When we enter into employment, our bosses are trying to play a trick on us. They want us to understand the process one way, when, in fact, something else is happening. They want us to think that we have agreed, as equals, upon a deal, where they pay us an agreed upon hourly wage, and we, in turn, do some agreed upon labor for them. They make a profit and we get paid, and everyone gets what they agreed upon. At least, that’s how they want us to understand the process.
To understand Marx’s critique of capitalism, it is essential to understand capital dialectically. We see again and again in Capital itself that Marx breaks things down into their contradictory aspects. We’ve already seen this with value, which considers both use-value and exchange-value. Now, as we look at capital itself, we will see Marx’s dialectical method of analysis at work again, as Marx shows how capital is divided into constant and variable capital.
In our previous article we looked at what a commodity is and examined use-value and exchange-value. This discussion of value is a cornerstone of Marx’s critique of political economy. The value of any commodity is equal to the socially necessary labor time required to produce that commodity. This is the Law of Value, and it is essential to understand if we are to really grasp what is revolutionary about Marx’s critique of capitalism.
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement issued by Friends of Socialist China. Freedom Road Socialist Organization is one of the organizational signatories.
Karl Marx begins his critique of political economy in the great work, Capital, with an analysis of commodities. He writes, “The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as ‘an immense accumulation of commodities,’ its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.” So, what is a commodity, and why is it that Marx begins here?
Milwaukee, WI – On July 26, the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and Reproductive Justice Action Milwaukee joined SEIU Wisconsin for an event to speak against voter suppression. Early voting for the partisan primary kicked off on Tuesday in Milwaukee, and while many speakers emphasized the need to vote, the Milwaukee Alliance and RJAM kept their messages focused on the fight for voting rights. This is important, as our voting rights, especially those of oppressed nationalities, are coming under deeper and more frequent attacks.
Defend our rights to speak and organize! Stop political repression!
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression and the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
As we have seen in our previous article, capitalism’s origins are largely based upon “primitive accumulation” – the theft of land and resources during the colonial period. This theft helped to jumpstart the original accumulation of capital. In the U.S. this began with settler colonialism, whereby colonizers from Europe settled in the Americas, bringing with them terrible violence and oppression of indigenous and other oppressed peoples.
