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’ve 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. 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 a new organization of 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...
Roosevelt's "New Deal" was. 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 destroys 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 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. Expresses a specifically capitalist form of exploitation, in which the surplus product takes the form of P.s. production and appropriation of P. s. constitutes the essence of the basic economic law of capitalism (See Basic Economic Law of Capitalism). “The production of surplus value or profit - this is the absolute law...” of the capitalist mode of production (K. Marx, see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 23, p. 632). 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. Chasing P. s. plays a major role in the development of productive forces under capitalism, determines and directs the development of production relations in capitalist society. The doctrine of social capital, which V.I. Lenin called “... the cornerstone of Marx’s economic theory” (Complete collection of works, 5th ed., vol. 23, p. 45), was first developed by Marx in 1857- 58, in the manuscript “Critique of Political Economy” (the original version of “Capital”), although certain provisions already existed in such works of the 40s. 19th century, as “Economic and philosophical manuscripts of 1844”, “The poverty of philosophy”, “Wage labor and capital”.
The prerequisite for the production of P. s. is the transformation of labor power (See Labor power) into a commodity. Only at a certain stage of development of society does the owner of money find on the market a worker free from the means of production, forced to sell his labor power. Consuming it is equivalent to creating new value. The central problem of the theory of P. s. is an explanation of the mechanism of capitalist exploitation on the basis of commodity-money relations prevailing in bourgeois society. The contradictory effect of this mechanism lies in the fact that the essentially unequal exchange of activity between worker and capitalist, between labor and capital, is actually carried out on the basis of the law of value, that is, on the basis of the exchange of equivalents - goods having the same Value (see Values law).
Study of the production process of P. s. K. Marx begins with an analysis of the general formula of capital ( D-T-D; Where D" b more D or D"=D+d),
which expresses the purchase of a product ( D-T) for its sale ( T-D")With for the purpose of increasing capital. Increase or excess value ( d) over the amount of money originally advanced ( D), put into circulation, Marx calls P. s. An increase in the initial amount of money due to the addition of P. s. makes them Capital om. Analysis of the general formula of capital shows that P. s. cannot arise from commodity circulation, which takes place on the basis of the law of value; on the other hand, if the owner of the money did not put it into circulation, then there could be no increase. Consequently, P. s. cannot arise outside of circulation. Marx showed that a capitalist, buying and selling goods at their value, still extracts from this process more value than what he invested in it. The sale of labor power to the capitalist occurs at its value, determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time during which it is reproduced. The capitalist acquires the use value of the commodity, labor power, which has “... the original property of being a source of value...” (K. Marx, see K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 23, p. 177). It is realized at the second stage of exchange between labor and capital—in the process of production, when a new value is created, containing price. The latter is defined by Marx as the difference between the value that living labor creates in the production process and that which the capitalist pays to the worker in the form of wages (See Wages) .
“Surplus value is nothing more than the excess of the amount of labor that the worker gives over the amount of materialized labor that he received in his own wages, as the value of his labor power” (ibid., vol. 47, p. 190-91). The worker's ability to work, and therefore the product of his labor, belongs to the capitalist. The law of value, as the law of exchange of equivalents, does not contradict the fact that the value created as a result of the expenditure of living labor exceeds the value of labor power. Really P.s. appears in the form of profit, which in the process of sale and distribution takes a number of forms: entrepreneurial income (See Entrepreneurial income) ,
assigned by industrial and commercial entrepreneurs, Percentage ,
appropriated by bankers, and land rent (See land rent) ,
received by land owners. All of these specific types of income have their own characteristics. What they have in common is that they have one source - the unpaid labor of workers. In the boundless desire to increase P.'s production of s. capitalists intensify the exploitation of wage workers in various ways. These methods correspond to two forms of P. s. - absolute and relative. Absolute P. s. is the result of lengthening the working day (See working day) beyond the necessary working time, during which the worker reproduces the value of his labor power. Its actual magnitude depends on the balance of class forces. Prompted by the greedy desire to increase the salary, capitalists are trying in every possible way to lengthen the limits of the working day. However, with the growth of organization, the working class, as a result of persistent struggle, managed to achieve a legislative limitation of the working day. Absolute P. s. also increases as a result of increased labor intensity (See Labor intensity) -
with a constant or even decreasing working day. Another way to increase the production of P. s. is a reduction in necessary and a corresponding increase in surplus working time with a constant length of the working day. This method corresponds to relative P. s. The reduction in required working time is associated primarily with an increase in labor productivity in industries that produce the means of subsistence of the worker, because This ultimately leads to lower labor costs. And this, in turn, leads to a reduction in necessary and, accordingly, an increase in surplus labor time in all sectors of capitalist production. A type of relative value is excess income, appropriated by individual capitalists at their enterprises as a result of a decrease in the individual value of a product compared to its social value. Excessive P. s. is not associated with a decrease in labor costs. Its source is the higher labor productivity of workers at technically more advanced enterprises compared to the average level of productivity for a given industry. Excessive P. s. is temporary in nature, because As new equipment and technology spread to other enterprises in the corresponding industry, the social value of goods decreases and the difference between the individual and social value of goods disappears. However, the fleeting nature of excess P. s. does not mean that it disappears completely. It simply passes from one capitalist to another. The struggle to obtain it is the main incentive for intra-industry competition (See Intra-industry competition).
The development of capitalism is characterized by a steady increase in the norm of social security, which represents the ratio of the entire mass of social security. to variable capital or surplus labor time to the necessary, expressed as a percentage m’ - the rate of labor with ., m - mass of P. s., υ -
variable capital. Between the norm and P.'s mass. there is a functional connection. If the norm P. s. reflects the degree of exploitation of the working class, then the mass is the absolute value of P. s. ( m) and is equal to the value of the advanced variable capital (υ) multiplied by the rate of P. s. ( m").
