Marx's Law of Value: Intro to Marxist Economics | Socialism 101

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An introduction to Marxist Economics and Karl Marx's Law of Value
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Resources

Reading:

Ernest Mandel (1967) "An Introduction to

Videos/Podcasts:

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General Resources:

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction
00:38 1. Commodities and Value
03:06 2. Marx's Law of Value and Socially Necessary Labour
05:09 3. Wage-Labour & Labour-Power as Commodity
06:22 4. The General Formula of Capital
09:16 5. Surplus Labour and Exploitation

11:18 6. The Rate of Exploitation
12:15 7. Maximising Surplus Value (Absolute and Relative Surplus Value)
14:31 8. Recap
16:08 Credits

[edipereirovods]

I love that quality of the video is so important to you that if you will see even a small glitch you will re-render and re-upload the whole video. Don't stop doing those videos comrade they are great 🚩

[thereisnoleftleft]

The concept of worker exploitation is so obvious and still so intangible to the general public at the same time. How many times have I argued with the uninformed who say 'Without rich guy's money nobody would have jobs' to reply 'If you refuse to work, rich guy has nothing to offer. Ya' see how simple and basic that is?'. At its core, Marxism is simply a critique of Capitalism. Until that concept is ingested by the masses we're not going anywhere. I fear that it never will be. When you have people mesmerized by Jeff Bezos going into space there is little hope. Great inspiration Marxist Paul.

[davidegaruti]

this is what definetly sold me on Marxism : the labor theory of value is falsifiable, and as such scientific, yet it has never been falsifiyed, you'd have to produce somenthing with value, without socially necessary labour, wich hasn't been done yet, and would be a boundless breaktrought in every field of science ...

[Mrs.Sardonicus]

Having just finished Vol 1 of Capital I can't thank you enough for this 101 series and your previous videos for helping me further grasp Marx's theory.

[samuelrosander]

12:00 "And again, always assuming that supply and demand are in equilibrium." That's a VERY important thing to qualify the LTV with, because one of the most common rebuttals to the LTV is "but prices and supply and demand!"

Something that a LOT of people talking about "surplus value" get wrong is that it's not merely the value of what the worker didn't get paid. In Marx's "Value, Price and Profit, " as in Capital volume 1, Marx explains that the surplus is the value beyond what it took to produce. It's a hard concept for many, and pretty much every breakdown of the concept of surplus value appears from the same incorrect source.
To start, the value of the labor is based on what is necessary (on average) for the worker to live and reproduce. The value of the materials and facilities are also factored into the value of what is produced, making the surplus value not the extra exchange value above what the laborer was paid, but the extra exchange value above all of the combined inputs of labor, materials, facilities, and any other inputs. (Equipment maintenance isn't part of production value, because the tools themselves have already been accounted for, but is still necessary to continue production by ensuring that the tools can be used longer. The value of labor and the rest for maintenance doesn't produce an exchange value, but is instead taken from the surplus.)

That distinction of what constitutes "surplus value" is important for discussing the issue with capitalists. Their favored talking points include the standard "Marxists believe that the workers should get ALL of the value from their labor, " which is untrue per Marx himself (see the works cited above), and is made nonsensical by the understanding of what differentiates between the value of labor, the value of production, and the surplus value. Marxists don't want all value to go to the workers, but want the workers to be able to decide how to distribute the proceeds gained from the exchange value of what they themselves work to produce. That includes not just the pure profits above the cost of production, but also the costs of production themselves, putting the workers in charge of governing the means of production.

All of that said, this video does a good job of explaining a lot of the points about value per the LTV, especially for being so short.

[jeffersonclippership]

I just started reading an introduction/overview of Capital (not brave enough yet for the real deal) and this was extremely helpful. Discussing value gets super abstract and we all appreciate having it explained in normal people terms.

[mattgeer]

Great video. this should be used in high school classes.

