This text functions as a technical explanation of the relationship between labor power, the value of commodities, and the origin of surplus value. Marx challenges the theory that wage increases necessarily lead to higher prices, arguing instead that price is determined by the total labor time socially necessary for production. He details how the worker sells labor power rather than labor itself, creating a surplus that the capitalist appropriates as profit. The argument centers on the inherent struggle over the distribution of the value created during the workday.
Economists, historians, and students of political theory read this for a concise breakdown of the labor theory of value. It serves as a foundational primer for those analyzing the mechanics of capital accumulation and the structural constraints of the wage system. Readers walk away with a specific vocabulary to describe market dynamics and a framework for understanding why profit rates and wage levels are inversely related within a competitive industrial economy.
- Published
- 1898
- Language
- EN
Quotes by Karl Marx
More →The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.
Theses on Feuerbach
