page to Marxist economics

#Redirect [[Marxist economics]]

New value-product

2025-11-12T03:04:14Z

Comwik:

New value-product

2025-11-12T03:01:02Z

Comwik:

'''New value-product''' is a term used by Karl Marx for the value that a worker's labour adds to the (constant) capital she works on to produce a product. It is the amount by which the value of the product is greater than the value of the input materials. In the familiar Marxist expression for the value of a product,

P = C + V + S Where, P is the value of
the product;

C is constant capital
(material inputs);

V is variable capital
(wages);

S is surplus value.

the new value product is equal to V + S.

According to the [[labour theory of value]], the new value-product is proportional to the labour time (duration).

The term is roughly synonymous with the bourgeois economics term, ''value-added''.

==Other works==
For an example of the use of the term, see Karl Marx, ''Capital'', Volume II, page 434 in Progress Publishers (Moscow, USSR) edition.

[[Category:Marxian economics]]

New value-product

2025-11-12T03:00:32Z

Comwik: Salvaged from the defunct website, 'Communpedia'

'''New value-product''' is a term used by Karl Marx for the value that a worker's labour adds to the (constant) capital she works on to produce a product. It is the amount by which the value of the product is greater than the value of the input materials. In the familiar Marxist expression for the value of a product,

P = C + V + S Where, P is the value of
the product;

C is constant capital
(material inputs);

V is variable capital
(wages);

S is surplus value.

the new value product is equal to V + S.

According to the [[labour theory of value]], the new value-product is proportional to the labour time (duration).

The term is roughly synonymous with the bourgeois economics term, ''value-added''.

==Other works==
For an example of the use of the term, see Karl Marx, ''Capital'', Volume II, page 434 in Progress Publishers (Moscow, USSR) edition.

[[Category:Marxian economics]]

Workers self management

2025-11-12T02:43:20Z

Comwik: redirect

#Redirect [[Workers' self-management]]

Workers' self-management

2025-11-12T02:40:38Z

Comwik: Article salvaged from the defunct Communpedia website

'''Workers' self-management''' is the management of a productive enterprise by the workers of that enterprise themselves. It is distinct from management by a [[capitalist]] or by capitalist-appointed managers, and from management by state-appointed managers. It is debateable whether workers' self-management is [[socialism]], because the worker self-managed enterprise is still in [[market]] relations with other enterprises from which it buys its materials, and with other enterprises or the public to whom it sells its product. However, neither is worker self-management [[capitalism]], because the enterprise is not owned by a capitalist, and there is no appropriation of [[surplus value]] from the workers.

From Harry Braverman, ''Labor and Monopoly Capital'':
<blockquote style="font-size:100%">
Without the return of requisite technical knowlege to the mass of workers and the reshaping of the organization of labor – without, in a word, a new and truly collective mode of production – balloting within factories and offices does not alter the fact that the workers remain as dependent as before on "experts", and can only choose among them, or vote for alternatives presented by them. Thus genuine worker's control has as its prerequisite the demystifying of technology and the reorganization of the mode of production." (P 445.)
</blockquote>

[[Category:Workers' self-management| ]]

Reserve army of labour

2025-09-22T05:10:06Z

Comwik:

The '''Reserve army of labour''', also referred to as the '''Industrial reserve army (IRA)''' is Karl Marx's term for the pool of unemployed and partly-employed workers in [[capitalism]]. The reserve army of labour serves as a pool of potential replacements for those workers who are currently employed, thus enabling the capitalists to maintain a high degree of [[exploitation]] of the employed workers by holding against them the threat of dismissal and replacement by someone from the reserve army. For this reason the capitalists, despite their occasionally professed concern about unemployment, are in fact not interested in abolishing the reserve army of labour -- ''i.e.,'' in employing all of the available labour.<ref>Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1957. ''Political Economy,'' (Lawrence and Wishart) p. 168.</ref>

''Reserve army of labour'' is related to another Marxian term, ''[[relative surplus population]]'', except that the reserve army includes only those unemployed people willing and able to work, whereas the relative surplus population also includes people unable to work.

==Marx's discussion of the concept==
Although the idea of the industrial reserve army of labour is closely associated with Marx, it was already in circulation in the British labour movement by the 1830s.<ref>;Michael Denning (2010) "Wageless life" ''New Left Review''. 66: 79-97</ref> The first mention of the reserve army of labour in Marx's writing occurs in a manuscript he wrote in 1847 but did not publish:<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/12/31.html Marx, ''Wages''.]</ref>

<blockquote>Big industry constantly requires a reserve army of unemployed workers for times of overproduction. The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it, i.e., when the overpopulation is the greatest. Overpopulation is therefore in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and it gives the workers good advice which it knows to be impossible to carry out. Since capital only increases when it employs workers, the increase of capital involves an increase of the proletariat, and, as we have seen, according to the nature of the relation of capital and labour, the increase of the proletariat must proceed relatively even faster. The... theory... which is also expressed as a law of nature, that population grows faster than the means of subsistence, is the more welcome to the bourgeois as it silences his conscience, makes hard-heartedness into a moral duty and the consequences of society into the consequences of nature, and finally gives him the opportunity to watch the destruction of the proletariat by starvation as calmly as other natural event without bestirring himself, and, on the other hand, to regard the misery of the proletariat as its own fault and to punish it. To be sure, the proletarian can restrain his natural instinct by reason, and so, by moral supervision, halt the law of nature in its injurious course of development. - Karl Marx, ''Wages'', December 1847</blockquote>

Marx introduces the concept in chapter 25 of the first volume of [[Das Kapital]], which he did publish twenty years later in 1867, stating that:

<blockquote>capitalistic accumulation itself... constantly produces, and produces in the direct ratio of its own energy and extent, a relatively redundant population of workers, i.e., a population of greater extent than suffices for the average needs of the [[valorisation]] of capital, and therefore a surplus-population... It is the absolute interest of every capitalist to press a given quantity of labour out of a smaller, rather than a greater number of labourers, if the cost is about the same... The more extended the scale of production, the stronger this motive. Its force increases with the accumulation of capital.</blockquote>

His argument is that as capitalism develops, the [[organic composition of capital]] will increase, which means that the mass of [[constant capital]] grows faster than the mass of [[variable capital]]. Fewer workers can produce all that is necessary for society's requirements. In addition, capital will become more concentrated and centralized in fewer hands.

This being the ''absolute'' historical tendency, part of the working population will tend to become ''surplus'' to the requirements of [[capital accumulation]] over time. Paradoxically, the larger the wealth of society, the larger the industrial reserve army will become. One could add that the larger the wealth of society, the more people it can support who do not work.

However, as Marx develops the argument further, it also becomes clear that, depending on the state of the economy, the reserve army of labour will either expand or contract, alternately being absorbed or expelled from the employed workforce. Thus,

<blockquote>Taking them as a whole, the general movements of [[wages]] are exclusively regulated by the expansion and contraction of the industrial reserve army, and these again correspond to the periodic changes of the industrial cycle. They are, therefore, not determined by the variations of the absolute number of the working population, but by the varying proportions in which the working-class is divided into active and reserve army, by the increase or diminution in the relative amount of the surplus-population, by the extent to which it is now absorbed, now set free.</blockquote>

Marx concludes that: "Relative surplus-population is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand and supply of labour works." The availability of labour influences wage rates, and the larger the unemployed workforce grows, the more this forces down wage rates; conversely, if there are plenty jobs available and unemployment is low, this tends to raise the average level of wages - in that case workers are able to change jobs rapidly to get better pay.

==Composition of the relative surplus population==
Marx argues the relative surplus population always has three forms: the ''floating'', the ''latent'' and the ''stagnant''.

*The ''floating'' part refers to the temporarily unemployed ("conjunctural unemployment").

*The ''latent'' part consists of that segment of the population not yet fully integrated into capitalist production - for example, part of the rural population. It forms a pool or reservoir of potential workers for industries.

*The ''stagnant'' part consists of marginalised people with "extremely irregular employment". Its lowest stratum (excepting criminals, vagabonds and prostitutes) "dwells in the sphere of pauperism", including those still able to work, orphans and pauper children, and the "demoralised and ragged" or "unable to work".

Marx then analyses the reserve army of labour in detail, using data on [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] where he lived.

==See also==
* [[Labor power|Labour power]]
* [[Unemployment]]
* [[Wage slavery]]
* [[Working class]]
* [[Precariat]]

== References ==

<references />
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]
[[Category:Marxist economics]]

Reserve army of labour

2025-09-22T04:08:53Z

Comwik: /* Marx's discussion of the concept */

The '''Reserve army of labour''', also referred as the '''Industrial reserve army (IRA)''' is Karl Marx's term for the pool of unemployed and partly-employed workers in [[capitalism]]. The reserve army of labour serves as a pool of potential replacements for those workers who are currently employed, thus enabling the capitalists to maintain a high degree of [[exploitation]] of the employed workers by holding against them the threat of dismissal and replacement by someone from the reserve army. For this reason the capitalists, despite their occasionally professed concern about unemployment, are in fact not interested in abolishing the reserve army of labour -- ''i.e.,'' in employing all of the available labour.<ref>Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1957. ''Political Economy,'' (Lawrence and Wishart) p. 168.</ref>

''Reserve army of labour'' is related to another Marxian term, ''[[relative surplus population]]'', except that the reserve army includes only those unemployed people willing and able to work, whereas the relative surplus population also includes people unable to work.

==Marx's discussion of the concept==
Although the idea of the industrial reserve army of labour is closely associated with Marx, it was already in circulation in the British labour movement by the 1830s.<ref>;Michael Denning (2010) "Wageless life" ''New Left Review''. 66: 79-97</ref> The first mention of the reserve army of labour in Marx's writing occurs in a manuscript he wrote in 1847 but did not publish:<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/12/31.html Marx, ''Wages''.]</ref>

<blockquote>Big industry constantly requires a reserve army of unemployed workers for times of overproduction. The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it, i.e., when the overpopulation is the greatest. Overpopulation is therefore in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and it gives the workers good advice which it knows to be impossible to carry out. Since capital only increases when it employs workers, the increase of capital involves an increase of the proletariat, and, as we have seen, according to the nature of the relation of capital and labour, the increase of the proletariat must proceed relatively even faster. The... theory... which is also expressed as a law of nature, that population grows faster than the means of subsistence, is the more welcome to the bourgeois as it silences his conscience, makes hard-heartedness into a moral duty and the consequences of society into the consequences of nature, and finally gives him the opportunity to watch the destruction of the proletariat by starvation as calmly as other natural event without bestirring himself, and, on the other hand, to regard the misery of the proletariat as its own fault and to punish it. To be sure, the proletarian can restrain his natural instinct by reason, and so, by moral supervision, halt the law of nature in its injurious course of development. - Karl Marx, ''Wages'', December 1847</blockquote>

Marx introduces the concept in chapter 25 of the first volume of [[Das Kapital]], which he did publish twenty years later in 1867, stating that:

<blockquote>capitalistic accumulation itself... constantly produces, and produces in the direct ratio of its own energy and extent, a relatively redundant population of workers, i.e., a population of greater extent than suffices for the average needs of the [[valorisation]] of capital, and therefore a surplus-population... It is the absolute interest of every capitalist to press a given quantity of labour out of a smaller, rather than a greater number of labourers, if the cost is about the same... The more extended the scale of production, the stronger this motive. Its force increases with the accumulation of capital.</blockquote>

His argument is that as capitalism develops, the [[organic composition of capital]] will increase, which means that the mass of [[constant capital]] grows faster than the mass of [[variable capital]]. Fewer workers can produce all that is necessary for society's requirements. In addition, capital will become more concentrated and centralized in fewer hands.

This being the ''absolute'' historical tendency, part of the working population will tend to become ''surplus'' to the requirements of [[capital accumulation]] over time. Paradoxically, the larger the wealth of society, the larger the industrial reserve army will become. One could add that the larger the wealth of society, the more people it can support who do not work.

However, as Marx develops the argument further, it also becomes clear that, depending on the state of the economy, the reserve army of labour will either expand or contract, alternately being absorbed or expelled from the employed workforce. Thus,

<blockquote>Taking them as a whole, the general movements of [[wages]] are exclusively regulated by the expansion and contraction of the industrial reserve army, and these again correspond to the periodic changes of the industrial cycle. They are, therefore, not determined by the variations of the absolute number of the working population, but by the varying proportions in which the working-class is divided into active and reserve army, by the increase or diminution in the relative amount of the surplus-population, by the extent to which it is now absorbed, now set free.</blockquote>

Marx concludes that: "Relative surplus-population is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand and supply of labour works." The availability of labour influences wage rates, and the larger the unemployed workforce grows, the more this forces down wage rates; conversely, if there are plenty jobs available and unemployment is low, this tends to raise the average level of wages - in that case workers are able to change jobs rapidly to get better pay.

==Composition of the relative surplus population==
Marx argues the relative surplus population always has three forms: the ''floating'', the ''latent'' and the ''stagnant''.

*The ''floating'' part refers to the temporarily unemployed ("conjunctural unemployment").

*The ''latent'' part consists of that segment of the population not yet fully integrated into capitalist production - for example, part of the rural population. It forms a pool or reservoir of potential workers for industries.

*The ''stagnant'' part consists of marginalised people with "extremely irregular employment". Its lowest stratum (excepting criminals, vagabonds and prostitutes) "dwells in the sphere of pauperism", including those still able to work, orphans and pauper children, and the "demoralised and ragged" or "unable to work".

Marx then analyses the reserve army of labour in detail, using data on [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] where he lived.

==See also==
* [[Labor power|Labour power]]
* [[Unemployment]]
* [[Wage slavery]]
* [[Working class]]
* [[Precariat]]

== References ==

<references />
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]
[[Category:Marxist economics]]

Reserve army of labour

2025-09-22T04:07:25Z

Comwik: /* Marx's discussion of the concept */

The '''Reserve army of labour''', also referred as the '''Industrial reserve army (IRA)''' is Karl Marx's term for the pool of unemployed and partly-employed workers in [[capitalism]]. The reserve army of labour serves as a pool of potential replacements for those workers who are currently employed, thus enabling the capitalists to maintain a high degree of [[exploitation]] of the employed workers by holding against them the threat of dismissal and replacement by someone from the reserve army. For this reason the capitalists, despite their occasionally professed concern about unemployment, are in fact not interested in abolishing the reserve army of labour -- ''i.e.,'' in employing all of the available labour.<ref>Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1957. ''Political Economy,'' (Lawrence and Wishart) p. 168.</ref>

''Reserve army of labour'' is related to another Marxian term, ''[[relative surplus population]]'', except that the reserve army includes only those unemployed people willing and able to work, whereas the relative surplus population also includes people unable to work.

==Marx's discussion of the concept==
Although the idea of the industrial reserve army of labour is closely associated with Marx, it was already in circulation in the British labour movement by the 1830s.<ref>;Michael Denning (2010) "Wageless life" ''New Left Review''. 66: 79-97</ref> The first mention of the reserve army of labour in Marx's writing occurs in a manuscript he wrote in 1847 but did not publish:<ref>http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/12/31.html</ref>

<blockquote>Big industry constantly requires a reserve army of unemployed workers for times of overproduction. The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it, i.e., when the overpopulation is the greatest. Overpopulation is therefore in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and it gives the workers good advice which it knows to be impossible to carry out. Since capital only increases when it employs workers, the increase of capital involves an increase of the proletariat, and, as we have seen, according to the nature of the relation of capital and labour, the increase of the proletariat must proceed relatively even faster. The... theory... which is also expressed as a law of nature, that population grows faster than the means of subsistence, is the more welcome to the bourgeois as it silences his conscience, makes hard-heartedness into a moral duty and the consequences of society into the consequences of nature, and finally gives him the opportunity to watch the destruction of the proletariat by starvation as calmly as other natural event without bestirring himself, and, on the other hand, to regard the misery of the proletariat as its own fault and to punish it. To be sure, the proletarian can restrain his natural instinct by reason, and so, by moral supervision, halt the law of nature in its injurious course of development. - Karl Marx, ''Wages'', December 1847</blockquote>

Marx introduces the concept in chapter 25 of the first volume of [[Das Kapital]], which he did publish twenty years later in 1867, stating that:

<blockquote>capitalistic accumulation itself... constantly produces, and produces in the direct ratio of its own energy and extent, a relatively redundant population of workers, i.e., a population of greater extent than suffices for the average needs of the [[valorisation]] of capital, and therefore a surplus-population... It is the absolute interest of every capitalist to press a given quantity of labour out of a smaller, rather than a greater number of labourers, if the cost is about the same... The more extended the scale of production, the stronger this motive. Its force increases with the accumulation of capital.</blockquote>

His argument is that as capitalism develops, the [[organic composition of capital]] will increase, which means that the mass of [[constant capital]] grows faster than the mass of [[variable capital]]. Fewer workers can produce all that is necessary for society's requirements. In addition, capital will become more concentrated and centralized in fewer hands.

This being the ''absolute'' historical tendency, part of the working population will tend to become ''surplus'' to the requirements of [[capital accumulation]] over time. Paradoxically, the larger the wealth of society, the larger the industrial reserve army will become. One could add that the larger the wealth of society, the more people it can support who do not work.

However, as Marx develops the argument further, it also becomes clear that, depending on the state of the economy, the reserve army of labour will either expand or contract, alternately being absorbed or expelled from the employed workforce. Thus,

<blockquote>Taking them as a whole, the general movements of [[wages]] are exclusively regulated by the expansion and contraction of the industrial reserve army, and these again correspond to the periodic changes of the industrial cycle. They are, therefore, not determined by the variations of the absolute number of the working population, but by the varying proportions in which the working-class is divided into active and reserve army, by the increase or diminution in the relative amount of the surplus-population, by the extent to which it is now absorbed, now set free.</blockquote>

Marx concludes that: "Relative surplus-population is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand and supply of labour works." The availability of labour influences wage rates, and the larger the unemployed workforce grows, the more this forces down wage rates; conversely, if there are plenty jobs available and unemployment is low, this tends to raise the average level of wages - in that case workers are able to change jobs rapidly to get better pay.

==Composition of the relative surplus population==
Marx argues the relative surplus population always has three forms: the ''floating'', the ''latent'' and the ''stagnant''.

*The ''floating'' part refers to the temporarily unemployed ("conjunctural unemployment").

*The ''latent'' part consists of that segment of the population not yet fully integrated into capitalist production - for example, part of the rural population. It forms a pool or reservoir of potential workers for industries.

*The ''stagnant'' part consists of marginalised people with "extremely irregular employment". Its lowest stratum (excepting criminals, vagabonds and prostitutes) "dwells in the sphere of pauperism", including those still able to work, orphans and pauper children, and the "demoralised and ragged" or "unable to work".

Marx then analyses the reserve army of labour in detail, using data on [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] where he lived.

==See also==
* [[Labor power|Labour power]]
* [[Unemployment]]
* [[Wage slavery]]
* [[Working class]]
* [[Precariat]]

== References ==

<references />
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]
[[Category:Marxist economics]]

Reserve army of labour

2025-09-22T04:05:58Z

Comwik: Relative surplus population

The '''Reserve army of labour''', also referred as the '''Industrial reserve army (IRA)''' is Karl Marx's term for the pool of unemployed and partly-employed workers in [[capitalism]]. The reserve army of labour serves as a pool of potential replacements for those workers who are currently employed, thus enabling the capitalists to maintain a high degree of [[exploitation]] of the employed workers by holding against them the threat of dismissal and replacement by someone from the reserve army. For this reason the capitalists, despite their occasionally professed concern about unemployment, are in fact not interested in abolishing the reserve army of labour -- ''i.e.,'' in employing all of the available labour.<ref>Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1957. ''Political Economy,'' (Lawrence and Wishart) p. 168.</ref>

''Reserve army of labour'' is related to another Marxian term, ''[[relative surplus population]]'', except that the reserve army includes only those unemployed people willing and able to work, whereas the relative surplus population also includes people unable to work.

==Marx's discussion of the concept==
Although the idea of the industrial reserve army of labour is closely associated with Marx, it was already in circulation in the British labour movement by the 1830s.<ref>Michael Denning (2010) "Wageless life" ''New Left Review''. 66: 79-97</ref> The first mention of the reserve army of labour in Marx's writing occurs in a manuscript he wrote in 1847 but did not publish:<ref>http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/12/31.html</ref>

<blockquote>Big industry constantly requires a reserve army of unemployed workers for times of overproduction. The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it, i.e., when the overpopulation is the greatest. Overpopulation is therefore in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and it gives the workers good advice which it knows to be impossible to carry out. Since capital only increases when it employs workers, the increase of capital involves an increase of the proletariat, and, as we have seen, according to the nature of the relation of capital and labour, the increase of the proletariat must proceed relatively even faster. The... theory... which is also expressed as a law of nature, that population grows faster than the means of subsistence, is the more welcome to the bourgeois as it silences his conscience, makes hard-heartedness into a moral duty and the consequences of society into the consequences of nature, and finally gives him the opportunity to watch the destruction of the proletariat by starvation as calmly as other natural event without bestirring himself, and, on the other hand, to regard the misery of the proletariat as its own fault and to punish it. To be sure, the proletarian can restrain his natural instinct by reason, and so, by moral supervision, halt the law of nature in its injurious course of development. - Karl Marx, ''Wages'', December 1847</blockquote>

Marx introduces the concept in chapter 25 of the first volume of [[Das Kapital]], which he did publish twenty years later in 1867, stating that:

<blockquote>capitalistic accumulation itself... constantly produces, and produces in the direct ratio of its own energy and extent, a relatively redundant population of workers, i.e., a population of greater extent than suffices for the average needs of the [[valorisation]] of capital, and therefore a surplus-population... It is the absolute interest of every capitalist to press a given quantity of labour out of a smaller, rather than a greater number of labourers, if the cost is about the same... The more extended the scale of production, the stronger this motive. Its force increases with the accumulation of capital.</blockquote>

His argument is that as capitalism develops, the [[organic composition of capital]] will increase, which means that the mass of [[constant capital]] grows faster than the mass of [[variable capital]]. Fewer workers can produce all that is necessary for society's requirements. In addition, capital will become more concentrated and centralized in fewer hands.

This being the ''absolute'' historical tendency, part of the working population will tend to become ''surplus'' to the requirements of [[capital accumulation]] over time. Paradoxically, the larger the wealth of society, the larger the industrial reserve army will become. One could add that the larger the wealth of society, the more people it can support who do not work.

However, as Marx develops the argument further, it also becomes clear that, depending on the state of the economy, the reserve army of labour will either expand or contract, alternately being absorbed or expelled from the employed workforce. Thus,

<blockquote>Taking them as a whole, the general movements of [[wages]] are exclusively regulated by the expansion and contraction of the industrial reserve army, and these again correspond to the periodic changes of the industrial cycle. They are, therefore, not determined by the variations of the absolute number of the working population, but by the varying proportions in which the working-class is divided into active and reserve army, by the increase or diminution in the relative amount of the surplus-population, by the extent to which it is now absorbed, now set free.</blockquote>

Marx concludes that: "Relative surplus-population is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand and supply of labour works." The availability of labour influences wage rates, and the larger the unemployed workforce grows, the more this forces down wage rates; conversely, if there are plenty jobs available and unemployment is low, this tends to raise the average level of wages - in that case workers are able to change jobs rapidly to get better pay.

==Composition of the relative surplus population==
Marx argues the relative surplus population always has three forms: the ''floating'', the ''latent'' and the ''stagnant''.

*The ''floating'' part refers to the temporarily unemployed ("conjunctural unemployment").

*The ''latent'' part consists of that segment of the population not yet fully integrated into capitalist production - for example, part of the rural population. It forms a pool or reservoir of potential workers for industries.

*The ''stagnant'' part consists of marginalised people with "extremely irregular employment". Its lowest stratum (excepting criminals, vagabonds and prostitutes) "dwells in the sphere of pauperism", including those still able to work, orphans and pauper children, and the "demoralised and ragged" or "unable to work".

Marx then analyses the reserve army of labour in detail, using data on [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] where he lived.

==See also==
* [[Labor power|Labour power]]
* [[Unemployment]]
* [[Wage slavery]]
* [[Working class]]
* [[Precariat]]

== References ==

<references />
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]
[[Category:Marxist economics]]

Reserve army of labour

2025-09-22T03:52:50Z

Comwik: /* Marx's discussion of the concept */

The '''Reserve army of labour''', also referred as the '''Industrial reserve army (IRA)''' is Karl Marx's term for the pool of unemployed and partly-employed workers in [[capitalism]]. The reserve army of labour serves as a pool of potential replacements for those workers who are currently employed, thus enabling the capitalists to maintain a high degree of [[exploitation]] of the employed workers by holding against them the threat of dismissal and replacement by someone from the reserve army. For this reason the capitalists, despite their occasionally professed concern about unemployment, are in fact not interested in abolishing the reserve army of labour -- ''i.e.,'' in employing all of the available labour.<ref>Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1957. ''Political Economy,'' (Lawrence and Wishart) p. 168.</ref>

==Marx's discussion of the concept==
Although the idea of the industrial reserve army of labour is closely associated with Marx, it was already in circulation in the British labour movement by the 1830s.<ref>Michael Denning (2010) "Wageless life" ''New Left Review''. 66: 79-97</ref> The first mention of the reserve army of labour in Marx's writing occurs in a manuscript he wrote in 1847 but did not publish:<ref>http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/12/31.html</ref>

<blockquote>Big industry constantly requires a reserve army of unemployed workers for times of overproduction. The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it, i.e., when the overpopulation is the greatest. Overpopulation is therefore in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and it gives the workers good advice which it knows to be impossible to carry out. Since capital only increases when it employs workers, the increase of capital involves an increase of the proletariat, and, as we have seen, according to the nature of the relation of capital and labour, the increase of the proletariat must proceed relatively even faster. The... theory... which is also expressed as a law of nature, that population grows faster than the means of subsistence, is the more welcome to the bourgeois as it silences his conscience, makes hard-heartedness into a moral duty and the consequences of society into the consequences of nature, and finally gives him the opportunity to watch the destruction of the proletariat by starvation as calmly as other natural event without bestirring himself, and, on the other hand, to regard the misery of the proletariat as its own fault and to punish it. To be sure, the proletarian can restrain his natural instinct by reason, and so, by moral supervision, halt the law of nature in its injurious course of development. - Karl Marx, ''Wages'', December 1847</blockquote>

Marx introduces the concept in chapter 25 of the first volume of [[Das Kapital]], which he did publish twenty years later in 1867, stating that:

<blockquote>capitalistic accumulation itself... constantly produces, and produces in the direct ratio of its own energy and extent, a relatively redundant population of workers, i.e., a population of greater extent than suffices for the average needs of the [[valorisation]] of capital, and therefore a surplus-population... It is the absolute interest of every capitalist to press a given quantity of labour out of a smaller, rather than a greater number of labourers, if the cost is about the same... The more extended the scale of production, the stronger this motive. Its force increases with the accumulation of capital.</blockquote>

His argument is that as capitalism develops, the [[organic composition of capital]] will increase, which means that the mass of [[constant capital]] grows faster than the mass of [[variable capital]]. Fewer workers can produce all that is necessary for society's requirements. In addition, capital will become more concentrated and centralized in fewer hands.

This being the ''absolute'' historical tendency, part of the working population will tend to become ''surplus'' to the requirements of [[capital accumulation]] over time. Paradoxically, the larger the wealth of society, the larger the industrial reserve army will become. One could add that the larger the wealth of society, the more people it can support who do not work.

However, as Marx develops the argument further, it also becomes clear that, depending on the state of the economy, the reserve army of labour will either expand or contract, alternately being absorbed or expelled from the employed workforce. Thus,

<blockquote>Taking them as a whole, the general movements of [[wages]] are exclusively regulated by the expansion and contraction of the industrial reserve army, and these again correspond to the periodic changes of the industrial cycle. They are, therefore, not determined by the variations of the absolute number of the working population, but by the varying proportions in which the working-class is divided into active and reserve army, by the increase or diminution in the relative amount of the surplus-population, by the extent to which it is now absorbed, now set free.</blockquote>

Marx concludes that: "Relative surplus-population is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand and supply of labour works." The availability of labour influences wage rates, and the larger the unemployed workforce grows, the more this forces down wage rates; conversely, if there are plenty jobs available and unemployment is low, this tends to raise the average level of wages - in that case workers are able to change jobs rapidly to get better pay.

==Composition of the relative surplus population==
Marx argues the relative surplus population always has three forms: the ''floating'', the ''latent'' and the ''stagnant''.

*The ''floating'' part refers to the temporarily unemployed ("conjunctural unemployment").

*The ''latent'' part consists of that segment of the population not yet fully integrated into capitalist production - for example, part of the rural population. It forms a pool or reservoir of potential workers for industries.

*The ''stagnant'' part consists of marginalised people with "extremely irregular employment". Its lowest stratum (excepting criminals, vagabonds and prostitutes) "dwells in the sphere of pauperism", including those still able to work, orphans and pauper children, and the "demoralised and ragged" or "unable to work".

Marx then analyses the reserve army of labour in detail, using data on [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] where he lived.

