| This question <42|34> overall <43|45> Hans: <37|45>. |
| Question 74: Does Marx assume that only equal values are exchanged on the market? |
| [44] Hans: Class Relations and Commodity Trade. In [29], I briefly summarized Marx's theory of profits: profits are the residual because workers produce more value than they get paid. Much more needs to be said here, but in a nutshell that's the story. |
| Scott [39] and Yossarian [42], conclude from this that the labor of the workers cannot be sold at its value. Scott brings very good prima facie evidence that the worker does not get the full value he or she produces: |
| It is clear to see by the wealth that is gradually acquired by the owners over time while the status of the workers, who initially produced the goods that they became wealthy from, are in the same position as before or they are in a worse position. |
| Over the years, the capitalist gets richer and richer, while the workers stays at the same level. That is good evidence that the worker's labor enriches the capitalist and not the worker. Yossarian argues that this contradicts the laws of commodity trade. According to these laws, Yossarian says, |
| the value added to a specific commodity through labor would go directly back to those who added the value in the first place. |
| How would this play itself out in the competitive interactions between workers and capitalists? If a worker does not get the full value of his labor from the capitalist, he will quit and sell his own products, in this way he can be assured that he does get the full equivalent of his labor. But there is a hitch: the worker cannot sell his own products, because he does not have access to the modern means of production which would allow him to stay competitive. |
| Here you see how the separation from the means of production prevents the worker from getting the full equivalent for his labor. Our separation from the means of production is a very basic fact of capitalist society. It is so fundamental that we are usually not even aware of it. It is a very artificial situation that all the wealth of this society is owned by a small elite, and the great majority of people just have enough money to get by. No wonder Scott calls the capitalists the “owners of the society.” |
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