NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Surplus labour

Surplus labour is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It means labour performed in excess of the labour necessary to produce the means of livelihood of the worker ("necessary labour"). According to Marxian economics, surplus labour is usually "unpaid labour". Marxian economics regards surplus labour as the ultimate source of capitalist profits. Marxism takes its name from the praxis (the synthesis of philosophy and political action) of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... Image File history File links Karl_Marx. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Das Kapital (Capital, in the English translation) is an extensive treatise on political economy written by Karl Marx in German. ... Marxs theory of alienation (Entfremdung in German), as expressed in the writings of young Karl Marx, refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to antagonism between things that are properly in harmony. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Class consciousness is a category of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of a social class, its capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class (or class allegiance) sets for them. ... In Marxist theory, commodity fetishism is a state of social relations, said to arise in complex capitalist market systems, in which social relationships center around the values placed on commodities. ... Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production. ... Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. ... The rate of exploitation is a concept in Marxian political economy. ... Marxs theory of human nature occupies an important place in his critique of capitalism, his conception of communism, and his materialist conception of history. Marx, however, does not refer to human nature as such, but to Gattungswesen, which is generally translated as species-being or species-essence. What Marx... Political Ideologies Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box: An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ... The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. ... Reification (German: Verdinglichung, literally: ver-, over + ding: thing + -lichung: as english, -ify) is the consideration of an abstraction or an object as if it had human or living existence and abilities; at the same time it implies the thingification of social relations. ... Relations of production (German: Produktionsverhaltnisse) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx in his theory of historical materialism and in Das Kapital. ... Socialism refers to a broad array of ideologies and movements which aim to improve society through collective and egalitarian action; and to a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community. ... Note: Marxian is not restricted to Marxian economics, as it includes those inspired by Marxs works who do not identify with Marxism as a political ideology. ... Labor power (in German: Arbeitskraft, or labor force) is a crucial concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. ... The law of value is a concept in Karl Marxs critique of political economy. ... Means of production (abbreviated MoP; German: Produktionsmittel), also called means of labour are the materials, tools and other instruments used by workers to make products. ... In the writings of Karl Marx and the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (in German: Produktionsweise, meaning the way of producing) is a specific combination of: productive forces: these include human labor-power, tools, equipment, buildings and technologies, materials, and improved land social and technical relations... For the specific theoretical justifications behind the Great Leap Forward and the Five Year Plans, see Theory of Productive Forces. ... Surplus value, according to Marxism, is unpaid labour that is extracted from the worker by the capitalist, and serves as the basis for capitalist accumulation. ... In Karl Marxs economics the transformation problem is the problem of finding a general rule to transform the values of commodities (based on labour according to his labour theory of value) into the competitive prices of the marketplace. ... Wage labour is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour under a contract (employment), and the employer buys it, often in a labour market. ... While anarchism and Marxism are two different political philosophies, there is some similarity between the methodology and ideology of groups of anarchists and Marxists, and the history of the two have often been intertwined. ... The capitalist mode of production is a concept in Karl Marxâ€™s critique of political economy. ... Class struggle is class conflict looked at from a Marxist, libertarian socialist, or anarchist perspective. ... The dictatorship of the proletariat is a term employed by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program that refers to a transition period between capitalist and communist society in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. The term refers to a... Primitive accumulation of capital is a concept introduced by Karl Marx in part 8 of the first volume of Das Kapital (in German: ursprÃ¼ngliche Akkumulation, literally original accumulation or primeval accumulation). Its purpose is to help explain how the capitalist mode of production can come into being. ... A communist revolution is a social revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, normally with socialism (public ownership over the means of production) as an intermediate stage. ... International Socialism redirects here. ... World revolution is a