Left Coast Media
Left Coast Media
Marx Headroom 002 - Value Price and Profit Part 1
Mark's headroom is a production of the left coast media collective. Connect with us on Twitter at left-pad and email@leftcoastpodcastatgmail.com with the subject Marxism and join our discord server. Please rate and review us on iTunes and soundcloud. And if you're able, please consider supporting us financially@patrion.com slash left coast media. Thank you to all our comrade level patrons in a special shout out to our collaborators at communists dog, the Kudzu commune, comrades, Casey and a KGB operative onto the show. Uh, gimme a second here. Um, my, so I, uh, I had an issue with my kindle last night and I lost my highlighted version of value, price and profit. So I'm kind of, oh no, I know, I'm kind of waning this. It's terrible. I'm always winging it so it's fine.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 1:all right, welcome comrades. This is the second episode of our Marxist Study Group, which we have, uh, provisionally labeled the marks headroom podcast. Today we have myself, Tiberius Caracas, I'm Dan and her go to Saunas, son Kota sippy again at our to Siberia. And today we are talking about Marxism value, price and profit, which was a speech that he gave to a bunch of old now dead English folks. Uh, that has basically been turned into the sort of one o one introduction for a Marx's capital volume one goes over as you would imagine the generation of value, uh, how prices are set, where they come from and what profit is. So I think we can probably just, we can probably skip the background information. I don't think it's terribly important and go straight into the prelude section, which is production and wages, which is where Mark's talks about sort of why he's making this speech. It's basically a refutation of the iron law of wages and of various ideologies that basically say there is a limited quantity of things that are available. And if you ask for too much, you're going to destroy the system. So I guess we can just go right into that. Uh, so can, uh, can one of you guys sort of talk about what the iron law of wages is and how it impacts how people think about the relationship between the workers? And the capitalist class. So
Speaker 3:the idea that sort of marks is polemicizing against here is the sort of idea that wages and production or a fixed amount and that basically if wages rise than necessarily prices must rise exactly proportionately and therefore it doesn't actually create any benefit to the working class. So basically the only way just can only fall essentially is what this person that Marx is arguing against. At least that's what Marcus was saying, that effectively
Speaker 1:he's saying, yeah, that's, that's sort of what he's, that's the position that he's criticizing harshly here. Uh, yeah. So the, I mean, the, the opening line of this first chapter is a citizen Weston's arguments rested in fact upon two premises. Firstly, the amount of Nash national production is a fixed, fixed thing and a constant quantity or magnitude as the mathematicians would say. Secondly, that the amount of real wages that is to say, of wages as measured by the quantity of the commodities they can buy is a fixed amount or a constant magnitude.
Speaker 3:Uh, well, he's saying that the argument effectively rest on these. He's trying to find the apartment, the assumptions of the argument and he's going to attack the assumptions.
Speaker 1:Dan, do you have anything to add on this? Uh, First Section?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I guess too that a lot of what western was saying that Mars wants to refute is that Western believe that raising the minimum wage and be bad for the, uh, the working class or raising wages in general.
Speaker 1:Okay. Um, yeah, I mean, like I said, it's a, it's a pretty simple concept that is sadly pervasive. I think even now you still hear people talk about like, you know, the various like slices of Pie essentially that there's, that there's a fixed amount of pie that goes around, I think in, in value, price and profit. Mark's refers to a westerns metaphor of the bowl and spoons. This is, you know, basically the same thing. Uh, but we can go ahead and go into the whole pie is more delicious. Yes. Pie is more delicious, very tasty, flaky. Uh, but we can go into the second chapter here. Uh, production, wages and profits, you know, and, and that opens up all his reasoning amounted to this. If the working class forces, the capitalists did pay five shillings instead of four shillings in the shape of money wages, the capitalist Roe return in the shape of commodities, four shillings worth instead of five shillings worth, the working class would have to pay five shillings for what? Before the rise of wages they bought with four shillings a. But why is this the case? So, um, why is that the case or is it actually at the case?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so mark sets up this premise again, the pool of wages is sort of a[inaudible] and that, so he's saying that what the law that citizen Western as he calls his opponent in here is presenting here suggests that basically the amount of wages at any given moment is always the same in real terms. Never changes, never deviates from the real amount, which is obviously not the case. And it just evidently, because we know that for example, we just fall or race or rice.
