2018-May-Tue Surplus value is the value created by the unpaid labor of a hired worker in excess of the value of his labor power and appropriated free of charge by the capitalist. Surplus value expresses a specifically capitalist form of exploitation, in which the surplus product takes on https://site/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/76.jpg , [email protected]
Surplus value- value created by the unpaid labor of a hired worker in excess of the value of his labor power and appropriated free of charge by the capitalist. Surplus value expresses a specifically capitalist form operation, with which surplus product takes the form of surplus value. The production and appropriation of surplus value is the essence of the basic economic law of capitalism. “Production of surplus value or profit - this is the absolute law...” of the capitalist mode of production.
It reflects economic relations not only between capitalists and wage workers, but also between various groups of the bourgeoisie: industrialists, traders, bankers, as well as between them and landowners. The pursuit of surplus value plays main role in the development of productive forces under capitalism, determines and directs the development of production relations in capitalist society.
The doctrine of surplus value, which V. I. Lenin called " … cornerstone economic theory Marx", was first developed by Marx in 1857-58, in the manuscript "Critique of Political Economy" (the original version of "Capital"), although certain provisions were already available in such works of the 40s. 19th century, as “Economic and philosophical manuscripts of 1844”, “The poverty of philosophy”, “Wage labor and capital”.
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In a capitalist economy the result economic activity of an individual capitalist is expressed in the form of gross cash income (revenue from the sale of goods and services). The result of economic activity is gross cash income minus production costs (costs of raw materials, energy, deductions to the depreciation fund of equipment and other fixed assets, expenses in the form of wages, etc.). This will be the company's gross profit. If we subtract the taxes paid by the company from it, we get net profit. This is, in a simplified form, the “accounting arithmetic” of modern business.
To understand why wage labor is a form of slavery, we need slightly different arithmetic. A company's gross cash income can be expressed as the sum of its labor costs. Some costs relate to past periods - they are embodied in machinery and equipment, raw materials, energy, etc. This is “past” or “materialized” labor. At the enterprise we are considering, “present” or “living labor” is added to the “past” labor. It creates “added value.” The capitalist paid for “past” labor by buying machines, raw materials, energy (these costs are called “constant capital”). But the “real” work belongs entirely to him. He manages it. “Real” labor is the result of the activities of those workers whom he hired for his enterprise. The result of “real” labor (“added value”) is the source of profit for the capitalist. But at the same time, it is also the source of livelihood for hired workers.
Thus, “added value” is divided into two parts, which are usually called “necessary product” and “surplus product”. “Necessary product” is that part of the “added value” that is necessary to maintain the life and productivity of hired workers. In Marxist theory it is called “variable capital”. “Surplus product” (“surplus value”) is what goes to the capitalist. This is what is the desired goal of his business. The division of “added value” into the two indicated parts is the most important moment of all capitalist activity.
It would seem that workers - that is, those who created “added value” - should play the main role in dividing this “pie”. The role of the capitalist in “baking the cake” was simply that he provided the necessary machinery and equipment (“means of production”, or “constant capital”). Strictly speaking, it should not be related to the section of the “pie” at all: the “pie” is “added value”, and the “means of production” are “past” or “materialized” labor, and the owner of the means of production has already received the necessary compensation for them (equal to depreciation of means of production). A capitalist can only have the right to participate in the division of the “pie” when he personally participated in its “baking” with his “living” labor (obviously, not physical, but mental).
But the paradox (or rather, the drama) of capitalist civilization is that:
- The decisive role in the division of the “pie” is played by the employer, not the employees;
- the employer strives in every possible way to reduce the “necessary product” (the share of the “pie” going to employees) and increase the “surplus product” (the share of the “pie” going to the employer).
From an economic point of view, the surplus product expresses the relationship of exploitation between the employer (slave owner) and the worker (wage slave).
From a legal point of view, profit is theft, misappropriation.
Modern law of capitalist society is dual: on the one hand, it protects property rights and proclaims the “sacredness” of private property; on the other hand, it legalizes the constant theft of the product of labor by employers and does not ensure effective protection workers' rights.
Today we are all so accustomed to many “axioms” of legal science that we often do not notice: many modern laws “legalize” various types of fraud and theft. This applies to different areas of economic relations: labor, credit, fiscal. IN in this case we are interested in labor relations in the era of capitalism.