==See also==
* [[Labor power|Labour power]]
* [[Unemployment]]
* [[Wage slavery]]
* [[Working class]]
* [[Precariat]]

== References ==

<references />
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]
[[Category:Marxist economics]]

Reserve army of labour

2025-09-22T03:50:53Z

Comwik: /* Marx's discussion of the concept */

The '''Reserve army of labour''', also referred as the '''Industrial reserve army (IRA)''' is Karl Marx's term for the pool of unemployed and partly-employed workers in [[capitalism]]. The reserve army of labour serves as a pool of potential replacements for those workers who are currently employed, thus enabling the capitalists to maintain a high degree of [[exploitation]] of the employed workers by holding against them the threat of dismissal and replacement by someone from the reserve army. For this reason the capitalists, despite their occasionally professed concern about unemployment, are in fact not interested in abolishing the reserve army of labour -- ''i.e.,'' in employing all of the available labour.<ref>Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1957. ''Political Economy,'' (Lawrence and Wishart) p. 168.</ref>

==Marx's discussion of the concept==
Although the idea of the industrial reserve army of labour is closely associated with Marx, it was already in circulation in the British labour movement by the 1830s.<ref>Michael Denning (2010) "Wageless life" ''New Left Review''. 66: 79-97</ref> The first mention of the reserve army of labour in Marx's writing occurs in a manuscript he wrote in 1847 but did not publish:<ref>http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/12/31.html</ref>

<blockquote>Big industry constantly requires a reserve army of unemployed workers for times of overproduction. The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it, i.e., when the overpopulation is the greatest. Overpopulation is therefore in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and it gives the workers good advice which it knows to be impossible to carry out. Since capital only increases when it employs workers, the increase of capital involves an increase of the proletariat, and, as we have seen, according to the nature of the relation of capital and labour, the increase of the proletariat must proceed relatively even faster. The... theory... which is also expressed as a law of nature, that population grows faster than the means of subsistence, is the more welcome to the bourgeois as it silences his conscience, makes hard-heartedness into a moral duty and the consequences of society into the consequences of nature, and finally gives him the opportunity to watch the destruction of the proletariat by starvation as calmly as other natural event without bestirring himself, and, on the other hand, to regard the misery of the proletariat as its own fault and to punish it. To be sure, the proletarian can restrain his natural instinct by reason, and so, by moral supervision, halt the law of nature in its injurious course of development. - Karl Marx, ''Wages'', December 1847</blockquote>

Marx introduces the concept in chapter 25 of the first volume of [[Das Kapital]], which he did publish twenty years later in 1867, stating that:

{{Quotation|"capitalistic accumulation itself... constantly produces, and produces in the direct ratio of its own energy and extent, a relatively redundant population of workers, i.e., a population of greater extent than suffices for the average needs of the [[valorisation]] of capital, and therefore a surplus-population... It is the absolute interest of every capitalist to press a given quantity of labour out of a smaller, rather than a greater number of labourers, if the cost is about the same... The more extended the scale of production, the stronger this motive. Its force increases with the accumulation of capital."}}

His argument is that as capitalism develops, the [[organic composition of capital]] will increase, which means that the mass of [[constant capital]] grows faster than the mass of [[variable capital]]. Fewer workers can produce all that is necessary for society's requirements. In addition, capital will become more concentrated and centralized in fewer hands.

This being the ''absolute'' historical tendency, part of the working population will tend to become ''surplus'' to the requirements of [[capital accumulation]] over time. Paradoxically, the larger the wealth of society, the larger the industrial reserve army will become. One could add that the larger the wealth of society, the more people it can support who do not work.

However, as Marx develops the argument further, it also becomes clear that, depending on the state of the economy, the reserve army of labour will either expand or contract, alternately being absorbed or expelled from the employed workforce. Thus,

{{Quotation|"Taking them as a whole, the general movements of [[wages]] are exclusively regulated by the expansion and contraction of the industrial reserve army, and these again correspond to the periodic changes of the industrial cycle. They are, therefore, not determined by the variations of the absolute number of the working population, but by the varying proportions in which the working-class is divided into active and reserve army, by the increase or diminution in the relative amount of the surplus-population, by the extent to which it is now absorbed, now set free."}}

Marx concludes that: "Relative surplus-population is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand and supply of labour works." The availability of labour influences wage rates, and the larger the unemployed workforce grows, the more this forces down wage rates; conversely, if there are plenty jobs available and unemployment is low, this tends to raise the average level of wages - in that case workers are able to change jobs rapidly to get better pay.

==Composition of the relative surplus population==
Marx argues the relative surplus population always has three forms: the ''floating'', the ''latent'' and the ''stagnant''.

*The ''floating'' part refers to the temporarily unemployed ("conjunctural unemployment").

*The ''latent'' part consists of that segment of the population not yet fully integrated into capitalist production - for example, part of the rural population. It forms a pool or reservoir of potential workers for industries.

*The ''stagnant'' part consists of marginalised people with "extremely irregular employment". Its lowest stratum (excepting criminals, vagabonds and prostitutes) "dwells in the sphere of pauperism", including those still able to work, orphans and pauper children, and the "demoralised and ragged" or "unable to work".

Marx then analyses the reserve army of labour in detail, using data on [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] where he lived.

==See also==
* [[Labor power|Labour power]]
* [[Unemployment]]
* [[Wage slavery]]
* [[Working class]]
* [[Precariat]]

== References ==

<references />
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]
[[Category:Marxist economics]]

Reserve army of labour

2025-09-22T03:47:13Z

Comwik: Salvaged material from Communpedia

The '''Reserve army of labour''', also referred as the '''Industrial reserve army (IRA)''' is Karl Marx's term for the pool of unemployed and partly-employed workers in [[capitalism]]. The reserve army of labour serves as a pool of potential replacements for those workers who are currently employed, thus enabling the capitalists to maintain a high degree of [[exploitation]] of the employed workers by holding against them the threat of dismissal and replacement by someone from the reserve army. For this reason the capitalists, despite their occasionally professed concern about unemployment, are in fact not interested in abolishing the reserve army of labour -- ''i.e.,'' in employing all of the available labour.<ref>Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1957. ''Political Economy,'' (Lawrence and Wishart) p. 168.</ref>

==Marx's discussion of the concept==
Although the idea of the industrial reserve army of labour is closely associated with Marx, it was already in circulation in the British labour movement by the 1830s.<ref>Michael Denning (2010) "Wageless life" ''New Left Review''. 66: 79-97</ref> The first mention of the reserve army of labour in Marx's writing occurs in a manuscript he wrote in 1847 but did not publish:

{{Quotation|"Big industry constantly requires a reserve army of unemployed workers for times of overproduction. The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it, i.e., when the overpopulation is the greatest. Overpopulation is therefore in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and it gives the workers good advice which it knows to be impossible to carry out. Since capital only increases when it employs workers, the increase of capital involves an increase of the proletariat, and, as we have seen, according to the nature of the relation of capital and labour, the increase of the proletariat must proceed relatively even faster. The... theory... which is also expressed as a law of nature, that population grows faster than the means of subsistence, is the more welcome to the bourgeois as it silences his conscience, makes hard-heartedness into a moral duty and the consequences of society into the consequences of nature, and finally gives him the opportunity to watch the destruction of the proletariat by starvation as calmly as other natural event without bestirring himself, and, on the other hand, to regard the misery of the proletariat as its own fault and to punish it. To be sure, the proletarian can restrain his natural instinct by reason, and so, by moral supervision, halt the law of nature in its injurious course of development." - Karl Marx, ''Wages'', December 1847<ref>http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/12/31.htm</ref>}}

Marx introduces the concept in chapter 25 of the first volume of [[Das Kapital]], which he did publish twenty years later in 1867, stating that:

{{Quotation|"capitalistic accumulation itself... constantly produces, and produces in the direct ratio of its own energy and extent, a relatively redundant population of workers, i.e., a population of greater extent than suffices for the average needs of the [[valorisation]] of capital, and therefore a surplus-population... It is the absolute interest of every capitalist to press a given quantity of labour out of a smaller, rather than a greater number of labourers, if the cost is about the same... The more extended the scale of production, the stronger this motive. Its force increases with the accumulation of capital."}}

His argument is that as capitalism develops, the [[organic composition of capital]] will increase, which means that the mass of [[constant capital]] grows faster than the mass of [[variable capital]]. Fewer workers can produce all that is necessary for society's requirements. In addition, capital will become more concentrated and centralized in fewer hands.

This being the ''absolute'' historical tendency, part of the working population will tend to become ''surplus'' to the requirements of [[capital accumulation]] over time. Paradoxically, the larger the wealth of society, the larger the industrial reserve army will become. One could add that the larger the wealth of society, the more people it can support who do not work.

However, as Marx develops the argument further, it also becomes clear that, depending on the state of the economy, the reserve army of labour will either expand or contract, alternately being absorbed or expelled from the employed workforce. Thus,

{{Quotation|"Taking them as a whole, the general movements of [[wages]] are exclusively regulated by the expansion and contraction of the industrial reserve army, and these again correspond to the periodic changes of the industrial cycle. They are, therefore, not determined by the variations of the absolute number of the working population, but by the varying proportions in which the working-class is divided into active and reserve army, by the increase or diminution in the relative amount of the surplus-population, by the extent to which it is now absorbed, now set free."}}

Marx concludes that: "Relative surplus-population is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand and supply of labour works." The availability of labour influences wage rates, and the larger the unemployed workforce grows, the more this forces down wage rates; conversely, if there are plenty jobs available and unemployment is low, this tends to raise the average level of wages - in that case workers are able to change jobs rapidly to get better pay.

==Composition of the relative surplus population==
Marx argues the relative surplus population always has three forms: the ''floating'', the ''latent'' and the ''stagnant''.

*The ''floating'' part refers to the temporarily unemployed ("conjunctural unemployment").

*The ''latent'' part consists of that segment of the population not yet fully integrated into capitalist production - for example, part of the rural population. It forms a pool or reservoir of potential workers for industries.

*The ''stagnant'' part consists of marginalised people with "extremely irregular employment". Its lowest stratum (excepting criminals, vagabonds and prostitutes) "dwells in the sphere of pauperism", including those still able to work, orphans and pauper children, and the "demoralised and ragged" or "unable to work".

Marx then analyses the reserve army of labour in detail, using data on [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] where he lived.

==See also==
* [[Labor power|Labour power]]
* [[Unemployment]]
* [[Wage slavery]]
* [[Working class]]
* [[Precariat]]

== References ==

<references />
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]
[[Category:Marxist economics]]

Reserve army of labour

2025-09-22T03:23:18Z

Comwik:

Reserve army of labour

2025-09-22T03:21:16Z

Comwik:

Reserve army of labour

2025-09-22T03:19:19Z

Comwik: Rewording

Reserve army of labour

2025-09-22T03:03:03Z

Comwik: Rewording

The '''Reserve army of labour''', sometimes also referred as '''Industrial reserve army (IRA)''' is Karl Marx's term for the pool of unemployed and partly-employed workers in [[capitalism]]. The reserve army of labour serves as a pool of potential replacements for those workers who are currently employed, thus enabling the capitalists to maintain a high degree of [[exploitation]] of the employed workers by holding against them the threat of dismissal and replacement by someone from the reserve army. The effect is to reduce the standard of life of the [[working class]] as a whole. That is why the capitalists are not interested in abolishing the industrial reserve army, which exercises pressure on the labour market and ensures them a supply of cheap labour-power.<ref>Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1957. ''Political Economy,'' (Lawrence and Wishart) p. 168.</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Precariat]]

== References ==

<references />
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]
[[Category:Marxist economics]]

Portal:Marxism

2025-09-22T02:44:12Z

Comwik: Minor copyedit for style

{{Portal CSS}}{{Library homepage}}
<div class="portal">
{{Portal banner|image=Marx_and_Engels_1848.png|title=Marxism portal|title color=white}}
{{Portal container|width=8|border=no
|content= == Introduction ==
'''Marxism''' is a scientific worldview and school of thought first developed by [[Marx|Karl Marx]] and [[Engels|Friedrich Engels]] in the mid 1800s.

Marxism as a framework contains three components: '''the philosophy''' (dialectical materialism), '''the economic theory''' (labour theory of value), and '''the political analysis''' (class struggle). Used together, Marxism becomes a very powerful tool with which to analyze the world and the [[contradictions]] inherently present in capitalism that inevitably create the foundations for [[socialism]] and then [[communism]].

Marx and Engels themselves did not invent socialism, as several theorists had already coined the term and used it. However, these thinkers lacked a grounded framework with which to advocate for socialism and bring it about in society, and became known as [[utopian socialism|utopian socialists]]. Marxism instead analyzes the world through its three components and, due to this methodic approach, became known as [[scientific socialism]].

Since the 19th century, Marxism has developed into several different currents of thought, including [[Marxism-Leninism]], [[Maoism]] or [[Mao Zedong Thought]], [[Ho Chi Minh Thought]] and others.

<small>[[Marxism|Read more]]</small>}}
{{Portal container|width=3|border=no|align=center
|content=== Getting started? ==
Check out our 1-month reading list for absolute beginners!
{{button|align=center|color=blue|width=100|link=:Category:Crit's absolute beginner reading list|text=Read now}}}}
{{Portal container|width=12|border=no
|content=== Concepts ==
Lenin wrote the three sources and components of Marxism to be:
<div class="portal">
{{Portal container|width=4
|content==== Economics ===
* [[Labour theory of value]]
* [[Value]] and [[Exchange value]]
* [[Base and superstructure]]
* [[Reserve army of labour]]
* [[Alienation]]
* [[Commodity]]
** [[Commodity fetishism]]}}
{{Portal container|width=4
|content==== Philosophy ===
Start here:
* [[Contradiction]]
* [[Praxis]]
Then follow up with:
* [[Dialectical materialism]]
** [[Materialism]]
*** [[Historical materialism]]
*** And its opposite, [[Idealism]]
* [[Dialectics]]
** And its opposite, [[metaphysics]]}}
{{Portal container|width=4
|content==== Class struggle ===
* [[Class struggle]]
* [[Social class]]
** [[Proletariat]]
*** [[Lumpenproletariat]]
** [[Bourgeoisie]]
*** [[Petty bourgeoisie]]
*** [[Comprador bourgeoisie]]
*** [[National bourgeoisie]]

And historic events:
* [[Russian revolution of 1917]]
* [[Chinese revolution]]
* [[Cuban Revolution]]}}
</div>}}
{{Portal container|width=12|border=no
|content===Library works==
We recommend works from the most important theorists of communism:
<div class="library-container">
{{Library card mid|name=Karl Marx|image=Marx_colorised_thumb.jpeg|category=Library works by Karl Marx}}
{{Library card mid|name=Friedrich Engels|image=Engels colorised thumb.jpg|category=Library works by Friedrich Engels}}
{{Library card mid|name=Vladimir Lenin|image=Lenin colorised thumb.jpg|category=Library works by Vladimir Lenin}}
{{Library card mid|name=Joseph Stalin|image=Iosif Stalin colorised thumb.png|category=Library works by Joseph Stalin}}
{{Library card mid|name=Mao Zedong|image=Mao Zedong thumb.jpg|category=Library works by Mao Zedong}}
</div>}}
{{Portal container|width=6
|content===Currents==
* [[Marxism-Leninism]]
* [[Maoism]]
* [[Hoxhaism]]
* [[Trotskyism]]
* [[Ho Chi Minh Thought]]}}
{{Portal container|width=6
|content=== People ==
[[File:Marx.jpg|150px|thumb|Picture of Karl Marx, the founder of [[scientific socialism]]]]
There have been many important people to Marxism. Below, in alphabetical order, are some of them:
* [[Friedrich Engels]]
* [[Joseph Stalin]]
* [[Karl Marx]]
* [[Kim Il Sung]]
* [[Mao Zedong]]
* [[Vladimir Lenin]]}}
{{Portal container|width=6
|content===Parties==
{{Communist parties}} }}
{{Portal container|width=6
|content===Countries==
Sorted by date of proclamation:
=== Former Existing Socialism ===
* {{flagicon|Flag of the Soviet Union (1955-1991).svg}} [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]]
* {{flagicon|Mongolian People's Republic Flag.png}} [[Mongolian People's Republic]]
* {{flagicon|Yugoslav flag.png}} [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]]
* {{flagicon|Flag of Albania (1946–1992).svg}} [[People's Socialist Republic of Albania]]
* {{flagicon|People's Republic of Bulgaria flag.png}} [[People's Republic of Bulgaria]]
* {{flagicon|Flag of Poland (1927–1980).svg}} [[Polish People's Republic]]
* {{flagicon|Flag of Romania (1965–1989).png}} [[Socialist Republic of Romania]]
* {{flagicon|Czech flag.png}} [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic]]
* {{flagicon|GDR flag.png}} [[German Democratic Republic]]
* {{flagicon|Flag of Hungary (1949–1956).svg}} [[Hungarian People's Republic]]
* {{flagicon|Flag of South Yemen.svg}} [[People's Democratic Republic of Yemen]]
* {{flagicon|Flag of Angola.svg}} [[Republic of Angola]]
* {{flagicon|Flag of Mozambique (1975–1983) (16-9).svg.png}} [[People's Republic of Mozambique]]

=== Currently Existing Socialism ===
*
* {{flagicon|Flag_of_the_DPRK.svg}} [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea]]
* {{flagicon|Flag_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China.svg}} [[People's Republic of China]]
* {{flagicon|Flag_of_Cuba.svg}} [[Republic of Cuba]]
* {{flagicon|Flag_of_Laos.svg}} [[Lao People's Democratic Republic]]
* {{flagicon|Flag_of_Vietnam.svg}} [[Socialist Republic of Vietnam]]}}
{{Portal container|width=12|border=yes
|content=<dpl>
title=Acronyms
include=%1
</dpl>
<references group="note"/>}}
</div>
[[Category:All portals]]

Communist Party of Venezuela

2025-06-25T05:43:23Z

Comwik: /* Alternative point of view */ Added internal link

{{Infobox political party|name=Communist Party of Venezuela|native_name=Partido Comunista de Venezuela|logo=PCV logo.png|founded=5 March 1931|abbreviation=PCV|general_secretary=[[Óscar Figuera|Óscar Figuera]]|newspaper=''Popular Tribune''|youth_wing=[[Communist Youth of Venezuela|Communist Youth of Venezuela]]|political_orientation=[[Marxism-Leninism]]|international=[[IMCWP]]|slogan=''¡El socialismo sigue siendo la esperanza de los pueblos!''|website=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/}}{{Communist Parties}}The '''Communist Party of Venezuela''' ('''PCV''') is a [[communist party]] that was born on March 5, 1931, being the oldest contemporary party in [[Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela|Venezuela]]. Being a party of [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] ideology, it stands as a party of the [[Proletariat|proletarian class]] in which workers, [[Peasantry|peasants]], [[Revolution|revolutionaries]] and youth converge, in the pursuit of the establishment of a [[Socialism|socialist]] state. In 2020 they separated from the government coalition [[Gran Polo Patriotico]] and formed the [[Popular Revolutionary Alternative]] (APR), a coalition of communist and socialist parties. It currently opposes the [[Chavismo|Chavista]] government of [[Nicolás Maduro]].<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=[[In Defense of Communism]]|title=Venezuela: New anti-communist attack against the PCV and the workers' movement|date=2022-05-25|url=https://www.idcommunism.com/2022/07/venezuela-new-anti-communist-attack-the-pcv-and-workers-movement.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220806201432/http://www.idcommunism.com/2022/07/venezuela-new-anti-communist-attack-the-pcv-and-workers-movement.html|archive-date=2022-08-06|retrieved=2022-08-10}}</ref>

== Government political persecution ==
[[File:Gobierno incumple acuerdo con PCV - Tribuna Popular 3008.png|alt=An article from the PCV's Central Committee's organ - Tribuna Popular - number 3008 from August 2019 denouncing that the PSUV has not fulfilled the PSUV-PCV Unitary Agreement.|thumb|An article from the PCV's Central Committee's organ - Tribuna Popular - number 3008 from August 2019 denouncing that the PSUV has not fulfilled the PSUV-PCV Unitary Agreement.]]
In 2020 PCV demanded a discussion during the 2020 [[National Assembly (Venezuela)|National Assembly]] elections of the government's agressive anti-worker [[Neoliberalism|neoliberal]] policies that were being implemented<ref>{{Web citation|author=Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CUTV)|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=En el Día de Acción Mundial del sindicalismo clasista la CUTV denuncia indefensión jurídica y social de la clase trabajadora venezolana|date=2022-10-03|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2022/10/03/en-el-dia-de-accion-mundial-del-sindicalismo-clasista-la-cutv-denuncia-indefension-juridica-y-social-de-la-clase-trabajadora-venezolana/}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Pedro Eusse|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=Eusse: El Gobierno de Maduro optó por políticas de corte neoliberal|date=2023-03-03|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/eusse-el-gobierno-de-maduro-opto-por-politicas-de-corte-neoliberal/}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Héctor Alejo Rodríguez|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=From the patriotic alliance to rupture: a decade of relations between the PCV and Nicolas Maduro|date=2023-05-11|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/05/11/from-the-patriotic-alliance-to-rupture-a-decade-of-relations-between-the-pcv-and-nicolas-maduro/}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=PCV: Maduro mantiene política complaciente con el empresariado|date=2023-08-01|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/08/01/video-pcv-maduro-mantiene-politica-complaciente-con-el-empresariado/}}</ref> and the [[:File:Gobierno incumple acuerdo con PCV - Tribuna Popular 3008.png|systematic breach]] of the "[[United Socialist Party of Venezuela|PSUV]]-PCV Unitary Framework Agreement" signed in April 2018.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=UNITARY AGREEMENT BETWEEN PSUV AND PCV|date=2018-03-02|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2018/03/02/unitary-agreement-between-psuv-and-pcv/}}</ref> When the government refused to engage in this discussion, the PCV decided to pursue an alternative popular and revolutionary path. This event signaled the beginning of the persecution of the PCV.

The assault on the PCV has involved various stages, including an attempt to disrupt the PCV's 16th National Congress in November of the previous year. When that failed and the PCV remained cohesive, the next phase involved the venezuelan government trying to recruit PCV members with offers of incentives, including jobs, money, food, houses, and vehicles, but these attempts were rejected.

In response to the failure of recruitment efforts, the government of Nicolás Maduro orchestrated a fraudulent event on May 21st, 2023 with the aim of undermining the legitimate decision-making processes within the PCV. The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the PCV, [[Óscar Figuera]], accused Maduro of attempting to use administrative or judicial measures to align the PCV with his neoliberal policies.

The leadership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) held a fraudulent congress with a presidium consisting of individuals not affiliated with the PCV to promote intervention in the communist party. This congress was widely seen as illegitimate and was seen as part of a plan to weaken the PCV after it distanced itself from the anti-worker policies of the Maduro government, as explained by Figuera in a press statement.

Figuera explained that this action aimed to prevent the PCV from continuing its role as a [[Social class|class-based]] force serving the Venezuelan people and the working class. It also sought to impede the PCV's efforts to promote unity of action among workers and strengthen the organization and struggle of the Venezuelan people.

Despite these challenges, the PCV expressed gratitude for the solidarity it has received from the Venezuelan people, organizations, intellectuals, revolutionary movements, and international communist and workers' parties. The PCV pledged to continue its role in supporting and advancing the [[Class struggle|struggles]] of the Venezuelan people, regardless of actions taken by those in power.<ref name=":0">{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=Gobierno intenta crear un falso PCV subordinado a su política neoliberal|date=2023-05-22|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/05/22/video-gobierno-intenta-crear-un-falso-pcv-subordinado-a-su-politica-neoliberal/}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{YouTube citation|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnsV8nce8ic|channel=Partido Comunista de Venezuela|title=Gobierno de Maduro intenta crear un falso PCV subordinado a su política neoliberal|date=2023-05-22}}</ref>

=== Sequence of events ===
In a dossier that has been translated and made available on Solidnet,<ref>{{Web citation|author=Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela|newspaper=Solidnet|title=Plan to assault and intervene in the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV)|date=2023-04|url=http://www.solidnet.org/.galleries/documents/Dossier-Evidence-Plan-to-Assault-the-PCV.pdf}}</ref> the official website of the [[International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties]] (IMCWP), the PCV has made available a sequence of events that contains in detail and with ample evidence the plan orchestrated by the PSUV to assault and intervene in the communist party.

==== 2021 ====
[[Diosdado Cabello]], vice-president of the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), used his TV program to attack the PCV (Communist Party of Venezuela) and alleged that the PCV was subordinated to [[Imperialism|imperialist]] plans.<ref>{{Web citation|author=AlbertoRodNews|newspaper=Twitter|title=Twitter video|date=2022-08-31|url=https://twitter.com/i/status/1565138448478003201|quote=ÚLTIMA HORA {{!}} Diosdado Cabello arremete contra la cúpula del PCV: "La actitud de ellos, es la de EEUU y son financiados por el ladrón de Rafael Ramírez"}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Con el Mazo Dando|title=Diosdado Cabello: La actual directiva del PCV tiene el mismo discurso que los gringos|date=2023-03-30|url=https://mazo4f.com/diosdado-cabello-la-actual-directiva-del-pcv-tiene-el-mismo-discurso-que-los-gringos}}</ref>

==== End of 2021 ====
Cabello began implementing the first phase of the PSUV's plan to undermine the PCV. He propagated the false narrative of divisions within the PCV and received supposed letters of support from "regional organizations of the PCV".

==== September 2022 ====
[[File:A letter from the supposed “grassroots” of the PCV.png|alt=A letter from the supposed “grassroots” of the PCV to Diosdado Cabello signed by the mercenaries Zoilo Arostegui, Carlos Fermín and Darío Fermín.|thumb|A letter from the supposed “grassroots” of the PCV to Diosdado Cabello signed by the mercenaries Zoilo Arostegui, Carlos Fermín and Darío Fermín.]]
[[:File:A letter from the supposed “grassroots” of the PCV.png|One of the leaked letters from individuals claiming to be PCV members]] requested the PSUV's intervention in the PCV. However, it was revealed that the signatories ([[Zoilo Arostegui]], [[Carlos Fermín]] and [[Darío Fermín]]) were not PCV members but largely affiliated with the PSUV.

==== November 2022 ====
The 16th National Congress of the PCV solidified the party's unity against the government's policies. This prompted the PSUV to accelerate a second phase of its plan to intervene in the PCV.

==== February 4, 2023 ====
Cabello ordered the public appearance of supposed "PCV grassroots" supporting the government's policies. The PSUV provided logistical and financial support, using individuals who pretended to be PCV members.<ref>{{YouTube citation|url=https://www.youtube.com/live/qm-XDCKdrho?feature=share|channel=Transmisión en vivo|title=Gran Marcha en conmemoración a los 31 años del 4 de febrero|date=2023-02-04}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Con el Mazo Dando|title=Cabello sobre militantes del PCV en marcha del 4-F: ¡Es rebelión contra las cúpulas!|date=2023-02-04|url=https://mazo4f.com/cabello-sobre-militantes-del-pcv-en-marcha-del-4-f-es-rebelion-contra-las-cupulas}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Diosdado Cabello|newspaper=Twitter|title=Twitter|date=2023-02-04|url=https://twitter.com/dcabellor/status/1622032559759626242|quote=#FebreroRebeldeConChávez Rebelión contra las cúpulas que obedecen las órdenes del imperialismo. Nosotros Venceremos!!}}</ref>

==== February 11, 2023 ====
[[File:Monaga's State Governor's office supports the event to assault PCV.png|alt=Monagas State Governor's office supports the diffusion of a press conference calling for a “rescue” of the PCV in Monagas State, with the purpose of assaulting PCV in the state.|thumb|Monagas State Governor's office supports the diffusion of a press conference calling for a “rescue” of the PCV in Monagas State, with the purpose of assaulting PCV in the state.]]
The PSUV allocated significant resources for a meeting of these "grassroots," which revealed that the supposed PCV members did not exist, and the PSUV recruited participants from its ranks and state organizations. [[:File:Monaga's State Governor's office supports the event to assault PCV.png|The Governor's Office of the State of Monagas is probably the source of logistical and financial support for the execution of the plan of assault against the PCV]].<ref>{{YouTube citation|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm3HCLLPCck|channel=Luigino Bracci Roa desde Venezuela|title=Inicia proceso para quitarle al PCV su tarjeta electoral|date=2023-02-12}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Jesús Rafael Zambrano Regional Committee Collective political leadership of the Communist Party of Venezuela in Monagas|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=PCV Monagas: ¿Bases del PCV o mercenarios políticos a sueldo del PSUV?|date=2023-02-05|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/02/05/comunicado-pcv-monagas-bases-del-pcv-o-mercenarios-politicos-a-sueldo-del-psuv/}}</ref>

==== March 15, 2023 ====
[[File:Audio revealing the plan to assault the PCV.mp3|thumb|Audio from PSUV MP [[Jesús Farías]] revealing the plan to assault the PCV.]]
An [[:File:Audio revealing the plan to assault the PCV.mp3|audio leak from a PSUV leader]] confirmed the PSUV's role in the plan to intervene in the PCV.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=Continúa plan para asaltar al PCV: audio de Jesús Faría Tortosa reveló próximas maniobras|date=2023-02-11|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/03/11/continua-plan-para-asaltar-al-pcv-audio-de-jesus-faria-tortosa-revelo-proximas-maniobras/}}</ref>

==== March 18, 2023 ====
[[File:Mercenaries attending the fraudulent assembly in Barinas.png|alt=Mercenaries attending the fraudulent assembly organized by the PSUV in Barinas that was part of the plan to take over the PCV and hand it to PSUV loyalists.|thumb|Mercenaries attending the fraudulent assembly organized by the PSUV in Barinas that was part of the plan to take over the PCV and hand it to PSUV loyalists.]]
An [[:File:Mercenaries attending the fraudulent assembly in Barinas.png|assembly in Barinas]] exposed that the PSUV was orchestrating the plan to take over the PCV and hand it to PSUV loyalists.<ref>{{Web citation|author=soy Carito Carito|newspaper=Twitter|title=Twitter video|date=2023-03-15|url=https://twitter.com/i/status/1636176780296855553}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Sebastiana Barráez|newspaper=Infobae|title=Un dirigente de Barinas denuncia: “El gobierno nacional está buscado asaltar de facto la dirección del Partido Comunista”|date=2023-03-15|url=https://www.infobae.com/venezuela/2023/03/15/un-dirigente-de-barinas-denuncia-el-gobierno-nacional-esta-buscado-asaltar-de-facto-la-direccion-del-partido-comunista/}}</ref>

==== March 29, 2023 ====
[[:File:Diosdado Cabello greets mercenaries 2.png|Cabello introduced the leaders of the PSUV-recruited "PCV grassroots" on his TV program]], one of the leaders being [[Griseldys Herrera]], confirming that the letters from PCV members were fabricated.<ref>{{YouTube citation|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JZNzki7Xjo|channel=Transmisión en vivo|title=Con El Mazo Dando - Programa 425|date=2023-03-29}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Contraloría Monagas|newspaper=Twitter|title=Twitter|date=2022-11-17|url=https://twitter.com/CEMonagas01/status/1593316334145871873|quote=#17Nov/ Contralor del Estado Monagas y directoras de la #CEM sostuvieron importante encuentro con la Dra. Griseldys Herrera, Consultora Jurídica de @GobMonagas_
donde se abordaron generalidades de las contrataciones públicas adaptadas a los nuevos tiempos.
@CGRVenezuela}}</ref><gallery mode="packed">
File:Diosdado Cabello greets mercenaries 1.png|Diosdado Cabello greets and presents the mercenary heads for the first time on his TV program "Con El Mazo Dando" #425
File:Diosdado Cabello greets mercenaries 2.png|Diosdado Cabello greets and presents the mercenary heads for the first time on his TV program "Con El Mazo Dando" #425
</gallery>

==== April 15, 2023 ====
Mercenaries, including a former PCV member, [[Henry Parra]], held a press conference. They were not genuine PCV members and held positions in various state institutions.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Diario del Pueblo|newspaper=Instagram|title=Instagram video|date=2023-04-15|url=https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrEcQU2syME/}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Partido Comunista de Venezuela|newspaper=Twitter|title=Twitter video|date=2021-11-14|url=https://twitter.com/PCV_Venezuela/status/1459951244815044615|quote=Declaración del Comité Regional del PCV en #Táchira:

El pronunciamiento de Henry Parra y Jaime Otero de apoyar las candidaturas del PSUV no representa la línea política del Partido Comunista de Venezuela.}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Favio Hernández|newspaper=Diario La Nación|title=El “Gallo” Parra y Jaime Otero fueron expulsados del PCV|date=2021-11-13|url=https://lanacionweb.com/politica/el-gallo-parra-y-jaime-otero-fueron-expulsados-del-pcv/}}</ref>

==== May 21, 2023 ====
The leadership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) held a fraudulent congress with a presidium consisting of individuals not affiliated with the PCV to promote intervention in the communist party with the aim of undermining the legitimate decision-making processes.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

==== August 18, 2023 ====
The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice admitted a motion for legal protection filed by a group of political operators led by the leadership of the PSUV to take by assault the PCV. Through ruling 1160, the Supreme Court appointed an ad hoc board made up of citizens who have nothing to do with the Communist Party of Venezuela.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=Documentos clave del asalto judicial ejecutado por el Gobierno de Nicolás Maduro contra el PCV|date=2023-08-18|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/08/18/pdf-documentos-clave-del-asalto-judicial-ejecutado-por-el-gobierno-de-nicolas-maduro-contra-el-pcv/}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=Documentos clave del asalto judicial ejecutado por el Gobierno de Nicolás Maduro contra el PCV (PDF file)|date=2023-08-18|url=https://prensapcv.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/anexos_para_-el_-analisis-y-discusion-1.pdf}}</ref>

=== Alternative point of view ===
The party resulting from the ''ad hoc'' board set up by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice also calls itself the Communist Party of Venezuela. It is associated with the [[World Anti-imperialist Platform]], which has published a history disputing many of the facts as set out by the Figuera-led PCV. For instance it claims that all seven members of the ''ad hoc'' board were members of the existing PCV, most with many years of membership. See "The Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) in its new phase." ''Platform News'' (World Anti-Imperialist Platform), 17 May 2025. [https://wapnews.org/?p=7591 wapnews].