Marx noted that “... the rate of surplus value is the exact expression of the degree of exploitation of labor power by capital, or the worker by the capitalist” (ibid., vol. 23, p. 229). According to his calculations, in the mid-19th century. it was approximately 100%. Norma P. s. in the factory industry of Russia in 1908 exceeded 100% (see V.I. Lenin, Complete collection of works, 5th ed., vol. 22, pp. 24-25). According to the calculations of Marxist researchers, the norm of P. s. in the US manufacturing industry was in %: 115 (1966, V. Perlo, USA), 118-120 (1955, V. M. Kudrov and S. M. Nikitin, USSR), 192 (1958, E. S. Varga, USSR), 312 (1969, S. L. Vygodsky, USSR), 397 (1957, A. I. Kats, USSR), 1187 (1965-69, Y. Kuchinsky, GDR). Fluctuations in the value of the norm P. s. are explained by differences in the calculation methodology used. But all these calculations indicate an increase in the norm of P. s. with the development of capitalism. In this case, one should keep in mind the influence of such counteracting factors as the struggle of the working class, rising labor costs, the struggle of two systems, etc. Marx noted that a possible improvement “... in the worker’s living situation does not change anything in the nature and law of relative surplus value, does not change anything in the fact that as a result of increased labor productivity, an increasingly significant part of the working day is appropriated by capital. This shows all the absurdity of attempts to refute this law by selecting statistical calculations to prove that the financial situation of the worker... has improved... as a result of the development of the productive power of labor" (Marx K. and Engels F., Works, 2nd ed., volume 47, p. 279). Theory of P. s. Marx made it possible to reveal the inconsistency of bourgeois apologetic theories of profit. Many of the “concepts” opposed by modern bourgeois economists to the theory of P. s. Marx, are essentially modernized versions of the theory of income formulated by the French economist J. B. Say (See Say) ,
then adopted by the British by J. Mill (See Mill) ,
J.R. McCulloch and N. Senior. Representatives of vulgar political economy (See Vulgar Political Economy) set out to refute the main thing in the economic theory of Marxism - the doctrine of social security, since it is precisely this that reveals the essence and mechanism of capitalist exploitation and equips the working class with a scientific understanding of its historical mission. American economist J.B. Clark
tried to “deepen” Say’s theory of three factors. Believing that the distribution of the social product is carried out in accordance with the contribution of each of the factors of production (labor, capital, land) to national income, he created the theory of marginal productivity (see Productivity theory).
The doctrine of P. s. allowed Marx to formulate the basic economic law of movement of capitalist society, to reveal the objective trends of its development, and gave the key to understanding the capitalist mode of production. Since the appropriation by the capitalist class of property created by the working class occurs in accordance with the internal laws of the capitalist mode of production, and above all with the law of value, capitalist exploitation follows from the very essence of capitalist production relations. Consequently, the liberation of the working class from “wage slavery” is impossible within the framework of the bourgeois system; This requires a socialist revolution. At the same time, the gigantic development of the productive forces, which is accompanied by the increased exploitation of labor by capital, also means the creation and accumulation of material prerequisites that determine the possibility of a socialist revolution. Thus, from the theory of P. s. The conclusion immediately follows about the irreconcilability of class contradictions between capital and wage labor. Lit.: Marx K., Capital, vol. 1-3, Marx K. and Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 23-25, part 1-2; his, Theory of Surplus Value (IV volume of “Capital”), ibid., vol. 26, parts 1-3; Engels F., Anti-Dühring, ibid., vol. 20, p. 25-27, 208-27; Lenin V.I., Three sources and three components of Marxism, Complete. collection cit., 5th ed., vol. 23, p. 44-46; him, Karl Marx, ibid., vol. 26, p. 63-73; Varga E., Essays on the problems of the political economy of capitalism, M., 1964, p. 113-16; Leontyev L. A., “Capital” by K. Marx and the modern era, M., 1968, pp. 68-122; Vygodsky S. L., Modern capitalism. (Experience in theoretical analysis), M., 1969, p. 240-49; Political economy of modern monopoly capitalism, vol. 1-2, M., 1970; Kuchinsky Yu., The Law of Surplus Value under Imperialism, “Problems of Peace and Socialism”, 1973, No. 11. V. S. Vygodsky. Great Soviet Encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia.
1969-1978
.
See what “Added Value” is in other dictionaries:
- (surplus value) Key concept of Marxist theory. Refers to the surplus labor (S) expended by the worker in excess of the necessary labor or variable capital (V) required to satisfy the basic needs of life. The relationship between... ... Political science. Dictionary.
- (surplus value) The excess of the value produced by the labor of workers over the received or wages. As Karl Marx pointed out, surplus value is necessary in order to invest or have unproductive workers... ... Economic dictionary
- (surplus value) The excess of the value produced by the labor of workers over the wages they received. Occupying a key position in Marxist economics, the concept of surplus value is the basis for... ... Dictionary of business terms
According to Marx, the difference between the value of the product of labor and wages. Surplus value, which is the profit of the entrepreneur, arises due to the fact that the worker works more time than is necessary for production... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
In the labor theory of value, part of the value of goods produced in capitalist enterprises, which is created by the unpaid labor of hired workers in excess of the cost of their labor power and is appropriated free of charge by the capitalists... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
SURPLUS VALUE- (surplus value) (Marxism) – the difference between the value of capital at the beginning of the capitalist production process and the additional value of the goods produced. According to Marx, the source of the latter is the labor force hired by the capitalist.... ... Large explanatory sociological dictionary
Surplus value is the amount of profit that is created by an employee by exceeding the cost of his own labor. In this case, the products produced, as well as the time spent, are appropriated free of charge by the employer. This term expresses a specific form of exploitation that fully corresponds to the basic principles of capitalism. However, such a concept can illustrate not only the relationship between employee and employer, but also between various groups of the so-called bourgeoisie, for example, landowners and industrialists, bankers and merchants. Surplus value, as well as ways to increase it, can play a significant role in effective development and the transformation of labor into goods or services is considered to be the prerequisite for the appearance of the above term. After all, only at a certain stage in the formation of society could an employer find an employee who was independent of the hired employee.