Let us quote from one article, and the author, apparently, is not a “professional” lawyer and has not lost the ability to question the “axioms” of legal science:
“It was self-interest that caused slavery, because it remained as it was. And if it was deprived of one form of satisfaction, then self-interest immediately found and gave society another form of its satisfaction, not so striking - the motive of ownership not of the person producing, but of the tools, means of production that he needs in work. And the alienation of the employee from the rights to the result of labor was and remains one hundred percent. Instead of dividing these rights proportionally between the investment of labor and the investment of capital. That's it. The visibility became different. Previously, the owner could kill the slave, but now the owner of the worker cannot. That's all. That is, physical and labor slavery was eliminated, but the property basis of slavery was and remains. Slavery only changed its external form. After all, the essence of it and the measure of oppression have hardly changed at all. The alienation of the product of workers' labor on far-fetched grounds remains the same. After all, not everything in the production process depends solely on the use of tools. Much, if not more, also depends on the hands applied to these instruments.
What's the trick here? Yes, in a very simple legal juggling of the laws. In nature, things arise as a result of the participation of certain persons, through labor or property, in the creation of these things. But for some reason the law establishes the right to own these things only for those involved in the property. That is, not at all by the fact of involvement in the creation of new things, but by the fact of owning other, old things. The property right of labor to new things did not exist before the abolition of slavery, nor did it arise after the abolition of slavery (emphasis mine. - V.K.) ».
Bourgeois law “legalized” the new “rules of the game”: “the product of production belongs not to those who produce it, but to those who own the material means of production.” These “rules of the game,” as legal historians say, developed in the 17th-18th centuries. The most interesting thing is that this was around the same time when classical political economy was being formed with its theory of labor value (the main postulate: “the source of value is the labor of workers”). Practical expediency for the founding fathers of capitalism turned out to be more important than the theoretical abstractions of Adam Smith and David Ricardo.
The “rules of the game” that have emerged in recent centuries have led to the fact that people thirsting for wealth do not seek to directly acquire slaves who would create this wealth for them. They acquire the “means of production,” which in turn gives them the legal basis to exploit the wage slaves and appropriate the wealth they produce.
It turns out to be disguised slavery, and such a simple disguise turns out to be sufficient to present capitalism as a “civilized society” that has nothing in common with the slavery of the ancient world. The essence of this disguise was very precisely explained by academic ophthalmologist, director of the Eye Surgery International Scientific and Research Center Svyatoslav Fedorov:
“We don’t always think about what a promotion is. I buy papers as property of the means of production, but in fact, the souls of people.
If stocks give big profits, then I am not interested in the machines on which people work, but in the degree of their organization and professionalism.
That is, it is not machines that are bought, but people. This is practically a slave market. Previously, a person went to him and chose: this slave is attractive to me in body, muscles - I take him; I’ll take this beautiful woman too. And today I go to the market and look: this company’s dividends have been growing for three years - I take these shares (my italics - V.K.).”
There are often cases when the employer appropriates 100% of the product and labor, simply without paying the employee wages. In Russia, this situation is not uncommon. At least, most of the newly created value in the Russian economy comes from the income of employers (company profits) and a smaller part from the wages of employees. Even official statistics cannot hide this fact. In Russia we even have this bitter joke: “If you want money, work, if you want big money, figure out a way to steal it from the working people.”
. This joke is the essence of the entire “political economy” of our capitalism. To determine the degree of exploitation of hired workers, the indicator is used
“norm of surplus value” (NPV). The NPS indicator is the ratio of the surplus product (surplus value) to the amount of “variable” capital (the amount of wages of workers).
Modern economists do not like to remember this indicator, using the usual indicator “rate of profit” (RP). The NP indicator is the ratio of the profit received by the capitalist to the total capital advanced (invested in the business). This capital includes both investments in raw materials, energy, means of production (“past labor”), and the cost of hiring labor (wages). The NP indicator shows the efficiency of using all capital invested in the business (both “fixed” and “variable”). Marx formulated the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall in Capital.
Statistics indeed confirm that in the century and a half since the publication of Capital, the rate of profit in the industry of Western countries has indeed declined significantly. Based on this, some apologists of capitalism try to argue that capitalism is becoming more “humane” over time. However, a change in the rate of profit reflects, first of all, not the degree of exploitation of hired workers, but an increase in the total volume of capital advanced for production of the share of “constant” capital (costs of material resources and means of production). This increase in the share of “constant” capital reflects the process of displacement of living labor from production. Behind this is an increase in unemployment, which has a downward effect on the wages of those who remain in production. A decrease in the rate of profit, as statistics show, occurs against the background of an increase in the rate of surplus value (an indicator that really allows one to measure the degree of exploitation of hired workers)
.