== References ==
[[Category:Communist parties]]
<references />

== External links ==

* [https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/ Tribuna Popular], Newsletter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela
* [http://www.solidnet.org Solidnet], official website of the [[International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties]] (IMCWP)

Communist Party of Venezuela

2025-06-25T05:31:05Z

Comwik: /* Alternative point of view */ Spelling. Also, the previous edit was by me, accidentally not logged in.

{{Infobox political party|name=Communist Party of Venezuela|native_name=Partido Comunista de Venezuela|logo=PCV logo.png|founded=5 March 1931|abbreviation=PCV|general_secretary=[[Óscar Figuera|Óscar Figuera]]|newspaper=''Popular Tribune''|youth_wing=[[Communist Youth of Venezuela|Communist Youth of Venezuela]]|political_orientation=[[Marxism-Leninism]]|international=[[IMCWP]]|slogan=''¡El socialismo sigue siendo la esperanza de los pueblos!''|website=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/}}{{Communist Parties}}The '''Communist Party of Venezuela''' ('''PCV''') is a [[communist party]] that was born on March 5, 1931, being the oldest contemporary party in [[Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela|Venezuela]]. Being a party of [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] ideology, it stands as a party of the [[Proletariat|proletarian class]] in which workers, [[Peasantry|peasants]], [[Revolution|revolutionaries]] and youth converge, in the pursuit of the establishment of a [[Socialism|socialist]] state. In 2020 they separated from the government coalition [[Gran Polo Patriotico]] and formed the [[Popular Revolutionary Alternative]] (APR), a coalition of communist and socialist parties. It currently opposes the [[Chavismo|Chavista]] government of [[Nicolás Maduro]].<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=[[In Defense of Communism]]|title=Venezuela: New anti-communist attack against the PCV and the workers' movement|date=2022-05-25|url=https://www.idcommunism.com/2022/07/venezuela-new-anti-communist-attack-the-pcv-and-workers-movement.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220806201432/http://www.idcommunism.com/2022/07/venezuela-new-anti-communist-attack-the-pcv-and-workers-movement.html|archive-date=2022-08-06|retrieved=2022-08-10}}</ref>

== Government political persecution ==
[[File:Gobierno incumple acuerdo con PCV - Tribuna Popular 3008.png|alt=An article from the PCV's Central Committee's organ - Tribuna Popular - number 3008 from August 2019 denouncing that the PSUV has not fulfilled the PSUV-PCV Unitary Agreement.|thumb|An article from the PCV's Central Committee's organ - Tribuna Popular - number 3008 from August 2019 denouncing that the PSUV has not fulfilled the PSUV-PCV Unitary Agreement.]]
In 2020 PCV demanded a discussion during the 2020 [[National Assembly (Venezuela)|National Assembly]] elections of the government's agressive anti-worker [[Neoliberalism|neoliberal]] policies that were being implemented<ref>{{Web citation|author=Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CUTV)|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=En el Día de Acción Mundial del sindicalismo clasista la CUTV denuncia indefensión jurídica y social de la clase trabajadora venezolana|date=2022-10-03|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2022/10/03/en-el-dia-de-accion-mundial-del-sindicalismo-clasista-la-cutv-denuncia-indefension-juridica-y-social-de-la-clase-trabajadora-venezolana/}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Pedro Eusse|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=Eusse: El Gobierno de Maduro optó por políticas de corte neoliberal|date=2023-03-03|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/eusse-el-gobierno-de-maduro-opto-por-politicas-de-corte-neoliberal/}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Héctor Alejo Rodríguez|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=From the patriotic alliance to rupture: a decade of relations between the PCV and Nicolas Maduro|date=2023-05-11|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/05/11/from-the-patriotic-alliance-to-rupture-a-decade-of-relations-between-the-pcv-and-nicolas-maduro/}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=PCV: Maduro mantiene política complaciente con el empresariado|date=2023-08-01|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/08/01/video-pcv-maduro-mantiene-politica-complaciente-con-el-empresariado/}}</ref> and the [[:File:Gobierno incumple acuerdo con PCV - Tribuna Popular 3008.png|systematic breach]] of the "[[United Socialist Party of Venezuela|PSUV]]-PCV Unitary Framework Agreement" signed in April 2018.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=UNITARY AGREEMENT BETWEEN PSUV AND PCV|date=2018-03-02|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2018/03/02/unitary-agreement-between-psuv-and-pcv/}}</ref> When the government refused to engage in this discussion, the PCV decided to pursue an alternative popular and revolutionary path. This event signaled the beginning of the persecution of the PCV.

The assault on the PCV has involved various stages, including an attempt to disrupt the PCV's 16th National Congress in November of the previous year. When that failed and the PCV remained cohesive, the next phase involved the venezuelan government trying to recruit PCV members with offers of incentives, including jobs, money, food, houses, and vehicles, but these attempts were rejected.

In response to the failure of recruitment efforts, the government of Nicolás Maduro orchestrated a fraudulent event on May 21st, 2023 with the aim of undermining the legitimate decision-making processes within the PCV. The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the PCV, [[Óscar Figuera]], accused Maduro of attempting to use administrative or judicial measures to align the PCV with his neoliberal policies.

The leadership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) held a fraudulent congress with a presidium consisting of individuals not affiliated with the PCV to promote intervention in the communist party. This congress was widely seen as illegitimate and was seen as part of a plan to weaken the PCV after it distanced itself from the anti-worker policies of the Maduro government, as explained by Figuera in a press statement.

Figuera explained that this action aimed to prevent the PCV from continuing its role as a [[Social class|class-based]] force serving the Venezuelan people and the working class. It also sought to impede the PCV's efforts to promote unity of action among workers and strengthen the organization and struggle of the Venezuelan people.

Despite these challenges, the PCV expressed gratitude for the solidarity it has received from the Venezuelan people, organizations, intellectuals, revolutionary movements, and international communist and workers' parties. The PCV pledged to continue its role in supporting and advancing the [[Class struggle|struggles]] of the Venezuelan people, regardless of actions taken by those in power.<ref name=":0">{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=Gobierno intenta crear un falso PCV subordinado a su política neoliberal|date=2023-05-22|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/05/22/video-gobierno-intenta-crear-un-falso-pcv-subordinado-a-su-politica-neoliberal/}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{YouTube citation|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnsV8nce8ic|channel=Partido Comunista de Venezuela|title=Gobierno de Maduro intenta crear un falso PCV subordinado a su política neoliberal|date=2023-05-22}}</ref>

=== Sequence of events ===
In a dossier that has been translated and made available on Solidnet,<ref>{{Web citation|author=Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela|newspaper=Solidnet|title=Plan to assault and intervene in the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV)|date=2023-04|url=http://www.solidnet.org/.galleries/documents/Dossier-Evidence-Plan-to-Assault-the-PCV.pdf}}</ref> the official website of the [[International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties]] (IMCWP), the PCV has made available a sequence of events that contains in detail and with ample evidence the plan orchestrated by the PSUV to assault and intervene in the communist party.

==== 2021 ====
[[Diosdado Cabello]], vice-president of the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), used his TV program to attack the PCV (Communist Party of Venezuela) and alleged that the PCV was subordinated to [[Imperialism|imperialist]] plans.<ref>{{Web citation|author=AlbertoRodNews|newspaper=Twitter|title=Twitter video|date=2022-08-31|url=https://twitter.com/i/status/1565138448478003201|quote=ÚLTIMA HORA {{!}} Diosdado Cabello arremete contra la cúpula del PCV: "La actitud de ellos, es la de EEUU y son financiados por el ladrón de Rafael Ramírez"}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Con el Mazo Dando|title=Diosdado Cabello: La actual directiva del PCV tiene el mismo discurso que los gringos|date=2023-03-30|url=https://mazo4f.com/diosdado-cabello-la-actual-directiva-del-pcv-tiene-el-mismo-discurso-que-los-gringos}}</ref>

==== End of 2021 ====
Cabello began implementing the first phase of the PSUV's plan to undermine the PCV. He propagated the false narrative of divisions within the PCV and received supposed letters of support from "regional organizations of the PCV".

==== September 2022 ====
[[File:A letter from the supposed “grassroots” of the PCV.png|alt=A letter from the supposed “grassroots” of the PCV to Diosdado Cabello signed by the mercenaries Zoilo Arostegui, Carlos Fermín and Darío Fermín.|thumb|A letter from the supposed “grassroots” of the PCV to Diosdado Cabello signed by the mercenaries Zoilo Arostegui, Carlos Fermín and Darío Fermín.]]
[[:File:A letter from the supposed “grassroots” of the PCV.png|One of the leaked letters from individuals claiming to be PCV members]] requested the PSUV's intervention in the PCV. However, it was revealed that the signatories ([[Zoilo Arostegui]], [[Carlos Fermín]] and [[Darío Fermín]]) were not PCV members but largely affiliated with the PSUV.

==== November 2022 ====
The 16th National Congress of the PCV solidified the party's unity against the government's policies. This prompted the PSUV to accelerate a second phase of its plan to intervene in the PCV.

==== February 4, 2023 ====
Cabello ordered the public appearance of supposed "PCV grassroots" supporting the government's policies. The PSUV provided logistical and financial support, using individuals who pretended to be PCV members.<ref>{{YouTube citation|url=https://www.youtube.com/live/qm-XDCKdrho?feature=share|channel=Transmisión en vivo|title=Gran Marcha en conmemoración a los 31 años del 4 de febrero|date=2023-02-04}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Con el Mazo Dando|title=Cabello sobre militantes del PCV en marcha del 4-F: ¡Es rebelión contra las cúpulas!|date=2023-02-04|url=https://mazo4f.com/cabello-sobre-militantes-del-pcv-en-marcha-del-4-f-es-rebelion-contra-las-cupulas}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Diosdado Cabello|newspaper=Twitter|title=Twitter|date=2023-02-04|url=https://twitter.com/dcabellor/status/1622032559759626242|quote=#FebreroRebeldeConChávez Rebelión contra las cúpulas que obedecen las órdenes del imperialismo. Nosotros Venceremos!!}}</ref>

==== February 11, 2023 ====
[[File:Monaga's State Governor's office supports the event to assault PCV.png|alt=Monagas State Governor's office supports the diffusion of a press conference calling for a “rescue” of the PCV in Monagas State, with the purpose of assaulting PCV in the state.|thumb|Monagas State Governor's office supports the diffusion of a press conference calling for a “rescue” of the PCV in Monagas State, with the purpose of assaulting PCV in the state.]]
The PSUV allocated significant resources for a meeting of these "grassroots," which revealed that the supposed PCV members did not exist, and the PSUV recruited participants from its ranks and state organizations. [[:File:Monaga's State Governor's office supports the event to assault PCV.png|The Governor's Office of the State of Monagas is probably the source of logistical and financial support for the execution of the plan of assault against the PCV]].<ref>{{YouTube citation|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm3HCLLPCck|channel=Luigino Bracci Roa desde Venezuela|title=Inicia proceso para quitarle al PCV su tarjeta electoral|date=2023-02-12}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Jesús Rafael Zambrano Regional Committee Collective political leadership of the Communist Party of Venezuela in Monagas|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=PCV Monagas: ¿Bases del PCV o mercenarios políticos a sueldo del PSUV?|date=2023-02-05|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/02/05/comunicado-pcv-monagas-bases-del-pcv-o-mercenarios-politicos-a-sueldo-del-psuv/}}</ref>

==== March 15, 2023 ====
[[File:Audio revealing the plan to assault the PCV.mp3|thumb|Audio from PSUV MP [[Jesús Farías]] revealing the plan to assault the PCV.]]
An [[:File:Audio revealing the plan to assault the PCV.mp3|audio leak from a PSUV leader]] confirmed the PSUV's role in the plan to intervene in the PCV.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=Continúa plan para asaltar al PCV: audio de Jesús Faría Tortosa reveló próximas maniobras|date=2023-02-11|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/03/11/continua-plan-para-asaltar-al-pcv-audio-de-jesus-faria-tortosa-revelo-proximas-maniobras/}}</ref>

==== March 18, 2023 ====
[[File:Mercenaries attending the fraudulent assembly in Barinas.png|alt=Mercenaries attending the fraudulent assembly organized by the PSUV in Barinas that was part of the plan to take over the PCV and hand it to PSUV loyalists.|thumb|Mercenaries attending the fraudulent assembly organized by the PSUV in Barinas that was part of the plan to take over the PCV and hand it to PSUV loyalists.]]
An [[:File:Mercenaries attending the fraudulent assembly in Barinas.png|assembly in Barinas]] exposed that the PSUV was orchestrating the plan to take over the PCV and hand it to PSUV loyalists.<ref>{{Web citation|author=soy Carito Carito|newspaper=Twitter|title=Twitter video|date=2023-03-15|url=https://twitter.com/i/status/1636176780296855553}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Sebastiana Barráez|newspaper=Infobae|title=Un dirigente de Barinas denuncia: “El gobierno nacional está buscado asaltar de facto la dirección del Partido Comunista”|date=2023-03-15|url=https://www.infobae.com/venezuela/2023/03/15/un-dirigente-de-barinas-denuncia-el-gobierno-nacional-esta-buscado-asaltar-de-facto-la-direccion-del-partido-comunista/}}</ref>

==== March 29, 2023 ====
[[:File:Diosdado Cabello greets mercenaries 2.png|Cabello introduced the leaders of the PSUV-recruited "PCV grassroots" on his TV program]], one of the leaders being [[Griseldys Herrera]], confirming that the letters from PCV members were fabricated.<ref>{{YouTube citation|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JZNzki7Xjo|channel=Transmisión en vivo|title=Con El Mazo Dando - Programa 425|date=2023-03-29}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Contraloría Monagas|newspaper=Twitter|title=Twitter|date=2022-11-17|url=https://twitter.com/CEMonagas01/status/1593316334145871873|quote=#17Nov/ Contralor del Estado Monagas y directoras de la #CEM sostuvieron importante encuentro con la Dra. Griseldys Herrera, Consultora Jurídica de @GobMonagas_
donde se abordaron generalidades de las contrataciones públicas adaptadas a los nuevos tiempos.
@CGRVenezuela}}</ref><gallery mode="packed">
File:Diosdado Cabello greets mercenaries 1.png|Diosdado Cabello greets and presents the mercenary heads for the first time on his TV program "Con El Mazo Dando" #425
File:Diosdado Cabello greets mercenaries 2.png|Diosdado Cabello greets and presents the mercenary heads for the first time on his TV program "Con El Mazo Dando" #425
</gallery>

==== April 15, 2023 ====
Mercenaries, including a former PCV member, [[Henry Parra]], held a press conference. They were not genuine PCV members and held positions in various state institutions.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Diario del Pueblo|newspaper=Instagram|title=Instagram video|date=2023-04-15|url=https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrEcQU2syME/}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Partido Comunista de Venezuela|newspaper=Twitter|title=Twitter video|date=2021-11-14|url=https://twitter.com/PCV_Venezuela/status/1459951244815044615|quote=Declaración del Comité Regional del PCV en #Táchira:

El pronunciamiento de Henry Parra y Jaime Otero de apoyar las candidaturas del PSUV no representa la línea política del Partido Comunista de Venezuela.}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|author=Favio Hernández|newspaper=Diario La Nación|title=El “Gallo” Parra y Jaime Otero fueron expulsados del PCV|date=2021-11-13|url=https://lanacionweb.com/politica/el-gallo-parra-y-jaime-otero-fueron-expulsados-del-pcv/}}</ref>

==== May 21, 2023 ====
The leadership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) held a fraudulent congress with a presidium consisting of individuals not affiliated with the PCV to promote intervention in the communist party with the aim of undermining the legitimate decision-making processes.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

==== August 18, 2023 ====
The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice admitted a motion for legal protection filed by a group of political operators led by the leadership of the PSUV to take by assault the PCV. Through ruling 1160, the Supreme Court appointed an ad hoc board made up of citizens who have nothing to do with the Communist Party of Venezuela.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=Documentos clave del asalto judicial ejecutado por el Gobierno de Nicolás Maduro contra el PCV|date=2023-08-18|url=https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/2023/08/18/pdf-documentos-clave-del-asalto-judicial-ejecutado-por-el-gobierno-de-nicolas-maduro-contra-el-pcv/}}</ref><ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Tribuna Popular|title=Documentos clave del asalto judicial ejecutado por el Gobierno de Nicolás Maduro contra el PCV (PDF file)|date=2023-08-18|url=https://prensapcv.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/anexos_para_-el_-analisis-y-discusion-1.pdf}}</ref>

=== Alternative point of view ===
The party resulting from the ''ad hoc'' board set up by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice also calls itself the Communist Party of Venezuela. It is associated with the World Anti-Imperialist Platform, which has published a history disputing many of the facts as set out by the Figuera-led PCV. For instance it claims that all seven members of the ''ad hoc'' board were members of the existing PCV, most with many years of membership. See "The Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) in its new phase." ''Platform News'' (World Anti-Imperialist Platform), 17 May 2025. [https://wapnews.org/?p=7591 wapnews].

== References ==
[[Category:Communist parties]]
<references />

== External links ==

* [https://prensapcv.wordpress.com/ Tribuna Popular], Newsletter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela
* [http://www.solidnet.org Solidnet], official website of the [[International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties]] (IMCWP)

Class struggle

2024-09-18T05:51:55Z

Comwik:

[[File:Pyramid of Capitalist System.png|thumb|283x283px|Class struggle is depicted amongst the lower section of the depiction "[[Pyramid of Capitalist System]]" by the [[IWW]]]]
'''Class struggle''' refers to the opposition and struggle between opposing [[social class]]es. It is the manifestation their opposing fundamental interests and is the basic means of resolving the contradiction between an existing class structure and the developing [[forces of production]] and [[relations of production]].

The essence of class conflict is the opposition between the economic status and material interests of different classes. All class struggles occur on the basis of opposing and conflicting material interests, that is, economic interests, and are ultimately centered around material interests.

In a class society, the class struggle first takes place between the two basic classes in each social form, such as the struggle between the peasantry and the landlord class in [[feudalism|feudal]] society, and the struggle between the [[proletariat]] and the [[bourgeoisie]] in capitalist society.

Though it is a common misconception, the doctrine of class struggle did not originate with [[Karl Marx]]. He stated this himself, and [[Vladimir Lenin]] in the ''[[State & Revolution]]'' also made it clear that the idea of class struggle had existed before Marx. The Marxist contribution was to link the development of classes, and the struggle between them, to developments in the [[forces of production]]; and to say that class struggle would bring about the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]]<ref>Marx, Letter to J Wedemeyer, 5 March 1852.</ref>

[[Category:Marxist terminology]] [[Category:Class]]

Class struggle

2024-09-18T05:51:16Z

Comwik: slight rewording

[[File:Pyramid of Capitalist System.png|thumb|283x283px|Class struggle is depicted amongst the lower section of the depiction "[[Pyramid of Capitalist System]]" by the [[IWW]]]]
'''Class struggle''' refers to the opposition and struggle between opposing [[social class]]es. It is the manifestation their opposing fundamental interests and is the basic means of resolving the contradiction between an existing class structure and the developing [[forces of production]] and [[relations of production]].

The essence of class conflict is the opposition between the economic status and material interests of different classes. All class struggles occur on the basis of opposing and conflicting material interests, that is, economic interests, and are ultimately centered around material interests.

In a class society, the class struggle first takes place between the two basic classes in each social form, such as the struggle between the peasantry and the landlord class in [[feudalism|feudal]] society, and the struggle between the [[proletariat]] and the [[bourgeoisie]] in capitalist society.

Though it is a common misconception, the doctrine of class struggle did not originate with [[Karl Marx]]. He stated this himself, and [[Vladimir Lenin]] in the ''[[State & Revolution]]'' also made it clear that the idea of class struggle had existed before Marx. The Marxist contribution was to link the development of classes, and the struggle between, them to developments in the [[forces of production]]; and to say that class struggle would bring about the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]]<ref>Marx, Letter to J Wedemeyer, 5 March 1852.</ref>

[[Category:Marxist terminology]] [[Category:Class]]

Class struggle

2024-09-18T05:48:09Z

Comwik:

[[File:Pyramid of Capitalist System.png|thumb|283x283px|Class struggle is depicted amongst the lower section of the depiction "[[Pyramid of Capitalist System]]" by the [[IWW]]]]
'''Class struggle''' refers to the opposition and struggle between opposing [[social class]]es. It is the manifestation their opposing fundamental interests and is the basic means of resolving the contradiction between an existing class structure and the developing [[forces of production]] and [[relations of production]].

The essence of class conflict is the opposition between the economic status and material interests of different classes. All class struggles occur on the basis of opposing and conflicting material interests, that is, economic interests, and are ultimately centered around material interests.

In a class society, the class struggle first takes place between the two basic classes in each social form, such as the struggle between the peasantry and the landlord class in [[feudalism|feudal]] society, and the struggle between the [[proletariat]] and the [[bourgeoisie]] in capitalist society.

Though it is a common misconception, the doctrine of class struggle did not originate with [[Karl Marx]]. He stated this himself, and [[Vladimir Lenin]] in the ''[[State & Revolution]]'' also made it clear that the idea of class struggle had existed before Marx. The Marxist contribution was to link the development of classes and the struggle between them to developments in the forces and relations of production; and to say that class struggle would bring about the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]]<ref>Marx, Letter to J Wedemeyer, 5 March 1852.</ref>

[[Category:Marxist terminology]] [[Category:Class]]

Topic:Wvx0v5vihgic3n3i

2022-05-22T20:34:20Z

Comwik (talk | contribs) commented on "Article overhaul" (No problem. Edit away. Also, I'll be more selective when importing Communpedia material. into Prolewiki. There's a bigger difference in s...)

Exploitation

2022-05-20T02:39:45Z

Comwik: Minor fix-ups and added a category

'''Exploitation''' is the forced appropriation of the [[surplus value]] of workers. It takes different forms under different class systems and continues to exist in lower stages of [[Socialism]]. It disappears only in communist society.

== In Capitalist Society ==
Under [[capitalism]], what value the [[proletariat]] brings to the business, the [[bourgeoisie]] can only pay a fraction of that value. The wage that is paid represents the cost of living for the wage worker and the rest of the value goes to the bourgeoisie as [[profit]]. Proletarians are also exploited when buying commodities which will likely be priced higher than the cost of its production.

== In Socialist Society ==
Socialism as the transitional stage between capitalism and communism will inherit many elements of capitalism. Exploitation will still persist but will generally be lower in quantity than exploitation under capitalist society. In a [[state enterprise]], workers may be paid a fraction of the value brought to the enterprise but compared to a capitalist enterprise, more of the extracted surplus value may circulate as funding for public services and so the extracted surplus value eventually comes back to the worker. [[cooperative|Cooperatives]] also have potential to exploit non-members through commodity exchange or through [[externality|externalities]] such as the creation of [[pollution]].

==Theory==
Exploitation is the appropriation (taking) of the [[surplus product]] by the individual or class which controls the [[means of production]].<ref>Collins, 2001
</ref>

Surplus product is the product a society or individual produces in excess of their survival needs. Surplus product enables a society to grow and to advance technically and culturally, and it opens up the possibility of increased [[leisure]]. However, surplus product is also the basis of [[economic inequality]]: if all members of society are just surviving then all are essentially equal; but once a surplus exists some may receive part of the surplus and others not. Class society has developed on the basis of unequal sharing of the surplus product, first as slaveholding society in which the slaveowners live off of the surplus product of the slaves; then as feudal society in which the lords live off the surplus product of the serfs, now as capitalist society in which the capitalists live off the surplus product of the working class. The common thread running through history since slaveholding societies began is that a dominant class controls the means of production and lives by exploiting the labor of the subordinate class which are the great majority of the population. This exploitation has always required that the dominant class employ a system of techniques for coercing people to work.<ref name=GSE-E>''Great Soviet Encyclopedia,'' "Exploitation."
</ref>
Extraeconomic constraint (undisguised violence) typified the slaveholding and feudal societies, whereas capitalism developed a system that relied on the economic compulsion to work.

The degree of exploitation is measured by the ratio of the surplus product to the product necessary for survival (the ''necessary product''); stated another way, it is the ratio of surplus labor to necessary labor.<ref name=GSE-E />
Under capitalism, in which product and labor can be expressed in terms of [[value]], the degree of exploitation can also be stated as the ratio of surplus value to wages:
<div style="margin:0 1.7em 2em 5em">
<div style="font-size:180%;">
E = S / V
</div>
<div style="margin-left:2em; margin-top:1.5em">
Where:

'''E''' = rate of exploitation (also called rate of surplus value)<br/>
'''S''' = surplus value<br/>
'''V''' = wages (Karl Marx called wages 'variable capital')
</div>
</div>

Under feudalism, exploitation was based on the feudal lords’ ownership of the land and partial ownership of labor power. The surplus product created by the labor of peasant serfs was appropriated without remuneration by the feudal lords and assumed the form of feudal land rent. Feudal exploitation passed through two main stages: the [[corvée]] economy and the [[quitrent]] economy. In the corvée economy, the peasant worked part of the time on the feudal lord’s land and part on the parcel of land allotted to him. Necessary and surplus labor were separate from one another in time and in space. Under the quitrent system, all labor was expended on the peasant’s farm. In the corvée economy, surplus labor assumed the form of labor rent; in the quitrent economy, rent was paid in produce or in cash.<ref name=GSE-E />

The appropriation of surplus in the capitalist mode arises from the specific character of its production process, especially the manner in which it is linked
to the process of [[exchange]]. Capitalists appropriate a surplus because capitalists buy workers' [[labor-power]] at a wage equal to its value but, being in control of production, extract labour greater than the equivalent of that wage. Marx differed from the classical political economists, who saw exploitation as arising from the unequal exchange of labour for the wage. For Marx, the distinction between labour and labour power allowed the latter to be sold at its value while the former created the surplus. Thus exploitation occurs in the capitalist mode of production behind the backs of the participants, hidden by the facade of free and equal exchange (see [[commodity fetishism]]).<ref name=SH >Susan Himmelweit, 1991.</ref>
{{Quote|The sphere of circulation or commodity exchange, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. [But if we ] . . . in company with the owner of money and the owner of labour-power, leave this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in full view of everyone, and follow them into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there hangs the notice 'No admittance except on business', here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is itself produced. The secret of profit making must at last be laid bare!|''Capital I,'' ch. 6}}

But 'profit-making' is just capitalist exploitation. Its secret gave rise to the study of political economy; and since Marx disclosed it orthodox economics has been devoted to covering it up again. No previous mode of production required such intellectual labour to unearth, display, and re-bury its method of exploitation, for in previous societies the forms of exploitation were transparent: so many days of labour given, or so much corn claimed by representatives of the ruling class. Capitalism is unique in hiding its method of exploitation behind the process of exchange, thus making the study of the economic process of society a requirement for its transcendence. Exploitation is obscured too by the way the surplus is measured in the capitalist mode of production. The rate of profit (s/(c+v)) calculates surplus value as a proportion of the total capital advanced, constant and variable, the ratio of interest to individual capitals, for it is
according to the quantity of total capital advanced that shares of surplus value are appropriated. But as capital expands the rate of profit may fall, concealing a simultaneous rise in the rate of exploitation defined as the ratio of surplus to necessary labour, the rate of surplus value, s/v (see [[falling rate of profit]]).<ref name=SH />

The exploitation of one class by another causes relations between the classes to be antagonistic and gives rise to [[class struggle]].