The source of surplus value may vary in form. There are absolute, redundant and relative groups. The first is achieved by increasing the time of work or by achieving a higher intensity. The second is obtained by increasing the productivity of each individual relative to the average level. The third form in which surplus value can be represented is obtained as a result of a decrease in the share of labor resource costs. Such categories are historically established and fully characterize ways to increase this parameter. However, despite a sufficient number of differences, all these methods have one important common factor - the source is invariably unpaid
The rate of surplus value is the ratio of the mass of all surplus value to the cost of the labor expended necessary for its production. Thus, the above concept can be described as the degree to which one person is exploited by another.
The theory of surplus value is limited by both theoretical arguments and historical facts. The latter were played by the history of the formation and development of states, and the forms of economic structure of society, for example, marginalism and neoclassicism.
Let us also consider the production process, as a result of which surplus value can be obtained. Having acquired labor power, the employer can begin to organize it in such a way that the daily employee not only creates value in an amount equivalent to his labor expended, but also the value that will subsequently become his wages. The latter is considered a component unpaid by the entrepreneur. Therefore, it is surplus value.
The theory of surplus value, developed by K. Marx, revealed the brutal exploitation of the working class by the bourgeoisie. She revealed the antagonism of two classes - the enslaved and the enslaver. The theory of surplus value was based on the labor value of the classical political economy of W. Petty, A. Smith and D. Ricardo.
1. Added value Methodology for analyzing added value
Considering the theory of surplus value, let us first of all pay attention to two decisive methodological techniques of Marx, with the help of which he was able to reveal the relations of exploitation.
The first is associated with the introduction of the concepts of concrete and abstract labor. And the point is not in the terms themselves, because these categories were already known: they were introduced into scientific circulation by G. Hegel. From the previously presented material on the labor theory of value, we already know the content of these categories, so there is no point in dwelling on their disclosure again.
The second important methodological technique was the distinction between two categories: labor and labor power. Based precisely on the fact that the hired worker sells labor power, and the entrepreneur, having bought it, begins to use its function - labor, K. Marx was able to identify the source of creating value that exceeds the cost of labor power - unpaid labor. Moreover, labor power, along with other parts of capital, becomes the property of the capitalist during the hiring period.
Working day and its components
Let's consider the process of creating surplus value. Having purchased labor, the entrepreneur organizes the production process. Suppose the working day is 7 hours. However, during 5 hours of his labor, the worker creates value equal to the value of his labor power, i.e. during this time he creates value equivalent to his wages. By continuing to work for another 2 hours, he creates additional value to the cost of his labor, which is not paid by the entrepreneur. This value is called surplus value. The time during which an employee creates value equivalent to the value of labor power is called necessary labor time. The time during which a hired worker creates surplus value is called surplus labor time. This is shown graphically in Fig. 7.1.
Rice. 7.1. Working day and its components
Labor expended during necessary labor time is called necessary labor, and during surplus labor time is called surplus labor. Labor throughout the working day is embodied in created goods, use values and values. Here we consider only the living labor of the hired worker, which materializes in use values and is embodied in their values.
2. The process of creating surplus value
Let us consider the process of creating surplus value as part of the cost of a product, taking into account the entrepreneur’s costs for purchasing means of production and hiring labor as costs for constant and variable capital, respectively. In this case, the cost of the product can be represented as a formula
where W is the cost of the goods; C - costs of constant capital; V - costs of variable capital; m - added value - excess value, or surplus value.
To begin the production process, the entrepreneur advances the costs of purchasing the means of production (C) and hiring labor (V).
Consequently, the advanced capital (K av) will consist of constant and variable capital K av = C + V.
Constant capital is that part of the advanced capital that is spent on the acquisition of means of production and which does not change the value of its value during the production process, i.e. remains unchanged. In the production process, constant capital (the cost of the means of production) is only transferred to the newly created product, a new use value.
Variable capital is that part of the advanced capital that is spent on acquiring labor power (hiring a worker) and which changes the value of its value during the production process. The point is that in the labor market, an entrepreneur and an employee meet as two equal counterparties who make a hiring transaction, i.e. purchase and sale of goods - labor.
The cost of labor is determined by the cost of vital material and intangible goods necessary for its reproduction. Reproduction of the workforce means not only the constant maintenance of the worker in working condition and providing him with the necessary benefits to improve his workforce, determined by production needs, but also the reproduction of offspring as an indispensable condition for the continuation of economic activity in the future. Consequently, the cost of labor includes the means necessary to support the family.
As a result of a transaction on the labor market, an employee sells his labor power to an entrepreneur. The cost of labor power, expressed in money, is called the price of labor power, which appears in the form of wages. From the employee’s point of view, wages are income; from the entrepreneur’s point of view, they are considered costs.
for the purchase of labor, or for variable capital. Having received at his disposal the necessary means of production and labor, the entrepreneur organizes the production process, in which the function of labor is already used, i.e. not the ability to work, but the work itself. During the working day, a worker can create with his labor not only a value equivalent to the cost of labor, but also an additional value - super-value, or surplus value, which is appropriated by the entrepreneur free of charge. Thus, we can conclude that the entrepreneur, having advanced the costs of variable capital (labor), at the end of the working day receives products that embody not only the cost of labor (V), but also surplus value (m).
With the transition from manufacture to large-scale machine industry, the capitalist mode of production became dominant. In industry, instead of craft workshops and manufactories based on manual labor, factories and factories appeared in which labor is armed with complex machines. Large capitalist economies began to emerge in agriculture, using agricultural technology and agricultural machinery. New technology has grown, new productive forces have emerged, and new, capitalist relations of production have taken a dominant position. The study of the production relations of capitalist society in their emergence, development and decline constitutes the main content of Marx's Capital.
The basis of production relations in bourgeois society is capitalist ownership of the means of production. Capitalist property the means of production are the unearned private property of capitalists, used for the exploitation of wage workers. According to Marx’s classic description, “the capitalist mode of production rests on the fact that the material conditions of production in the form of ownership of capital and ownership of land are in the hands of non-workers, while the masses have only the personal condition of production - labor power.”