For example, the net product (“added value”) created by the company’s employees per month is equal to 100,000 monetary units. And the salary they received for a month of this work amounted to 20,000 units. Thus, the surplus product (surplus value) of the capitalist amounted to 80,000 units. In our example, the rate of surplus value will be: 80,000 / 20,000 = 4. And if expressed as a percentage, then 400%. According to the calculations of the Soviet economist S.L. Vygodsky, the rate of surplus value in the US manufacturing industry increased from 210% in 1940 to 308% in 1969 and to 515% in 1973. This growth demonstrates the enormous increase in the exploitation of wage workers as the economic and political power of the monopolies strengthens, as well as under the influence of the steady replacement of “living labor” by machines. Machines sharply increase the production of surplus product per employed worker. At the same time, machines are increasingly displacing the living worker from the production process, dooming him to an existence of hunger, increasing the army of the unemployed and making those who remained in production more “accommodating” in matters of wages.
If the “pie” went to those who “bake” it, that is, to the workers, then after a while the employer with his “means of production” would not be needed at all for the “baking” process. For a very simple reason: workers would have such incomes that would allow them to buy back the “means of production” belonging to the capitalists. Or, as an option: create (purchase) new “means of production.” The question arises: why does the employer play a decisive role in determining what the proportion of the two parts of the product of labor will be?
The employer's dominance in this “sharing” is ensured by at least two means:
a) the fact that he monopolized the means of production in his hands;
B) the fact that he put the state with its laws, courts, repressive apparatus, ideological machine, etc. at the service of his interests.
All the “basics” of the theory of surplus value, as is known, are set out in Marx’s “Capital”.
At the same time, remaining on the methodological foundation of Marx’s “economic materialism”, we will not be able to answer simple (“childish”) questions:
- Why did employers manage to monopolize the “means of production” in their hands?
- How did they ensure that the state began to ensure their interests, and not the interests of workers?
- What needs to be done to ensure that employees own the results of their labor?
- Are there precedents known in modern and recent history when workers acquired full rights to the results of their labor?
- Etc.
Modern economic “science” is afraid of these issues “like the devil of incense.” Let us only note that the answers to such questions lie outside the boundaries of economic “science”, which does not go beyond the narrow materialistic perception of the world around us. Answers should be sought in the sphere of political and legal relations, and, ultimately, in the spiritual sphere.
Clothes keep you warm.) The use value of one good is not identical to the use value of another good. This is the property of a particular object, regardless of whether it is the result of natural forces, produced by man for consumption or for exchange.
According to Marx's theory, surplus value manifests itself in its special forms: business profit, interest, rent, taxes, excise taxes, duties, that is, as already distributed among all agents of capitalist production and, in general, among all applicants for participation in profit.
Concept surplus value- one of the central concepts of Marxist economic theory. Marx pointed out that under the capitalist mode of production, surplus value is appropriated by the capitalist in the form of profit, which expresses his exploitation of the worker. According to Marx, the rate of surplus value is “the exact expression of the degree of exploitation of labor power by capital, or of the worker by the capitalist.”
Rate of surplus value = m / v = surplus labor / necessary labor"Cost" or "value"?
In the first translation of Capital in 1872, edited by German Lopatin and Nikolai Danielson, the translation of the term German was used. Wert as "cost". At the same time, in parallel, in the scientific works of Nikolai Sieber, dedicated to Ricardo and Marx, the option “value” was used, including as a translation of the English word “Value”, similar to “Wert”.
The second translation of Capital, made by Evgenia Gurvich and Lev Zak, edited by Peter Struve, was published in 1898. In it, the term Wert was translated at the insistence of the editor as “value”. Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky highly appreciated this translation, but was criticized by Lenin, who insisted specifically on the term “cost”.
In the third version of the translation of “Capital” by Skvortsov-Stepanov, Bogdanov and Bazarov, the term “cost” was again used. Lenin considered this translation to be the best made at that time, which ensured that this version was widely reprinted after the October Revolution.
Soviet Marxist philosopher Evald Ilyenkov, a specialist in the logic of Capital, criticized the “value” option and a number of other translation errors, noting: “In none of the European languages in which Marx thought and wrote is there such a distinction between “value” and “cost” “No, and the Russian translation therefore often breaks off the most important semantic connections that Marx undoubtedly has.”
In 1989, an article by V. Ya. Chekhovsky “On the translation of Marx’s concept of “Wert” into Russian” was published, in which the author also speaks out for the “value” option. Subsequently, he acted as a translator and editor of the first volume of Capital, released in 2015, which caused negative responses from Alexander Buzgalin and Lyudmila Vasina from the Alternatives magazine.
Capitalism
The main features of capitalism can be called the following:
- production aimed at exchange is universal
- labor power is a commodity
- the desire for profit is the main driving force of production
- extraction of surplus value, separation of the direct producer from the means of production, constitute the internal economic form
- Following the imperative of economic growth, capital strives for global integration through world markets.