Marxist concept of a violent overthrow of capitalism that would take place in all countries, although not necessarily simultaneously. ... See also Marxian economics Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory designs work in philosophy which is strongly influenced by Karl Marxs materialist approach to theory or which is written by Marxists. ... Historical materialism is the methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883), although Marx himself never used the term (he referred it as philosophical materialism, a term he used to distinguish it from what he called popular materialism). Historical... According to many followers of the theories of Karl Marx (or Marxists), dialectical materialism is the philosophical basis of Marxism. ... Analytical Marxism refers to a style of thinking about Marxism that was prominent amongst English-speaking philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s. ... For other meanings of autonomism, see autonomism (disambiguation) page Raised fist, stenciled protest symbol of Autonome at the Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus in Vienna, Austria Autonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. ... Marxist feminism is a sub-type of feminist theory which focuses on the dismantling of capitalism as a way to liberate women. ... The term Marxist humanism has as its foundation Marxs conception of the alienation of the labourer as he advances it in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844--an alienation that is born of a capitalist system in which the worker no longer functions as (what Marx terms) a... Structural Marxism was an approach to Marxist philosophy based on structuralism, primarily associated with the work of the French philosopher Louis Althusser and his students. ... Western Marxism is a term used to describe a wide variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western and Central Europe (and more recently North America), in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet Union. ... Libertarian Marxism is a school of Marxism that takes a less authoritarian view of Marxist theory than conventional currents such as Stalinism, Trotskyism, and other forms of Marxism-Leninism, as well as a generally less reformist view than do Social Democrats. ... â€˜Young Marxâ€™ is one half of the concept in Marxology that Karl Marxâ€™s intellectual development can be broken into two board categories, the other being â€˜Mature Marxâ€™. There is disagreement though as to when Marx thought began to mature, Lenin claimed Marxs first mature work as â€œThe Poverty... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 â€“ March 14, 1883) was a German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820, Wuppertal â€“ August 5, 1895, London), a 19th-century German political philosopher, developed communist theory alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto (1848). ... Karl Kautsky (October 18, 1854 - October 17, 1938) was a leading theoretician of social democracy. ... G. V. Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (Ð“ÐµÐ¾Ñ€Ð³Ð¸Ð¹ Ð’Ð°Ð»ÐµÐ½Ñ‚Ð¸Ð½Ð¾Ð²Ð¸Ñ‡ ÐŸÐ»ÐµÑ…Ð°Ð½Ð¾Ð²) (December 11, 1856 â€“ May 30, 1918; Old Style: November 29, 1856 â€“ May 17, 1918) was a Russian revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician. ... â€œLeninâ€ redirects here. ... (Russian: Ð›eÐ² Ð”Ð°Ð²Ð¸Ð´Ð¾Ð²Ð¸Ñ‡ Ð¢Ñ€Ã³Ñ†ÐºÐ¸Ð¹, Lyev Davidovich Trotsky, also transliterated Leo, Lev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij, Trockij and Trotzky) (November 7 [O.S. October 26] 1879 â€“ August 21, 1940), born Leon Davidovich Bronstein (Ð›eÐ² Ð”Ð°Ð²Ð¸Ð´Ð¾Ð²Ð¸Ñ‡ Ð‘Ñ€Ð¾Ð½ÑˆÑ‚Ã©Ð¹Ð½), was a Ukrainian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. ... Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg (March 5, 1870 or 1871 â€“ January 15, 1919, in Polish RÃ³Å¼a Luksemburg) was a Jewish Polish-born Marxist political theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary. ... â€œMaoâ€ redirects here. ... Georg LukÃ¡cs (April 13, 1885 â€“ June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic in the tradition of Western Marxism. ... Antonio Gramsci (IPA: ) (January 22, 1891 â€“ April 27, 1937) was an Italian writer, politician and political theorist. ... Karl Korsch (August 15, 1886 - October 21, 1961) was a German Marxist theorist. ... Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (June 14,[1] 1928 â€“ October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara, El Che or just Che was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary, medical doctor , political figure, and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and JÃ¼rgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist social theory (which is more akin to anarchism than communism), social research, and philosophy. ... Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (June 21, 1905 â€“ April 15, 1980), normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (pronounced: ), was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. ... Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation: altuË¡seÊ) (October 16, 1918 â€“ October 23, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. ... This article is on criticisms of Marxism, a branch of socialism. ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 â€“ March 14, 1883) was a German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box: Political economy was the original term for the study of production, the acts of buying and selling, and their relationships to laws, customs and government. ... Note: Marxian is not restricted to Marxian economics, as it includes those inspired by Marxs works who do not identify with Marxism as a political ideology. ...