Capitalist production is based on wage labor. Hired workers are free from the bonds of serfdom. But they are deprived of the means of production and, under the threat of starvation, are forced to sell their labor power to the capitalists. The exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie is the main feature of capitalism, and the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat represents the basic class relationship of the capitalist system.
In countries where the capitalist mode of production dominates, along with capitalist relations, more or less significant remnants of pre-capitalist forms of economy are preserved. There is no “pure capitalism” in any country. In addition to capitalist property in bourgeois countries, there is large-scale land ownership of landowners, as well as small private property of simple commodity producers - peasants and artisans who live by their own labor. Small production plays a subordinate role under capitalism. The mass of small commodity producers in town and country are exploited by capitalists and landowners - owners of factories, banks, trading enterprises, and land.
The capitalist mode of production goes through two stages in its development: pre-monopoly and monopoly. The general economic laws of capitalism operate at both stages of its development. Along with this, monopoly capitalism is distinguished by a number of significant features, which will be discussed later.
Let us move on to consider the essence of capitalist exploitation.
Transforming money into capital. Labor power as a commodity.
Each capital begins its journey in the form of a certain amount of money. Money itself is not capital. When, for example, independent small commodity producers exchange goods, money acts as a medium of exchange, but it does not serve as capital. The formula for commodity circulation is: T(product) - D(money) - T(product), that is, the sale of one product to buy another. Money becomes capital when it is used to exploit the labor of others. The general formula for capital is D – T – D, that is, buying for sale for the purpose of enrichment.
Formula T – D – T means that one use value is exchanged for another: the commodity producer gives away a product that he does not need and receives in exchange another product that he needs for consumption. On the contrary, with the formula D – T – D the starting and ending points of the movement coincide: at the beginning of the journey the capitalist had money, and at the end of the journey he ends up with money. The movement of capital would be pointless if at the end of the operation the capitalist had the same amount of money as he had at the beginning. The whole point of a capitalist's activity is that as a result of the operation he ends up with more money than he had at the beginning. Therefore, the general formula of capital in its complete form is as follows: D – T – D", Where D" denotes an increased amount of money.
The capital advanced by the capitalist, that is, put into circulation by him, returns to its owner with a certain increase. This increase in capital is the goal of its owner.
Where does capital gain come from? Bourgeois economists, trying to hide the real source of the capitalists' enrichment, often claim that this increase arises from commodity circulation. This assertion is untenable. Indeed. If goods and money of equal value are exchanged, that is, equivalents, none of the commodity owners can extract from circulation more value than that which is embodied in his product. If sellers manage to sell their goods above their cost, say, by 10%, then, when they become buyers, they must overpay the same 10% to the sellers. Thus, what commodity owners gain as sellers, they lose as buyers. Meanwhile, in reality, capital gains occur for the entire capitalist class. Obviously, the owner of money, who has become a capitalist, must find on the market a product that, when consumed, creates value, and moreover, greater than that which he himself possesses. In other words, the owner of money must find on the market a commodity whose very use value would have the property of being a source of value. Such a commodity is labor power.
Work force is the totality of physical and spiritual abilities that a person has and which he puts into action when he produces material goods. In any form of society, labor is a necessary element of production. But only under capitalism does labor become goods.
Capitalism there is commodity production at the highest stage of its development, when labor power becomes a commodity. With the transformation of labor power into commodities, commodity production takes on general character. Capitalist production is based on wage labor, and the hiring of a worker by a capitalist is nothing more than the purchase and sale of goods: labor power: the worker sells his labor power, the capitalist buys it.
Having hired a worker, the capitalist has his labor power at his complete disposal. The capitalist uses this labor power in the process of capitalist production, in which the growth of capital occurs.
Cost and use value of labor power. The law of surplus value is the fundamental law of capitalism.
Like any other product, labor power is sold at a certain price, which is based on the cost of this product. What is this cost?
In order for a worker to maintain the ability to work, he must satisfy his food needs; clothes, shoes, housing. Satisfying the necessary needs of life is the restoration of the worker’s expended vital energy - muscular, nervous, brain, and the restoration of his working capacity. Further, capital needs a continuous supply of labor; as a result, the worker must be able to support not only himself, but also his family. This ensures reproduction, that is, constant renewal, of the labor force. Finally, capital needs not only untrained, but also skilled workers who can handle complex machines, and obtaining qualifications is associated with certain labor costs for training. Therefore, the costs of production and reproduction of labor also include a certain minimum cost of training the younger generations of the working class.
From all this it follows that cost of goods labor equal to the cost of the means of subsistence necessary to support the worker and his family. “The cost of labor power, like any other commodity, is determined by the labor time necessary for the production, and therefore the reproduction, of this specific item of trade.”
With the course of historical development of society, both the level of the worker’s usual needs and the means of satisfying these needs change. The level of the worker's usual needs varies from country to country. The peculiarities of the historical path traversed by a given country and the conditions in which the class of wage workers was formed largely determine the nature of its needs. Climatic and other natural conditions also have a certain influence on the worker’s needs for food, clothing, and housing. The cost of labor power includes not only the cost of consumer goods necessary to restore a person’s physical strength, but also the costs of satisfying the cultural needs of the worker and his family (educating children, buying newspapers, books, visiting the cinema, theater, etc.). Capitalists always and everywhere strive to reduce the material and cultural conditions of life of the working class to the lowest level.
Getting down to business, the capitalist purchases everything necessary for production: buildings, machines, equipment, raw materials, fuel. He then hires workers and the production process begins at the enterprise. When the goods are ready, the capitalist sells them. The cost of the finished product includes: firstly, the cost of the spent means of production - processed raw materials, consumed fuel, a certain part of the cost of buildings, machinery and tools; secondly, the new value created by the labor of workers at a given enterprise.
What is this new value?