- the basic law of development is the distribution of profits in proportion to the invested capital:
Productive forces
Productive forces(German: Produktivkräfte) - means of production and people who have certain production experience, skills to work and put these means of production into action. Thus, people are the main element of the productive forces of society. Productive forces act as the leading side of social production. The level of development of the productive forces is characterized by the degree of social division of labor and the development of means of labor, primarily technology, as well as the degree of development of production skills and scientific knowledge. Karl Marx first used this concept in his work “Manifesto of the Communist Party” (1848).
Relations of production
Relations of production(production-economic relations) - relations between people that develop in the process of social production and the movement of the social product from production to consumption.
The term “relations of production” itself was developed by Karl Marx (“Manifesto of the Communist Party” (1848), etc.).
Production relations differ from production-technical relations in that they express the relations of people through their relations to the means of production, that is, property relations.
Industrial relations are the basis in relation to politics, ideology, religion, morality, etc. (social superstructure).
Production relations are the social form of productive forces. Together they constitute two sides of each mode of production and are connected with each other according to the law of correspondence of production relations to the nature and level of development of the productive forces: production relations develop depending on the nature and level of development of the productive forces as the form of their functioning and development, as well as on forms of ownership. In turn, production relations influence the development of productive forces, accelerating or inhibiting their development. Production relations determine the distribution of the means of production and the distribution of people in the structure of social production (the class structure of society).
Social emphasis of Marxist political economy
Social injustice and ways to overcome it, build a just society - these problems have been the focus of attention of thinkers and philosophers since ancient times. In modern times, one after another, works appear specifically devoted to the issues of transforming society on socialist principles - the theory of utopian socialism. They are included in Marxism as one of them, along with bourgeois political economy. However, actually into the subject In political economy, this issue was introduced by Marx’s predecessor, S. Sismondi, who represented the movement of economic romanticism in science.
Even during Marx’s lifetime, as bourgeois political economy decomposed into separate, often divergent, movements, many of them “threw out” the social component from the subject. This process continued into the 20th century; justifying this position, the English economist Lionel Robbins said in 1932:
Economics deals with verifiable facts, while ethics deals with values and responsibilities. These two areas of research do not lie on the same plane of reasoning.
Original text (English)
Economics deals with certain facts; ethics with valuations and obligations. The two fields of inquiry are not on the same plane of discourse.
However, not all economists supported this position. J.M. Keynes objected to Robbins:
Contrary to Robbins, economics is a moral and ethical science in its essence. In other words, it uses self-analysis and subjective assessment of value.
Original text (English)
As against Robbins, Economics is essentially a moral science. That is to say, it employs introspection and judgment of value.
The demands of the workers against the capitalists, justified by Marx, also found unexpected support. In 1950 Pierre Bigot published a special study entitled “ Marxism and humanism". As the guiding thesis of his monograph, this prominent French Jesuit (about him, see fr:Fidei donum) chose a quotation from the Christmas message of Pius XII of December 24, 1942, where the Pope states the unpalatability of the current social order, recognizing the validity of the workers’ demands for its reconstruction:
But the Church cannot condone or turn a blind eye to the fact that the worker, who strives to ease his lot, is faced with a system that is in disagreement with nature and contrary to God's order and purpose, which He has laid down for earthly goods.
Original text (Italian)
Ma la Chiesa non può ignorare o non vedere, che l'operaio, nello sforzo di migliorare la sua condizione, si urta contro qualche congegno, che, lungi dall'essere conforme alla natura, contrasta con l'ordine di Dio e con lo scopo , che Egli ha assegnato per i beni terreni.
In development of this goal-setting thesis of the pontiff, P. Bigot critically examines the category surplus value, which in Marx’s teaching is the starting point in the study of the noted social injustice. "P. Bigot believes, writes the French historian of economic doctrines Emile Jams, that the extraction of surplus value, even if it is not caused by lengthening the working day", which Marx speaks of," can and does take place due to the intensification of labor and the depletion of human mental abilities."
P. Bigot gives the following assessment of Marx’s views on the relationship between labor and capital in terms of the interpretation of the act of purchase and sale of labor power:
Marx viewed capitalism as the reification and sale of man, one should say - as his materialization. Marxist materialism... aims primarily at liberating man from this economic materialization, which forms the basis of the sale of man.