The establishment of social ownership of the means of production eliminates the exploiting classes and ends class exploitation.<ref name=GSE-E />

==Other works==
* Academy of Sciences of the USSR, . ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia,'' "Exploitation". Available at [https://encyclopedia2.tfd.com/exploitation The Free Dictionary] and [https://greatsovietencyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Exploitation Fandom wiki farm]
* Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed., 2000. "Exploitation and appropiation" (HarperCollins). Accessed via [https://encyclopedia2.tfd.com/exploitation The Free Dictionary]
* Susan Himmelweit, 1991. "Exploitation," in Tom Bottomore, ed. ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought'' (Blackwell)

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Marxism]] [[Category:Marxist economics]] [[Category:Political economy]] [[Category:Exploitation| ]] [[Category:Labor]]

Exploitation

2022-05-18T20:24:28Z

Comwik: technical fixes

'''Exploitation''' is the forced appropriation of the [[surplus value]] of workers. It takes different forms under different class systems and continues to exist in lower stages of [[Socialism]]. It disappears only in communist society.

== In Capitalist Society ==
Under [[capitalism]], what value the [[proletariat]] brings to the business, the [[bourgeoisie]] can only pay a fraction of that value. The wage that is paid represents the cost of living for the wage worker and the rest of the value goes to the bourgeoisie as [[profit]]. Proletarians are also exploited when buying commodities which will likely be priced higher than the cost of its production.

== In Socialist Society ==
Socialism as the transitional stage between capitalism and communism will inherit many elements of capitalism. Exploitation will still persist but will generally be lower in quantity than exploitation under capitalist society. In a [[state enterprise]], workers may be paid a fraction of the value brought to the enterprise but compared to a capitalist enterprise, more of the extracted surplus value may circulate as funding for public services and so the extracted surplus value eventually comes back to the worker. [[cooperative|Cooperatives]] also have potential to exploit non-members through commodity exchange or through [[externality|externalities]] such as the creation of [[pollution]].

==Theory==
Exploitation is the appropriation (taking) of the [[surplus product]] by the individual or class which controls the [[means of production]].<ref>Collins, 2001
</ref>

Surplus product is the product a society or individual produces in excess of their survival needs. Surplus product enables a society to grow and to advance technically and culturally; and it opens up the possibility of increased [[leisure]]. However, surplus product is also the basis of [[economic inequality]]: if all members of society are just surviving then all are essentially equal; but once a surplus exists some may receive part of the surplus and others not. Class society has developed on the basis of unequal sharing of the surplus product, first as slaveholding society in which the slaveowners live off of the surplus product of the slaves; then as feudal society in which the lords live off the surplus product of the serfs, now as capitalist society in which the capitalists live off the surplus product of the working class. The common thread running through history since slaveholding societies began is that a dominant class controls the means of production and lives by exploiting the labor of the subordinate class which are the great majority of the population. This exploitation has always required that the dominant class employ a system of techniques for coercing people to work.<ref name=GSE-E>''Great Soviet Encyclopedia,'' "Exploitation."
</ref>
Extraeconomic constraint (undisguised violence) typified the slaveholding and feudal societies, whereas capitalism developed a system that relied on the economic compulsion to work.

The degree of exploitation is measured by the ratio of the surplus product to the product necessary for survival (the ''necessary product''); stated another way, it is the ratio of surplus labor to necessary labor.<ref name=GSE-E />
Under capitalism, in which product and labor can be expressed in terms of [[value]], the degree of exploitation can also be stated as the ratio of surplus value to wages:
<div style="margin:0 1.7em 2em 5em">
<div style="font-size:180%;">
E = S / V
</div>
<div style="margin-left:2em; margin-top:1.5em">
Where:

'''E''' = rate of exploitation (also called rate of surplus value)<br/>
'''S''' = surplus value<br/>
'''V''' = wages (Karl Marx called wages 'variable capital')
</div>
</div>

Under feudalism, exploitation was based on the feudal lords’ ownership of the land and partial ownership of labor power. The surplus product created by the labor of peasant serfs was appropriated without remuneration by the feudal lords and assumed the form of feudal land rent. Feudal exploitation passed through two main stages: the [[corvée]] economy and the [[quitrent]] economy. In the corvée economy, the peasant worked part of the time on the feudal lord’s land and part on the parcel of land allotted to him. Necessary and surplus labor were separate from one another in time and in space. Under the quitrent system, all labor was expended on the peasant’s farm. In the corvee economy, surplus labor assumed the form of labor rent; in the quitrent economy, rent was paid in produce or in cash.<ref name=GSE-E />

The appropriation of surplus in the capitalist mode arises from the specific character of its production process, especially the manner in which it is linked
to the process of [[exchange]]. Capitalists appropriate a surplus because capitalists buy workers' [[labor-power]] at a wage equal to its value but, being in control of production, extract labour greater than the equivalent of that wage. Marx differed from the classical political economists, who saw exploitation as arising from the unequal exchange of labour for the wage. For Marx, the distinction between labour and labour power allowed the latter to be sold at its value while the former created the surplus. Thus exploitation occurs in the capitalist mode of production behind the backs of the participants, hidden by the facade of free and equal exchange (see [[commodity fetishism]]).<ref name=SH >Susan Himmelweit, 1991.</ref>
{{Quote|The sphere of circulation or commodity exchange, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. [But if we ] . . . in company with the owner of money and the owner of labour-power, leave this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in full view of everyone, and follow them into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there hangs the notice 'No admittance except on business', here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is itself produced. The secret of profit making must at last be laid bare!|''Capital I,'' ch. 6}}

But 'profit-making' is just capitalist exploitation. Its secret gave rise to the study of political economy; and since Marx disclosed it orthodox economics has been devoted to covering it up again. No previous mode of production required such intellectual labour to unearth, display, and re-bury its method of exploitation, for in previous societies the forms of exploitation were transparent: so many days of labour given, or so much corn claimed by representatives of the ruling class. Capitalism is unique in hiding its method of exploitation behind the process of exchange, thus making the study of the economic process of society a requirement for its transcendence. Exploitation is obscured too by the way the surplus is measured in the capitalist mode of production. The rate of profit (s/(c+v)) calculates surplus value as a proportion of the total capital advanced, constant and variable, the ratio of interest to individual capitals, for it is
according to the quantity of total capital advanced that shares of surplus value are appropriated. But as capital expands the rate of profit may fall, concealing a simultaneous rise in the rate of exploitation defined as the ratio of surplus to necessary labour, the rate of surplus value, s/v (see [[falling rate of profit]]).<ref name=SH />

The exploitation of one class by another causes relations between the classes to be antagonistic and gives rise to [[class struggle]].

The establishment of social ownership of the means of production eliminates the exploiting classes and ends class exploitation.<ref name=GSE-E />

==Other works==
* Academy of Sciences of the USSR, . ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia,'' "Exploitation". Available at [https://encyclopedia2.tfd.com/exploitation The Free Dictionary] and [https://greatsovietencyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Exploitation Fandom wiki farm]
* Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed., 2000. "Exploitation and appropiation" (HarperCollins). Accessed via [https://encyclopedia2.tfd.com/exploitation The Free Dictionary]
* Susan Himmelweit, 1991. "Exploitation," in Tom Bottomore, ed. ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought'' (Blackwell)

==References==
<references />

[[Caterory:Marxism]] [[Category:Marxist economics]] [[Category:Political economy]] [[Category:Exploitation| ]]

Exploitation

2022-05-18T20:17:42Z

Comwik: Added 'Theory' section

'''Exploitation''' is the forced appropriation of the [[surplus value]] of workers. It takes different forms under different class systems and continues to exist in lower stages of [[Socialism]]. It disappears only in communist society.

== In Capitalist Society ==
Under [[capitalism]], what value the [[proletariat]] brings to the business, the [[bourgeoisie]] can only pay a fraction of that value. The wage that is paid represents the cost of living for the wage worker and the rest of the value goes to the bourgeoisie as [[profit]]. Proletarians are also exploited when buying commodities which will likely be priced higher than the cost of its production.

== In Socialist Society ==
Socialism as the transitional stage between capitalism and communism will inherit many elements of capitalism. Exploitation will still persist but will generally be lower in quantity than exploitation under capitalist society. In a [[state enterprise]], workers may be paid a fraction of the value brought to the enterprise but compared to a capitalist enterprise, more of the extracted surplus value may circulate as funding for public services and so the extracted surplus value eventually comes back to the worker. [[cooperative|Cooperatives]] also have potential to exploit non-members through commodity exchange or through [[externality|externalities]] such as the creation of [[pollution]].

==Theory==
Exploitation is the appropriation (taking) of the [[surplus product]] by the individual or class which controls the [[means of prodution]].<ref>Collins, 2001
</ref>

Surplus product is the product a society or individual produces in excess of their survival needs. Surplus product enables a society to grow and to advance technically and culturally; and it opens up the possibility of increased [[leisure]]. However, surplus product is also the basis of [[economic inequality]]: if all members of society are just surviving then all are essentially equal; but once a surplus exists some may receive part of the surplus and others not. Class society has developed on the basis of unequal sharing of the surplus product, first as slaveholding society in which the slaveowners live off of the surplus product of the slaves; then as feudal society in which the lords live off the surplus product of the serfs, now as capitalist society in which the capitalists live off the surplus product of the working class. The common thread running through history since slaveholding societies began is that a dominant class controls the means of production and lives by exploiting the labor of the subordinate class which are the great majority of the population. This exploitation has always required that the dominant class employ a system of techniques for coercing people to work.<ref name=GSE-E>''Great Soviet Encyclopedia,'' "Exploitation."
</ref>
Extraeconomic constraint (undisguised violence) typified the slaveholding and feudal societies, whereas capitalism developed a system that relied on the economic compulsion to work.

The exploitation of one class by another causes relations between the classes to be antagonistic and gives rise to [[class struggle]].

The degree of exploitation is measured by the ratio of the surplus product to the product necessary for survival (the ''necessary product''); stated another way, it is the ratio of surplus labor to necessary labor.<ref name=GSE-E />
Under capitalism, in which product and labor can be expressed in terms of [[value]], the degree of exploitation can also be stated as the ratio of surplus value to wages:
<div style="margin:0 1.7em 2em 5em">
<div style="font-size:180%;">
E = S / V
</div>
<div style="margin-left:2em; margin-top:1.5em">
Where:

:'''E''' = rate of exploitation (also called rate of surplus value)<br/>
'''S''' = surplus value<br/>
'''V''' = wages (Karl Marx called wages 'variable capital')
</div>
</div>

Under feudalism, exploitation was based on the feudal lords’ ownership of the land and partial ownership of labor power. The surplus product created by the labor of peasant serfs was appropriated without remuneration by the feudal lords and assumed the form of feudal land rent. Feudal exploitation passed through two main stages: the [[corvée]] economy and the [[quitrent]] economy. In the corvée economy, the peasant worked part of the time on the feudal lord’s land and part on the parcel of land allotted to him. Necessary and surplus labor were separate from one another in time and in space. Under the quitrent system, all labor was expended on the peasant’s farm. In the corvee economy, surplus labor assumed the form of labor rent; in the quitrent economy, rent was paid in produce or in cash.<ref nameGSE-E />

The appropriation of surplus in the capitalist mode arises from the specific character of its production process, especially the manner in which it is linked
to the process of [[exchange]]. Capitalists appropriate a surplus because capitalists buy workers' [[labor-power]] at a wage equal to its value but, being in control of production, extract labour greater than the equivalent of that wage. Marx differed from the classical political economists, who saw exploitation as arising from the unequal exchange of labour for the wage. For Marx, the distinction between labour and labour power allowed the latter to be sold at its value while the former created the surplus. Thus exploitation occurs in the capitalist mode of production behind the backs of the participants, hidden by the facade of free and equal exchange (see [[commodity fetishism]]).<ref name=SH >Susan Himmelweit, 1991.</ref>
{{Quote|The sphere of circulation or commodity exchange, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. [But if we ] . . . in company with the owner of money and the owner of labour-power, leave this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in full view of everyone, and follow them into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there hangs the notice 'No admittance except on business', here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is itself produced. The secret of profit making must at last be laid bare!|(''Capital I,'' ch. 6)}}

But 'profit-making' is just capitalist exploitation. Its secret gave rise to the study of political economy; and since Marx disclosed it orthodox economics has been devoted to covering it up again. No previous mode of production required such intellectual labour to unearth, display, and re-bury its method of exploitation, for in previous societies the forms of exploitation were transparent: so many days of labour given, or so much corn claimed by representatives of the ruling class. Capitalism is unique in hiding its method of exploitation behind the process of exchange, thus making the study of the economic process of society a requirement for its transcendence. Exploitation is obscured too by the way the surplus is measured in the capitalist mode of production. The rate of profit (s/(c+v)) calculates surplus value as a proportion of the total capital advanced, constant and variable, the ratio of interest to individual capitals, for it is
according to the quantity of total capital advanced that shares of surplus value are appropriated. But as capital expands the rate of profit may fall, concealing a simultaneous rise in the rate of exploitation defined as the ratio of surplus to necessary labour, the rate of surplus value, s/v (see [[falling rate of profit]]).<ref name=SH />

The establishment of social ownership of the means of production eliminates the exploiting classes and ends class exploitation.<ref name=GSE-E />

==Other works==
* Academy of Sciences of the USSR, . ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia,'' "Exploitation". Available at [https://encyclopedia2.tfd.com/exploitation The Free Dictionary] and [https://greatsovietencyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Exploitation Fandom wiki farm]
* Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed., 2000. "Exploitation and appropiation" (HarperCollins). Accessed via [https://encyclopedia2.tfd.com/exploitation The Free Dictionary]
* Susan Himmelweit, 1991. "Exploitation," in Tom Bottomore, ed. ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought'' (Blackwell)

==References==
<references />

[[Caterory:Marxism]] [[Category:Marxist economics]] [[Category:Political economy]] [[Category:Exploitation| ]]

Labor theory of value

2022-05-17T18:50:55Z

Comwik:

The '''Labor theory of value''' (LTV) is an economics theory which states that the value of a [[commodity]] is proportional to the labor time necessary to produce it.
The theory was used by classical economists including Adam Smith (1723-1790) and David Ricardo (1772-1823). Karl Marx (1818-1773) used a refined version of the Smith-Ricardo LTV in his own analysis of the capitalist economy. A formal Marxist statement of the theory is:
:The value of a commodity is proportional to the average socially necessary labor time used in its production.

The labor time includes the ''direct labor time'' -- for example the time a carpenter spends making a chair -- and the ''indirect labor time'' -- the labor time that was required to produce the materials (sawn wood, glue, etc.) the chair is made from and to produce the part of the carpenter's tools that is depreciated by making the chair.<ref>On direct and indirect labor see "Use value, exchange value, and labor." University of Massachusetts, U.S.A. economics course, [https://courses.umass.edu/econ708/Slides3B.pdf slide presentation]</ref>

In an economy of small, independent commodity producers the LTV results from the tendency of workers to move out of occupations in which the hourly income is low and into occupations in which the hourly income is high, and supply-and-demand which then tends to lower the price of goods produced in the high-income sector, those goods having become more abundant because more people are making them; and, conversely, tends to raise the price of goods in the low income sector because they become scarcer. This has the effect of equalising the hourly incomes of the various occupations. Since the price of a good in an economy of small, independent commodity producers is just the cost of materials and depreciation of tools, plus the amount the worker charges for his or her time, the price of the good is proportional to the labor time (direct and indirect) used in making it.

In a capitalist economy there is the added feature of the capitalist, whose profit must also be figured into the price of the commodity; however, if profit rates tend to equalize (profit / costs = a constant), the LTV will still hold.

Market imperfections will tend to make prices deviate from the LTV. Of particular importance in the present era is the fact that labor is relatively unable to move across international borders to seek the highest wage, while commodities and money move easily across borders. Under these conditions, commodities produced in low-wage countries tend to be undervalued relative to their embodied labor time, while commodities produced in high-wage countries are relatively overvalued.

The LTV is important in Marxist economics because it establishes the value of a worker's labor, and it can then be shown that workers in capitalism receive, in wages, less than that value. The difference, called [[surplus value]], is kept by the capitalist and in this way the working class is [[Exploitation|exploited]] by the capitalist class.

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Marxist economics]] [[Category:Political economy]] [[Category:Value]]

Labor theory of value

2022-05-17T18:44:37Z

Comwik: English version of material I put in Ecured yesterday. (https://www.ecured.cu/Teor%C3%ADa_del_valor_trabajo )

The '''Labor theory of value''' (LTV) is an economics theory which states that the value of a [[commodity]] is proportional to the labor time necessary to produce it.
The theory was used by classical economists including Adam Smith (1723-1790) and David Ricardo (1772-1823). Karl Marx (1818-1773) used a refined version of the Smith-Ricardo TVT in his own analysis of the capitalist economy. A formal Marxist statement of the theory is:
:The value of a commodity is proportional to the average socially necessary labor time used in its production.

This includes the ''direct labor time'' -- for example the time a carpenter spends making a chair -- and the ''indirect labor time'' -- the labor time that was required to produce the materials (sawn wood, glue, etc.) the chair is made from and to produce the part of the carpenter's tools that is depreciated by making the chair.<ref>On direct and indirect labor see "Use value, exchange value, and labor." University of Massachussetts, U.S.A. economics course, [https://courses.umass.edu/econ708/Slides3B.pdf slide presentation]</ref>

In an economy of small, independent commodity producers the LTV results from the tendency of workers to move out of occupations in which the hourly income is low and into occupations in which the hourly income is high, and supply-and-demand which then tends to lower the price of goods produced in the high-income sector, those goods having become more abundant because more people are making them; and, conversely, tends to raise the price of goods in the low income sector because they become scarcer. This has the effect of equalising the hourly incomes of the various occupations. Since the price of a good in an economy of small, independent commodity producers is just the cost of materials and depreciation of tools, plus the amount the worker charges for his or her time, the price of the good is proportional to the labor time (direct and indirect) used in making it.

In a capitalist economy there is the added feature of the capitalist, whose profit must also be figured into the price of the commodity; however, if profit rates tend to equalize (profit / costs = a constant), the LTV will still hold.

Market imperfections will tend to make prices deviate from the LTV. Of particular importance in the present era is the fact that labor is relatively unable to move across international borders to seek the highest wage, while commodities and money move easily across borders. Under these conditions, commodities produced in low-wage countries tend to be undervalued relative to their embodied labor time, while commodities produced in high-wage countries are relatively overvalued.

The LTV is important in Marxist economics because it establishes the value of a worker's labor; and it can then be shown that workers in capitalism receive, in wages, less than that value. The difference, called surplus value, is kept by the capitalist and in this way the woking class is [[Exploitation|exploited]] by the capitalist class.

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Marxist economics]] [[Category:Political economy]] [[Category:Value]]

Reserve army of labour

2022-05-16T23:31:36Z

Comwik: It's a source of cheap labor in general, not just scabs.

'''Reserve army of labour''' is Karl Marx's term for the pool of unemployed and partly-employed workers in [[capitalism]]. Marx sometimes also referred to it as the "industrial reserve army". The existence of the industrial reserve army enables the capitalists to intensify their exploitation of the workers. Unemployed workers have to accept the most onerous conditions of work. The presence of unemployment creates an unstable situation for the employed workers and sharply reduces the standard of life of the working class as a whole. That is why the capitalists are not interested in abolishing the industrial reserve army, which exercises pressure on the labour market and ensures them a supply of cheap labour-power.<ref>Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1957. ''Political Economy,'' (Lawrence and Wishart) p. 168.</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Precariat]]

== External links ==
* [[wikipedia:Reserve_army_of_labour|Wikipedia]] ([[Wikipedia|about]])

[[Category:Marxist economics]]

Reserve army of labour

2022-05-16T23:17:47Z

Comwik: Material from USSR pol. econ. textbook

'''Reserve army of labour''' is Karl Marx's term for the pool of unemployed and partly-employed workers in [[capitalism]]. Marx sometimes also referred to it as the "industrial reserve army". The existence of the industrial reserve army enables the capitalists to intensify their exploitation of the workers. Unemployed workers have to accept the most onerous conditions of work. The presence of unemployment creates an unstable situation for the employed workers and sharply reduces the standard of life of the working class as a whole. That is why the capitalists are not interested in abolishing the industrial reserve army, which exercises pressure on the labour market and ensures them a supply of cheap labour-power.<ref>Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1957. ''Political Economy,'' (Lawrence and Wishart) p. 168.<ref>

The ruling class in capitalist society keeps labor subdued with a large surplus of unemployed or underemployed workers, who can be used as [[Strike breaker|scab labor]] to depress wages of the employed workers.

== See also ==

* [[Precariat]]

== External links ==

* [[wikipedia:Reserve_army_of_labour|Wikipedia]] ([[Wikipedia|about]])

[[Category:Marxist terminology]]

Surplus-value

2022-05-16T01:56:00Z

Comwik: Some changes to the last part of the article

'''Surplus value''' is the [[value]] produced by workers in the [[Capitalism|capitalist system]] that is not paid in wages and is not used to cover the [[Constant capital|expenses of production]].<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Karl Marx]]|year=1876|title=Capital, vol. I|chapter=VIII: Constant capital and variable capital|quote=The action of labour-power, therefore, not only reproduces its own value, but produces value over and above it. This surplus-value is the difference between the value of the product and the value of the elements consumed in the formation of that product, in other words, of the means of production and the labour-power.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch08.htm}}</ref> This difference goes to their employer, and the employer's reason for carrying on the business is to obtain it – to appropriate surplus value.

In the simple case of agriculture with inexpensive instruments on unimproved land, the surplus value is simply the difference between the crop produced by the labourers and the portion of it that is returned to them as payment for their work. This can be easily visualised in physical terms. For example, in the model corn economy of the classical economists, if the harvest is 1000 bushels and 600 bushels is given to the field hands for their sustenance, then the surplus value is 400 bushels which goes to the lord or hiring farmer.

In industries where there are tools and other inputs to production that are not of negligible value, and where the workers are not paid `in kind', with the same physical commodity that they produce, the situation is not so simple but the same underlying principle applies. If we carry through the cost of the tools and other inputs to production, and subtract it from the output, and if we reckon the output and the wages in value terms rather than physical quantity terms such as bushels, it will generally be seen that the workers produce more than they receive – ie., they produce surplus value.

In modern economies, surplus value forms a sizeable portion of the total output. For example, a few years ago, Duncan Foley estimated the rate of surplus value in the U.S. economy to be 1.5, meaning that the surplus value was 1.5 times the amount paid in wages.<ref>Duncan Foley, ''Understanding Capital''. His figures are for 1983.</ref>

Karl Marx considered the pursuit of surplus value by capitalists to be the driving force behind the capitalist economy.

==Theory==
A more formal statement of surplus value is that ''surplus value is the amount by which the value of the output of [[Capitalist mode of production| capitalist production]] exceeds the value of the input materials and labour costs.''

surplus value = output value - input value

value of value
= output value - ( material + paid to )
input labour

In conventional symbols, this is:

S = Y - ( C + V )

[ C stands for constant capital,
Marx's term for material inputs;
and V stands for variable capital,
his term for payments to labour. ]

Surplus value constitutes the income of the capitalist class. It is taken by them on the rationale that their ownership of the [[Means of production|productive apparatus]] entitles them to the full value of its output after costs are paid. Labour is not regarded as having a similar fundamental claim on the output; it is paid whatever is necessary for its survival and reproduction as an efficient body of workers, plus a possible, contingent payment reflecting its bargaining success or purely optional generosity by the capitalist.

The net output of society is thus divided into two parts: S, the surplus value, which goes to the capitalists; and V, the variable capital, which goes to the workers. <span id="rate_of_surplus_value">The ratio of these amounts, S:V, is called the ''rate of surplus value''</span>, and indicates the relative strength of the two sides in the contest for the `division of the spoils', the contest over who benefits from society's economic output.

If we assume that the capitalists make no significant contribution to production, that the workers do everything and the capitalists are purely parasitic, then the rate of surplus value (S:V) also indicates the degree of exploitation of the workers by the capitalists; ie., the proportion in which the workers' labour and life energies are bled off by the parasitic, unproductive capitalists. For this reason, the rate of surplus value is often also called the `rate of exploitation', and is conventionally abbreviated as '''e'''.

rate of surplus value or rate of exploitation :

S
e = ---
V

The assumption of pure capitalist parasitism can be challenged. Capitalists usually invest a portion of their acquired surplus value to expand production, and the resulting increase in output can, at least potentially, benefit workers as well as capitalists (although it may not). In this scenario, some of the surplus value goes, indirectly, to the workers' benefit. A second challenge to the parasitism assumption is that capitalists sometimes perform managerial functions that are useful to production. This challenge, however, can be accomodated within the pure parasitism model by separating the capitalist's managerial activity from her activity as a capitalist: when she is managing, she is regarded as a labourer; when she is coupon clipping, playing with her moneybags, etc., she is regarded as a capitalist. Thus one and the same person can exist partly on both sides of the worker capitalist divide. This softens the hard edges of the exploitation picture somewhat, with the capitalist being regarded as super-remunerated part-time labourer rather than pure parasite.

Despite these reservations, most socialists would agree that productive workers in capitalism receive a much smaller piece of the pie than they would in a fair and rational system; in other words they are significantly exploited and the rate of surplus value, s/v, is a telling statistic.

Another significance of the rate of surplus value is as an indicator of the economy's excess capacity:<ref>Excess capacity not in the sense
of unused forces of production (idle plant and equipment), but output in excess of fundamental needs.</ref>
its ability to expand production and its ability to fund ancilliary unproductive activities: the [[War|military]] [[Imperialism|adventures]], [[Religion|cathedral]] [[Libido|erections]], [[Art|stylistic]] [[Fashion|gyrations]], [[Politics|political]] [[Wrestling|furors]], and [[Philosophy|philosophical]] [[Catnip|effervescences]] that flicker around the iron core of modern industrial utopia. If we assume that workers are paid only enough to reproduce them with the degree of health and effectiveness necessary for the maintenance of steady-state production – in other words, what is loosely referred to as a subsistence wage – and if we again assume that capitalists do nothing useful; then, recalling the equation

Y = S + C + V

we see that S represents everything ''not'' necessary for the maintenance of steady-state production; in other words, everything available for other purposes.<ref>It must be admitted that
some kinds of activities that are here treated as unproductive (eg., the police) are necessary for ''capitalist'' production because, eg., they keep the workers from rebelling. But they would not be necessary in a system with the same forces of production but ideal, noncapitalist relations of production. We believe that at present, socialist relations of production would be much closer to the ideal than the existing capitalist ones.</ref>

The capitalist class spends the surplus value on three things. This has already been partly explained in passing but it is good to list them clearly here:
<ol>
<li>'''Consumption'''. The acquisition of the necessities and niceties to which the members of the capitalist class are accustomed or attracted.</li>
<li>'''Maintenance of the non-productive economy'''. This includes maintenance of the police, state, and ideological apparatus that secures the capitalists in their privileged position. It also includes the often mutually confounding activities typical of trade and finance, performed by money managers and marketers, bankers and brokers, analysts and adjusters, salespeople, corporate raiders, lawyers, lobbyists, headhunters, hatchet-men, advertisers, arbitragers, and similar hardworking denizens of the rat race and the status treadmill, earnestly striving all for success and their competitors' failure.</li>
<li id="new_investment">'''New investment'''. The capitalist class usually spends some of the surplus value to obtain new or better instruments of production, and to increase the quantity of materials, and sometimes of labour, used in conjunction with them, all with a view to increasing the outflow of production, and therefore of surplus value, in the future. This process is known as '''expanded reproduction''' of capital, and the increase in the amount of capital is called capital '''accumulation'''. Expanded reproduction and accumulation are funded out of surplus value. (Simple reproduction, which is the maintenance of production at just its present level, requires no funding from surplus value because input costs – labour, replacement of stocks, and replacement of depreciated equipment – are by definition subtracted from output value to obtain surplus value.)</li>
</ol>

==Pursuit of surplus value drives capitalism==
Karl Marx considered the pursuit of surplus value to be the driving force of the capitalist economy: the reason capitalists do things is to get surplus value.
<blockquote style="font-size:100%">
‘Accumulate, accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets.’
<small>— Marx</small>
</blockquote>
The reasons a capitalist might want more surplus value include the desire for a more luxurious lifestyle, the pursuit of power for its own sake, and the pursuit of money for its own sake. On the latter pursuit (of money) Marx speculated that it sometimes takes the form of an irrational addiction facilitated by money's abstractness. It is hard to know when one has enough money.