Let us assume that an hour of simple average labor creates a value equal to $1, and the daily value of labor is equal to $6. In this case, to recover the daily cost of his labor power, the worker must work for 6 hours. But the capitalist bought labor for the whole day, and he forces the proletarian to work not for 6 hours, but for a whole working day, which lasts, let’s say, 12 hours. During these 12 hours the worker creates value equal to 12 dollars, while the value of his labor power is equal to 6 dollars.
Now we see what the specific use value of the commodity, labor power, is for the buyer of this commodity - the capitalist. Use value of goods labor power there is its property of being a source of value, and, moreover, of greater value than it itself has.
The value of labor power and the value created in the process of its consumption are two different quantities. The difference between these two quantities is a necessary precondition for capitalist exploitation. The capitalist mode of production presupposes a relatively high level of labor productivity - in which the worker needs only part of the working day to create value equal to the value of his labor power.
In our example, the capitalist, having spent $6 on hiring a worker, receives the value created by the worker’s labor equal to $12. The capitalist returns to himself the originally advanced capital with an increment or surplus equal to $6. This increment constitutes surplus value.
Surplus value is the value created by the labor of a wage worker in excess of the value of his labor power and appropriated free of charge by the capitalist. Thus, surplus value is the result of the unpaid labor of the worker.
The working day in a capitalist enterprise is divided into two parts: necessary labor time and surplus labor time, and the labor of a wage worker is divided into necessary and surplus labor. During the necessary labor time, the worker reproduces the value of his labor power, and during the surplus labor time he creates surplus value.
The labor of a worker under capitalism is the process of the capitalist consuming the commodity labor power, or the process of the capitalist squeezing surplus value from the worker. The labor process under capitalism is characterized by two fundamental features. First, the worker works under the control of the capitalist, who owns the worker's labor. Secondly, the capitalist owns not only the labor of the worker, but also the product of this labor. These features of the labor process turn the labor of a hired worker into a heavy and hateful burden.
The immediate goal of capitalist production is the production of surplus value. In accordance with this, productive labor under capitalism is only that labor that creates surplus value. If the worker does not create surplus value, his labor is unproductive labor unnecessary for capital.
Unlike previous forms of exploitation - slave and feudal - capitalist exploitation is disguised. When a wage worker sells his labor power to a capitalist, this transaction at first glance appears to be an ordinary transaction between commodity owners, an ordinary exchange of goods for money, carried out in full accordance with the law of value. However, the purchase and sale transaction of labor power is only an external form, behind which the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist, the appropriation by the entrepreneur without any equivalent of the unpaid labor of the worker, is hidden.
In clarifying the essence of capitalist exploitation, we assume that the capitalist, when hiring a worker, pays him the full value of his labor power - in strict accordance with the law of value. Later, when considering wages, it will be shown that, unlike the prices of other goods, the price of labor power, as a rule, deviates down from its cost. This further increases the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class.
Capitalism gives the wage worker the opportunity to work and, therefore, live, only insofar as he works for a certain amount of time for nothing for the capitalist. Having left one capitalist enterprise, the worker, in the most favorable case for him, ends up in another capitalist enterprise, where he is subjected to the same exploitation. Exposing the system of wage labor as a system of wage slavery, Marx pointed out that the Roman slave was chained, and the wage worker was tied by invisible threads to his owner. This owner is the capitalist class as a whole.
The basic economic law of capitalism is the law of surplus value. Describing capitalism, Marx wrote: “The production of surplus value or profit is the absolute law of this mode of production.” This law determines the essence of capitalist production.
The surplus value created by the unpaid labor of wage workers represents the common source of unearned income of the entire bourgeois class. On the basis of the distribution of surplus value, certain relations develop between various groups of the bourgeoisie: industrialists, traders, bankers, as well as between the capitalist class and the landowning class.
The pursuit of surplus value plays a major role in the development of productive forces under capitalism. None of the previous forms of exploitative system - neither slavery nor feudalism - had such a force to drive the growth of technology. Under the social order that preceded capitalism, technology developed extremely slowly. Capital, in pursuit of surplus value, produced a radical revolution in previous methods of production - the industrial revolution, which gave rise to large-scale machine industry.
Lenin called the doctrine of surplus value the cornerstone of Marx's economic theory. Having identified the source of exploitation of the working class, surplus value, Marx gave the working class a spiritual weapon to overthrow capitalism. Having revealed the essence of capitalist exploitation in his doctrine of surplus value, Marx dealt a mortal blow to bourgeois political economy and its assertions about the harmony of class interests under capitalism.
Capital as a social relation of production. Constant and variable capital.
Bourgeois economists declare every instrument of labor, every means of production, capital, starting from the stone and stick of primitive man. This definition of capital aims to obscure the essence of the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist, to present capital in the form of an eternal and unchanging condition for the existence of any human society.
In fact, the stone and stick of primitive man served him as tools of labor, but were not capital. The tools and raw materials of a craftsman, implements, seeds and draft animals of a peasant running an economy based on personal labor are also not capital. The means of production become capital only at a certain stage of historical development, when they are the private property of the capitalist and serve as a means of exploitation of wage labor.
Capital there is a value that - through the exploitation of wage workers - brings surplus value. As Marx put it, capital is “dead labor, which, like a vampire, comes to life only when it absorbs living labor and lives the more fully the more living labor it absorbs.” Capital embodies the production relationship between the capitalist class and the working class, which consists in the fact that capitalists, as owners of the means and conditions of production, exploit wage workers who create surplus value for them. This production relation, like all other production relations of capitalist society, takes the form of a relation between things and is presented as the property of the things themselves - the means of production - to generate income for the capitalist.
This is fetishism of capital: under the capitalist mode of production, a deceptive appearance is created that the means of production (or a certain amount of money with which one can buy the means of production) themselves have the miraculous ability to provide their owner with regular unearned income.
Different parts of capital play different roles in the process of producing surplus value.