Criticism of Marxist political economy
Many economists and historians who have analyzed Marx's legacy in the field of economics consider the scientific significance of his work to be low. According to Paul Samuelson (1915-2009), a prominent American economist, laureate of the Alfred Nobel Prize in Economics, “from the point of view of his contribution to purely economic theoretical science, Karl Marx can be considered a minor economist of the post-Ricardian school.” French economist Jacques Attali, in his book Karl Marx: The World Spirit, points out that “John Maynard Keynes considered Marx’s Capital to be an outdated economics textbook, not only erroneous from an economic point of view, but also devoid of interest and practical application in modern world" Attali himself, who sympathizes with Marx and promotes his teachings, nevertheless believes that Marx was never able to prove the key provisions of his economic theory: the labor theory of value, the theory of surplus value and the “Law of the Falling Rate of Profit” under capitalism - although stubbornly tried to do this by collecting economic statistics and studying algebra for 20 years. Thus, according to Attali, these key provisions of his economic theory remained unproven hypotheses. Meanwhile, these hypotheses were the cornerstones of not only Marxist political economy, but also Marxist class theory, as well as Marxist criticism of capitalism: according to Marx, the exploitation of workers lies in the fact that capitalists appropriate the surplus value created by workers.
Marx himself did not rate his contributions to economics highly, in contrast to his contributions to the field of social theory.
There is an opinion that Marxist political economy, or rather, that part of it that was introduced by Marx himself, is not a traditional economic science, but represents an independent philosophical branch of political economy.
Marxist school of political economy after Marx
Until the 1930s, scientific research within the framework of Marxist doctrine was limited to a circle of German and Russian authors, and only in Germany and Russia did Marxism strongly influence the research of non-socialist economists.
In Germany and Austria
Marxism was the official ideology of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which achieved great influence among the working class. Its huge organization offered professional careers only to orthodox Marxists; in such circumstances, the literature inevitably had to be apologetic and interpretive in nature. The ideological leader K. Kautsky was not an original thinker in general, but in his book “The Agrarian Question” (1899) he tried to extend Marx’s law of concentration to agriculture.
According to the definition of the researcher of the history of economic thought Joseph Schumpeter
Schumpeter included O. Bauer, R. Hilferding, G. Grossman, G. Kunow, R. Luxemburg and F. Sternberg among these. They were primarily interested in those parts of Marx's teaching that were directly related to the tactics of the socialists in the period that was, in their opinion, the last, “imperialist” phase of capitalism. In this, their views came into contact with the doctrines of Leninism and Trotskyism, which focused on imperialism, although on other issues these theorists took anti-Bolshevik positions. These authors achieved relative success in developing a theory of protectionism and the tendency (real or imagined) of capitalist society to be war-prone.
However, it was not possible to maintain ideological discipline within the big party; E. Bernstein came up with works that revised all aspects of Marxism. Bernstein's criticism had a stimulating effect and contributed to the emergence of more precise formulations and influenced an increase in the willingness of Marxists to abandon predictions of impoverishment and the collapse of capitalism. But if we talk about the scientific position of Marxists, the influence of revisionism on it was not fruitful:
Bernstein was a remarkable man, but not a deep thinker, much less a theorist.
In Russia
The role of German influence was great. From the point of view of scientific research, among the orthodox authors, Schumpeter considers it necessary to mention only G. Plekhanov and N. Bukharin. V. Lenin and L. Trotsky did not contribute anything to economic analysis that was not anticipated by Marx or the German Marxists.
The original Russian movement was “legal Marxism,” which put forward arguments in favor of the possibility and progressiveness of capitalism in Russia. The first book in which these ideas were presented was Critical Notes on the Question of economic development Russia" P. Struve, who later recalled:
In the development of world economic thought, my book, as far as my acquaintance with the literature of the subject allows me to say, was the first manifestation of what later became known as Marxist or Social Democratic “revisionism.”
Marxism greatly influenced all Russian economists, including those who debated it. The most prominent of the "semi-Marxist" critics of Marx (and the most prominent Russian economist among all schools) was M. Tugan-Baranovsky.
The rapprochement of Marxist economists with the economic mainstream
Marx's economic interpretation of history is his contribution to sociology of the first importance. Marxist political economy already looked outdated at the time of writing; its practical meaning was to create an ideological basis for justifying the class struggle of the proletariat. As a result, since the 1920s, the phenomenon of an increase in the number of economists who adhered to Marxist ideology, but began to use non-Marxist methodology in matters of pure economic theory, began to be observed. This trend is represented by the names of E. Lederer, M. Dobb, O. Lange and A. Lerner.
It can be argued that, with the exception of questions of economic sociology, the scientifically trained socialist is no longer a Marxist.
