 Let's begin to read together what I said last time, Marx's great work, capital, these three volumes, actually six volumes, three volumes called capital, then there's three others that were edited after Marx's, Marx died, theories of surplus value. So we want to read here Marx's value and surplus value theory, the economics of Marxism. And we want to read capital from our entry point of class as the organization of surplus. Marx begins capital with a first sentence that says, I'm going to paraphrase it, in a society in which the capitalist class structure, used the word motor production, in which the capitalist class structure prevails, the wealth there takes the form of commodities. So that commodity is wealth that is produced for sale. So the first thing to note in this reading of this book, capital, is that Marx begins with a particularly economic process, commodity production, that is one, it's just one, of the conditions of existence of the capitalist class structure. So you don't forget our logic now of over determination or Hegel. We have an idea, the thesis, the capitalist class structure. Marx is now introducing one of its conditions of existence, one of the things that has to be in place in order for this organization of surplus to be alive, to take on meaning and concreteness, which is that of commodity production, the market. So to put it together again, to link up with what we've already done, including the last presentation, we need a particular non-class structure present, non-class structure, which is of the economic sort, the market. What do I mean by non-class? It's not, the market is not directly involved with the production and appropriation and from last time distribution of the surplus. It's the sale of goods by a seller and the purchase of goods by a buyer. Marx begins to introduce markets as a condition of existence of the capitalist class structure. He then explains in some detail what's going on in markets, what are commodities? What processes have to be present in society for wealth to take the form of commodities? And he lists a whole bunch of them. I'm going to list them very briefly and then go back and examine just a few. Wealth has to be an object of labor and it has to be an object of a particular kind of labor. Marx calls that particular kind of labor, concrete labor. So the first, if you want, condition of existence of commodity production, and don't forget the logic, commodity production in turn is a condition of existence of the capitalist class structure. So the first thing that he begins to talk about is that labor has to be taking place in order for the wealth to take the form of commodity production and a particular kind of labor. Let me say automobile labor produces automobiles. So automobile labor, that adjective is a form of concrete labor. Secondly, the wealth has to be desired. It has to have what Marx calls a use value, a value in use. So it has to have the wealth to take the form of a commodity has to be of some use value to its buyers. Third, the wealth has to be produced for exchange. Let me do this in another way so you can understand the importance of this. Produces of commodities produce the wealth, the commodities, in order to get rid of it. What they're interested in is the exchange value of that particular commodity. What it brings them in the market, but they're alienating or getting rid of its use value. They don't keep the commodity for its own use. Rather, they're only interested in the use value insofar as it brings them a market price. Wealth also has to be produced by labor, concrete labor, having a certain productivity. It's not very complicated. That is, people can be putting in lots of labor effort, but if they're productivity, that little A that I gave you, if that's zero, then L times zero would be zero. So there has to be some minimum productivity in order for there to be commodity production. Let me just one more and I'll stop. Wealth also can be produced under various legal conditions. That is, the producer and seller of the commodity could privately own it, or perhaps it could be collective ownership of these particular products and everything in between those two extremes. Because the Marxian tradition has focused on two of these economic conditions, that is, I just gave you many, I gave you cultural use values, I gave you political the last one, I gave you economic productivity. The Marxian tradition has focused in particular on two economic conditions. I want to spend a moment talking about them. One of them is, to go back to what we did, one of them is the labor process times a certain productivity which gives us wealth. Let me write that quickly on the blackboard in pretty red. The labor process times the productivity of that labor gives us wealth. What do we have here? We have a labor process, it's productivity. So wealth is in the numerator is what the labor in the denominator yields. A times health gives us the wealth in society. Now you can break up this labor process into a variety of components. That is, let me do that here, labor could be producing food times the productivity in food that would give us the food in society. Then you have labor in say manufacturing times the A in manufacturing that gives us the manufacturing in society. So here, what do we have? I keep doing this, you know, it's endless. What do we have here? What we have here is a division of labor. So I've divided the L in terms of labor that's producing