The entrepreneur spends a certain part of the capital on the construction of a factory building, on the purchase of equipment and machinery, on the purchase of raw materials, fuel, and auxiliary materials. The value of this part of the capital is transferred to the newly produced goods as the means of production are consumed or worn out in the labor process. The part of capital that exists in the form of the value of the means of production does not change its value during the production process and is therefore called permanent capital.
The entrepreneur spends the other part of the capital on purchasing labor - hiring workers. In return for this part of the capital expended, the entrepreneur, at the end of the production process, receives new value, which is produced by the workers in his enterprise. This new value, as we have seen, is greater than the value of labor power purchased by the capitalist. Thus, the part of capital spent on the wages of workers changes its value during the production process: it increases as a result of the creation by workers of surplus value appropriated by the capitalist. The part of capital that is spent on the purchase of labor power (that is, on the wages of workers) and increases in the production process is called variables capital.
Marx denotes constant capital with the Latin letter With, and variable capital - the letter v. The division of capital into constant and variable parts was first established by Marx. Through this division, the special role of variable capital used to purchase labor power was revealed. The exploitation of wage workers by capitalists is the real source of surplus value.
The discovery of the dual nature of labor embodied in a commodity served Marx as the key to establishing the difference between constant and variable capital and to revealing the essence of capitalist exploitation. Marx showed that the worker, through his labor, simultaneously creates new value and transfers the value of the means of production to the goods produced. As specific concrete labor, the labor of a worker transfers the value of the spent means of production to the product, and as abstract labor, as the expenditure of labor power in general, the labor of the same worker creates new value. These two aspects of the labor process differ very tangibly. For example, if labor productivity in a given industry doubles, the spinner will transfer twice the cost of the means of production to the product during the working day (since he will process double the mass of cotton), but he will create the same amount of new value as before.
Rate of surplus value.
Capital did not invent surplus labor. Wherever society consists of exploiters and exploited, the ruling class sucks surplus labor from the exploited classes. But unlike the slave owner and the feudal lord, who, under the dominance of a natural economy, turned the overwhelming part of the product of the surplus labor of slaves and serfs into the direct satisfaction of their needs and whims, the capitalist converts the entire product of the surplus labor of hired workers into money. The capitalist spends part of this money on the purchase of consumer goods and luxury goods, while he puts the other part of the money back into business as additional capital, bringing in new surplus value. Therefore, capital reveals, as Marx put it, a truly wolfish greed for surplus labor. The degree of exploitation of the worker by the capitalist is expressed in the rate of surplus value.
The norm of surplus value is the ratio of surplus value to variable capital, expressed as a percentage. The rate of surplus value shows in what proportion the labor expended by workers is divided into necessary and surplus labor, in other words, what part of the working day the proletarian spends on replacing the cost of his labor power and what part of the working day he works for free for the capitalist. Marx denotes surplus value with the Latin letter m, and the rate of surplus value is m". In the above case, the rate of surplus value, expressed as a percentage, is:
The rate of surplus value here is 100%. This means that in this case the worker’s labor is divided equally into necessary and surplus labor. With the development of capitalism, there is an increase in the rate of surplus value, expressing an increase in the degree of exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Grows even faster weight surplus value, as the number of wage workers exploited by capital increases.
In the article “Workers' Earnings and Capitalists' Profits in Russia,” written in 1912, Lenin provided the following calculation showing the degree of exploitation of the proletariat in pre-revolutionary Russia. According to the results of an official survey of factories and factories, carried out in 1908 and which undoubtedly gave exaggerated figures about the size of workers’ earnings and understated figures about the size of capitalists’ profits, the wages of workers were 555.7 million rubles, and the profits of capitalists were 568.7 million rubles . The total number of workers surveyed at large manufacturing enterprises was 2,254 thousand people. Thus, the average wage of a worker was 246 rubles per year, and each worker brought an average of 252 rubles of profit per year to the capitalist.
Thus, in tsarist Russia, a worker worked for himself for less than half of the day, and for the capitalist for more than half of the day.
Two ways to increase the degree of exploitation. Absolute and relative surplus value.
Every capitalist strives in every possible way to increase the share of surplus labor squeezed out of the worker. An increase in surplus value is achieved in two main ways.
Let us take for example a working day of 12 hours, of which 6 hours are necessary and 6 hours are surplus labor. Let us depict this working day as a line on which each division is equal to one hour.
The first way to increase the degree of exploitation of the worker is that the capitalist increases the surplus value he receives by lengthening the entire working day, say, by 2 hours. In this case, the working day will look like this:
The amount of surplus working time increased due to absolute lengthening the working day as a whole, while the required working time remained unchanged. The surplus value produced by lengthening the working day is called absolute surplus value.
The second way of increasing the degree of exploitation of the worker is that, while the total length of the working day remains unchanged, the surplus value received by the capitalist increases due to a reduction in the necessary working time. An increase in labor productivity in industries that produce consumer goods for workers, as well as delivering tools and materials for the production of these consumer goods, leads to a reduction in the working time required for their production. As a result, the cost of workers' livelihoods decreases and the cost of labor power decreases accordingly. If previously it took 6 hours to produce a worker’s means of subsistence, now, let’s say, only 4 hours are spent. In this case, the working day will look like this:
The length of the working day remained unchanged, but the amount of surplus working time increased due to the fact that attitude between necessary and surplus labor time. The surplus value arising as a result of a decrease in necessary labor time and a corresponding increase in surplus labor time is called relative surplus value.
The two methods of increasing surplus value play different roles at different stages of the historical development of capitalism. In the manufacturing period, when technology was low and moved forward relatively slowly, the increase in absolute surplus value was of primary importance. With the further development of capitalism, in the machine period, when highly developed technology makes it possible to quickly increase labor productivity, capitalists achieve a huge increase in the degree of exploitation of workers, primarily due to the growth of relative surplus value. At the same time, they continue to strive in every possible way to lengthen the working day and, in particular, to increase the intensity of labor. Intensifying the labor of workers has the same meaning for the capitalist as lengthening the working day: lengthening the working day from 10 to 11 hours or increasing the intensity of labor by one tenth gives him the same result.