Polish school
Thanks to its role as an analytical center of the Soviet leadership, IMEMO, created in 1956, was able, while remaining within the framework of Marxism, to contribute to the revision of the most contradictory ideological dogmas and anachronistic ideas in the field of political economy of capitalism, such as the law of growth of the organic composition of capital (constant capital relations to variable), the general law of capitalist accumulation, the law of absolute and relative impoverishment of the working class, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the unproductive nature of labor in the sphere of trade and services, the law of preferential growth of the first division of social production, the law of lag Agriculture from industrial development. In addition to new facts, IMEMO scientists who had access to modern literature drew material for updating Marxism from Western theories, primarily from institutionalism.
Political significance
The political influence of Marxism in the 20th century. was huge: Marxism dominated about 1/3 of the globe. Marxist political economy acted as the economic doctrine of socialism, implemented in the 20th century in the USSR, China, the countries of Eastern Europe, Indochina, Cuba, and Mongolia. In turn, social changes in the countries that built socialism prompted a profound transformation of the socio-economic structure of developed capitalist countries, which qualitatively improved the social situation of the bulk of their population and the development of democracy in these countries [ ] .
On the other hand, in almost all socialist countries, Marxist economics has turned into a dogmatic teaching - part of the official ideology. Having ceased to respond to reality, it began to have a negative impact. Thus, in the USSR, the introduction of this doctrine in the 1930s was accompanied by the defeat of the world-class domestic economic school (Nikolai Kondratiev, Vasily Leontiev, Alexander Chayanov). In the 1950s, Marxist dogmas (the rapid development of heavy industry, the inevitability of the collapse of world capitalism, etc.) prevented the transformation of the Soviet military economy into an economy focused on the needs of the population (the Malenkov plan), and to some extent contributed to the outbreak of the arms race . In the 1960-1980s. the dominance of Marxist dogmatic thinking in the USSR prevented the timely conclusion that capitalism in the West in the middle of the 20th century. underwent a qualitative transformation, and did not allow the development of a thoughtful concept of market reforms by the time perestroika began, which partly predetermined the negative consequences of these reforms and the collapse of the USSR.
Reforms in the PRC were accompanied by the active introduction of modern Western economic theories, which led to the parallel development of non-Marxist and Marxist economic views. In leading training centers The PRC courses are taught by economists of the younger generation who have returned from abroad after studying; the textbooks that students study with are basically the same as in the West. The strict professional criteria established in the economic community of the PRC, built on Western models, do not allow Marxists to successfully compete in the field of teaching and science with fellow economists who have received modern education. However, the Chinese authorities set the Marxists the task of ideologically justifying the reforms being carried out in China and popularly presenting the economic policy of the authorities. This division of labor forms the basis for the conflict-free coexistence of the two movements.
Notes
- Added value. Documentary.
- “The doctrine of surplus value is the cornerstone of Marx’s economic theory” - Mitin M. B. Dialectical materialism. Textbook for colleges and colleges. P.I. - M.: OGIZ-Sotsekgiz, 1934. - P.9
- Gurvich E.A. From memories. (My translation of Capital). // Chronicles of Marxism. M.-L., 1926. No. 1, p. 91-93.
- Tugan-Baranovsky M. . Russian translations of Volume I of Marx's Capital. (Note) // The World of God. February 1899. pp. 10-16.
- On the translation of the term “Wert” (value, dignity, cost, meaning)
-
Here it is necessary to say a few words about the unsuccessful translation of the word “Wert” established in Soviet science. This translation is philologically incorrect, philosophically illiterate and rests on a misunderstanding of the spirit of the language. “Cost” does not at all correspond to the German word Wert and entirely corresponds to the German word Preis. "What is the price?" - means in German “Was kostet?”. Therefore, “value is Kostenpreis.” “Value” expresses what political economy and Marx call “price” as opposed to “value.” This important opposition is destroyed when using the term “value”, because value is price. But the absurdity of the translation reaches its limit when we are dealing with “use value”: the fact is that a huge use value may have no value. Air and water have great value, but are “worth nothing.” This is a hopeless predicament Marxist translators
Dear remkos!
I decided to present the answer to your question as a separate topic: it is very important, but in Russia many people think differently.
Of course, I’m afraid to make a mistake again, as with the number 78, but I’m writing about 50% based on what I read.
About Europe under Marx, and not about Tsarist Russia, where “for some reason” a revolution took place.
And not about today's Russia.
You understood everything correctly!
The rate of surplus value is the ratio of what the capitalist received as surplus value to what he paid the worker.
Those. the 50% norm means that the worker received twice as much as the capitalist received in the form of surplus value. I.e. the added value created by the labor of the worker was divided in the ratio: two thirds to the worker, one third to the capitalist.
It should be taken into account that it is very difficult to determine the amount of added value created, but figuring out how much to pay an employee is easy, and not at a loss.
