Ever since Adam Smith wrote his Wealth of Nations, economists have been trying to figure out what exactly wealth is. In Das Kapital, Karl Marx takes his stab at the question. He looks at the commodity, the way objects for sale embody the labor that went into them, and then moves to analyzing the sale of labor-power as the special commodity able to create value. That's where he finds the origins of surplus-value, the procurement of which is the goal of capitalists.
Questions About Wealth
- How does the wealth of society appear as an immense collection of commodities? Give examples. Does the wide availability of products to purchase improve your standard of living, and if so, is that worth the continuation of capitalism?
- Give a real-life example of the C-M-C process and a real-life example of the M-C-M' process. Do you engage in either? How might goods and services be provided if neither process took place, that is, if there were no buying and selling?
- Explain how surplus-value is created. What if the concept of the means of sustenance (food, clothing, shelter) were expanded to include the maximum amount of all types of commodities (such as luxury goods)? Would there still be surplus-value?
- Explain what commodity fetishism is. When you look at an item for sale on the grocery store shelf, what do you think and feel about it? Do you associate it with its price tag? Do you associate it with the lives of the workers who made it? What's revealed plainly by the existence of the commodity of the grocery store shelf, and what's hidden?
Chew on This
Marx is right: the exploitation of workers—making them produce more value than they themselves are worth—is the source of surplus-value in capitalism.
Marx is wrong: the exploitation of workers—making them produce more value than they themselves are worth—isn't the source of surplus-value in capitalism, or it's only part of the story.