food, labor that's producing manufacturing. We have a productivity associated with each, and then we have the various kinds of wealth that are being produced, food and manufacturing. The individuals who made the great contribution here were Adam Smith and David Ricciardo before and others as well, but especially those two economists prior to Marx. So Marx does not make really, he makes a contribution, but it's not as great contribution as Smith and Ricciardo here. In the Marxian tradition, this is called the forces of production. Briefly, the technology. It has two components. The division of labor after Adam Smith in the productivity of that division after Smith and Ricciardo which gives us the wealth in society. So capitalism is a society which develops the forces of production above and beyond any other kinds of society, beyond feudalism and slavery in ancient. There's above and beyond those societies developing the forces which means that we get more and more wealth, the more complex is the division of labor in society, that's Adam Smith's idea, and the higher the productivity associated with that division of labor by the introduction of new machinery and so forth, etc., or Ricciardo's idea. So one way to answer the question, how do you get more wealth in society? You have a division of labor, an enhanced productivity, you get more wealth to sustain the individuals in society. And the importance of this in the Marxian tradition is to give special significance to it, calling it the forces of production, and I'm going to come back in a moment what the Marxists do with that. Next. Marxist contribution, although important here, is not of a major sort. But the next one is, Marx talks about, well, let me erase this and put it above it, and I'll draw our line. Marx talks about dividing each of these processes in the following way, and this goes back to the last summary lecture I presented. Necessary labor in food production plus surplus labor in food production, and that's the total labor performed. So in terms of this equation, it would be necessary labor, food production, times its productivity, plus surplus labor performed, times its productivity in food production, and that would give us the total food in society. This is something that Smith and Ricciardo did not do, that Marx did. That's Marx's great contribution, as I mentioned to you last time, to take the labor process, or the divided labor process I should say, and divide it into something new, which is the necessary labor. So the workers go to work, they produce a quantum of wealth to sustain themselves, but they labor above and beyond that, because of a non-class structure, producing a surplus, and then the question again is, who the hell gets that surplus? Logic, they produce manufactures, times its productivity, times its productivity, the manufactures. So this is the class structure of society, and that's called in the Marxian tradition the relations of production. The two together, the relations and the forces, is given a special label. It's called the mode of production. You're going to run into this again and again, in Marx's own writings, with other Marxists as well. So to review this, hopefully it's clear, the technical aspect of what human beings do, that's referred to as the forces of production. The social aspect of what they do, in terms of this class structure, the necessary and surplus, is referred to as the relations of production. The two together, the mode of production. Now, if you recall something we did a long time ago, in the orthodox, what's called the orthodox or traditional Marxist approach, this mode of production, comprising these two relations, forces, relations of production, the class structure, the forces of production, the technology, is often made the essential cause of the rest of the society. If you remember that image I gave you, that's the base upon which everything else exists. The superstructure, the politics, economics, and also the rest of the economy, the markets and so forth. So the orthodox Marxists has made the mode of production, comprising the relations and forces, the ultimate cause of everything that goes on in society. And what goes on in society becomes derivative, from the technology and the class structure. And we also presented to you a criticism of that from the perspective of the dialectic. To go back to what we said, this is so important here. The moment Engels marks, and then Engels, Engels elaborated this even more than Marx did, when Engels presented this, this mode of production idea as the ultimate cause, very quickly, he began to get criticized by saying, how could you, Miss Engels, as a follow of Miss Marx, make the mode of production, the ultimate cause, when you don't well know, as historians, that the culture and the politics and the other economic aspects of society shape the mode of production. That began a controversy within the Marxian tradition, which continues up to this day. Which is the controversy is over. The mode of production is the ultimate determinant. That's called within the Marxian tradition economic determinism. What I've presented to you is an alternative, a critique of that, and an alternative using this notion of over-determination. There, there's no ultimate cause. So there's no question that the mode is important, but so our politics and culture and the rest of the economic processes that are occurring in society, does each other. Let me pause there until the next time.