Therefore, it is difficult to say how much a worker in Russia actually produced.
The rate of surplus value was probably much higher than 50%. After all, even now in Russia no one talks about surplus value, although nowhere has its rate been so high.
With the Russian minimum wage, which is up to nine times lower than what they pay, for example, in some European countries, it turns out that the rate of surplus value is 800%.
Let’s take into account: unskilled labor is the same all over the world, otherwise we must admit that an “armless and brainless” European is 9 times “smarter and more handy” than the same Russian - typical Russian racism.
And this is one of the main reasons that classical (according to Marx) capitalism died (in the USA in the 30s of the last century, in the world in the 50s-60s).
Surplus value:
- limited the size of the capitalist’s profit to “some” percentage of the employee’s salary;
- the main thing is that workers received only for the “reproduction of labor power,” that is, only for subsistence, and were excluded from the consumer society, which limited the ability of capitalists to produce a lot - as much as they could buy;
- created a serious conflict between workers and capitalists, threatening revolution, unrest, not to mention the reluctance of workers to work with enthusiasm.
Crises of overproduction are the economy's response to an insufficient number of buyers.
The rejection of surplus value was an economic revolution that improved the lives of workers and eliminated the limitation of capitalist profits to the amount of funds held only by the “wealthy.”
The first “discovery” was made by Henry Ford in 1914: he began to pay twice as much.
Those. he not only abandoned surplus value, but also began to overpay workers by a third more than what they created as added value. Provided that at his factory, too, the rate of surplus value was 50% - a big question.
This immediately allowed workers to spend the same amount as they spent on “reproduction of labor power” on purchases of goods and services.
Those. the consumer part of society increased sharply (“My workers are my main customers” - Ford).
Ford himself did not lose anything:
- he included the cost of payment in the amount of his costs and in the price;
- developing production, creating new models, increasing productivity (not only labor, but also equipment, and due to new organization labor), he could sell new models at the price of old ones, which guaranteed demand and competitive advantages.
Essentially, Ford was one of the first to make a profit not from surplus value, but from his entrepreneurial decisions, which has now become the main difference between the modern economy and capitalism according to Marx.
Nowadays in economics it is established that profit is the difference between the amount of sales and the amount of costs.
Naturally, the “capitalist” includes in his costs his labor income for the work of managing the enterprise, i.e. and in the absence of profit, he “remains not at a loss.”
In the same way, an entrepreneur, who may not own property (rent, a small stake in shares), manages the activities of his enterprise, receiving labor income (“salary”) for this - this is called “routine labor.”
If an entrepreneur introduces something new (constructive, technological, organizational or other), which makes his product or service preferable in the market, then consumers buy it even at “high” prices, so that the amount of sales exceeds the amount of costs.
And only this is the profit of the entrepreneur.
This is exactly what is said not only in textbooks, but this is how profit is assessed in the accounting documents of an enterprise.
And only this is subject to income tax in the United States (35% - and only from enterprises registered as a corporation; individual enterprises, if they are not registered as corporations, do not pay income tax - only income tax, which is paid by the owner or owners).
It is useful to know that a corporation is responsible for itself only with its property, and an enterprise that is not registered as a corporation is responsible for the personal property of the owner.
Therefore, it is safer to register even a tiny company as a corporation, and at the same time smartly reduce what is shown in the report as profit.
Please note that after income tax, everything that is distributed between specific people (managers, shareholders, employees) is subject to 40% income taxes in the United States. Just like shares when sold...
Those. In total, more than 60% taxes are levied on profits.
You need to understand that in the modern economy, almost everywhere they pay for labor more than the added value created by labor (in the USA, by approximately 25%, in England - by 30%...). But there are many articles on this topic, including on Russian
All entrepreneurs pay - this is dictated by the salary market.
But not everyone makes a profit.
Those. the main economic law of the modern market: redistribution of “overpaid for labor” from those who are unsuccessful in the market (and incur losses) to those who are successful, whose goods are in demand - the market rewards them with profits.
It is clear that such profits can be much higher than capitalist surplus value.
Those. the contradiction was resolved.
All this is not words or theory.
You can take, for example, the breakdown of US GDP by expenditure; there it is impossible to find anything that resembles surplus value.
At the same time, in Russia, Rosstat data on the distribution of income show that even after taxes, “economic profit and other income” started at 50% of GDP, and now more than 30% of GDP.
In the US, corporate profits before taxes are 5% of GDP.
Another law of modern economics: prices are determined not by the producer, but by the consumer market.
According to the principle: the greater the market demand (demand), the greater the production (supply), but the lower the price per unit of goods or services.
