Karl Marx - The Origin of Surplus Value and Accumulation of Capital

The relevant material starts at 0:33.

There is no general law of economics, valid for all times, for all socio-economic orders. Marx is dealing not with 'pure economics', but with economic laws, valid for capitalism. This is his discovery, that the means of production, the mode of production begin to develop in the old socio-economic order, they come into contradictions with the old relations of production, and, often through revolution, a new socio-economic order is created, suited to the new mode of production. Capitalism came after feudalism, it is not immutable, not permanent, and it will give way to a new socio-economic order, according to Marx.

The fundamental process of capitalism is the exchange of commodities. C-M-C, a commodity is sold for money, and with that money, another commodity is bought. Here, the use value of the commodities is important.

In the exchange M-C-M, money buys commodities, which are then sold for money. But M-C-M is meaningless, it is done, when the second M is money plus more money, so M-C-M1, surplus money. Where does this surplus value come from? Not from the money itself. Then we must look for it in the C, in the commodity. The money, used to buy the commodities, is the first capital. The worker does not sell his labour, he sells his labour power. The exchange is an exchange of equal value, because the commodity labour power is maintained, the worker is kept alive and able to work, by the wages that he gets. The capitalist is the owner of his labour power now, so he sets him to work. only part of the working day is used to produce the value of the labour power (the wages), the rest of the working day, the worker produces value above the value of his labour power, and that is surplus value, which is appropriated by the capitalist. When the goods, produced by the worker, are sold, the capitalist gets more money than he has spent for the labour process. This money is added to the capital, which capital then is used to produce more goods, sell them, get more surplus value, and so on.

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• Karl Marx
• labour
• labour power
• money
• commodity
• exchange of commodities
• capitalism
• capitalist
• use value
• exchange value
• equal exchange
• machinery
• capital
• accumulation of capital

[sharperguy]

Have you read anything by Mises?

[dewinthemorning]

@sharperguy I haven't read anything by Mises, but I know about him and his contribution to capitalist economics. As far as I know, he is a lot less known that Marx and Marx's philosophy is deeper.

[sharperguy]

@dewinthemorning Lots of what he writes is in direct response to Marx. I would recommend reading even just a small bit because it could conflict with what you say here.

[dewinthemorning]

@sharperguy "Lots of what he writes..." That is very general. You could make a point about something I say if you want to make a claim from what you have read by Ludvig von Mises. Be more concrete, I mean. :)

[FrankiePoker]

@dewinthemorning Mises understands Human Action.

[dewinthemorning]

@FrankiePoker "Human Action"? That's very general. What human action? Who else is there to act? Marx is also talking about human action, only this human action is determined by the economic relations humans find themselves in.

[FrankiePoker]

@dewinthemorning 'Human Action' is the name of Mises treatise on economics.

[LucyHarcarty]

i think i understand--i'll have to let these ideas percolate a bit but it's very much the sort of thing i've always felt... if workers were paid a fair wage, and the product was sold at a fair price, then the manufacturer would only have enough profit to pay for costs & materials, with a fair wage for themself too... and as some people get so rich, that is evidence something is not right, they must be cheating somewhere...and it happens so often & so extremely, the system is clearly not stable

[dewinthemorning]

@juanferrero2009 Thank you for all your comments. You inspire me to make more videos in the future. :)

The idea of cooperatives is not a bad idea. But in today's economic system those cooperatives will have to compete with other companies and corporations, who have capitalists at the head, and I am not sure they will last.

[juanferrero2009]

@yeahwotevaman

Could be opned- with different owners, not exactly the ´already-rich´ capitalists´.

fiuf.. hey comment back! I really really enjoyed your videos, very clear and precise

=D thank you so much.