The working day and its boundaries. The fight to shorten the working day.
In pursuit of increasing the rate of surplus value, capitalists strive to lengthen the working day to the extreme. During the working day is the time of day during which the worker is at the enterprise at the disposal of the capitalist. If it were possible, the entrepreneur would force his workers to work 24 hours a day. However, during a certain part of the day, a person must restore his strength, rest, sleep, and eat. These are given purely physical boundaries working day. In addition, the working day also has moral boundaries since the worker needs time to satisfy his cultural and social needs.
Capital, showing an insatiable greed for surplus labor, does not want to take into account not only the moral, but also the purely physical boundaries of the working day. As Marx put it, capital is merciless towards the life and health of the worker. Predatory exploitation of labor reduces the life expectancy of the proletarian and leads to an extraordinary increase in mortality among the working population.
During the emergence of capitalism, state power issued special laws in the interests of the bourgeoisie in order to force hired workers to work as many hours as possible. Then technology remained at a low level, the masses of peasants and artisans could work independently, and as a result capital did not have an excess of workers at its disposal. The situation changed with the spread of machine production and the growing proletarianization of the population. Capital had enough workers at its disposal who, under the threat of starvation, were forced into servitude to the capitalists. There was no longer any need for state laws lengthening the working day. Capital gained the opportunity, through economic coercion, to extend working time to extreme limits. Under these conditions, the working class began a stubborn struggle to shorten the working day. This struggle took place first in England.
As a result of a long struggle, English workers achieved the publication of a factory law in 1833, which limited the work of children under 13 years of age to 8 hours and the work of adolescents from 13 to 18 years old to 12 hours. In 1844, the first law was passed limiting women's work to 12 hours. In most cases, child and female labor was used alongside male labor. Therefore, in enterprises covered by factory legislation, a 12-hour working day began to apply to all workers. By law of 1847, the work of adolescents and women was limited to 10 hours. These restrictions, however, did not affect all sectors of wage labor. A 1901 law limited the working day of adult workers to 12 hours.
As worker resistance grew, laws limiting working hours began to appear in other capitalist countries. After the publication of each such law, the workers had to wage a relentless struggle to implement it.
A particularly persistent struggle for a legal limitation of working hours unfolded after the working class put forward as its rallying cry the demand eight hour working day. This demand was proclaimed in 1866 by the Labor Congress in America and the Congress of the First International at the suggestion of Marx. The struggle for the eight-hour working day became an integral part of not only the economic, but also the political struggle of the proletariat.
In Tsarist Russia, the first factory laws appeared at the end of the 19th century. After the famous strikes of the St. Petersburg proletariat, the law of 1897 limited the working day to 11 1/2 hours. This law was, according to Lenin, a forced concession won by Russian workers from the tsarist government.
On the eve of the First World War, the 10-12 hour working day prevailed in most capitalistically developed countries. In 1919, under the influence of the bourgeoisie’s fear of the growth of the revolutionary movement, representatives of a number of capitalist countries concluded an agreement in Washington on the introduction of an 8-hour working day on an international scale, but then all major capitalist states refused to approve this agreement. In capitalist countries, along with the exhausting intensity of work, there are long working hours, especially in the arms industry. In Japan, on the eve of the Second World War, the law established a 12-hour working day for workers over 16 years of age, but in fact in a number of industries the working day reached 15–16 hours. Exorbitantly long working hours are the lot of the proletariat in colonial and dependent countries.
Excess surplus value.
A type of relative surplus value is excess surplus value. It occurs in cases where individual capitalists introduce machines and methods of production that are more advanced than those used in most enterprises in the same industry. In this way, an individual capitalist achieves higher labor productivity in his enterprise compared to the average level existing in a given branch of production. As a result, the individual value of the commodity produced in the enterprise of a given capitalist turns out to be lower than the social value of this commodity. Since the price of a commodity is determined by its social value, the capitalist receives a higher rate of surplus value compared to the usual rate.
Let's take the following example. Suppose that in a tobacco factory a worker produces a thousand cigarettes per hour and works 12 hours, of which in 6 hours he creates value equal to the value of his labor power. If a machine is introduced into a factory that doubles labor productivity, then the worker, working as before for 12 hours, no longer produces 12 thousand, but 24 thousand cigarettes. The worker’s wages are compensated by part of the newly created value, embodied (minus the value of the transferred part of constant capital) in 6 thousand cigarettes, that is, in the product of 3 hours. The share of the manufacturer remains with the other part of the newly created value, embodied (minus the value of the transferred part of the constant capital) in 18 thousand cigarettes, that is, in the product of 9 hours.
Thus, there is a reduction in necessary working time and a corresponding extension of surplus working time. The worker recovers the cost of his labor power no longer within 6 hours, but within 3 hours; his surplus labor increased from 6 hours to 9 hours. The rate of surplus value increased 3 times.
Excess surplus value there is a surplus of surplus value above the usual rate obtained by individual capitalists who, with the help of more advanced machines or methods of production, achieve in their enterprises a higher productivity of labor compared to the productivity of labor in most enterprises of the same industry.
Obtaining excess surplus value is only a temporary phenomenon in each individual enterprise. Sooner or later, most entrepreneurs in the same industry introduce new machines, and those who do not have sufficient capital for this are ruined by competition. As a result of this, the time socially necessary for the production of a given commodity decreases, the value of the commodity decreases, and the capitalist, who was the first to apply technical improvements, ceases to receive excess surplus value. However, disappearing at one enterprise, excess surplus value appears at another, where new, even more advanced machines are introduced.
Every capitalist strives only for his own enrichment. But the end result of the isolated actions of individual entrepreneurs is the growth of technology, the development of the productive forces of capitalist society. At the same time, the pursuit of surplus value encourages every capitalist to protect his technical achievements from competitors and gives rise to trade secrets and technological secrets. Thus, it turns out that capitalism sets certain limits for the development of productive forces.