And that countermeasure that we can all observe in life: the price hardly changes when a fancy new one is sold instead of an old model. Not necessarily in monetary form, more often in terms of purchasing power.
So with TVs from the American "KVN-49" (I was lucky enough to see it), so with cars, computers and much more.
I wrote this because in Russia they believed (or believe?) that the price is determined simply by an agreement between the manufacturer and the buyer - the terrible illiteracy of Russian “liberal reformers”.
By the way, many in Russia think so. that any enterprise necessarily makes a profit.
They do not understand the difference between income, which is payment for any type of labor;
and profit, which is only a reward for market attractiveness, i.e. profit is directly paid by the market, and income is determined by the market level of wages.
You don't have to read any further, but...
There was Roosevelt's New Deal. to some extent, following Lenin's NEP, an attempt to replace "communism" with a modern mixed economy. Of the measures that Roosevelt had, the introduction of a mandatory hourly minimum wage was very important. By 1940 it was about 5 dollars of our time, quite a lot. By the way, Ford's minimum was more than our $100. To compare with today's Russia will be called a Russophobe.
Russian “liberals” have clung to the fact that the minimum increases unemployment, which is true, but speaks volumes about a lack of understanding.
The minimum first of all eliminates unproductive labor, which begins to bring only losses to the employer. Forces improvement of production and technology.
As for unemployment, government jobs and unemployment benefits were introduced in the United States.
The benefit “also” increases unemployment, but the main thing is different: a person can refuse low-paid work, he will not die of hunger.
I believe that the introduction in Russia of a minimum wage below the subsistence level for the worker himself was Gaidar’s biggest crime.
This is what created the main wealth of Russian privatizers, not property at all.
Property without the economic labor of management simply stagnates.
“Property itself” is another Russian idiocy.
That's it, in general.
I write in such detail because I want people in Russia to know at least what high school students around the world know.
Their textbooks are now even higher than what they were in textbooks for students in the early 90s.
And all this is available not only in Russian translations, but also in books by Russian authors.
Thank you for your attention.
Surplus value- a term coined by Karl Marx in his work Capital. This concept is one of the central ones in his economic theory. According to Marx, surplus value is the difference in the value of labor that is appropriated by the capitalist in the process of capitalist production.
Important. Surplus value is not value added and the two must be distinguished.
In order to understand the meaning of this term, it is necessary to take into account that his economic views are based on the following postulates:
- The cost of a product depends solely on the amount of labor invested. Marx does not consider the influence of supply and demand
- Marx calls the costs of producing goods “necessary labor” and believes that everything that is above a given value is the result of the appropriation of the products of other people’s labor by the capitalist
- The source of profit (surplus value) is the result of the capitalist’s appropriation of the labor of a worker who works beyond the “necessary time”
Marx views value as materialized labor. Karl Marx was not the first nor the only economist to base the value of a product on the labor costs involved. It is also recommended to read the works of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. According to this scheme (based on invested costs), pricing was carried out under socialism - solely on the basis of costs incurred. Modern economists have abandoned this theory of value.
If the value of a product is determined solely by the cost of labor invested in it, then it is necessary to explain the difference between the actual value at which the product is exchanged for another product or for money. Therefore, Marx introduces the concept " surplus value". That is, the excess of the value of a product over the cost of invested labor, raw materials, materials, etc. The source of surplus value, according to Marx, is the capitalist’s consumption of labor power longer than the time during which its own value is reproduced. To the same process, but “in a special form” Marx refers to profit, interest, rent, taxes, excise taxes, duties, etc. That is, the appropriated labor is thus redistributed among all agents of capitalist production.
The source of surplus value, according to Marx, is only the sphere of production. Surplus value arises in any production and serves as a source of taxes and accumulation. And under capitalism it arises in the form of profit, which becomes an independent goal of production for the capitalist.
Considering ways to increase surplus value, Marx identified two main ones, which he designated using the following terms:
absolute surplus value- is created by increasing the duration of working hours, during which the worker works beyond the “necessary time of reproduction.”
relative surplus value- created by reducing the cost of labor and “reducing the required production time” (implying an increase in labor productivity).
Thus, Marx defines the appropriation of someone else’s labor performed in excess of what is necessary as the main feature of the capitalist mode of social production. That is exploitation worker for the purpose of making a profit through the appropriation of his labor - the main and integral property of capitalism.
According to Marx, "the exact expression of the degree of exploitation of labor power by capital, or of the worker by capitalist" can be obtained through rate of surplus value.
Formula for the rate of surplus value
The rate of surplus value is the ratio of the duration (quantity) of surplus and necessary labor.