[BryanTodd]

"€80 has been generated from living labor in the production process." (9:25)
No, a *chair* has been generated from living labor in the production process.
There is no "€80" until the chair gets sold.
For that to happen, someone has to go out and find a customer and make a sale.
Acquiring new customers can be costly and time consuming. People don't do that for free.
So the chair's final €100 sale price has to cover both the making of the chair and the selling of it.
And that money, after material costs, gets divided between the worker and whoever acquires the customer.

[ichsagnix]

Thanks so much for that video, I started reading "Das Kapital" and I already hit a relatively hard wall in terms if understanding in the first chapter.
Now I have enough confidence to continue the book.

[SkippyDave]

what happens when no one will buy the chair for 100? what if the only person who will buy it, is only willing to spend 50? that is a net loss of 10. did the worker exploit the capitalist by saying his labor is worth 40 when it really was only worth 30? a product is only valuable if there are consumers willing to trade for it. and even then it is only as valuable as what people are willing to exchange for it.

[TheBdawg]

Paul these videos are so necessary, I watch the deprogram pod now, and all the guys within, they're amazing. But you explain the nitty gritty, the technical stuff, so so well. Imagine if this was taugh in schools...

[WhataDubHead]

So value isn't subjective? How would you explain normal farm market and black markets? Is it not what a person is willing to pay? How would the labour theory of value be implemented?

[tathagatsingh]

Neat video, Comrade Paul. Reminded me of my days of working through Paul Sweezy.

[Blahblahblahworlds]

This didn't take account of the labour value invested by the capitalist which was to organise the factors of production. Get the labour, wood and nails into the same room and then get the chair to market.

[drphosferrous]

I love economics and learning more about marxbut I have big problems with this idea of labor derived value. So many other marxian views on economic philosophy are great so I wanna give it a chance but it makes no sense. Price and all kinds of theoretical "value" of a good or service (including labor) cant be fixed or known, even in an et ceter paribus example. Demand changes all the time and each person has a different idea of a things value. The amount of work something takes is only one of many factors in production cost. Without market demand no good, service, or labor has any intrinsic value to calculate.

[elzz]

You know a video's great when it lists with good reason Marx's Capital as further reading

[Pudin-kcoz]

Business isn't charity, Business are run for profit, if your not making profit better shut down your Business

[curseanalyst]

- Investigating which product is demanded by the public
- Investigating costs (contacting possible suppliers, accountants, utilities, transportation, human resources etc)
- Calculating all this numbers
- Actually risking savings into all this
- Constant administration of this enterprise (24-7 attention demand covered. If you have to wake up at 3am to travel to the docks to sign papers in order to get your supplies, you can't just say "not my working ours")
- Looking for ways to invest and perfectionate your products, which also includes risks

All that work and risk has no value?.

[drlt]

Why doesn’t the worker take his wage, start his own business making chairs and make 100% of the value of his labor?

[onestraw-zxph]

While this is somewhat an ok intro, it is lacking in two ways. Productivity increases more significantly in the real world through improvements in production through the use of machines, robots, etc., since intensification of labor (increasing the speed of works e.g.) has definite physical limits. Productivity increases is the same as increasing the surplus rate of production s/v. The total value produced is the same, BUT this expressed in more commodities, thus the production cost of each commodity is lower. Now, the second way in which the presentation is lacking. The capitalist using improved methods can sell the commodity at the prevailing market price OR even at a lower price to capture a greater segment of the market, i.e. underselling his competitor. The market price is the condition of average production, where price is equal to value. At this price/value, market price is equal to market value. The commodities produced with less labor will have a value below this market price, those produce with more labor will have a value above the market price. Since all commodities are sold at the prevailing market price, THEN, there is a transfer of surplus value from the commodity produced with more labor to the commodity produced with less labor. This solves the connundrum of why then produce commodities with less labor if it results in less value. This process is discussed in volume 3 as the equalization of the general rate of profit. Capitalists engage in production with the goal of realizing the prevaling average profit and this is where the competition among capitals revolve around. Capital seeks to go where profit is above the average profit. Thanks for reading and I hope this helps.