this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
0 points (NaN% liked)

Ask Lemmygrad

806 readers
10 users here now

A place to ask questions of Lemmygrad's best and brightest

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
0
trouble understanding surplus-value extraction (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
2 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I think i understand the basics. For example, a capitalist buys wood for 20 (money) to make a chair, he employs someone else to make the chair which adds value to the wood...lets just say the value added through the labour is 20 (money) the chairs cost therefore is 40 (money) but the capitalist steas some of the added value to make a profit and now the chair is only worth 30 (money). The worker has therefore worked a significant amount of time for free because the value added does not correspond to what the chair is sold for. Thats already what i understand but how exactly does the capitalist turn this into profit? Yes he has gained some money but he still has 30 dollars in debt due to the production costs and the labours costs...and it would not change in the future as the debt just like the value he steals from the workers grows. Can someone pls explian?

top 2 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You don't need to add debt, or even money into the equation to complicate it. Lets use labor time (in hours) as our unit of account.

LH = composite labor hours (the labor hours required to harvest / produce the intermediate thing)

Input | Labor Hours

|

Wood for chair, IE materials | 1 LH Per chair cost of building factory, maintenance, other costs, etc | 1 LH Time to produce the chair (turn wood into chair), IE Wages | 1 LH | Capitalist sells the chair / Selling price | 5 LH

Surplus value = 5 LH - 3 LH = 2 LH

So the capitalist gains 2 LH for doing nothing.

Maintenance, startup costs, materials, can all be accounted for in the selling price. The point is that :

  • Workers do not receive the full selling price (after accounting for other costs), and
  • Workers do not control the surplus, IE its capitalist-controlled surplus value. This is the theft / profit part.
[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

The employee actually puts in 3 LH to build the chair but is only paid by the Capitalist for 1 of them leaving a 2 LH profit for the Capitalist. The sale price of the commodity when supply matches demand is the real value of the commodity.

The "trick" the Capitalist does is to negotiate a wage smaller per unit of time than the value a worker can produce in that time, but it must be at least equal to the cost of reproducing the worker.