Origin of surplus labour

The historical emergence of surplus labour is, according to Marx, also closely associated with the growth of trade (the economic exchange of goods and services) and with the emergence of a society divided into social classes. As soon as a permanent surplus product can be produced, the moral-political question arises as to how it should be distributed, and for whose benefit surplus-labour should be performed. The strong defeat the weak, and it becomes possible for a social elite to gain control over the surplus-labour and surplus product of the working population; they can live off the labour of others. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or cultures. ... Surplus product (German: Mehrprodukt) is a concept explicitly theorised by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. ...

Labour which is sufficiently productive so that it can perform surplus labour is, in a cash economy, the material foundation for the appropriation of surplus-value from that labour. How exactly this appropriation will occur, is determined by the prevailing relations of production and the balance of power between social classes. The production of surplus value, from Karl Marxs Capital in Lithographs, by Hugo Gellert, 1934 Surplus value is a concept created by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy, where its ultimate source is claimed to be unpaid surplus labour performed by the worker for the capitalist, serving... Relations of production (German: Produktionsverhaltnisse) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx in his theory of historical materialism and in Das Kapital. ... Much of the recent sociological debate on power revolves around the issue of constraining and/or enabling nature of power. ...

According to Marx, capital had its origin in the commercial activity of buying in order to sell, with the aim of gaining an income (a surplus value) from this trade. But, initially, this does not involve any capitalist mode of production; rather, the merchant traders are intermediaries between non-capitalist producers. During a lengthy historical process, the old ways of extracting surplus labour are gradually replaced by commercial forms of exploitation. Capital has a number of related meanings in economics, finance and accounting. ... The capitalist mode of production is a concept in Karl Marxâ€™s critique of political economy. ...

Surplus labour and exploitation

Exploitation occurs when those appropriating surplus labour — whether in the form of surplus-value, surplus product or direct surplus labour — are different than those performing surplus labour. Just as there are attempts to force more work out of the workers, there are also attempts at resistance to exploitation, e.g. strike action, union campaigns, living wage campaigns, go-slows, refusal to perform tasks not contracted for, threatening to leave employment for another job if that is a real possibility, etc. Critical variables in determining the total surplus labor performed are: See also general strike, or for other uses see: strike (disambiguation). ... A trade union or labor union is a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment. ...

In Capital, Volume I, Marx portrays the battle over work-time as the fulcrum of class conflict in capitalism, which can involve complex trade-offs between time and money. However, contrary to many Marxists, Marx never believed that exploitation at the point of production was the only kind of exploitation that exists. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Capital, Volume I is the first of three volumes in Karl Marxs monumental work, Das Kapital, and the only volume to be published during his lifetime. ...

Surplus labour in capitalist society

In feudal society, it was often quite clear how many days a serf or peasant worked for himself or herself (necessary labour), and how many days s/he worked for his or her lord (surplus labour). On this important distinction between a corvée and a capitalist economy, Lenin writes: Peasants plowing in front of a castle, French manuscript c. ...

Under capitalism, the distinction between necessary labour and surplus labour however becomes obscured by the nature of the market transactions involved. Most people are legally free agents who can buy and sell labour on the basis of more or less equal access to markets, and an equal opportunity to better their lot in competition with others. Yet, owners of substantial property assets enter the market with an advantage over propertyless people who simply have to sell their labour to survive. It gives property owners the power to command the surplus labour of others. When the wage contract is signed, it appears that the employee is paid for the hours that he works, but at the same time, Marx argues, the worker adds an amount of value on the job in excess of the value of his wage/salary: he performs surplus labour. Capitalism generally refers to an economic system in which the means of production are all or mostly privately[1][2] owned and operated for profit, and in which investments, distribution, income, production and pricing of goods and services are determined through the operation of a free market. ...

In hiring an employee, the employer thus not only incurs a cost (the wage-bill, based on hours worked) but also reaps a benefit, namely the extra value the employee creates (the surplus product of labour) beyond the value of what it costs to hire him or her. This benefit, Marx argues, shows up in the form of gross profit income after deduction of costs, but the only real evidence that surplus labour is the cause of it, is that the value of output produced is higher than the value of inputs used to produce it. The economic relation of necessary and surplus labour has therefore become hidden, and the division of enterprise revenues between wages, profits and taxes seems to become a purely distributional issue; just how exactly that new value originated, could be theorised about in all sorts of ways (see factors of production and surplus value). Surplus product (German: Mehrprodukt) is a concept explicitly theorised by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... In economics, factors of production are resources used in the production of goods and services. ... Surplus value, according to Marxism, is unpaid labour that is extracted from the worker by the capitalist, and serves as the basis for capitalist accumulation. ...