One vicious feature of competition and the market is that in theory, if even one capitalist seeks to maximise the size of her capital, all others must follow suit or be driven out of business or swallowed by her. This is a result of economies of scale, and of `market imperfections' that accrue to the advantage of the big player (monopoly advantages, political clout, social influence). By this logic, capitals are locked in a Darwinian struggle with each other, in which size is a survival advantage. The result has been the explosive accumulation of the last 200 years.
<div style="float:right; width:38%; background-color:#fdf8e3; margin:0.4em 0 1em 1em; border:1.3px solid brown; padding:0.4em">"The [[bourgeoisie]], during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground -- what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor? -- Marx and Engels, ''Communist Manifesto''</div>

While this has greatly increased the productive forces at the command of ''homo sapiens'', propelled technique to dizzying heights, and increased the material wellbeing of people in the `have' countries, the fact that size, rather than other attributes such as social usefulness or environmental sustainability, is the prime evolutionary imperative for capital has led to great failings in overall economic rationality (macro efficiency), justice, the actualisation of human potential, and our relation to other species and the natural environment. Marx's position was that the manic pursuit of surplus value does more good than harm up to a certain historical point, but beyond that point the forces of production are better managed on a different principle (socialism).

<div style="clear:both"> </div>

==History of the concept of surplus value==
Before Marx, British socialists such as Hodgskin (1825) and Bray (1839) extended the models of political economist David Ricardo to develop a theory that workers are inevitably exploited under capitalism. The idea of surplus value was implicit in their theory.<ref>"Basing their analysis on Ricardo's theories, Colqunhunn's statistics and contemporary evidence of popular distress, they developed the concepts of capitalist exploitation and, implicitly, of surplus value." -- Burkitt (1984), p 34.</ref>

<blockquote style="background-color:#fdf5de; padding:0.6em; border:1.3px solid brown" >"The fund for the maintenance of the idle is the surplus produce of the labour of the industrious." <small>(P Ravenstone, ''A few Doubts as to the Correctness of Some Opinions Generally Entertained on the Subjects of Population and Political Economy''. London, England, 1821.)</small>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color:#fdf6dc; padding:0.6em; border:1.3px solid brown" >
"Profits are purely and simply a portion of the product of labour which the capitalist, without any right other than that conferred upon him by law, takes for himself." <small>(T Hodgskin, ''Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital.'' London, England, 1825.)</small>
</blockquote>

The French socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon spoke of surplus value and considered it to be basically theft by the capitalist.<ref>[http://anarchism.pageabode.com/pjproudhon/proudhon-and-marx-on-exploitation].</ref>

Marx, who developed his economic theory out of classical economics, especially that of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, grappled with the problem of accounting for the difference betweeen the output and input values of production. The labour theory of value, used by Ricardo and Marx, holds that labour is the only creator of value. Therefore the increase in value cannot be attributed to the instruments and materials used. It must be due to labour; but if labour is paid less than the value it creates, is this not a case of cheating in trade? of paying less for an input factor than its value? Marx and Ricardo ruled out cheating as an explanation because although it might enrich the cheater, it would impoverish the victim by an equal amount and thus null out in society-wide aggregate; it could not explain how society as a whole gains value from production. Marx's solution was to say that the value of labour is not what labour contributes but what labour costs to produce: the cost of food, housing, clothes, etc. necessary in order that labourers can exist and be functional.
<div style="float:right; width:38%">
<div style="margin:1em; background-color:#fdf8e3; padding:0.6em; border:1.3px solid brown">"Whence comes this surplus-value? It cannot come either from the buyer buying the commodities under their value, or from the seller selling them above their value. For in both cases the gains and the losses of each individual cancel each other, as each individual is in turn buyer and seller. Nor can it come from cheating, for though cheating can enrich one person at the expense of another, it cannot increase the total sum possessed by both, and therefore cannot augment the sum of the values in circulation. (...) This problem must be solved, and it must be solved in a ''purely economic way'', excluding all cheating and the intervention of any force — the problem being: how is it possible constantly to sell dearer than one has bought, even on the hypothesis that equal values are always exchanged for equal values?"
<small>— Engels, ''Anti-Duhring'', chap. 19<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch19.htm Marxists Internet Archive]</ref></small>
</div>
<div style="margin:1em; padding:0.6em; background-color:#fdfce3; border:1.3px solid brown">
"If the exchange-value of a product equals the labour-time contained in the product, then the exchange-value of a working day is equal to the product it yields, in other words, wages must be equal to the product of labour. But in fact the opposite is true. Ergo, this objection amounts to the problem, -- how does production on the basis of exchange-value solely determined by labour-time lead to the result that the exchange-value of labour is less than the exchange-value of its product? This problem is solved in our analysis of capital." <small>— Marx, ''Contrib. Critique of Pol. Econ., ch 1.<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/ch01a.htm Marxists Internet Archive]</ref></small>
</div>
</div>
By the labour theory of value, the value of that food, housing, clothing, etc. is the labour time necessary to produce it; so we have that the value of labour is the labour time necessary to produce labour. (This is consistent with the treatment of labour as a [[commodity]], the value of a commodity being the labour time necessary to produce that commodity.) It follows that if the labour time necessary to produce labour is less than the time that that labour can subsequently work; that is, if the cost of producing labour is less than the value that labour can produce, then there is an opportunity to obtain a gain in value – a surplus value – by employing labour. It is this opportunity that the capitalist seizes.

Marx called the capacity of a person to do work her labour-power. As hypothesized above, its value is the value needed to produce it. Surplus value, then, can be expressed as the difference between the value of labour-power and the value produced by labour. Another way of conceiving this is that the value of labour-power is the [[exchange value]] of the labourer's services and the time worked by her is their [[use value]]. With labour-power as with any other commodity, the capitalist pays the exchange value and obtains the use value.

By the above logic, Marx was able to formally square the existence of capitalist profits with certain conventional ideas about value and fair trade held by the bourgeoisie of his time. That is, he showed that the appropriation of surplus value does not violate those ideas. Whether it might violate other tenets of bourgois ideology – ie., whether that ideology might contain a contradiction in this regard – is debatable. And whether the appropriation of surplus value might violate another ethics – say, a socialist ethics – is of course yet another matter.

<div style="clear:both"> </div>
==Surplus product and surplus labour==
Surplus product is the actual physical output – tons of steel, bushels of corn, etc. – in excess of what is needed to replace inputs of production materials and workers' consumption goods. Surplus value is the value of the surplus product.
(The reason we often think in value terms rather than about physical product directly is that the items that comprise the physical product are usually not commensurable – a kilogram of steel is not the same as a kilogram of corn – so we cannot arrive at a single, unified measure or number that expresses physical output. This is analytically awkward. However, by assigning each different commodity a value which supposedly expresses its economic significance, we can treat different commodities together mathematically [comparing, adding, etc.] which is analytically convenient.)

Surplus labour is the labour that produces the surplus product. It can be measured in hours. If we hold a Marxian labour theory of value, then surplus labour (measured in hours of average socially necessary labour) corresponds exactly to surplus value. In ''Capital'', volume I, Marx used the picturesque device of dividing the worker's work day up, conceptually, into two periods, during the first of which she produces the value that will be returned to her as wages, and during the second of which she produces the value that will go to the capitalist. The worker in effect works so many hours for herself and so many for the capitalist. The ratio of the two periods is exactly the same as the rate of exploitation. It is in the worker's interest to minimise the time she works for the capitalist – the surplus labour time – and the capitalists interest to maximise it.

<blockquote style="background-color:#fdf5dc">
"The history of capitalist production can be seen as the history of struggle over attempts by capital to increase, and attempts by the working class to resist increases in, the rate of surplus value" <small>— Susan Himmelweit<ref>Susan Himmelweit, 'Surplus value', in Tom Bottomore, ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought'', p 474.</ref></small>
</blockquote>

==Absolute and relative surplus value==
These terms actually refer to ''changes'' in the rate of surplus value. Absolute surplus value is an increase in surplus value obtained by increasing the time period worked without increasing the payment for it; eg., lengthening the working day without raising the daily wage. Another example would be taking away a worker's paid lunch break.

Relative surplus value is an increase in surplus value obtained by increasing the physical amount of commodity produced by the worker while keeping labour time the same and the wage initially the same. This can be achieved by driving the labourer harder or by introducing more efficient instruments of production or more efficient work routines. The initial effect of relative surplus value is to yeild super profits to the firm introducing the innovation. As the innovation becomes global, however, the price of the commodity falls to reflect the fact that less labour time is required to produce a given amount of it. As a result the means of subsistence become cheaper and the wage can be reduced while still enabling the worker to obtain the same amount of (now cheaper) means of subsistence as before. In other words, the real wage stays the same but the wage relative to society's total output falls.

The diagrams below show the effects of absolute and relative surplus value on necessary and surplus labour times (necessary labour time meaning here the labour time needed to produce the worker's wage goods).

labour time

╔═══════════════════╦═══════════════════╗
before ║ necessary ║ surplus ║
Absolute ╚═══════════════════╩═══════════════════╝
surplus
value ╔═══════════════════╦═════════════════════════════╗
after ║ necessary ║ surplus ║
╚═══════════════════╩═════════════════════════════╝

╔═══════════════════╦═══════════════════╗
before ║ necessary ║ surplus ║
Relative ╚═══════════════════╩═══════════════════╝
surplus
value ╔══════════════╦════════════════════════╗
after ║ necessary ║ surplus ║
(long term)╚══════════════╩════════════════════════╝

karl Marx's account of absolute and relative surplus value appears in ''Capital'', v. 1, ch. 16: `Absolute and Relative Surplus Value'.

==Equalization of rates of surplus value==
Competition between capitalists for labourers, and between labourers for jobs, creates a tendency for the wage, and consequently the rate of surplus value, to be the same in all industries or sectors of an economy. At the abstract level, Marxian economics usually treats this tendency as being fully realised, ie., the rate of surplus value as being equal in all sectors.

<blockquote style="background-color:#fdf8e3; padding:0.6em; border:1.3px solid brown">"If capitals that set in motion unequal quantities of living labour produce unequal amounts of surplus-value, this assumes that the level of exploitation of labour, or the rate of surplus-value, is the same, at least to a certain extent, or that the distinctions that exist here are balanced out by real or imaginary (conventional) grounds of compensation. This assumes competition among workers, and an equalization that takes place by their constant migration between one sphere of production and another. We assume a general rate of surplus value of this kind, as a tendency, like all economic laws, as a theoretical simplification; but in any case this is in practice an actual presupposition of the capitalist mode of production, even if inhibited to a greater or lesser extent by practical frictions that produce more or less significant local differences, such as the settlement laws for agricultural labourers in England, for example. In theory, we assume that the laws of the capitalist mode of production develop in their pure form. In reality, this is only an approximation; but that approximation is all the more exact, the more the capitalist mode of production is developed and the less it is adulterated by survivals of earlier economic conditions with which it is amalgamated " - Capital Vol. 3, ch. 10, Pelican edition p. 275.
</blockquote>

Logically, the equalisation of the rate of surplus value results if
#the wage rate is equalised, and
#the labour theory of value holds.

This is because the LTV equates value-added to labour time expended; and the equalised wage rate means labour time expended is in the same proportion to wages in all sectors. Value-added is then in the same proportion to wages in all sectors. It follows easily that the surplus-value, being simply their difference (value-added - wages) must be in the same proportion to each of them in all sectors: s/v = same in all sectors.

<table style="font-family:courier; font-size:103%">
<caption style="font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:108%; margin:0.85em 0 ">Argument for invariance of rate of surplus-value</caption>
<tr><td style="width:2em">1.</td><td> </td><td>wage rate, v/t</td><td style="padding:0.36em 0">same in all sectors</td><td>(by competition-justified assumption).</td></tr>
<tr><td>2.</td><td> </td><td>value-added, a</td><td style="padding:0.34em 0">&prop; t</td><td>(by LTV).</td></tr>
<tr><td>3.</td><td style="width:2.6em">&there4;</td><td>v/a</td><td style="padding:0.39em 0">same in all sectors.</td><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td>4.</td><td> </td><td>s</td><td>= a - v</td><td style="padding:0.36em 0">(by definition).</td></tr>
<tr><td>5.</td><td>&there4;</td><td> s/v = (v - a)/v = 1 - a/v</td><td style="padding:0.36em 0">same in all sectors.</td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="5" style="text-align:center; padding:0.36em 0">'''Q.E.D.'''</td></tr>
</table>

Competition and the migration of workers from one sector to another in pursuit of the best rate of pay is seen as the justification of the first assumption (wage equalisation), at least for unskilled labour. Skilled labour is accommodated for by regarding it as a multiple of unskilled, providing value proportionate to the extra pay received. (This leaves v/a unchanged in the argument above.) Whether the second assumption is reasonable has been discussed in several works.<ref>Roncaglia, A. 1974: 'Thr Reproduction of complex to simple labour'.<br/>
Rowthorn, R. 1980: ''Capitalism, Conflict amd Inflation: Essays in Political Economy''.<br/>
Tortajada, R. 1977: 'A Note on the Reduction of Complex Labour to Simple Labour'.<br/>
All cited in Himmelweit, Susan, 'Surplus Value', in Tom Bottomore, ed., ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought'', 1983.
</ref>

Marx believed that the long-term historical tendency would be for rates of surplus value to equalise, as commodification became ever more dominant, non-capitalist relations in the economy became ever less significant, and thus observed phenomena ever more closely to approximate the predictions of a "pure" theory of capitalism.<ref>Robert Albritton, ''Economics Transformed'', ''op cit.''</ref>

<blockquote style="background-color:#fdf8e3; padding:0.6em; border:1.3px solid brown">
"As far as the many variations in the exploitation of labour between different sphers of production are concerned, Adam Smith has already shown fully enough how they cancel one another out through all kinds of compensations, either real or accepted by prejudice, and how therefore they do not need to be taken into account in investigating the general conditions, as they are only apparent and evanescent (''The Wealth of Nations'', Bk. 1, Ch. 10). Other distinctions, for example in the level of wages, depend in large measure on the distinction between simple and complex labour... and although they make the lot of the workers in different spheres of production very unequal, they in no way affect the degree of exploitation of labour in these various spheres. if the work of a goldmsmith is paid at a higher rate than that of a day labourer, for example, the former's surplus labour also produces a correspondingly greater surplus-value than does that of the latter. And even though the equalization of wages and working hours between one sphere of production and another, or between different capitals invested in the same sphere of production, comes up against all kinds of local obstacles, the advance of capitalist production and the progressive subordination of all economic relations to this mode of production tends nevertheless to bring this process to fruition. Important as a study of frictions of this kind is for any specialist work on wages, they are still accidental and inessential as far as the general investigation of capitalist production is concerned and can therefore be ignored. In a general analysis of the present kind, it is assumed throughout that actual conditions correspond to their concept, or, and this amounts to the same thing, actual conditions are depicted only insofar as they express their general type." - Marx, Capital Vol. 3, ch. 8, Pelican edition p. 241-242.
</blockquote>

At a less abstract, more concrete level (eg in ''Capital''', volume III), Marx accounted for surplus value being shared out at unequal rates between the capitalists in an economy. (See, for example, [[transformation problem]].

==Marcus's dialectics==
This section presents some of the ideas of the Marxist theorist Lyn Marcus on production, surplus, and the philosophical underpinnings of value theory.
<blockquote style="font-size:97%>
`In Marx's Law of Value, one obtains the first approximation of the value of current production by subdividing the total productive labor of an economy into its principal constituents. We shall ignore the agricultural population, in order to simplify our illustration, and divide the remaining nonagricultural population into two main categories. The principal category is the members of the total population whose households normatively produce the productive labor of society – in the sense of effecting useful ''material'' alterations of nature. The residual category includes, in capitalist society, capitalists themselves, bureaucrats of all sorts, police forces, military forces, clerks, professionals, and "service workers." The current productive labour force, derived from the working-class population, is treated as "input" to the productive process. "Output" (still arbitrarily excluding agriculture) is divided into the following categories.
<p>
`A certain portion of the total output is consumed in maintenance of the productive equipotential of nature (including materials, machinery, and other man-altered aspects of nature). This portion determines the category of ''Constant Capital'' (constant, that is, from the standpoint of the productive process itself). Another portion of the total output is consumed by the ''entire'' working-class population (not merely by employed labor or the families of employed labor). The magnitude of this portion is determined by the quality of consumption and leisure (e.g., education) necessary to reproduce the entire labor force at the technological-cultural "level" necessary for today's and tomorrow's production. (By "tomorrow," we signify here the visible horizon of advances in technological development affecting the employment of present and developing generations of workers.) This portion of the output determines ''Variable Capital'' (again from the standpoint of the productive forces). These two components of total output correspond to the current direct costs of simply perpetuating the whole of total current production ''for present conditions''.
</p><p>
`The residue of the output is therefore relatively "free energy" from the standpoint of simple reproduction of existing productive processes. This portion determines the category of ''Surplus Value''. However, not all of this category of output is available for development. It is from this portion of total output that the economy obtains the consumption of not only capitalists themselves, but bureaucrats, military personnel, police forces, clerks, professionals, "service workers," and the like. ''Capitalists' Consumption'' includes not only personal consumption, but also the "capital goods" consumption associated with the activities of these persons (such as military equipment, office equipment, office buildings, and the like).
</p><p>
`Since these portions of productive output correspond to portions of the labor-force input, we can derive the formula <span style="font-size:118%; font-family:courier">S/(C + V)</span> as a general expression for the "free energy" ratio of the society or, in other words, for the rate of potential expansion of the society with respect to both quality and sheer magnitude. Note that this ratio is not a ratio of products, but but of the labor force. It expresses a population's power to reproduce itself in terms of the proportions of that part of the population's activity which represents its productive labor. The ratio <span style="font-size:118%; font-family:courier">S/(C + V)</span> thus expresses man's [''sic''] relationship to nature, his social-reproductive powers, or his productivity ''in the sense of social-reproductive powers, not'' the conventional definition of productivity.' -- <small>(Lyn Marcus, ''Dialectical Economics'', 1975, pp 4-5.)</small>
</p>
</blockquote>

An important feature of Marcus's approach and dialectical approaches in general is that they seek to look "behind" the apparent, empirical, phenomena to see underlying factors. A feature of the above excerpt is that he is looking "behind" empirical output-of-production data to see labor behind it. Another example of this looking-behind things is in his approach to population studies:
<blockquote style="font-size:97">
`Some readers will protest our insistence that the fundamental, vicious fallacy of most population models is their attempt to define population growth in terms of simple numbers of individuals. "That's ridiculous," a leading zero-growth advocate at one university protested, "I can count them: one, two, three, ...: Even so, we insist that such reductionist practices are epistemologically absurd even for models of plant and lower animal populations, and lead to devastating blunders when applied to populations. The quantum to be measured in human population studies is individuals of definite ''reproductive power'', a notion related to marx's concept of labor-power, which involves "extrauterine gestation" and other considerations.' -- <small>(''Ibid'', p xiii.)</small>
</blockquote>

This is related to Marcus's employment of concepts of ''becoming'' that were stressed by Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers including Descartes and Kant, and, later, by Hegel and Marx. Marcus sees the concepts as having regretably fallen into disuse and miscomprehension because of the present dominance of the Humean, empiricist mode of thinking. As an example, if we consider ''infinity'' using the concept of ''becoming,'' "rather than defining perfection and infinity as a succession of fixed occurrences, rather than conceiving of these as a succession of discrete events which apocalyptically, asymptotically converge on a predetermined maximal value, the infinite must be seen as as the immediate aspect of current development that expresses an energizing, determining principle of self-development." <small>(''Ibid., p ix.)</small>

While all this may seem arcane and tangential, at issue is what Marx meant by value (and surplus value), and whether those concepts are valid. These questions have been the subject of enormous debate (see, for example, [[Labour theory of value]], and [[Transformation problem]]).

==Profit, interest, rent==
Surplus value comes to the capitalist in one of three forms: profit, interest or rent. Although all surplus value is generated in labour-employing productive enterprise, usually not all of it remains long in the hands of the owner(s) of that enterprise because they must distribute some of it to other capitalists in the form of interest and rent. The owner of a factory, for instance, may have to pay ground rent on the land on which her buildings stand, and may have to borrow money to obtain materials of production. Thus the net profit of a firm usually understates its surplus value flow because rent and interest are prior deductions.

== The state obtains some of the social surplus ==
Marx's discussion focuses mainly on profit, interest and rent, largely ignoring taxation and royalty-type fees which were proportionally very small components of the national income when he lived. Over the last 150 years, however, the role of the state in the economy increased in almost every country in the world. Around 1850, the average share of government spending in GDP in the advanced capitalist economies was around 5%; in 1870, a bit above 8%; on the eve of [[World War I]], just under 10%; just before the outbreak of [[World War II]], around 20%; by 1950, nearly 30%; and today the average is around 35-40%. (see for example Alan Turner Peacock, "The growth of public expenditure", in ''Encyclopedia of Public Choice", Springer 2003, pp. 594-597).

The tax paid by a productive enterprise appears as a deduction from its profit margin, so the state's revenue appears to be a portion of surplus value that the firm hands over to the state. It may be argued that not all of this tax revenue should be regarded as surplus value, however, because the state will spend a portion of it on programs that benefit the working class (such as state-funded health care, and income supports such as social assistance) and that portion, since it goes to the working class, should properly be counted not as surplus value but as variable capital that is paid by the firm to the workers through the intermediacy of the state. The validity of this argument depends on whether or not one holds a subsistence theory of wages. If one does, then the argument is invalid, because any state benefit to workers merely means that firms will lower their wage payments to the workers by the same amount, keeping workers at the subsistence level. The firm's saving in wages will exactly offset the amount it pays to the state for worker benefits, so its surplus-value acquisition is undiminished. The degree to which this is true; ie., the degree to which state-to-worker benefits are a substitute for, rather than a supplement to, wages, is a matter for empirical investigation. It might be remarked that if they are merely a substitute, then the [[Social democracy|social-democratic]] program of seeking such benefits is pointless – or perhaps even harmful because it obscures the fundamental antinomy between worker and capital, making it appear to the workers as though they are in a `socialist' or `socialised' system.

==Some finer distinctions==
===Price is not value===
Surplus value is a value. Consequently, if one holds a Marxian labour theory of value, the most natural unit to measure surplus value in is the unit of labour time – say, hours. However, one also sees surplus value stated in monetary units – ¥, €, £, $, etc. – and in fact Marx himself often did this, for example in volume I of ''Capital''. Unfortunately, stating surplus value in monetary units risks confusion and can trip up the unwary. This is because monetary units, strictly, express price not value, and price, while being strongly influenced by value also deviates from it because of various secondary influences. These include interfirm variation in labour:nonlabour cost ratio (see [[transformation problem]]), the effect of noncapitalist elements in the economy (state, household, peasant, volunteer, environmental, feudal holdovers, etc.), and growth- or crisis-induced disequilibria. The reason Marx could speak of values as prices in Volume I of ''Capital'' is that he was there working at a high level of abstraction, outlining what might be called the pure logic of capital.<ref>Robert Albritton (''Economics Transformed'', 2007, f.n., p. 5) refers to Marx's subject in the abstract parts of ''Capital'' I by various terms: the `theory of capital's inner logic', `theory of capital's deep structure', `dialectics of capital', or `theory of a purely capitalist society'. At this level, commodification and reification are complete, and non-capitalist influences and worker resistance are zero. This level must be connected to real world events via mid-level and historically specific (low-level) analyses.</ref> At that level of abstraction, the difference between value and price disappears. Where Marx there describes the finances of particular, usually hypothetical firms, he is presenting them as microcosms, or `typical cases': concrete, easy-to-understand embodiments of the abstract, generalised behavior of the system. This is permissible.<div {{Right_quotebox}}>"Surplus-value and the rate of surplus-value are... the invisible essence to be investigated, whereas the rate of profit and hence the form of surplus-value as profit are visible surface phenomena" - Karl Marx, ''Capital Vol. 3'', Pelican edition, p. 134</div>
However, when we move to the consideration of actual firms in the actual economy, we must be aware that prices, which include all figures given in money terms in firms' financial statements, represent values only roughly. It is possible to calculate something that looks like surplus value for a firm by subtracting monetary costs from its revenues, but this is very imprecise. At the national levl, Marxist economists do sometimes try to estimate the surplus value produced in a country from its national accounts data (which is in money units). At this level of aggregation, some of the deviations of price from value average out.

===Profit is not surplus value===
Although surplus value is most readily apparent in the profit of a productive enterprise, the two are not in general equal. It has already been mentioned that any rent, interest, and some or all of the tax paid by an enterprise also come from surplus value, so clearly profit is only a partial measure of surplus value. Another thing that needs to be considered is that not all of the value (and surplus value) ''produced'' by a firm will necessarily be ''realised'' in the form of a sale. Unsold inventory yeilds no profit to the firm. Similarly, if inventory has to be dumped at a cut rate and also is never sold at value in subsequent transactions then a portion of its value is never realised (although its use-value may be).

If we are considering ''rates'' of profit and surplus value, a further difference is that the rate of profit is equal to the profit divided by the total costs (labour and materials of production [m.p.]) whereas the the rate of surplus value is equal to the surplus value divided by the labour cost only. This causes enterprises that employ high levels of m.p. compared to labour (eg., the high-tech sector) to have rates of surplus value much higher than their rates of profit.

rate of profit rate of surplus value

p S
π = ----- e = ---
C + V V

Where π is rate of profit;
p profit;
C constant capital (m.p.);
V variable capital (labour);
e rate of surplus value;
S surplus value.

Note that even if p and S are equal, the presence of
constant capital in the formula for π distinguishes
the formulae.

Finally we must consider the manner in which profit and surplus value are stated. Profit is most often stated in monetary units. This is not obligatory; it can be stated as a value if one desires, and one can speak of the value of the profit realisd by a firm. (In general, any economic quantity can be looked at both as a value or as a price; the Marxist economist Junankar expresses this by saying we can operate analytically in the `value domain' or the `price domain'.) But, for the reasons stated in [[#Price is not value]] above, we should be careful not to mix price and value measurements indiscriminately. If profit expressed as a price is equated with surplus value expressd as a value, we have an additional source of potential error.

===Do capitalists seek to maximise profit or surplus value?===
Although Marx spoke of the pursuit of surplus value as being the motivating force of capitalism, at the level of specifics it may be
that what capitalists consciously seek to maximise is profit. An increase in the rate of surplus value is a necessary consequence, in most cases<ref>An
increase in the rate of profit (π) that is due to technical innovation does not increase the rate of surplus value if it occurrs in a luxury-goods industry. But an increase in π due to a reduction in the real wage, and increases in π due to technical innovation in the wage-goods sector, increase the rate of surplus value. According to Susan Himmelweit, ('Surplus value', in Tom Bottomore, ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought'') increases in π due to technical innovation in capital-goods industries that feed wage-goods industries will also increase the rate of surplus value.
</ref>
of an increase in the rate of profit, but may not be the ''direct'' objective of the capitalist.

===Do they seek to maximise the mass or the rate?===
Most Marxist discussions focus on the ''rate'' of surplus value, but for businessmen, the growth of the ''mass'' of surplus-value, or the gross profit ''volume'' produced (denoted here as ''P'') is just as important, or even more important. After all, according to US Internal Revenue Service statistics, the money paid out to corporate officers is equal to about one-third of that paid out to ordinary employees. The growth of ''P'' depends on the growth of the volume of output in an accounting period, and the volume of sales turnover.

We can illustrate the point with a simplified example. If:
*''K'' = total capital invested
*''P'' = total net profit volume realised
*''r'' = the rate of profit (i.e. ''P/K''),

and assuming (perhaps unrealistically) that a sum equal to ''P'' is ''reinvested'' (with or without the aid of credit) with zero price inflation, we can construct a series of annual business results. We take ''K'' to be 1 million at the start, and say that ''r'' is 10% initially but ''declines'' by a constant 0.1% per annum thereafter:
*year 1: ''K'' = 1,000,000; ''P'' = 100,000; ''r'' = 10%
*year 2: ''K'' = 1,100,000; ''P'' = 108,900; ''r'' = 9.9%
*year 3: ''K'' = 1,208,900; ''P'' = 118,472; ''r'' = 9.8%

We see here that within two years at least, an 18.5% increase in annual profit ''volume'' has occurred, even though the rate of profit ''decreased'' by 0.2%. In other words, there's nearly ''one-fifth more income'' to disperse among the owners of the capital, although the rate of profit return slightly fell .

What this simplistic example really implies is that, provided market sales keep growing and business expands, a slight fall in the profit rate on capital may not be a point of concern. After all, capital assets have grown, but more importantly, the total volume of ''revenue'' that can be distributed has grown.

However, if the total profit volume created in a capitalist economy stops growing, this becomes a real problem (as highlighted by [[Henryk Grossman]]). Because in that case, profitability must fall across the board, and business income is reduced everywhere.

In some Marxist crisis theories (e.g. by [[Henryk Grossmann]], [[Louis C. Fraina]] and [[Paul Mattick]]), the root ''cause'' of economic crisis is precisely that the growth of profit ''volume'' is eclipsed by the decline of the profit ''rate'' in production, the result being that the total profit volume that can be distributed stagnates or falls.

The overall implication is that ''market expansion'' is critical for the total ''volume'' of surplus-value that can be distributed as profit. Total business income can increase, even although the profit rate on capital invested falls, if markets keep growing. The logical outcome of that is [[globalisation]], i.e. the systematic removal of all barriers to trade worldwide to facilitate market expansion.

