Course on Marx's Capital: Week 9
Surplus Value In Chapter 6 we discovered the mechanism of Surplus-Value in the buying and selling of Labour Power, by which the overall increase in wealth that takes place under capitalism is achieved. Chapter 7 (click to download it, below) begins with a short summary of the book thus far, as follows: “The capitalist buys labour-power in order to use it; and labour-power in use is labour itself. The purchaser of labour-power consumes it by setting the seller of it to work. By working, the latter becomes actually, what before he only was potentially, labour-power in action, a labourer.” The production of surplus value in the dynamic relationship between the capitalist and the working proletarian provides the answer to the question that the book is intended to answer, before any other: Where does the wealth generated by capital come from? Or: How, precisely, and exactly where, is the surplus taken? For, early on in his deliberations, Marx had determined that the observed general increase could not be coming from overcharging, because in a market of pure trading, one person’s loss is another’s gain, and all such losses and gains cancel out. The answer is that the surplus arises in the workplace, and not in the market place, and the only source of surplus is this: that a worker can give more in the fruits of his labour than it costs to develop and maintain his labour-power. This applies equally to women as to men. One of the conclusions of this is that capitalists make their money from employing people. It is the people that they employ, and not the machinery that the workers use, that makes the money. Therefore the bosses’ threats to sack all the people and to substitute them with machinery are always hollow threats. Marx explains all this patiently and with good humour in this chapter. Please download this 12-page chapter and read as much of it as you possibly can. Download: Capital V1, Chapter 7, Producing Surplus Value, in MS-Word file format Previous main Communist University posts: Channel [members] Course Archive Weeks Last Posted SADTU Pol Ed [434] Development, Rural and Urban 3/10 3 August 2010 CU Africa [230] Marx’s Capital, Volumes 1, 2 & 3 8/33 28 July 2010 CU [2859] Philosophy and Religion 6/10 30 July 2010 Courses completed in 2010 to date: SADTU Pol Ed Lenin’s The State & Revolution 6 June - July National Democratic Revolution 12 March - June Basics 10 January - March SADTU Pol Schools 3-Day School 3 days 2-4 June CU No Woman, No Revolution 10 March - June Basics 10 January – March Click here to visit Marxists Internet Archive -- Posted By DomzaNet to CUAfrica at 8/03/2010 08:43:00 PM -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