Surplus labour and historical materialism

In Das Kapital Vol. 3, Marx highlights the central role played by surplus labour: Das Kapital (Capital, in the English translation) is an extensive treatise on political economy written by Karl Marx in German. ...

This statement is a foundation of Marx's historical materialism insofar as it specifies what the class conflicts in civil society are ultimately about: an economy of time, which compels some to do work of which part or all of the benefits go to someone else, while others can have leisure-time which in reality depends on the work efforts of those forced to work. Historical materialism is the methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883), although Marx himself never used the term (he referred it as philosophical materialism, a term he used to distinguish it from what he called popular materialism). Historical...

In modern society, having work or leisure may often seem a choice, but for most of humanity, work is an absolute necessity, and consequently most people are concerned with the real benefits they get from that work. They may accept a certain rate of exploitation of their labour as an inescapable condition for their existence, if they depend on a wage or salary, but beyond that, they will increasingly resist it. Consequently, a morality or legal norm develops in civil society which imposes limits for surplus-labour, in one form or another. Forced labour, slavery, gross mistreatment of workers etc. are no longer generally acceptable, although they continue to occur; working conditions and pay levels can usually be contested in courts of law. Choice consists of the mental process of thinking involved with the process of judging the merits of multiple options and selecting one of them for action. ... The rate of exploitation is a concept in Marxian political economy. ... -1... Unfree labour is a generic or collective term for forms of work, especially in modern or early modern history, in which adults and/or children are employed without wages, or for a minimal wage. ... Slave redirects here. ...

Surplus labour and unequal exchange

Marx acknowledged that surplus labour may not just be appropriated directly in production by the owners of the enterprise, but also in trade. This phenomenon is nowadays called unequal exchange. Thus, he commented that: Unequal exchange is a concept used in Marxian economics to denote forms of exploitation which commercial trade of any type can involve, if objects of unequal value are being exchanged or traded. ...

In this case, more work effectively exchanges for less work, and a greater value exchanges for a lesser value, because some possess a stronger market position, and others a weaker one. For the most part, Marx assumed equal exchange in Das Kapital, i.e. that supply and demand would balance; his argument was that even if, ideally speaking, no unequal exchange occurred in trade, and market equality existed, exploitation could nevertheless occur within capitalist relations of production, since the value of the product produced by labour power exceeded the value of labour power itself. Marx never completed his analysis of the world market however. Das Kapital (Capital, in the English translation) is an extensive treatise on political economy written by Karl Marx in German. ... Relations of production (German: Produktionsverhaltnisse) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx in his theory of historical materialism and in Das Kapital. ... Labor power (in German: Arbeitskraft, or labor force) is a crucial concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. ...

In the real world, Marxian economists like Samir Amin argue, unequal exchange occurs all the time, implying transfers of value from one place to another, through the trading process. Thus, the more trade becomes "globalised", the greater the intermediation between producers and consumers; consequently, the intermediaries appropriate a growing fraction of the final value of the products, while the direct producers obtain only a small fraction of that final value. Samir Amin (b. ...

The most important unequal exchange in the world economy nowadays concerns the exchange between agricultural goods and industrial goods, i.e. the terms of trade favour industrial goods against agricultural goods. Often, as Raul Prebisch already noted, this has meant that more and more agricultural output must be produced and sold, to buy a given amount of industrial goods. This issue has become the subject of heated controversy at recent WTO meetings. Dr. Raúl Prebisch (1901 – 1986) was an Argentine economist known for his contribution to structuralist economics, in particular the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis that formed the basis of economic dependency theory. ... For other uses of the initials WTO, see WTO (disambiguation). ...

It is perhaps important to note that the practice of unequal or unfair exchange does not presuppose the capitalist mode of production, nor even the existence of money. It only presupposes that goods and services of unequal value are traded, something which has been possible throughout the whole history of human trading practices. The capitalist mode of production is a concept in Karl Marxâ€™s critique of political economy. ... Various denominations of currency, one form of money Money is any good or token that functions as a medium of exchange that is socially and legally accepted in payment for goods and services and in settlement of debts. ...

Modern criticism of Marx's concept of surplus labour

According to economist Fred Moseley, "neoclassical economic theory was developed, in part, to attack the very notion of surplus labor or surplus value and to argue that workers receive all of the value embodied in their creative efforts." [4]

Some basic modern criticisms of Marx's theory can be found in the works by Pearson, Dalton, Boss, Hodgson and Harris (see references).