== Complicating factors in assessing surplus-value==
It is not easy to calculate surplus value. This is partly because firms and governments gather and report data according to their own purposes and not for the purpose of Marxist analysis. As a result, the categories and definitions they use fit only roughly our needs for value analysis.

Other complicating factors in assessing surplus-value are:

*price [[inflation]] applying to wage goods, profit and capital goods;
*Backwardation of certain physical goods in which time and presence are drivers of price.
*[[creative accounting]] and [[tax]] avoidance or evasion techniques which misrepresent how much value has really been created.
*Government, business, and other financial data may include or exclude items at variance with real business practice. Some types of transactions are disregarded, while imputations are made for other transactions. Almost always tax data is the main source of generic profit estimates, but tax data typically understate true profitability.
*income obtained from what Marx called "[[fictitious capital]]" or what now are often called "bubble" phenomena.
*If profit is measured as the sum of [[value added]] and gains in [[fixed capital]], it is ignored that profit income includes more than value added, and capital asets include more than fixed assets. It is desirable to look at a variety of different data measures and ''sources'' (national accounts data, tax data, direct surveys, company reports and circumstantial evidence).
*state intermediation, where [[profit]] and [[wage]] income is [[tax]]ed on the one side, and supplemented on the other with subsidies and grants of various kinds. <small>(See `[[#The state obtains some of the social surplus|The state obtains some of the social surplus ]]', above.)</small>
*unsold inventories of net outputs which contain surplus-value. <small>(See `[[#Profit is not surplus value|Profit is not surplus value]]', above.)</small>

== Relation to the circuits of capital ==
Generally, Marx focused in [[Das Kapital]] on the new surplus-value generated by production, and the distribution of this surplus value. In this way, he aimed to reveal the "origin of the wealth of nations" given a [[capitalist mode of production]]. However, in any real economy, a distinction must be drawn between the primary circuit of capital, and the secondary circuits. To some extent, [[national accounts]] also do this.

The primary circuit refers to the incomes and products generated and distributed from productive activity (reflected by [[GDP]]). The secondary circuits refer to trade, transfers and transactions occurring ''outside'' that sphere, which can also generate incomes, and these incomes may also involve the realisation (although not the production) of surplus-value or profit. Surplus value realised in trading activity outside the sphere of production represents a ''transfer'' of value from one person, country or institution to another – value initially created in the productive sphere but then transferred out of it into the finacial or trading circuits.

A very simple example would be if somebody sold a second-hand asset at a profit. This transaction is not recorded in gross product measures (after all, it isn't new production), nevertheless the person obtains surplus-value from it. Another example would be capital gains from property sales. Marx occasionally refers to this kind of profit as ''profit upon alienation'', [[Alienation (property law)|alienation]] being used here in the juridical, not sociological sense. By implication, if we just focused on surplus-value newly created in production, we would ''underestimate'' total surplus-values ''realised as income'' in a country. This becomes obvious if we compare census estimates of income & expenditure with GDP data.

This is another reason why surplus-value ''produced'' and surplus-value ''realised'' are two different things, although this point is largely ignored in the economics literature. But it becomes highly important when the real growth of production stagnates, and a growing portion of capital shifts out of the sphere of production in search of surplus-value from other deals.

Nowadays the volume of world [[trade]] grows significantly faster than [[GDP]], suggesting to Marxian economists such as [[Samir Amin]] that surplus-value realised from commercial trade (representing to a large extent a transfer of value by intermediaries between producers and consumers) grows faster than surplus-value realised directly from production.

Thus, if we took the final price of a good (the cost to the final consumer) and analysed the cost structure of that good, we might find that, over a period of time, the direct producers get less income and intermediaries between producers and consumers (traders) get more income from it. This suggests that the proportion of nonproductive labour is increasing relative to productive labour in the economy. A nonproductive trading sector can assert itself if it has control over the access to a good, asset, or resource. But it also bears remembering that a large nonproductive sector can be sustained only if labour productivity and the rate of surplus value are high in the productive sector. The implication is that at present we have highly productive sectors employing a small part of the population supplying most of society's value while the majority of the population are engaged in relatively unessential work.

The above analysis also illustrates a paradoxical feature of surplus value which is that it may be realised more plentifully within ''inefficient'' markets - markets in which transparency and competition are low. <small>Sentence was taken from Wikipedia, `Surplus value'. No other source was cited there.</small>

== Measurement ==
The first attempt to measure the rate of surplus-value was by Marx himself in chapter 9 of [[Das Kapital]], using factory data of a spinning mill supplied by [[Friedrich Engels]] (though Marx credits "a Manchester spinner"). Both in published and unpublished manuscripts, Marx examines variables affecting the rate and mass of surplus-value in detail.

Since pioneering studies by Marxian economists like [[Eugen Varga]], [[Charles Bettelheim]], [[Joseph Gillmann]], [[Edward Wolff]] and [[Shane Mage]], there have been numerous attempts by Marxian economists to measure the trend in surplus-value statistically using national accounts data. The most convincing modern attempt is probably that of Professors [[Anwar Shaikh]] & Ahmet Tonak (''Measuring the Wealth of Nations: The Political Economy of National Accounts'', 1996)<ref>$48 from Cambridge University Press, according to their catalogue. This is not a free preview of their book: www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521564794</ref>

Ascertaining ''trends'' in surplus value may be less problematic than ascertainig its absolute amount because errors, eg., in converting from national accounts to Marxian categories, may be fairly consistent throughout the time period considered and thus not invalidate obsevations of change.

It has been claimed that most time series of different profit measures from different sources show the same historical ''trends'' (see e.g. the research by Dumenil & Levy).

The Marxian mathematicians [[Emmanuel Farjoun]] and [[Moshé Machover]] argue that "even if the rate of surplus value has changed by 10-20% over a hundred years, the real problem [to explain] is why it has changed so little" (quoted from ''The Laws of Chaos; A Probabilistic Approach to Political Economy'' (1983), p. 192). The answer to that question must, in part, be sought in artifacts (statistical distortion effects) of data collection procedures. Mathematical extrapolations are ultimately based on the data available, but that data itself may be fragmentary and not the "complete picture".

== Different conceptions ==
[[Paul A. Baran|Paul Baran]] and [[Paul Sweezy]]'s treatment of "[[economic surplus]]" in ''Monopoly Capitalism'' (New York 1966, p. 9 and elsewhere), and [[Piero Sraffa]]'s treatment of "physical surplus" are similar or related to Marx's but not identical.

== Origin in trade ==
Most of this article deals with surplus value as it appears in the present, fairly mature capitalist economy; however
surplus-value is not a fixed category but a dialectical, developing one, because the forms in which new value is created and appropriated, and the way the burdens of productive work are shifted between strata of the population, change over time. There is obviously a big difference between simple commodity producers exchanging agricultural surpluses in a village market, and "fast money" in today's global money markets.

Historically, Marx argues, surplus-value originated ''outside'' production in the first commercial forms of exchange - usury, merchant, rentier and bank capital and their associated lending operations. In fact, when Marx first introduces the concept of surplus value in [[Das Kapital]], chapter 4, it is in the context of an analysis of "buying commodities in order to sell them at a profit", which he denotes as M-C-M' (see: ''Capital Vol. 1'', Penguin ed., p. 251). Thus, the first forms of surplus-value include (leaving aside extortion and robbery etc.) profits from simple [[commodity]] production, merchants' profit from "buying cheap and selling dear" or [[unequal exchange]], certain types of rent imposed on production, and [[interest]] on loans extended by financiers, bankers and usurers. In Europe, "share" certificates of the joint-stock type date from the 16th century, although in some or other form share-type financial obligations already existed much earlier. [''Is this really surplus value?'' -- <small>Communpedia ed.</small>]

== Morality and power of surplus value ==
A typical textbook-type example of an alternative interpretation to Marx's is provided by [[Lester Thurow]]. He argues in an ''Concise Encyclopedia of Economics'' article[http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Profits.html]: "In a capitalistic society, profits - and losses - hold center stage." But what, he asks, explains profits?

There are ''five'' reasons for profit, according to Thurow:
*capitalists are willing to delay their own personal gratification, and profit is their reward.
*some profits are a return to those who take risks.
*some profits are a return to organizational ability, enterprise, and entrepreneurial energy
*some profits are economic rents - a firm that has a monopoly in producing some product or service can set a price higher than would be set in a competitive market and, thus, earn higher than normal returns.
*some profits are due to market imperfections - they arise when goods are traded above their competitive equilibrium price.

The problem here is that Thurow doesn't really provide an objective explanation of profits so much as a moral justification for profits, i.e. as a legitimate entitlement or claim, in return for the supply of capital.

Thurow goes on to note that "When it comes to actually measuring profits, some difficult accounting issues arise." Why? Because after deduction of costs from gross income, "It is hard to say exactly how much must be reinvested to maintain the size of the capital stock". Ultimately, Thurow implies, the [[tax]] department is the arbiter of the profit volume, because it determines [[depreciation]] allowances and other costs which capitalists may annually deduct in calculating taxable gross income.

This is obviously a theory very different from Marx's. In Thurow's theory, the aim of business is to ''maintain'' the capital stock. In Marx's theory, [[competition]], desire and [[market]] fluctuations create the striving and pressure to ''increase'' the capital stock; the whole aim of capitalist production is [[capital accumulation]], i.e. business growth maximising net income. Marx argues there is no evidence that the ''profit'' accruing to capitalist owners is ''quantitatively connected'' to the "productive contribution" of the capital they own. In practice, within the capitalist firm, no standard procedure exists for measuring such a "productive contribution" and for distributing the residual income accordingly.

In Thurow's theory, profit is mainly just "something that happens" when costs are deducted from sales, or else a ''justly deserved'' income. For Marx, increasing profits is, at least in the longer term, the "bottom line" of business behaviour: the quest for obtaining extra surplus-value, and the incomes obtained from it, are what guides capitalist development (in modern language, "creating maximum shareholder value").

That quest, Marx notes, always involves a [[power]] relationship between different social classes and nations, inasmuch as attempts are made to force ''other'' people to pay for costs as much as possible, while maximising one's own entitlement or claims to ''income'' from economic activity. The clash of economic interests that invariably results, implies that the battle for surplus value will always involve an irreducible moral dimension; the whole process rests on complex system of negotiations, dealing and bargaining in which reasons for claims to wealth are asserted, usually within a legal framework and sometimes through wars. Underneath it all, Marx argues, was an exploitative relationship.

That was the main reason why, Marx argues, the real sources of surplus-value were shrouded or obscured by [[ideology]], and why Marx thought that [[political economy]] merited a critique. Quite simply, economics proved unable to theorise capitalism as a ''social system'', at least not without moral biases intruding in the very ''definition'' of its conceptual distinctions. Hence, even the most simple economic concepts were often riddled with contradictions. But market trade could function fine, even if the ''theory'' of markets was false; all that was required was an agreed and legally enforceable accounting system. On this point, Marx probably would have agreed with Austrian school economics -no knowledge of "markets in general" is required to participate in markets.

While in capitalist society, surplus value is ''somewhat'' approximate to value-added, it is an entirely different concept.

The goal of a communist society is to be classless, which means there is no one to appropriate surplus value from anyone else. This means everyone owns the full produce of their labour.

== See also ==
* [[Analytical Marxism]]
* [[Capital accumulation]]
* [[Das Kapital]]
* [[Exploitation]]
* [[Labour theory of value]]
* [[Law of value]]
* [[Productive and unproductive labour]]
* [[Profit]]
* [[Relations of production]]
* [[Return on capital]]
* [[Superprofit]]
* [[Surplus labour]]
* [[Surplus product]]
* [[Surplus economics]]
* [[Valorisation]]
* [[Value added]]

== References ==
<references/>

==Further reading==
''Asterisk ('''*''') denotes work used directly as a source in writing this article.''

===On paper===
*Bray, J F, 1839. ''Labour's Wrongs and Labour's Remedies: or the Age of Might and the Age of Right.'' Leeds, England.
*'''*''' Burkitt, Brian, 1984. ''Radical Political Economy.'' Brighton, Sussex, England.
*Hodgskin, T, 1825. ''Labour Defended Aainst the Claims of Capital.'' London, England.
*Marx, Karl, [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ ''Theories of Surplus-Value'' (1863)]
* - [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/index.htm ''Value, Price and Profit'' (1865)]
* - [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm ''Capital'', Volume 1], [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/index.htm Volume 2], [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/index.htm Volume 3] [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/supp.htm#intro]
*[[Paul A. Baran]], The Political Economy of Growth.
*Helen Boss, Theories of surplus and transfer : parasites and producers in economic thought. Boston: Hyman, 1990.
*[[G.A. Cohen]] (1988), ''History, Labour and Freedom: Themes from Marx'', [[Oxford University Press]]
*Anders Danielson, The economic surplus : theory, measurement, applications. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1994.
*John B. Davis (ed), The economic surplus in advanced economies. Aldershot, Hants, England/Brookfield, Vt., USA : Elgar, 1992.
*Emmanuel Farjoun and Moshe Machover, ''Laws of Chaos; A .Probabilistic Approach to Political Economy'', London: Verso, 1983. *[[Michal Kalecki]], "The Determinants of Profits", in ''Selected Essays on the Dynamics of the Capitalist Economy 1933-1970''.
*Shane Mage, ''The Law of the Falling Tendency of the Rate of Profit; Its Place in the Marxian Theoretical System and Relevance to the US Economy''. Phd Thesis, [[Columbia University]], 1963
*[[Ernest Mandel]], Marxist Economic Theory, Vol. 1 and Late Capitalism.
*Harry W. Pearson, "The economy has no surplus" in "Trade and market in the early empires. Economies in history and theory", edited by Karl Polanyi, Conrad M. Arensberg and Harry W. Pearson (New York/London: The Free Press: Collier-Macmillan, 1957).
*[[Anwar Shaikh (Economist)|Anwar Shaikh]] & Ahmet Tonak, ''Measuring the Wealth of Nations''
*[[Piero Sraffa]], ''Production of Commodities by means of commodities''.

=== On the internet ===
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20080410180912/http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com/Article/The-Concepts-of-Alienation-and-Surplus-Value--A-Brief-Look/216 'The Concepts of Alienation and Surplus-value, a Brief Look' (Archive.org)]
*Gerard Dumenil & Dominique Levy papers [http://www.jourdan.ens.fr/~levy/]
*Fred Moseley papers: [http://home.mtholyoke.edu/~fmoseley]

<div><div style="width:100%; text-align:center; margin:0">''Where did this article come from?''</div><br/>
This article was originally copied from Wikipedia but was extensively modified at the former communist wiki Communpedia in January 2014 to consists primarily of new work. In Ma 2022 it was copied to Prolewiki and slightly modified.</div>

[[es:Plusvalía]]

[[Category:Political economy]]
[[Category:Value]]
[[Category:Marxist economics]]

Wage slavery

2022-05-16T01:04:39Z

Comwik: /* General historical points */ Tried to fix awkward wording of a sentence.

'''Wage slavery''' is a term for wage labour which emphasises the unfree aspects of that [[labour]]. "Wage slavery" and similar terms have been in use almost as long as capitalist wage labour has existed. For example, in 1818 an English cotton worker described the cotton manufacturers as "despotic" masters who ruled over the "English Spinner slave."<ref>Bruno Leipold, pp 194-5.</ref> This worker also employed an analysis later used by [[Karl Marx]] and others, that the wage worker is unfree because he cannot escape the necessity of working for some capitalist master in order to survive:
{{Quote|It is vain to insult our common understandings with the observation that such men are free; that the law protects the rich and poor alike, and that a spinner can leave his master if he does not like the wages. True; so he can; but where must he go? why to another to be sure.|English cotton worker, 1818}}

By the time Marx had entered university, similar ideas were current in Germany. Marx's law lecturer, Eduard Gans wrote in 1836 that a visit to the English factories showed that "slavery is not yet over, that it has been formally abolished, but materially is completely in existence."<ref>Cited in Bruno Leipold, p 195.</ref>

==Use of the wage slavery concept by Marx ==
Marx used the idea of wage slavery at least as early as in his ''Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844'', in which he wrote that workers are forced to "carry out slave-labour, completely giving up their freedom, in the service of greed."<ref>Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ''Marx Engels Collected Works'', volume 3, p. 237. (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975–2005), henceforth MECW).</ref> In his 1847 work ''Principles of communism,'' [[Friedrich Engels]] noted, as others had before, that the slave had some advantage over the wage worker in being more valuable to the master or less easily replaced:{{Quote|The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. The individual slave, property of one master, is assured an existence, however miserable it may be, because of the master's interest. The individual proletarian, property as it were of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when someone has need of it, has no secure existence.|[[Friedrich Engels]]|[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm The Principles of Communism] 1847}}

In "Wage Labour and Capital" (1849), he wrote that "the relation of wage labour to capital, [is] the slavery of the worker, the domination of the capitalist."<ref>MECW, volume , p. 237.</ref> Marx argued that although the wage labourer is not owned by any particular capitalist she or he is, in effect, owned by the capitalist class. In "Wage-Labour and Capital" he wrote that because the worker's "sole source of livelihood is the sale of his labour, [he] cannot leave the whole class of purchasers, that is, the capitalist class, without renouncing his existence. He belongs not to this or that bourgeois, but to the bourgeosie, the bourgeois class."<ref>Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ''Marx Engels Collected Works'', volume 9, p. 203. (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975–2005.)</ref>

In ''[[Capital, vol. I]]'' (1867) Marx even says that because of this structural domination over the worker,
{{Quote|the worker belongs to capital before he has sold himself to the capitalist.|''Marx Engels Collected Works,'' volume 35, p. 577.}}

Marx also discusses the unfree aspects of wage labour at various other points in ''Capital'', volume 1:
{{Quote|[Wage labour], which cannot get free from capital, and whose enslavement to capital is only concealed by the variety of individual capitalists to whom it sells itself, [forms] an essential of the reproduction of capital itself.|''Capital'', Vol. 1, Chap. 25, Section 1, paragraph 5.<ref>[https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm#S1 Capital, Ch. 25, Section 1]</ref>}}

{{Quote|The Roman slave was held by chains; the wage-labourer is bound to his owner by invisible threads. The appearance of independence is maintained by a constant change in the person of the individual employer, and by the legal fiction (fictio juris) of a contract.|Karl Marx|Capital|volume 1, book 1: 'The Process of Production of Capital'}}

In ''Theories of Surplus Value'' (1861-63), Marx noted that the French writer Simon Linquet had made the necessity argument already in 1767:<ref>Chapter 7 [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch07.htm Marxists.org]</ref>
{{quote |The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him… They were worth at least as much as they could be sold for in the market… It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat… It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him… what effective gain [has] the suppression of slavery brought [him ?] He is free, you say. Ah! That is his misfortune… These men… [have] the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is, need. … They must therefore find someone to hire them, or die of hunger. Is that to be free?|Simon Linguet|Théorie des lois civiles, etc.| p. 467.}}

In the winter of 1857-1858 Marx wrote down some theoretical ideas on slave, serf, and wage labour which can be found in his ''Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie'' (Foundations of a Critique of Political Economy) which was first published in Moscow in 1939. Parts of the "Chapter on Capital" are particularly relevant.<ref>"The first presupposition, to begin with, is that the relation of slavery or serfdom has been suspended. Living labour capacity belongs to itself, and has disposition over the expenditure of its forces, through exchange. Both sides confront each other as persons. Formally, their relation has the equality and freedom of exchange as such. As far as concerns the legal relation, the fact that this form is a mere semblance, and a deceptive semblance, appears as an external matter. What the free worker sells is always nothing more than a specific, particular measure of force-expenditure [Kraftäusserung]; labour capacity as a totality is greater than every particular expenditure. He sells the particular expenditure of force to a particular capitalist, whom he confronts as an independent individual. It is clear that this is not his relation to the existence of capital as capital, i.e. to the capitalist class. Nevertheless, in this way everything touching on the individual, real person leaves him a wide field of choice, of arbitrary will, and hence of formal freedom. In the slave relation, he belongs to the individual, particular owner, and is his labouring machine. As a totality of force-expenditure, as labour capacity, he is a thing [Sache] belonging to another, and hence does not relate as subject to his particular expenditure of force, nor to the act of living labour. In the serf relation he appears as a moment of property in land itself, is an appendage of the soil, exactly like draught-cattle. In the slave relation the worker is nothing but a living labour-machine, which therefore has a value for others, or rather is a value. The totality of the free worker's labour capacity appears to him as his property, as one of his moments, over which he, as subject, exercises domination, and which he maintains by expending it. This is to be developed later under wage labour. (''Grundrisse'', "Chapter on Capital", line 501 of [https://genius.com/Robert-c-tucker-the-marx-engels-reader-chapter-ii-annotated this] copy of Robert C Tucker's ''Marx Engels Reader.'')
</ref>

== Use by other socialists==
The French socialist and revolutionist Louis-Auguste Blanqui had similar views to Marx on the unfreeness of wage labour:
[[File:Louis auguste blanqui.jpg|thumb|180px|Louis-Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881)]]
{{Quote|Moreover, there is not as great a contradiction as first appears between the social conditions of the colonies and our own. After eighteen centuries of a constant struggle undertaken against privilege and for the principle of equality, slavery could certainly not be re-established in all its naked brutality at the very heart of the country that bears the brunt of this struggle. But if it does not exist in name, it exists in fact, and the right to property, while more hypocritical in Paris than in Martinique or ancient Rome, is neither less insolent nor less aggressive. Servitude does not mean being the transferable slave of a man, or being a serf attached to his land [<em>glèbe</em>]; it means being completely dispossessed of the instruments of labour, and then being put at the mercy of those privileged groups who usurped them, and who retain through violence their exclusive ownership of these instruments that are indispensable to the workers. This monopolisation [<em>accaparement</em>] is thus a permanent despoilment. From this it becomes clear that it is not one or another political form of government that maintains the masses in a state of slavery, but rather the usurpation of property presented as the fundamental basis of the existing social order. For from the moment a privileged caste passes on land and capital through inheritance, all other citizens, though not condemned to remain slaves of any given individual, nevertheless become absolutely dependent on that caste, since their only remaining freedom is the choice of which master will rule over them.|Louis-Auguste Blanqui, "Social Wealth Must Belong to Those Who Created It" (Le Libérateur no. 2, February 1834) 4th paragraph. [https://blanqui.kingston.ac.uk/texts/social-wealth-must-belong-to-those-who-created-it-february-1834/ Free Blanqui archive]}}

Frederick Engels, in his 1845 ''Condition of the Working Class in England'' expressed similar ideas to those of his socialist predecessors and his colleague Marx on wage slavery:
{{Quote|The proletarian is helpless; left to himself, he cannot live a single day. The bourgeoisie has gained a monopoly of all means of existence in the broadest sense of the word. What the proletarian needs, he can obtain only from this bourgeoisie, which is protected in its monopoly by the power of the state. The proletarian is, therefore, in law and in fact, the slave of the bourgeoisie, which can decree his life or death. It offers him the means of living, but only for an "equivalent", for his work. It even lets him have the appearance of acting from a free choice, of making a contract with free, unconstrained consent, as a responsible agent who has attained his majority.

Fine freedom, where the proletarian has no other choice than that of either accepting the conditions which the bourgeoisie offers him, or of starving, of freezing to death, of sleeping naked among the beasts of the forests! A fine "equivalent" valued at pleasure by the bourgeoisie! And if one proletarian is such a fool as to starve rather than agree to the "equitable" propositions of the bourgeoisie, his "natural superiors", another is easily found in his place; there are proletarians enough in the world, and not all so insane as to prefer dying to living....

The only difference as compared with the old, outspoken slavery is
this, that the worker of today seems to be free because he is not sold once for
all, but piecemeal by the day, the week, the year, and because no one owner
sells him to another, but he is forced to sell himself in this way instead,
being the slave of no particular person, but of the whole property-holding
class.|Chapter on "Competition", 3d, 4th and 9th paragraphs. Free at [https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch05.htm Marxists.org French mirror.]}}

[[File:Daily people 24 august 1900 p1.jpg|thumb|310px|Daniel De Leon's ''Daily People'' using the term in 1900]]
<div style="clear:both"> </div>

==Use or misuse in defense of actual slavery==
Before the [[American Civil War]], Southern defenders of [[African American]] slavery invoked the concept of wage slavery to favorably compare the condition of their slaves to workers in the North.<ref>Eric Foner, ''Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men'', p. XIX; Derrick Jensen, ''The Culture of Make Believe''
</ref>
Some argued that workers were "free but in name – the slaves of endless toil," and that their slaves were better off.<ref>The Hireling and the Slave — Antislavery Literature Project [http://antislavery.eserver.org/proslavery/graysonhireling eserver] accessdate=09-01-25</ref>

Some modern historians have given evidence in support of these views. According to Fogel and Engerman plantation records show that slaves worked less, were better fed and whipped only occasionally—their material conditions in the 19th century being "better than what was typically available to free urban laborers at the time".<ref name="Fogel">Fogel & Engerman, Without Consent or Contract, New York: Norton, 1989, p. 391.</ref> According to another study, slaves in the United States in the 19th century had improved their standard of living from the 18th century.<ref>The Height of American Slaves: New Evidence of Slave Nutrition and Health [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0145-5532(198223)6%3A4%3C516%3ATHOASN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F Jstor] Requires subscription</ref> According to Mark Michael Smith of the Economic History Society, slaves could sometimes manipulate the master-slave relationship enough to "carve out a degree of autonomy"<ref>Debating Slavery: Economy and Society in the Antebellum American South, p. 44</ref>

Many [[abolitionist]]s in the U.S., including northern capitalists, regarded the notion of wage slavery to be spurious,<ref name="Foner, Eric 1998. p. 66">Foner, Eric. 1998. ''The Story of American Freedom''. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 66</ref> saying that wage workers were "neither wronged nor oppressed".<ref name="McNall 95">Scott McNall et al., 2002. ''Current Perspectives in Social Theory'', p.95 (Emerald Group Publishing) [http://books.google.com/?id=0h68KhoQ6RgC=9780762307623 Google books]</ref>

Abolitionist [[William Lloyd Garrison]] stated that the use of the term "wage slavery" (in a time when chattel slavery was still common) was an "abuse of language."<ref>Foner, Eric 1998. p. 66</ref>

[[Abraham Lincoln]] and the republicans "did not challenge the notion that those who spend their entire lives as wage laborers were comparable to slaves", though they argued that the condition was different, as laborers were likely to have the opportunity to work for themselves in the future, achieving [[self-employment]].<ref>Michael J. Sandel, ''Democracy's Discontent''. Pp 181-4. [http://books.google.com/books?id=_KdrTfTxqvgC&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183]</ref>

In 1869 [[The New York Times]] described the system of wage labor as "a system of slavery as absolute if not as degrading as that which lately prevailed at the South".<ref name="books.google.com">Ref was to a Google book</ref>

== History==
Use of the term wage slavery correlates partly with the shift during the 19th century from artisanal labour to factory labour which was more regimented and in which the worker had less autonomy.

{{Quote|"Call it out to all who you meet: we are robbed, we are maltreated, we are slaves!"|Journal of United Labour|May, 1891}}

===England===
[[File:E_P_Thompson_at_1980_protest.JPG|thumb|right|170px|E P Thompson in 1980]]
The Marxist historian E.P. Thompson has argued that the working-class' complaint during the 19th century [[industrial revolution]] in England was not reducible to a decline in material well-being. What mattered to workers was how the conditions of their work had changed - that their working life was now characterized by overwork, monotony, discipline, and most importantly the loss of freedom and independence. Thompson thus observed that 'People may consume more goods and become less happy or less free at the same time.'<ref>''The Making of the English Working Class,'' (1963), p. 211.</ref>

Thompson noted that for British workers at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, the "gap in status between a 'servant,' a hired wage-laborer subject to the orders and discipline of the master, and an artisan, who might 'come and go' as he pleased, was wide enough for men to shed blood rather than allow themselves to be pushed from one side to the other. And, in the value system of the community, those who resisted degradation were in the right." <ref name="English Working Class p. 599">''The Making of the English Working Class'', possibly page 599.</ref>

Accoding to economist William Lazonick, "Research has shown that the 'free-born Englishman' of the eighteenth century – even those who, by force of circumstance, had to submit to agricultural wage labour – tenaciously resisted entry into the capitalist workshop."<ref name="Shop Floor p. 37">''Competitive Advantage on the Shop Floor,'' p. 37.</ref>
===United States===
[[Image:Portrait Emma Goldman.jpg|thumb|left|175px|[[United States of America|Statesian]] [[Anarchism|anarchist]] [[Emma Goldman]] denounced wage slavery by saying: "The only difference is that you are hired slaves instead of block slaves"<ref>Emma Goldman: A documentary History of the American Years</ref>]]
In the United States the term "wage slavery" was widely used by labor organizations during the mid-19th century, but was gradually replaced by the term "wage work" towards the end of the 19th century.<ref name="Hallgrimsdottir1">Helga Hallgrimsdottir and Cecilia Benoit, 2007. "From Wage Slaves to Wage Workers: Cultural Opportunity Structures and the Evolution of the Wage Demands of Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor, 1880-1900", ''Social Forces,'' Vol. 85, Number 3, pp. 1393-1411. http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/social_forces/v085/85.3hallgrimsdottir.html
</ref> In the 1830s the [[Lowell Mill Girls]] condemned the "degradation and subordination" of the newly emerging industrial system<ref>Rogue States By Noam Chomsky; Profit Over People by Noam Chomsky</ref> and expressed their concerns in a protest song during their 1836 strike:
{| class="wikitable"
|Oh! isn't it a pity, such a pretty girl as I
Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die?