The development of productive forces under capitalism occurs in a contradictory form. Capitalists use new machines only when this leads to an increase in surplus value. The introduction of new machines serves as the basis for a comprehensive increase in the degree of exploitation of the proletariat, lengthening the working day and increasing the intensity of labor; The progress of technology is carried out at the cost of innumerable sacrifices and deprivations of many generations of the working class. Thus, capitalism treats in the most predatory manner the main productive force of society - the working class, the working masses.
The class structure of capitalist society. Bourgeois state.
Pre-capitalist methods of production were characterized by the division of society into various classes and estates, which created a complex hierarchical structure of society. The bourgeois era simplified class contradictions and replaced various forms of hereditary privilege and personal dependence with the impersonal power of money and the unlimited despotism of capital. Under the capitalist mode of production, society is increasingly split into two large hostile camps, into two opposing classes - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
Bourgeoisie there is a class that owns the means of production and uses them to exploit wage labor.
Proletariat there is a class of wage workers deprived of the means of production and, as a result, forced to sell their labor power to the capitalists. On the basis of machine production, capital completely subjugated wage labor. For the class of wage workers, the proletarian condition became a lifelong destiny. Due to its economic situation, the proletariat is the most revolutionary class.
The bourgeoisie and the proletariat are the main classes of capitalist society. As long as the capitalist mode of production exists, these two classes are inextricably linked: the bourgeoisie cannot exist and get rich without exploiting wage workers; proletarians cannot live without being hired by the capitalists. At the same time, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are antagonistic classes whose interests are opposite and irreconcilably hostile. The ruling class of capitalist society is the bourgeoisie. The development of capitalism leads to a deepening of the gap between the exploiting minority and the exploited masses. The class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is the driving force of capitalist society.
In all bourgeois countries, a significant part of the population is the peasantry.
Peasantry There is a class of small producers who run their economy on the basis of private ownership of the means of production with the help of backward technology and manual labor. The bulk of the peasantry is mercilessly exploited by landowners, kulaks, merchants and moneylenders and is ruined. In the process of stratification, the peasantry continuously distinguishes from itself, on the one hand, the masses of proletarians and, on the other, kulaks and capitalists.
The capitalist state, which replaced the state of the feudal-serf era as a result of the bourgeois revolution, by its class essence is in the hands of the capitalists an instrument of subjugation and oppression of the working class and peasantry. The bourgeois state protects capitalist private ownership of the means of production, ensures the exploitation of the working people and suppresses their struggle against the capitalist system.
Since the interests of the capitalist class are sharply opposed to the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population, the bourgeoisie is forced to hide the class character of its state in every possible way. The bourgeoisie is trying to present this state as supposedly supra-class, nation-wide, as a state of “pure democracy.” But in reality, bourgeois “freedom” is the freedom of capital to exploit the labor of others; bourgeois “equality” is a deception that covers up the actual inequality between the exploiter and the exploited, between the well-fed and the hungry, between the owners of the means of production and the mass of proletarians who own only their labor power.
The bourgeois state suppresses the popular masses with the help of its administrative apparatus, police, army, courts, prisons, concentration camps and other means of violence. A necessary addition to these means of violence are the means of ideological influence, with the help of which the bourgeoisie maintains its dominance. This includes the bourgeois press, radio, cinema, bourgeois science and art, and the church.
The bourgeois state is the executive committee of the capitalist class. Bourgeois constitutions aim to consolidate social orders that are pleasing and beneficial to the propertied classes. The basis of the capitalist system - private ownership of the means of production - is declared sacred and inviolable by the bourgeois state.
The forms of bourgeois states are very diverse, but their essence is the same: all these states are dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, striving by all means to preserve and strengthen the system of exploitation of wage labor by capital.
As large-scale capitalist production grows, the number of the proletariat increases, which becomes increasingly aware of its class interests, develops politically and organizes itself to fight against the bourgeoisie.
The proletariat is a working class that is associated with an advanced form of economy - with large-scale production. “Only the proletariat, due to its economic role in large-scale production, is capable of being a leader everyone of the working people and the exploited masses." The industrial proletariat, which is the most revolutionary, most advanced class of capitalist society, is capable of gathering around itself the working masses of the peasantry, all the exploited sections of the population and leading them to storm capitalism.
BRIEF SUMMARY
1. Under the capitalist system, the basis of production relations is capitalist ownership of the means of production, used for the exploitation of hired workers. Capitalism is commodity production at the highest stage of its development, when labor power becomes a commodity. Being a commodity, labor power under capitalism has value and use value. The value of the commodity labor power is determined by the cost of the means of subsistence necessary to support the worker and his family. The use value of the commodity labor power lies in its property of being a source of value and surplus value.
2. Surplus value is the value created by the labor of the worker in excess of the value of his labor power and appropriated free of charge by the capitalist. The law of surplus value is the basic economic law of capitalism.
3. Capital is the value that brings – through the exploitation of hired workers - surplus value. Capital embodies the social relationship between the capitalist class and the working class. In the process of producing surplus value, different parts of capital play different roles. Constant capital represents that part of capital that is spent on means of production; this part of capital does not create new value and does not change its value. Variable capital represents that part of the capital that is spent on the purchase of labor power; this part of capital increases as a result of the capitalist's appropriation of the surplus value created by the labor of the worker.
4. The rate of surplus value is the ratio of surplus value to variable capital. It expresses the degree of exploitation of the worker by the capitalist. Capitalists raise the rate of surplus value in two ways – through the production of absolute surplus value and through the production of relative surplus value. Absolute surplus value is the surplus value created by lengthening the working day or increasing the intensity of labor. Relative surplus value is the surplus value created by reducing the necessary labor time and correspondingly increasing the surplus labor time.
5. The class interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are irreconcilable. The contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat constitutes the main class contradiction of capitalist society. The body for protecting the capitalist system and suppressing the working and exploited majority of society is the bourgeois state, which is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.