The Analytical Marxist John Roemer challenges what he calls the "fundamental Marxian theorem" (after Michio Morishma) that the existence of surplus labour is the necessary and sufficient condition for profits. He proves that this theorem is logically false. However, Marx himself never argued that surplus labour was a sufficient condition for profits, only an ultimate necessary condition (Morishima aimed to prove that,starting from the existence of profit expressed in price terms, we can deduct the existence of surplus value as a logical consequence). Five reasons were that: Analytical Marxism refers to a style of thinking about Marxism that was prominent amongst Anglophone philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s. ... John Roemer is an American economist and political scientist. ... In logic, the words necessary and sufficient describe relations that hold between propositions or states of affairs, if one is conditional on the other. ... In logic, the words necessary and sufficient describe relations that hold between propositions or states of affairs, if one is conditional on the other. ... Profit is what is gained, after costs are accounted for. ...

All that Marx really argued was that surplus labour was a necessary feature of the capitalist mode of production as a general social condition. If that surplus labour did not exist, other people could not appropriate that surplus labour or its products simply through their ownership of property. This page deals with property as ownership rights. ... The capitalist mode of production is a concept in Karl Marxâ€™s critique of political economy. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

In wealthy countries with a complex division of labour, it may become debatable what labour is really "necessary" and what labour forms a "surplus"; a large number of people can live off the labour of others e.g. through government benefits or the generosity of others, or some kind of "deal" unrelated to productive activity. Division of labour is the specialisation of cooperative labour in specific, circumscribed tasks and roles, intended to increase efficiency of output. ...

Also, the amount of unpaid, voluntary and housework labour performed outside the world of business and industry, as revealed by time use surveys, suggests to some feminists (e.g. Marilyn Waring and Maria Mies that Marxists may have overrated the importance of industrial surplus labour performed by salaried employees, because the very ability to perform that surplus-labour, i.e. the continual reproduction of labour power depends on all kinds of supports involving unremunerated work (for a theoretical discussion, see the reader by Bonnie Fox). In other words, work performed in households — often by those who do not sell their labour power to capitalist enterprises at all — contributes to the sustenance of capitalist workers who may perform little household labour. General A time use survey is a statistical survey which aims to report data on how, on average, people spend their time. ... Marilyn Waring (born 1952) is a renowned New Zealand feminist, an activist for female human rights, an author and an academic. ... Maria Mies is a professor of sociology and author of several influential feminist books, including Indian Women and Patriarchy (1980), Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale (1986), and (with Bennholdt-Thomsen and von Werlhof) Women: The Last Colony (1988). ... Labor power (in German: Arbeitskraft, or labor force) is a crucial concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. ...

Possibly the controversy about the concept is distorted by the enormous differences with regard to the world of work:

Countries differ greatly with respect to the way they organise and share out work, labour participation rates, and paid hours worked per year, as can be easily verified from ILO data (see also Rubery & Grimshaw's text). The general trend in the world division of labour is for hi-tech, financial and marketing services to be located in the richer countries, which hold most intellectual property rights and actual physical production to be located in low-wage countries. Effectively, Marxian economists argue, this means that the labour of workers in wealthy countries is valued higher than the labour of workers in poorer countries. However, they predict that in the long run of history, the operation of the law of value will tend to equalize the conditions of production and sales in different parts of the world.[5] The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with labour issues. ... Division of labour is the specialisation of cooperative labour in specific, circumscribed tasks and roles, intended to increase efficiency of output. ... In law, particularly in common law jurisdictions, intellectual property is a form of legal entitlement which allows its holder to control the use of certain intangible ideas and expressions. ... The law of value is a concept in Karl Marxs critique of political economy. ...

Another criticism of Marx's concept of surplus labor is that it ignores the investment by capitalists to purchase capital improvements, such as buildings, machinery, etc.^{[citation needed]} The worker, by himself, could not obtain all of the capital required for his position. Therefore, the capitalist enables the worker to produce more for himself, by giving him access to capital improvements. The capitalist is rewarded by a return on his capital investments, and is therefore encouraged to increase production, and ergo employment, again benefiting the worker.

References

Das Kapital (Capital, in the English translation) is an extensive treatise on political economy written by Karl Marx in German. ...

Contents

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