Oh! I cannot be a slave, I will not be a slave,

For I'm so fond of liberty,

That I cannot be a slave.<ref>Liberty. American Studies. [http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/americanstudies/lavender/liberty.html CUNY]</ref>
|}
[[File:Wage Slavery Use Study.svg|thumb|right|300px|The frequency with which US and Canadian labour organisations used the term "wage slavery" declined in the late 19th century and it became less synonymous with "wage labour", according to Helga Hallgrimsdottir and Cecilia Benoit]]Statesian anarchist [[Noam Chomsky]] has said that:
:As long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market to those who are willing to hire them, as long as their role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then there are striking elements of coercion and oppression that make talk of democracy very limited, if even meaningful…<ref>Interview at [http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19760725.htm Chomsky.info</ref>

=== General historical points===
[[File:wage_slavery_ngram_frequency.jpg|thumb|300px|In Google's sample of English-language books the frequency of use of the terms "wage slave", "wage slavery", "wage-slave", and "wage-slavery" becomes significant around 1870 and peaks around 1920|left]]
According to ''Encyclopedia Britannica'', the range of occupations and status positions held by chattel slaves has been nearly as broad as that held by free persons. This could be interpreted as indicating some similarities between chattel slavery and wage slavery.<ref>"The highest position slaves ever attained was that of slave minister… A few slaves even rose to be monarchs, such as the slaves who became sultans and founded dynasties in Islām. At a level lower than that of slave ministers were other slaves, such as those in the Roman Empire, the Central Asian Samanid domains, Ch’ing China, and elsewhere, who worked in government offices and administered provinces. … The stereotype that slaves were careless and could only be trusted to do the crudest forms of manual labor was disproved countless times in societies that had different expectations and proper incentives."[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/548305/slavery/24172/Slave-occupations The sociology of slavery: Slave occupations Encyclopaedia Britannica]</ref>

Anthropologist [[David Graeber]] says the first wage labor contracts we know about—whether in ancient Greece or Rome, or in the Malay or Swahili city states in the Indian ocean—were in fact contracts for the rental of chattel slaves (usually the owner would receive a share of the money, and the slave, another, with which to maintain his or her living expenses.) Such arrangements were quite common in New World slavery as well, whether in the United States or Brazil. The Black liberationist and Marxist C. L. R. James contended that most of the techniques of human organization employed on factory workers during the industrial revolution were first developed on slave plantations.<ref>[http://www.prickly-paradigm.com/paradigm14.pdf Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology p. 37]</ref>

It is possible that the necessity argument – i.e., that the threat of starvation forces those without property to work for wages – is less compelling in some modern situations such as the [[welfare state]] than it was in the 19th century. However, modern methods of maintaining [[hegemony]],<ref>Antonio Gramsci, 1992 [1930s and 40s]. ''Prison Notebooks.'' New York : Columbia University Press, pp.233-38</ref> and instilling [[false concsiousness]] may play a similar role in entrapping workers.

==Psychological effects of wage labour==
Investigative journalist [[Robert Kuttner]] in ''Everything for Sale'', analyzes the work of public-Health scholars Jeffrey Johnson and Ellen Hall about modern conditions of work, and concludes that "to be in a life situation where one experiences relentless demands by others, over which one has relatively little control, is to be at risk of poor health, physically as well as mentally." Accoding to Kuttner, "Epidemiological data confirm that [under wage labor], lower-paid, lower-status workers are more likely to experience the most clinically damaging forms of stress, in part because they have less control over their work."<ref>Kuttner, ''Everything for Sale.'', pp. 153-4</ref>

It has also been contended that wage labour "implies erosion of the human personality… [because] some men submit to the will of others, arousing in these instincts which predispose them to cruelty and indifference in the face of the suffering of their fellows."<ref>Quotation in by Jose Peirats, ''The CNT in the Spanish Revolution'', vol. 2, p. 76</ref>

[[Erich Fromm]] noted that if a person perceives himself as being what he owns, then when that person loses (or even thinks of losing) what he "owns" (e.g. the good looks or sharp mind that allow him to sell his labor for high wages), then, a fear of loss may create anxiety and authoritarian tendencies because that person's sense of identity is threatened. In contrast, when a person's sense of self is based on what he experiences in a state of ''being'' (creativity, ego or loss of ego, love, sadness, taste, sight etc.) with a less materialistic regard for what he once had and lost, or may lose, then less authoritarian tendencies prevail. The state of being, in his view, flourishes under a worker-managed workplace and economy, whereas self-ownership entails a materialistic notion of self, created to rationalize the lack of worker control that would allow for a state of being.<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=JvG85s966koC&dq=to+have+or+to+be&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=AbpnS7-aGJyysQOe0fjVBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false To Have Or to Be? by Erich Fromm ]</ref>

==Bourgeois-ideological opposition to the concept==
Philosopher Gary Young has argued that the same basic reasoning that considers the individual to be forced to sell his labor to a capitalist in order to survive, also applies to the capitalist in that he is forced to hire a worker to survive otherwise his capital will be exhausted through consumption, leaving him nothing to purchase the necessities of life.<ref>Young, Gary. 1978. ''Justice and Capitalist Production. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 8'', no. 3, p. 448</ref> In this sense, the capitalists depend on the workers as the workers depend on the capitalists.<ref>Nino, Carlos Santiago. 1992. ''Rights''. NYU Press. p.343</ref>

[[Austrian economics]] argues that a person is not "free" unless they can sell their labor because otherwise that person has no self-ownership and will be owned by a "third party" of individuals.<ref>Ludwig von Mises, 1996 [1949]. ''Human Action: A Treatise on Economics'' (4th ed.). San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes. ISBN 978-0-930073-18-3, pp. 194–99. ([http://www.mises.org/humanaction/pdf/ha_10.pdf interpersonal exchange] accessed at March 11, 2008)</ref>

==See also==
*[[Wage labor]]
*[[Capitalist mode of production]]
*[[Firestone Liberian controversy]]
*[[Free association (communism and anarchism)]]
*[[Proletariat]]
*[[Refusal of work]]
*[[Salaryman]]

==Other works==
*Bruno Leipold, 2022. "Chains and Invisible Threads: Liberty and Domination in Marx's Account of Wage Slavery". Chapter of a larger book by Leipold. Chapter available from [https://www.academia.edu/42539884/Chains_and_Invisible_Threads_Liberty_and_Domination_in_Marxs_Account_of_Wage_Slavery Academia.edu] with email registration.

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links ==
*[http://www.antenna.nl/~waterman/gorz.html André Gorz, Critique of Economic Reason and the Wage Slavery,1989]
*[http://www.whywork.org/ Creating Livable Alternatives to Wage Slavery]
*[http://web.archive.org/web/20060214144545/http://newslavery.org/ Essay on Societal Slavery]
*[http://economicdemocracy.org/miners.html How The Miners Were Robbed] 1907 anti-capitalist pamphlet by John Wheatley.
*[http://www.ditext.com/us/us.html Land and Liberty]
*[http://www.eduardomartino.com/pages/slavery_brazil.html Photo-story on modern-day slavery in Brazil by photographer Eduardo Martino]
*[http://irregulartimes.com/saipan.html Special situations in the USA]
*[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm Wage Labour and Capital]
*[http://libcom.org/library/working-wages-martin-glaberman Working for Wages, Martin Glaberman and Seymour Faber]
*[http://www.ralphmag.org/FL/poverty-reading.html Slavery and the Welfare State] by Stephen Pimpare, from ''A People's History of Poverty in America''

[[Category:Criticism and refusal of work]]
[[Category:Marxism]]
[[Category:Slavery]]
[[Category:Labor]]

Surplus-value

2022-05-16T00:48:35Z

Comwik: Fixed HTML special characters

'''Surplus value''' is the [[value]] produced by workers in the [[Capitalism|capitalist system]] that is not paid in wages and is not used to cover the [[Constant capital|expenses of production]].<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Karl Marx]]|year=1876|title=Capital, vol. I|chapter=VIII: Constant capital and variable capital|quote=The action of labour-power, therefore, not only reproduces its own value, but produces value over and above it. This surplus-value is the difference between the value of the product and the value of the elements consumed in the formation of that product, in other words, of the means of production and the labour-power.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch08.htm}}</ref> This difference goes to their employer, and the employer's reason for carrying on the business is to obtain it – to appropriate surplus value.

In the simple case of agriculture with inexpensive instruments on unimproved land, the surplus value is simply the difference between the crop produced by the labourers and the portion of it that is returned to them as payment for their work. This can be easily visualised in physical terms. For example, in the model corn economy of the classical economists, if the harvest is 1000 bushels and 600 bushels is given to the field hands for their sustenance, then the surplus value is 400 bushels which goes to the lord or hiring farmer.

In industries where there are tools and other inputs to production that are not of negligible value, and where the workers are not paid `in kind', with the same physical commodity that they produce, the situation is not so simple but the same underlying principle applies. If we carry through the cost of the tools and other inputs to production, and subtract it from the output, and if we reckon the output and the wages in value terms rather than physical quantity terms such as bushels, it will generally be seen that the workers produce more than they receive – ie., they produce surplus value.

In modern economies, surplus value forms a sizeable portion of the total output. For example, a few years ago, Duncan Foley estimated the rate of surplus value in the U.S. economy to be 1.5, meaning that the surplus value was 1.5 times the amount paid in wages.<ref>Duncan Foley, ''Understanding Capital''. His figures are for 1983.</ref>

Karl Marx considered the pursuit of surplus value by capitalists to be the driving force behind the capitalist economy.

==Theory==
A more formal statement of surplus value is that ''surplus value is the amount by which the value of the output of [[Capitalist mode of production| capitalist production]] exceeds the value of the input materials and labour costs.''

surplus value = output value - input value

value of value
= output value - ( material + paid to )
input labour

In conventional symbols, this is:

S = Y - ( C + V )

[ C stands for constant capital,
Marx's term for material inputs;
and V stands for variable capital,
his term for payments to labour. ]

Surplus value constitutes the income of the capitalist class. It is taken by them on the rationale that their ownership of the [[Means of production|productive apparatus]] entitles them to the full value of its output after costs are paid. Labour is not regarded as having a similar fundamental claim on the output; it is paid whatever is necessary for its survival and reproduction as an efficient body of workers, plus a possible, contingent payment reflecting its bargaining success or purely optional generosity by the capitalist.

The net output of society is thus divided into two parts: S, the surplus value, which goes to the capitalists; and V, the variable capital, which goes to the workers. <span id="rate_of_surplus_value">The ratio of these amounts, S:V, is called the ''rate of surplus value''</span>, and indicates the relative strength of the two sides in the contest for the `division of the spoils', the contest over who benefits from society's economic output.

If we assume that the capitalists make no significant contribution to production, that the workers do everything and the capitalists are purely parasitic, then the rate of surplus value (S:V) also indicates the degree of exploitation of the workers by the capitalists; ie., the proportion in which the workers' labour and life energies are bled off by the parasitic, unproductive capitalists. For this reason, the rate of surplus value is often also called the `rate of exploitation', and is conventionally abbreviated as '''e'''.

rate of surplus value or rate of exploitation :

S
e = ---
V

The assumption of pure capitalist parasitism can be challenged. Capitalists usually invest a portion of their acquired surplus value to expand production, and the resulting increase in output can, at least potentially, benefit workers as well as capitalists (although it may not). In this scenario, some of the surplus value goes, indirectly, to the workers' benefit. A second challenge to the parasitism assumption is that capitalists sometimes perform managerial functions that are useful to production. This challenge, however, can be accomodated within the pure parasitism model by separating the capitalist's managerial activity from her activity as a capitalist: when she is managing, she is regarded as a labourer; when she is coupon clipping, playing with her moneybags, etc., she is regarded as a capitalist. Thus one and the same person can exist partly on both sides of the worker capitalist divide. This softens the hard edges of the exploitation picture somewhat, with the capitalist being regarded as super-remunerated part-time labourer rather than pure parasite.

Despite these reservations, most socialists would agree that productive workers in capitalism receive a much smaller piece of the pie than they would in a fair and rational system; in other words they are significantly exploited and the rate of surplus value, s/v, is a telling statistic.

Another significance of the rate of surplus value is as an indicator of the economy's excess capacity:<ref>Excess capacity not in the sense
of unused forces of production (idle plant and equipment), but output in excess of fundamental needs.</ref>
its ability to expand production and its ability to fund ancilliary unproductive activities: the [[War|military]] [[Imperialism|adventures]], [[Religion|cathedral]] [[Libido|erections]], [[Art|stylistic]] [[Fashion|gyrations]], [[Politics|political]] [[Wrestling|furors]], and [[Philosophy|philosophical]] [[Catnip|effervescences]] that flicker around the iron core of modern industrial utopia. If we assume that workers are paid only enough to reproduce them with the degree of health and effectiveness necessary for the maintenance of steady-state production – in other words, what is loosely referred to as a subsistence wage – and if we again assume that capitalists do nothing useful; then, recalling the equation

Y = S + C + V

we see that S represents everything ''not'' necessary for the maintenance of steady-state production; in other words, everything available for other purposes.<ref>It must be admitted that
some kinds of activities that are here treated as unproductive (eg., the police) are necessary for ''capitalist'' production because, eg., they keep the workers from rebelling. But they would not be necessary in a system with the same forces of production but ideal, noncapitalist relations of production. We believe that at present, socialist relations of production would be much closer to the ideal than the existing capitalist ones.</ref>

The capitalist class spends the surplus value on three things. This has already been partly explained in passing but it is good to list them clearly here:
<ol>
<li>'''Consumption'''. The acquisition of the necessities and niceties to which the members of the capitalist class are accustomed or attracted.</li>
<li>'''Maintenance of the non-productive economy'''. This includes maintenance of the police, state, and ideological apparatus that secures the capitalists in their privileged position. It also includes the often mutually confounding activities typical of trade and finance, performed by money managers and marketers, bankers and brokers, analysts and adjusters, salespeople, corporate raiders, lawyers, lobbyists, headhunters, hatchet-men, advertisers, arbitragers, and similar hardworking denizens of the rat race and the status treadmill, earnestly striving all for success and their competitors' failure.</li>
<li id="new_investment">'''New investment'''. The capitalist class usually spends some of the surplus value to obtain new or better instruments of production, and to increase the quantity of materials, and sometimes of labour, used in conjunction with them, all with a view to increasing the outflow of production, and therefore of surplus value, in the future. This process is known as '''expanded reproduction''' of capital, and the increase in the amount of capital is called capital '''accumulation'''. Expanded reproduction and accumulation are funded out of surplus value. (Simple reproduction, which is the maintenance of production at just its present level, requires no funding from surplus value because input costs – labour, replacement of stocks, and replacement of depreciated equipment – are by definition subtracted from output value to obtain surplus value.)</li>
</ol>

==Pursuit of surplus value drives capitalism==
Karl Marx considered the pursuit of surplus value to be the driving force of the capitalist economy: the reason capitalists do things is to get surplus value.
<blockquote style="font-size:100%">
‘Accumulate, accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets.’
<small>— Marx</small>
</blockquote>
The reasons a capitalist might want more surplus value include the desire for a more luxurious lifestyle, the pursuit of power for its own sake, and the pursuit of money for its own sake. On the latter pursuit (of money) Marx speculated that it sometimes takes the form of an irrational addiction facilitated by money's abstractness. It is hard to know when one has enough money.

One vicious feature of competition and the market is that in theory, if even one capitalist seeks to maximise the size of her capital, all others must follow suit or be driven out of business or swallowed by her. This is a result of economies of scale, and of `market imperfections' that accrue to the advantage of the big player (monopoly advantages, political clout, social influence). By this logic, capitals are locked in a Darwinian struggle with each other, in which size is a survival advantage. The result has been the explosive accumulation of the last 200 years.
<div style="float:right; width:38%; background-color:#fdf8e3; margin:0.4em 0 1em 1em; border:1.3px solid brown; padding:0.4em">"The [[bourgeoisie]], during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground -- what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor? -- Marx and Engels, ''Communist Manifesto''</div>

While this has greatly increased the productive forces at the command of ''homo sapiens'', propelled technique to dizzying heights, and increased the material wellbeing of people in the `have' countries, the fact that size, rather than other attributes such as social usefulness or environmental sustainability, is the prime evolutionary imperative for capital has led to great failings in overall economic rationality (macro efficiency), justice, the actualisation of human potential, and our relation to other species and the natural environment. Marx's position was that the manic pursuit of surplus value does more good than harm up to a certain historical point, but beyond that point the forces of production are better managed on a different principle (socialism).

<div style="clear:both"> </div>

==History of the concept of surplus value==
Before Marx, British socialists such as Hodgskin (1825) and Bray (1839) extended the models of political economist David Ricardo to develop a theory that workers are inevitably exploited under capitalism. The idea of surplus value was implicit in their theory.<ref>"Basing their analysis on Ricardo's theories, Colqunhunn's statistics and contemporary evidence of popular distress, they developed the concepts of capitalist exploitation and, implicitly, of surplus value." -- Burkitt (1984), p 34.</ref>

<blockquote style="background-color:#fdf5de; padding:0.6em; border:1.3px solid brown" >"The fund for the maintenance of the idle is the surplus produce of the labour of the industrious." <small>(P Ravenstone, ''A few Doubts as to the Correctness of Some Opinions Generally Entertained on the Subjects of Population and Political Economy''. London, England, 1821.)</small>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color:#fdf6dc; padding:0.6em; border:1.3px solid brown" >
"Profits are purely and simply a portion of the product of labour which the capitalist, without any right other than that conferred upon him by law, takes for himself." <small>(T Hodgskin, ''Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital.'' London, England, 1825.)</small>
</blockquote>

The French socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon spoke of surplus value and considered it to be basically theft by the capitalist.<ref>[http://anarchism.pageabode.com/pjproudhon/proudhon-and-marx-on-exploitation].</ref>

Marx, who developed his economic theory out of classical economics, especially that of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, grappled with the problem of accounting for the difference betweeen the output and input values of production. The labour theory of value, used by Ricardo and Marx, holds that labour is the only creator of value. Therefore the increase in value cannot be attributed to the instruments and materials used. It must be due to labour; but if labour is paid less than the value it creates, is this not a case of cheating in trade? of paying less for an input factor than its value? Marx and Ricardo ruled out cheating as an explanation because although it might enrich the cheater, it would impoverish the victim by an equal amount and thus null out in society-wide aggregate; it could not explain how society as a whole gains value from production. Marx's solution was to say that the value of labour is not what labour contributes but what labour costs to produce: the cost of food, housing, clothes, etc. necessary in order that labourers can exist and be functional.
<div style="float:right; width:38%">
<div style="margin:1em; background-color:#fdf8e3; padding:0.6em; border:1.3px solid brown">"Whence comes this surplus-value? It cannot come either from the buyer buying the commodities under their value, or from the seller selling them above their value. For in both cases the gains and the losses of each individual cancel each other, as each individual is in turn buyer and seller. Nor can it come from cheating, for though cheating can enrich one person at the expense of another, it cannot increase the total sum possessed by both, and therefore cannot augment the sum of the values in circulation. (...) This problem must be solved, and it must be solved in a ''purely economic way'', excluding all cheating and the intervention of any force — the problem being: how is it possible constantly to sell dearer than one has bought, even on the hypothesis that equal values are always exchanged for equal values?"
<small>— Engels, ''Anti-Duhring'', chap. 19<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch19.htm Marxists Internet Archive]</ref></small>
</div>
<div style="margin:1em; padding:0.6em; background-color:#fdfce3; border:1.3px solid brown">
"If the exchange-value of a product equals the labour-time contained in the product, then the exchange-value of a working day is equal to the product it yields, in other words, wages must be equal to the product of labour. But in fact the opposite is true. Ergo, this objection amounts to the problem, -- how does production on the basis of exchange-value solely determined by labour-time lead to the result that the exchange-value of labour is less than the exchange-value of its product? This problem is solved in our analysis of capital." <small>— Marx, ''Contrib. Critique of Pol. Econ., ch 1.<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/ch01a.htm Marxists Internet Archive]</ref></small>
</div>
</div>
By the labour theory of value, the value of that food, housing, clothing, etc. is the labour time necessary to produce it; so we have that the value of labour is the labour time necessary to produce labour. (This is consistent with the treatment of labour as a [[commodity]], the value of a commodity being the labour time necessary to produce that commodity.) It follows that if the labour time necessary to produce labour is less than the time that that labour can subsequently work; that is, if the cost of producing labour is less than the value that labour can produce, then there is an opportunity to obtain a gain in value – a surplus value – by employing labour. It is this opportunity that the capitalist seizes.

Marx called the capacity of a person to do work her labour-power. As hypothesized above, its value is the value needed to produce it. Surplus value, then, can be expressed as the difference between the value of labour-power and the value produced by labour. Another way of conceiving this is that the value of labour-power is the [[exchange value]] of the labourer's services and the time worked by her is their [[use value]]. With labour-power as with any other commodity, the capitalist pays the exchange value and obtains the use value.

By the above logic, Marx was able to formally square the existence of capitalist profits with certain conventional ideas about value and fair trade held by the bourgeoisie of his time. That is, he showed that the appropriation of surplus value does not violate those ideas. Whether it might violate other tenets of bourgois ideology – ie., whether that ideology might contain a contradiction in this regard – is debatable. And whether the appropriation of surplus value might violate another ethics – say, a socialist ethics – is of course yet another matter.

<div style="clear:both"> </div>
==Surplus product and surplus labour==
Surplus product is the actual physical output – tons of steel, bushels of corn, etc. – in excess of what is needed to replace inputs of production materials and workers' consumption goods. Surplus value is the value of the surplus product.
(The reason we often think in value terms rather than about physical product directly is that the items that comprise the physical product are usually not commensurable – a kilogram of steel is not the same as a kilogram of corn – so we cannot arrive at a single, unified measure or number that expresses physical output. This is analytically awkward. However, by assigning each different commodity a value which supposedly expresses its economic significance, we can treat different commodities together mathematically [comparing, adding, etc.] which is analytically convenient.)

Surplus labour is the labour that produces the surplus product. It can be measured in hours. If we hold a Marxian labour theory of value, then surplus labour (measured in hours of average socially necessary labour) corresponds exactly to surplus value. In ''Capital'', volume I, Marx used the picturesque device of dividing the worker's work day up, conceptually, into two periods, during the first of which she produces the value that will be returned to her as wages, and during the second of which she produces the value that will go to the capitalist. The worker in effect works so many hours for herself and so many for the capitalist. The ratio of the two periods is exactly the same as the rate of exploitation. It is in the worker's interest to minimise the time she works for the capitalist – the surplus labour time – and the capitalists interest to maximise it.

<blockquote style="background-color:#fdf5dc">
"The history of capitalist production can be seen as the history of struggle over attempts by capital to increase, and attempts by the working class to resist increases in, the rate of surplus value" <small>— Susan Himmelweit<ref>Susan Himmelweit, 'Surplus value', in Tom Bottomore, ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought'', p 474.</ref></small>
</blockquote>

==Absolute and relative surplus value==
These terms actually refer to ''changes'' in the rate of surplus value. Absolute surplus value is an increase in surplus value obtained by increasing the time period worked without increasing the payment for it; eg., lengthening the working day without raising the daily wage. Another example would be taking away a worker's paid lunch break.

Relative surplus value is an increase in surplus value obtained by increasing the physical amount of commodity produced by the worker while keeping labour time the same and the wage initially the same. This can be achieved by driving the labourer harder or by introducing more efficient instruments of production or more efficient work routines. The initial effect of relative surplus value is to yeild super profits to the firm introducing the innovation. As the innovation becomes global, however, the price of the commodity falls to reflect the fact that less labour time is required to produce a given amount of it. As a result the means of subsistence become cheaper and the wage can be reduced while still enabling the worker to obtain the same amount of (now cheaper) means of subsistence as before. In other words, the real wage stays the same but the wage relative to society's total output falls.

The diagrams below show the effects of absolute and relative surplus value on necessary and surplus labour times (necessary labour time meaning here the labour time needed to produce the worker's wage goods).

labour time

╔═══════════════════╦═══════════════════╗
before ║ necessary ║ surplus ║
Absolute ╚═══════════════════╩═══════════════════╝
surplus
value ╔═══════════════════╦═════════════════════════════╗
after ║ necessary ║ surplus ║
╚═══════════════════╩═════════════════════════════╝

╔═══════════════════╦═══════════════════╗
before ║ necessary ║ surplus ║
Relative ╚═══════════════════╩═══════════════════╝
surplus
value ╔══════════════╦════════════════════════╗
after ║ necessary ║ surplus ║
(long term)╚══════════════╩════════════════════════╝

karl Marx's account of absolute and relative surplus value appears in ''Capital'', v. 1, ch. 16: `Absolute and Relative Surplus Value'.

==Equalization of rates of surplus value==
Competition between capitalists for labourers, and between labourers for jobs, creates a tendency for the wage, and consequently the rate of surplus value, to be the same in all industries or sectors of an economy. At the abstract level, Marxian economics usually treats this tendency as being fully realised, ie., the rate of surplus value as being equal in all sectors.

<blockquote style="background-color:#fdf8e3; padding:0.6em; border:1.3px solid brown">"If capitals that set in motion unequal quantities of living labour produce unequal amounts of surplus-value, this assumes that the level of exploitation of labour, or the rate of surplus-value, is the same, at least to a certain extent, or that the distinctions that exist here are balanced out by real or imaginary (conventional) grounds of compensation. This assumes competition among workers, and an equalization that takes place by their constant migration between one sphere of production and another. We assume a general rate of surplus value of this kind, as a tendency, like all economic laws, as a theoretical simplification; but in any case this is in practice an actual presupposition of the capitalist mode of production, even if inhibited to a greater or lesser extent by practical frictions that produce more or less significant local differences, such as the settlement laws for agricultural labourers in England, for example. In theory, we assume that the laws of the capitalist mode of production develop in their pure form. In reality, this is only an approximation; but that approximation is all the more exact, the more the capitalist mode of production is developed and the less it is adulterated by survivals of earlier economic conditions with which it is amalgamated " - Capital Vol. 3, ch. 10, Pelican edition p. 275.
</blockquote>

Logically, the equalisation of the rate of surplus value results if
#the wage rate is equalised, and
#the labour theory of value holds.

This is because the LTV equates value-added to labour time expended; and the equalised wage rate means labour time expended is in the same proportion to wages in all sectors. Value-added is then in the same proportion to wages in all sectors. It follows easily that the surplus-value, being simply their difference (value-added - wages) must be in the same proportion to each of them in all sectors: s/v = same in all sectors.

<table style="font-family:courier; font-size:103%">
<caption style="font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:108%; margin:0.85em 0 ">Argument for invariance of rate of surplus-value</caption>
<tr><td style="width:2em">1.</td><td> </td><td>wage rate, v/t</td><td style="padding:0.36em 0">same in all sectors</td><td>(by competition-justified assumption).</td></tr>
<tr><td>2.</td><td> </td><td>value-added, a</td><td style="padding:0.34em 0">&prop; t</td><td>(by LTV).</td></tr>
<tr><td>3.</td><td style="width:2.6em">&there4;</td><td>v/a</td><td style="padding:0.39em 0">same in all sectors.</td><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td>4.</td><td> </td><td>s</td><td>= a - v</td><td style="padding:0.36em 0">(by definition).</td></tr>
<tr><td>5.</td><td>&there4;</td><td> s/v = (v - a)/v = 1 - a/v</td><td style="padding:0.36em 0">same in all sectors.</td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="5" style="text-align:center; padding:0.36em 0">'''Q.E.D.'''</td></tr>
</table>

Competition and the migration of workers from one sector to another in pursuit of the best rate of pay is seen as the justification of the first assumption (wage equalisation), at least for unskilled labour. Skilled labour is accommodated for by regarding it as a multiple of unskilled, providing value proportionate to the extra pay received. (This leaves v/a unchanged in the argument above.) Whether the second assumption is reasonable has been discussed in several works.<ref>Roncaglia, A. 1974: 'Thr Reproduction of complex to simple labour'.<br/>
Rowthorn, R. 1980: ''Capitalism, Conflict amd Inflation: Essays in Political Economy''.<br/>
Tortajada, R. 1977: 'A Note on the Reduction of Complex Labour to Simple Labour'.<br/>
All cited in Himmelweit, Susan, 'Surplus Value', in Tom Bottomore, ed., ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought'', 1983.
</ref>

Marx believed that the long-term historical tendency would be for rates of surplus value to equalise, as commodification became ever more dominant, non-capitalist relations in the economy became ever less significant, and thus observed phenomena ever more closely to approximate the predictions of a "pure" theory of capitalism.<ref>Robert Albritton, ''Economics Transformed'', ''op cit.''</ref>

<blockquote style="background-color:#fdf8e3; padding:0.6em; border:1.3px solid brown">
"As far as the many variations in the exploitation of labour between different sphers of production are concerned, Adam Smith has already shown fully enough how they cancel one another out through all kinds of compensations, either real or accepted by prejudice, and how therefore they do not need to be taken into account in investigating the general conditions, as they are only apparent and evanescent (''The Wealth of Nations'', Bk. 1, Ch. 10). Other distinctions, for example in the level of wages, depend in large measure on the distinction between simple and complex labour... and although they make the lot of the workers in different spheres of production very unequal, they in no way affect the degree of exploitation of labour in these various spheres. if the work of a goldmsmith is paid at a higher rate than that of a day labourer, for example, the former's surplus labour also produces a correspondingly greater surplus-value than does that of the latter. And even though the equalization of wages and working hours between one sphere of production and another, or between different capitals invested in the same sphere of production, comes up against all kinds of local obstacles, the advance of capitalist production and the progressive subordination of all economic relations to this mode of production tends nevertheless to bring this process to fruition. Important as a study of frictions of this kind is for any specialist work on wages, they are still accidental and inessential as far as the general investigation of capitalist production is concerned and can therefore be ignored. In a general analysis of the present kind, it is assumed throughout that actual conditions correspond to their concept, or, and this amounts to the same thing, actual conditions are depicted only insofar as they express their general type." - Marx, Capital Vol. 3, ch. 8, Pelican edition p. 241-242.
</blockquote>

At a less abstract, more concrete level (eg in ''Capital''', volume III), Marx accounted for surplus value being shared out at unequal rates between the capitalists in an economy. (See, for example, [[transformation problem]].

