Chapter 7 The Labour-Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value

Capital ◽  
2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Marx
Keyword(s):  
Surplus Value ◽  
Labour Process ◽  
Use Values ◽  
Labour Power

Section 1. The Labour-Process or the Production of Use-Values 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,...

Chapter 11 Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value

Capital ◽  
2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Marx
Keyword(s):  
Surplus Value ◽  
Working Day ◽  
Labour Power

In this chapter, as hitherto, the value of labour-power, and therefore the part of the working-day necessary for the reproduction or maintenance of that labour-power, are supposed to be given, constant magnitudes. This premised, with the rate, the mass is at the same time given...

scholarly journals Workers-as-consumers: Rethinking the political economy of use-value and the reproduction of capital

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niamh Mulcahy
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Mass Production ◽  
The Political ◽  
Exchange Value ◽  
Use Values ◽  
Continuous Reproduction ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Labour Power ◽  
Means Of Production

The relationship between the working class and consumer culture is undoubtedly contentious and often held as problematic in Marxist critical theory, owing to the exploitative nature of the mass production that facilitates consumption. Consequently, consumption sometimes appears as a distraction from the inequality perpetuated during the accumulation of capital, and thus as a social problem with normative undertones. As I reiterate in this article, however, workers are not simultaneously consumers because they have been inundated with consumer culture and advertising, but because they are separated from the means of production and must resort to exchange to reproduce their labour-power. As a result, they seek commodities as use-values, which is altogether different from a capitalist’s desire to realise exchange-value in the sale of commodities. This article is an attempt at examining the contradictions that arise in working-class interests in consumption, in order to illustrate why the act of consumption does not necessarily engender the continuous reproduction of capital, and thus of exploitation.

scholarly journals Cultural Work as a Site of Struggle: Freelancers and Exploitation

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole S. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Work ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Labour Process ◽  
Unpaid Labour ◽  
Freelance Writers ◽  
Media Firms ◽  
A Site ◽  
And Control ◽  
Labour Time

This paper argues that Marxist political economy is a useful framework for understanding contemporary conditions of cultural work. Drawing on Karl Marx’s foundational concepts, labour process theory, and a case study of freelance writers, I argue that the debate over autonomy and control in cultural work ignores exploitation in labour-capital relationships, which is a crucial process shaping cultural work. To demonstrate the benefits of this approach, I discuss two methods media firms use to extract surplus value from freelance writers: exploitation of unpaid labour time and exploitation of intellectual property through aggressive copyright regimes. I argue that a Marxist perspective can uncover the dynamics that are transforming cultural industries and workers’ experiences. From this perspective, cultural work is understood as a site of struggle.

scholarly journals Marx’s law of value: a critique of David Harvey

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-98
Author(s):  
Michael Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Short Paper ◽  
Class Analysis ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Eminent Scholar ◽  
Use Values ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Human Geographer

In 2018, Professor David Harvey, the human geographer and the eminent scholar of Marx’s works and their modern relevance, wrote a short paper entitled ‘Marx’s refusal of the labour theory of value’. In this paper, Harvey presents a series of theoretical confusions. The dual nature of value in a commodity is ignored by him. So Marx’s theory of crisis (based on insufficient surplus value) is replaced with insufficient use values for workers as consumers. The class struggle becomes not workers versus capitalists, but consumers versus capitalists or taxpayers versus governments. This is confusing to a class analysis and strategy for the working-class struggle.

The reality of the law of value

2021 ◽  
pp. 030981682110615
Author(s):  
Kiyoshi Nagatani
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Mathematical Identity ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Marxian Economics ◽  
Labour Process ◽  
Commodity Production ◽  
Fatal Flaw ◽  
The Law

In the wake of Böhm-Bawerk’s criticism that Marx’s law of value runs contrary to empirical facts, Marxian economics has developed mainly in two different directions: one based on the simple commodity production and the other on the mathematical identity of value with prices of production (the transformation problem). The author agrees with neither, arguing that Marx intended to base the law of value on the production process of capital, as in Capital Volume 1, independently of Capital Volume 3. However, the notion of this process and the law of value have not been sufficiently explained in Volume 1. Marx presents the value of a commodity as socially necessary labour objectified in Chapter 1 on the commodity, and later applies this rule to capitalist commodity products in Chapter 7. Pointing out the defects of this method, this article relocates the presentation of the dual nature of labour to the Labour Process (Chapter 7, Section 1), and the proof of the substance of value or the law of value to the Valorization Process (Chapter 7, Section 2). The Labour Process plays a key role in Volume 1, but it contains a fatal flaw. Consequently, Section 2 ends up with insufficient explanation. By reconstructing the Labour Process and the Process of Creating Value and Surplus value, the author confirms the meaning and reality of the law of value in Chapter 7, Section 2.

Chapter 26 The Secret of Primitive Accumulation

Capital ◽  
2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Marx
Keyword(s):  
Primitive Accumulation ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Labour Power

We have seen how money is changed into capital; how through capital surplus-value is made, and from surplus-value more capital. But the accumulation of capital pre-supposes surplus-value; surplus-value pre-supposes capitalistic production; capitalistic production pre-supposes the pre-existence of considerable masses of capital and of labour-power...

Chapter 16 Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value

Capital ◽  
2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Marx
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Labour Process ◽  
Whole Process ◽  
Man And Nature

In considering the labour-process, we began (see Chapter 7) by treating it in the abstract, apart from its historical forms, as a process between man and Nature. We there stated, p. 118: ‘If we examine the whole process from the point of view of...

Chapter 17 Changes of Magnitude in the Price of Labour-Power and in Surplus-Value

Capital ◽  
2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Marx
Keyword(s):  
Surplus Value ◽  
Constant Magnitude ◽  
Labour Power

The value of labour-power is determined by the value of the necessaries of life habitually required by the average labourer. The quantity of these necessaries is known at any given epoch of a given society, and can therefore be treated as a constant magnitude....

scholarly journals Labour Power and Labour Process: Contesting the Marginality of the Sociology of Work

Sociology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 913-930 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Thompson ◽  
Chris Smith
Keyword(s):  
Sociology Of Work ◽  
Labour Process ◽  
Labour Power
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