==Marcus's dialectics==
This section presents some of the ideas of the Marxist theorist Lyn Marcus on production, surplus, and the philosophical underpinnings of value theory.
<blockquote style="font-size:97%>
`In Marx's Law of Value, one obtains the first approximation of the value of current production by subdividing the total productive labor of an economy into its principal constituents. We shall ignore the agricultural population, in order to simplify our illustration, and divide the remaining nonagricultural population into two main categories. The principal category is the members of the total population whose households normatively produce the productive labor of society – in the sense of effecting useful ''material'' alterations of nature. The residual category includes, in capitalist society, capitalists themselves, bureaucrats of all sorts, police forces, military forces, clerks, professionals, and "service workers." The current productive labour force, derived from the working-class population, is treated as "input" to the productive process. "Output" (still arbitrarily excluding agriculture) is divided into the following categories.
<p>
`A certain portion of the total output is consumed in maintenance of the productive equipotential of nature (including materials, machinery, and other man-altered aspects of nature). This portion determines the category of ''Constant Capital'' (constant, that is, from the standpoint of the productive process itself). Another portion of the total output is consumed by the ''entire'' working-class population (not merely by employed labor or the families of employed labor). The magnitude of this portion is determined by the quality of consumption and leisure (e.g., education) necessary to reproduce the entire labor force at the technological-cultural "level" necessary for today's and tomorrow's production. (By "tomorrow," we signify here the visible horizon of advances in technological development affecting the employment of present and developing generations of workers.) This portion of the output determines ''Variable Capital'' (again from the standpoint of the productive forces). These two components of total output correspond to the current direct costs of simply perpetuating the whole of total current production ''for present conditions''.
</p><p>
`The residue of the output is therefore relatively "free energy" from the standpoint of simple reproduction of existing productive processes. This portion determines the category of ''Surplus Value''. However, not all of this category of output is available for development. It is from this portion of total output that the economy obtains the consumption of not only capitalists themselves, but bureaucrats, military personnel, police forces, clerks, professionals, "service workers," and the like. ''Capitalists' Consumption'' includes not only personal consumption, but also the "capital goods" consumption associated with the activities of these persons (such as military equipment, office equipment, office buildings, and the like).
</p><p>
`Since these portions of productive output correspond to portions of the labor-force input, we can derive the formula <span style="font-size:118%; font-family:courier">S/(C + V)</span> as a general expression for the "free energy" ratio of the society or, in other words, for the rate of potential expansion of the society with respect to both quality and sheer magnitude. Note that this ratio is not a ratio of products, but but of the labor force. It expresses a population's power to reproduce itself in terms of the proportions of that part of the population's activity which represents its productive labor. The ratio <span style="font-size:118%; font-family:courier">S/(C + V)</span> thus expresses man's [''sic''] relationship to nature, his social-reproductive powers, or his productivity ''in the sense of social-reproductive powers, not'' the conventional definition of productivity.' -- <small>(Lyn Marcus, ''Dialectical Economics'', 1975, pp 4-5.)</small>
</p>
</blockquote>

An important feature of Marcus's approach and dialectical approaches in general is that they seek to look "behind" the apparent, empirical, phenomena to see underlying factors. A feature of the above excerpt is that he is looking "behind" empirical output-of-production data to see labor behind it. Another example of this looking-behind things is in his approach to population studies:
<blockquote style="font-size:97">
`Some readers will protest our insistence that the fundamental, vicious fallacy of most population models is their attempt to define population growth in terms of simple numbers of individuals. "That's ridiculous," a leading zero-growth advocate at one university protested, "I can count them: one, two, three, ...: Even so, we insist that such reductionist practices are epistemologically absurd even for models of plant and lower animal populations, and lead to devastating blunders when applied to populations. The quantum to be measured in human population studies is individuals of definite ''reproductive power'', a notion related to marx's concept of labor-power, which involves "extrauterine gestation" and other considerations.' -- <small>(''Ibid'', p xiii.)</small>
</blockquote>

This is related to Marcus's employment of concepts of ''becoming'' that were stressed by Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers including Descartes and Kant, and, later, by Hegel and Marx. Marcus sees the concepts as having regretably fallen into disuse and miscomprehension because of the present dominance of the Humean, empiricist mode of thinking. As an example, if we consider ''infinity'' using the concept of ''becoming,'' "rather than defining perfection and infinity as a succession of fixed occurrences, rather than conceiving of these as a succession of discrete events which apocalyptically, asymptotically converge on a predetermined maximal value, the infinite must be seen as as the immediate aspect of current development that expresses an energizing, determining principle of self-development." <small>(''Ibid., p ix.)</small>

While all this may seem arcane and tangential, at issue is what Marx meant by value (and surplus value), and whether those concepts are valid. These questions have been the subject of enormous debate (see, for example, [[Labour theory of value]], and [[Transformation problem]]).

==Profit, interest, rent==
Surplus value comes to the capitalist in one of three forms: profit, interest or rent. Although all surplus value is generated in labour-employing productive enterprise, usually not all of it remains long in the hands of the owner(s) of that enterprise because they must distribute some of it to other capitalists in the form of interest and rent. The owner of a factory, for instance, may have to pay ground rent on the land on which her buildings stand, and may have to borrow money to obtain materials of production. Thus the net profit of a firm usually understates its surplus value flow because rent and interest are prior deductions.

== The state obtains some of the social surplus ==
Marx's discussion focuses mainly on profit, interest and rent, largely ignoring taxation and royalty-type fees which were proportionally very small components of the national income when he lived. Over the last 150 years, however, the role of the state in the economy increased in almost every country in the world. Around 1850, the average share of government spending in GDP in the advanced capitalist economies was around 5%; in 1870, a bit above 8%; on the eve of [[World War I]], just under 10%; just before the outbreak of [[World War II]], around 20%; by 1950, nearly 30%; and today the average is around 35-40%. (see for example Alan Turner Peacock, "The growth of public expenditure", in ''Encyclopedia of Public Choice", Springer 2003, pp. 594-597).

The tax paid by a productive enterprise appears as a deduction from its profit margin, so the state's revenue appears to be a portion of surplus value that the firm hands over to the state. It may be argued that not all of this tax revenue should be regarded as surplus value, however, because the state will spend a portion of it on programs that benefit the working class (such as state-funded health care, and income supports such as social assistance) and that portion, since it goes to the working class, should properly be counted not as surplus value but as variable capital that is paid by the firm to the workers through the intermediacy of the state. The validity of this argument depends on whether or not one holds a subsistence theory of wages. If one does, then the argument is invalid, because any state benefit to workers merely means that firms will lower their wage payments to the workers by the same amount, keeping workers at the subsistence level. The firm's saving in wages will exactly offset the amount it pays to the state for worker benefits, so its surplus-value acquisition is undiminished. The degree to which this is true; ie., the degree to which state-to-worker benefits are a substitute for, rather than a supplement to, wages, is a matter for empirical investigation. It might be remarked that if they are merely a substitute, then the [[Social democracy|social-democratic]] program of seeking such benefits is pointless – or perhaps even harmful because it obscures the fundamental antinomy between worker and capital, making it appear to the workers as though they are in a `socialist' or `socialised' system.

==Some finer distinctions==
===Price is not value===
Surplus value is a value. Consequently, if one holds a Marxian labour theory of value, the most natural unit to measure surplus value in is the unit of labour time – say, hours. However, one also sees surplus value stated in monetary units – ¥, €, £, $, etc. – and in fact Marx himself often did this, for example in volume I of ''Capital''. Unfortunately, stating surplus value in monetary units risks confusion and can trip up the unwary. This is because monetary units, strictly, express price not value, and price, while being strongly influenced by value also deviates from it because of various secondary influences. These include interfirm variation in labour:nonlabour cost ratio (see [[transformation problem]]), the effect of noncapitalist elements in the economy (state, household, peasant, volunteer, environmental, feudal holdovers, etc.), and growth- or crisis-induced disequilibria. The reason Marx could speak of values as prices in Volume I of ''Capital'' is that he was there working at a high level of abstraction, outlining what might be called the pure logic of capital.<ref>Robert Albritton (''Economics Transformed'', 2007, f.n., p. 5) refers to Marx's subject in the abstract parts of ''Capital'' I by various terms: the `theory of capital's inner logic', `theory of capital's deep structure', `dialectics of capital', or `theory of a purely capitalist society'. At this level, commodification and reification are complete, and non-capitalist influences and worker resistance are zero. This level must be connected to real world events via mid-level and historically specific (low-level) analyses.</ref> At that level of abstraction, the difference between value and price disappears. Where Marx there describes the finances of particular, usually hypothetical firms, he is presenting them as microcosms, or `typical cases': concrete, easy-to-understand embodiments of the abstract, generalised behavior of the system. This is permissible.<div {{Right_quotebox}}>"Surplus-value and the rate of surplus-value are... the invisible essence to be investigated, whereas the rate of profit and hence the form of surplus-value as profit are visible surface phenomena" - Karl Marx, ''Capital Vol. 3'', Pelican edition, p. 134</div>
However, when we move to the consideration of actual firms in the actual economy, we must be aware that prices, which include all figures given in money terms in firms' financial statements, represent values only roughly. It is possible to calculate something that looks like surplus value for a firm by subtracting monetary costs from its revenues, but this is very imprecise. At the national levl, Marxist economists do sometimes try to estimate the surplus value produced in a country from its national accounts data (which is in money units). At this level of aggregation, some of the deviations of price from value average out.

===Profit is not surplus value===
Although surplus value is most readily apparent in the profit of a productive enterprise, the two are not in general equal. It has already been mentioned that any rent, interest, and some or all of the tax paid by an enterprise also come from surplus value, so clearly profit is only a partial measure of surplus value. Another thing that needs to be considered is that not all of the value (and surplus value) ''produced'' by a firm will necessarily be ''realised'' in the form of a sale. Unsold inventory yeilds no profit to the firm. Similarly, if inventory has to be dumped at a cut rate and also is never sold at value in subsequent transactions then a portion of its value is never realised (although its use-value may be).

If we are considering ''rates'' of profit and surplus value, a further difference is that the rate of profit is equal to the profit divided by the total costs (labour and materials of production [m.p.]) whereas the the rate of surplus value is equal to the surplus value divided by the labour cost only. This causes enterprises that employ high levels of m.p. compared to labour (eg., the high-tech sector) to have rates of surplus value much higher than their rates of profit.

rate of profit rate of surplus value

p S
π = ----- e = ---
C + V V

Where π is rate of profit;
p profit;
C constant capital (m.p.);
V variable capital (labour);
e rate of surplus value;
S surplus value.

Note that even if p and S are equal, the presence of
constant capital in the formula for π distinguishes
the formulae.

Finally we must consider the manner in which profit and surplus value are stated. Profit is most often stated in monetary units. This is not obligatory; it can be stated as a value if one desires, and one can speak of the value of the profit realisd by a firm. (In general, any economic quantity can be looked at both as a value or as a price; the Marxist economist Junankar expresses this by saying we can operate analytically in the `value domain' or the `price domain'.) But, for the reasons stated in [[#Price is not value]] above, we should be careful not to mix price and value measurements indiscriminately. If profit expressed as a price is equated with surplus value expressd as a value, we have an additional source of potential error.

===Do capitalists seek to maximise profit or surplus value?===
Although Marx spoke of the pursuit of surplus value as being the motivating force of capitalism, at the level of specifics it may be
that what capitalists consciously seek to maximise is profit. An increase in the rate of surplus value is a necessary consequence, in most cases<ref>An
increase in the rate of profit (π) that is due to technical innovation does not increase the rate of surplus value if it occurrs in a luxury-goods industry. But an increase in π due to a reduction in the real wage, and increases in π due to technical innovation in the wage-goods sector, increase the rate of surplus value. According to Susan Himmelweit, ('Surplus value', in Tom Bottomore, ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought'') increases in π due to technical innovation in capital-goods industries that feed wage-goods industries will also increase the rate of surplus value.
</ref>
of an increase in the rate of profit, but may not be the ''direct'' objective of the capitalist.

===Do they seek to maximise the mass or the rate?===
Most Marxist discussions focus on the ''rate'' of surplus value, but for businessmen, the growth of the ''mass'' of surplus-value, or the gross profit ''volume'' produced (denoted here as ''P'') is just as important, or even more important. After all, according to US Internal Revenue Service statistics, the money paid out to corporate officers is equal to about one-third of that paid out to ordinary employees. The growth of ''P'' depends on the growth of the volume of output in an accounting period, and the volume of sales turnover.

We can illustrate the point with a simplified example. If:
*''K'' = total capital invested
*''P'' = total net profit volume realised
*''r'' = the rate of profit (i.e. ''P/K''),

and assuming (perhaps unrealistically) that a sum equal to ''P'' is ''reinvested'' (with or without the aid of credit) with zero price inflation, we can construct a series of annual business results. We take ''K'' to be 1 million at the start, and say that ''r'' is 10% initially but ''declines'' by a constant 0.1% per annum thereafter:
*year 1: ''K'' = 1,000,000; ''P'' = 100,000; ''r'' = 10%
*year 2: ''K'' = 1,100,000; ''P'' = 108,900; ''r'' = 9.9%
*year 3: ''K'' = 1,208,900; ''P'' = 118,472; ''r'' = 9.8%

We see here that within two years at least, an 18.5% increase in annual profit ''volume'' has occurred, even though the rate of profit ''decreased'' by 0.2%. In other words, there's nearly ''one-fifth more income'' to disperse among the owners of the capital, although the rate of profit return slightly fell .

What this simplistic example really implies is that, provided market sales keep growing and business expands, a slight fall in the profit rate on capital may not be a point of concern. After all, capital assets have grown, but more importantly, the total volume of ''revenue'' that can be distributed has grown.

However, if the total profit volume created in a capitalist economy stops growing, this becomes a real problem (as highlighted by [[Henryk Grossman]]). Because in that case, profitability must fall across the board, and business income is reduced everywhere.

In some Marxist crisis theories (e.g. by [[Henryk Grossmann]], [[Louis C. Fraina]] and [[Paul Mattick]]), the root ''cause'' of economic crisis is precisely that the growth of profit ''volume'' is eclipsed by the decline of the profit ''rate'' in production, the result being that the total profit volume that can be distributed stagnates or falls.

The overall implication is that ''market expansion'' is critical for the total ''volume'' of surplus-value that can be distributed as profit. Total business income can increase, even although the profit rate on capital invested falls, if markets keep growing. The logical outcome of that is [[globalisation]], i.e. the systematic removal of all barriers to trade worldwide to facilitate market expansion.

== Complicating factors in assessing surplus-value==
It is not easy to calculate surplus value. This is partly because firms and governments gather and report data according to their own purposes and not for the purpose of Marxist analysis. As a result, the categories and definitions they use fit only roughly our needs for value analysis.

Other complicating factors in assessing surplus-value are:

*price [[inflation]] applying to wage goods, profit and capital goods;
*Backwardation of certain physical goods in which time and presence are drivers of price.
*[[creative accounting]] and [[tax]] avoidance or evasion techniques which misrepresent how much value has really been created.
*Government, business, and other financial data may include or exclude items at variance with real business practice. Some types of transactions are disregarded, while imputations are made for other transactions. Almost always tax data is the main source of generic profit estimates, but tax data typically understate true profitability.
*income obtained from what Marx called "[[fictitious capital]]" or what now are often called "bubble" phenomena.
*If profit is measured as the sum of [[value added]] and gains in [[fixed capital]], it is ignored that profit income includes more than value added, and capital asets include more than fixed assets. It is desirable to look at a variety of different data measures and ''sources'' (national accounts data, tax data, direct surveys, company reports and circumstantial evidence).
*state intermediation, where [[profit]] and [[wage]] income is [[tax]]ed on the one side, and supplemented on the other with subsidies and grants of various kinds. <small>(See `[[#The state obtains some of the social surplus|The state obtains some of the social surplus ]]', above.)</small>
*unsold inventories of net outputs which contain surplus-value. <small>(See `[[#Profit is not surplus value|Profit is not surplus value]]', above.)</small>

== Relation to the circuits of capital ==
Generally, Marx focused in [[Das Kapital]] on the new surplus-value generated by production, and the distribution of this surplus value. In this way, he aimed to reveal the "origin of the wealth of nations" given a [[capitalist mode of production]]. However, in any real economy, a distinction must be drawn between the primary circuit of capital, and the secondary circuits. To some extent, [[national accounts]] also do this.

The primary circuit refers to the incomes and products generated and distributed from productive activity (reflected by [[GDP]]). The secondary circuits refer to trade, transfers and transactions occurring ''outside'' that sphere, which can also generate incomes, and these incomes may also involve the realisation (although not the production) of surplus-value or profit. Surplus value realised in trading activity outside the sphere of production represents a ''transfer'' of value from one person, country or institution to another – value initially created in the productive sphere but then transferred out of it into the finacial or trading circuits.

A very simple example would be if somebody sold a second-hand asset at a profit. This transaction is not recorded in gross product measures (after all, it isn't new production), nevertheless the person obtains surplus-value from it. Another example would be capital gains from property sales. Marx occasionally refers to this kind of profit as ''profit upon alienation'', [[Alienation (property law)|alienation]] being used here in the juridical, not sociological sense. By implication, if we just focused on surplus-value newly created in production, we would ''underestimate'' total surplus-values ''realised as income'' in a country. This becomes obvious if we compare census estimates of income & expenditure with GDP data.

This is another reason why surplus-value ''produced'' and surplus-value ''realised'' are two different things, although this point is largely ignored in the economics literature. But it becomes highly important when the real growth of production stagnates, and a growing portion of capital shifts out of the sphere of production in search of surplus-value from other deals.

Nowadays the volume of world [[trade]] grows significantly faster than [[GDP]], suggesting to Marxian economists such as [[Samir Amin]] that surplus-value realised from commercial trade (representing to a large extent a transfer of value by intermediaries between producers and consumers) grows faster than surplus-value realised directly from production.

Thus, if we took the final price of a good (the cost to the final consumer) and analysed the cost structure of that good, we might find that, over a period of time, the direct producers get less income and intermediaries between producers and consumers (traders) get more income from it. This suggests that the proportion of nonproductive labour is increasing relative to productive labour in the economy. A nonproductive trading sector can assert itself if it has control over the access to a good, asset, or resource. But it also bears remembering that a large nonproductive sector can be sustained only if labour productivity and the rate of surplus value are high in the productive sector. The implication is that at present we have highly productive sectors employing a small part of the population supplying most of society's value while the majority of the population are engaged in relatively unessential work.

The above analysis also illustrates a paradoxical feature of surplus value which is that it may be realised more plentifully within ''inefficient'' markets - markets in which transparency and competition are low. <small>Sentence was taken from Wikipedia, `Surplus value'. No other source was cited there.</small>

== Measurement ==
The first attempt to measure the rate of surplus-value was by Marx himself in chapter 9 of [[Das Kapital]], using factory data of a spinning mill supplied by [[Friedrich Engels]] (though Marx credits "a Manchester spinner"). Both in published and unpublished manuscripts, Marx examines variables affecting the rate and mass of surplus-value in detail.

Since pioneering studies by Marxian economists like [[Eugen Varga]], [[Charles Bettelheim]], [[Joseph Gillmann]], [[Edward Wolff]] and [[Shane Mage]], there have been numerous attempts by Marxian economists to measure the trend in surplus-value statistically using national accounts data. The most convincing modern attempt is probably that of Professors [[Anwar Shaikh]] & Ahmet Tonak (''Measuring the Wealth of Nations: The Political Economy of National Accounts'', 1996)<ref>$48 from Cambridge University Press, according to their catalogue. This is not a free preview of their book: www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521564794</ref>

Ascertaining ''trends'' in surplus value may be less problematic than ascertainig its absolute amount because errors, eg., in converting from national accounts to Marxian categories, may be fairly consistent throughout the time period considered and thus not invalidate obsevations of change.

It has been claimed that most time series of different profit measures from different sources show the same historical ''trends'' (see e.g. the research by Dumenil & Levy).

The Marxian mathematicians [[Emmanuel Farjoun]] and [[Moshé Machover]] argue that "even if the rate of surplus value has changed by 10-20% over a hundred years, the real problem [to explain] is why it has changed so little" (quoted from ''The Laws of Chaos; A Probabilistic Approach to Political Economy'' (1983), p. 192). The answer to that question must, in part, be sought in artifacts (statistical distortion effects) of data collection procedures. Mathematical extrapolations are ultimately based on the data available, but that data itself may be fragmentary and not the "complete picture".

== Different conceptions ==
[[Paul A. Baran|Paul Baran]] and [[Paul Sweezy]]'s treatment of "[[economic surplus]]" in ''Monopoly Capitalism'' (New York 1966, p. 9 and elsewhere), and [[Piero Sraffa]]'s treatment of "physical surplus" are similar or related to Marx's but not identical.

== Origin in trade ==
Most of this article deals with surplus value as it appears in the present, fairly mature capitalist economy; however
surplus-value is not a fixed category but a dialectical, developing one, because the forms in which new value is created and appropriated, and the way the burdens of productive work are shifted between strata of the population, change over time. There is obviously a big difference between simple commodity producers exchanging agricultural surpluses in a village market, and "fast money" in today's global money markets.

Historically, Marx argues, surplus-value originated ''outside'' production in the first commercial forms of exchange - usury, merchant, rentier and bank capital and their associated lending operations. In fact, when Marx first introduces the concept of surplus value in [[Das Kapital]], chapter 4, it is in the context of an analysis of "buying commodities in order to sell them at a profit", which he denotes as M-C-M' (see: ''Capital Vol. 1'', Penguin ed., p. 251). Thus, the first forms of surplus-value include (leaving aside extortion and robbery etc.) profits from simple [[commodity]] production, merchants' profit from "buying cheap and selling dear" or [[unequal exchange]], certain types of rent imposed on production, and [[interest]] on loans extended by financiers, bankers and usurers. In Europe, "share" certificates of the joint-stock type date from the 16th century, although in some or other form share-type financial obligations already existed much earlier. [''Is this really surplus value?'' -- <small>Communpedia ed.</small>]

== Morality and power of surplus value ==
A typical textbook-type example of an alternative interpretation to Marx's is provided by [[Lester Thurow]]. He argues in an ''Concise Encyclopedia of Economics'' article[http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Profits.html]: "In a capitalistic society, profits - and losses - hold center stage." But what, he asks, explains profits?

There are ''five'' reasons for profit, according to Thurow:
*capitalists are willing to delay their own personal gratification, and profit is their reward.
*some profits are a return to those who take risks.
*some profits are a return to organizational ability, enterprise, and entrepreneurial energy
*some profits are economic rents - a firm that has a monopoly in producing some product or service can set a price higher than would be set in a competitive market and, thus, earn higher than normal returns.
*some profits are due to market imperfections - they arise when goods are traded above their competitive equilibrium price.

The problem here is that Thurow doesn't really provide an objective explanation of profits so much as a moral justification for profits, i.e. as a legitimate entitlement or claim, in return for the supply of capital.

Thurow goes on to note that "When it comes to actually measuring profits, some difficult accounting issues arise." Why? Because after deduction of costs from gross income, "It is hard to say exactly how much must be reinvested to maintain the size of the capital stock". Ultimately, Thurow implies, the [[tax]] department is the arbiter of the profit volume, because it determines [[depreciation]] allowances and other costs which capitalists may annually deduct in calculating taxable gross income.

This is obviously a theory very different from Marx's. In Thurow's theory, the aim of business is to ''maintain'' the capital stock. In Marx's theory, [[competition]], desire and [[market]] fluctuations create the striving and pressure to ''increase'' the capital stock; the whole aim of capitalist production is [[capital accumulation]], i.e. business growth maximising net income. Marx argues there is no evidence that the ''profit'' accruing to capitalist owners is ''quantitatively connected'' to the "productive contribution" of the capital they own. In practice, within the capitalist firm, no standard procedure exists for measuring such a "productive contribution" and for distributing the residual income accordingly.

In Thurow's theory, profit is mainly just "something that happens" when costs are deducted from sales, or else a ''justly deserved'' income. For Marx, increasing profits is, at least in the longer term, the "bottom line" of business behaviour: the quest for obtaining extra surplus-value, and the incomes obtained from it, are what guides capitalist development (in modern language, "creating maximum shareholder value").

That quest, Marx notes, always involves a [[power]] relationship between different social classes and nations, inasmuch as attempts are made to force ''other'' people to pay for costs as much as possible, while maximising one's own entitlement or claims to ''income'' from economic activity. The clash of economic interests that invariably results, implies that the battle for surplus value will always involve an irreducible moral dimension; the whole process rests on complex system of negotiations, dealing and bargaining in which reasons for claims to wealth are asserted, usually within a legal framework and sometimes through wars. Underneath it all, Marx argues, was an exploitative relationship.

That was the main reason why, Marx argues, the real sources of surplus-value were shrouded or obscured by [[ideology]], and why Marx thought that [[political economy]] merited a critique. Quite simply, economics proved unable to theorise capitalism as a ''social system'', at least not without moral biases intruding in the very ''definition'' of its conceptual distinctions. Hence, even the most simple economic concepts were often riddled with contradictions. But market trade could function fine, even if the ''theory'' of markets was false; all that was required was an agreed and legally enforceable accounting system. On this point, Marx probably would have agreed with Austrian school economics -no knowledge of "markets in general" is required to participate in markets.

== See also ==
* [[Analytical Marxism]]
* [[Capital accumulation]]
* [[Character mask]]
* [[Commodity fetishism]]
* [[Compensation of employees]]
* [[Cost of capital]]
* [[Das Kapital]]
* [[Exploitation]]
* [[Labour theory of value]]
* [[Law of value]]
* [[Primitive accumulation of capital]]
* [[Productive and unproductive labour]]
* [[Profit]]
* [[Relations of production]]
* [[Return on capital]]
* [[Superprofit]]
* [[Surplus labour]]
* [[Surplus product]]
* [[Surplus economics]]
* [[Valorisation]]
* [[Value added]]

== References ==
<references/>

==Further reading==
''Asterisk ('''*''') denotes work used directly as a source in writing this article.''

===On paper===
*Bray, J F, 1839. ''Labour's Wrongs and Labour's Remedies: or the Age of Might and the Age of Right.'' Leeds, England.

*'''*''' Burkitt, Brian, 1984. ''Radical Political Economy.'' Brighton, Sussex, England.

*Hodgskin, T, 1825. ''Labour Defended Aainst the Claims of Capital.'' London, England.

*Marx, Karl, [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ ''Theories of Surplus-Value'' (1863)]
* - [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/index.htm ''Value, Price and Profit'' (1865)]
* - [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm ''Capital'', Volume 1], [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/index.htm Volume 2], [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/index.htm Volume 3] [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/supp.htm#intro]

*[[Paul A. Baran]], The Political Economy of Growth.
*Helen Boss, Theories of surplus and transfer : parasites and producers in economic thought. Boston: Hyman, 1990.
*[[G.A. Cohen]] (1988), ''History, Labour and Freedom: Themes from Marx'', [[Oxford University Press]]
*Anders Danielson, The economic surplus : theory, measurement, applications. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1994.
*John B. Davis (ed), The economic surplus in advanced economies. Aldershot, Hants, England/Brookfield, Vt., USA : Elgar, 1992.

*Emmanuel Farjoun and Moshe Machover, ''Laws of Chaos; A .Probabilistic Approach to Political Economy'', London: Verso, 1983. *[[Michal Kalecki]], "The Determinants of Profits", in ''Selected Essays on the Dynamics of the Capitalist Economy 1933-1970''.
*Shane Mage, ''The Law of the Falling Tendency of the Rate of Profit; Its Place in the Marxian Theoretical System and Relevance to the US Economy''. Phd Thesis, [[Columbia University]], 1963
*[[Ernest Mandel]], Marxist Economic Theory, Vol. 1 and Late Capitalism.
*Harry W. Pearson, "The economy has no surplus" in "Trade and market in the early empires. Economies in history and theory", edited by Karl Polanyi, Conrad M. Arensberg and Harry W. Pearson (New York/London: The Free Press: Collier-Macmillan, 1957).
*[[Anwar Shaikh (Economist)|Anwar Shaikh]] & Ahmet Tonak, ''Measuring the Wealth of Nations''
*[[Piero Sraffa]], ''Production of Commodities by means of commodities''.

=== On the internet ===
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20080410180912/http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com/Article/The-Concepts-of-Alienation-and-Surplus-Value--A-Brief-Look/216 'The Concepts of Alienation and Surplus-value, a Brief Look' (Archive.org)]
*Gerard Dumenil & Dominique Levy papers [http://www.jourdan.ens.fr/~levy/]
*Fred Moseley papers: [http://home.mtholyoke.edu/~fmoseley]

<div><div style="width:100%; text-align:center; margin:0">''Where did this article come from?''</div><br/>
This article was originally copied from Wikipedia but was extensively modified in January 2014 so that it now consists primarily of new work originating with communpedia.</div>

While in capitalist society, surplus value is ''somewhat'' approximate to value-added, it is an entirely different concept.

The goal of a communist society is to be classless, which means there is no one to appropriate surplus value from anyone else. This means everyone owns the full produce of their labour.

[[es:Plusvalía]]

[[Category:Political economy]]
[[Category:Value]]
[[Category:Marxist economics]]