Speaker 1:Uh, so I mean, so he's basically saying he's making the case that if you raise workers' wages, say that five times fast, that is not necessarily a direct proportional rise in the cost of commodities. Since that's, you know, that's the, the iron law of wages or citizen Westerns argument is that raise everybody's wages, then all the commodities are going to go up and proportion. So then you don't, you haven't actually waste raised people's wages. They've just, you're just increasing the number, but the stuff you can buy is the same. Uh, Mark's had basically saying that that's not true because it is not just, um,
Speaker 4:I think one thing you said that point 70 million is that system Westin has forgotten that the much though the bowls, my stub work then you just filled up the whole produce of the national labor. What prevents them from and and that will prevent some from fetching wore out I would, is it is neither the narratives of the bone or the status of his content, but only the smallness of their spoons. This is some western is, it was implying that this is always the same amount of soup. So reason there's spoons, we'll just make it so they still get the same amount of suit.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 3:And so he talks about what, what in the case of a rise of wages then that does cause a rise in the market prices of necessaries but it doesn't cause a compensating arise in other types of commodities. So then the general fall in the rate of profit is eventually distributed among all parts of the capitalist class. So does it, so that there is uh, uh, so, so the essentially workers with can in fact take a larger share of the pie. It's such as it were because the, there'll be an uneven sort of a reason demand is he talks about in the for different parts of the capitalist class and eventually it'll just has sort of distributed itself among them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, so that's a good point. He makes the point that, you know, because of the distribution of wealth in society, there is a, a small proportion of, you know, capitalist owners at the top who have the majority of the wealth of the system in, you know, in this case of, of the nation. And so therefore their ability to purchase far exceeds their actual needs. So they're not, it is not that increasing their profits are increasing, their wealth actually increases the, the demand on necessities. Those are um, you know, more or less, more or less fixed by the, the amount of people and sort of the societal norms of the vast majority of people. So most of their wealth is, is being spent upon luxuries and frivolities. He talks about like pets and horses and these kinds of things. And so if the workers demand an increase in their wages, which would then lead to a decrease in the profit for the capitalists, that would then free up workers to purchase more necessities, which they weren't able to purchase previously, which does have a supply and demand effect on the price of necessities. But then that changes how a luxuries are purchased. You would see the um, uh, the capitalists and, and wealthy class purchasing fewer luxuries. And so there would be this, um, it wouldn't, it wouldn't strictly be that all of the inflation is dumped into necessities. You also have a compensatory, um, deflation of luxuries, which as they are, um, as the wealthy class is less able to afford them because of the change in their rate of profit.
Speaker 3:Right. And then he says exactly that, uh, he, he takes the counter but she'll reset says ball. Perhaps you might say that I am dicking a unfair assumption by saying that all the sort of wage gain by the workers is spent on assessed series and the, and the and that. Therefore I'm like it because I'm making that assumption. That's the only reason or argument works. But he says it in fact that's the assumption most favorable to lessons opinion. If I, if we suggest that the demand created by the increased wages, it sort of distributes self evenly among all commodities, then in fact there can't be any increase in demand for any of them at all. Because this is an increase in wages. So wages is, the amount of the capital is class pays the laboring class. So if the, if the laboring class it gets more of the wages, the capitalist class gets less of it, the demand doesn't increase because of the amount is still the same. It's just distributed differently.
Speaker 1:Dan, did you have something you wanted to add?
Speaker 3:No, I you guys pretty much similar to say. Okay. Yeah. Which I think is sort of the idea of I and like later k Keynesian economics, we see that in order to actually increase aggregate demand like this, you can't, cause obviously in this game we're talking about the sort of, in this case the distribution, which of wages, the of the amount of lesions, but a value between the capital costs and laboring class twice. Keynesian economics later tries to create more aggregate demand by introducing this outside sources state that can create more, that could actually create more rather than sort of just splitting up the same pie.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So he says, Mark says here, the, the general rise in the rate of wages would therefore after a temporary disturbance of market forces only result and a general fall of the rate of profit without any permanent change in the price of commodities. And here are you specifically talking about price, right? Not value, but, but actual like the exchange value of a,
Speaker 3:so mark how it works. Well, like a Sikh ugly, it's an owl price was work a little later, but it's a joke he's thinking about, yeah, the, the change in the price of commodities is affected by this sort of supply and demand. But the value of the, like the, the value around which it changes is different.
Speaker 1:Uh, and then in the, um, sort of the, the latter half of the chapter here, he talks about the 10 hours bill or the actual, like the sort of length of the working day issues. Uh, how does that actually play into his discussion here on the price of commodities and the distribution of value between workers' wages and capitalists profits? Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I guess what he's doing here is he's elaborating on an actual example of effectively arise in wages because cutting hours is a rising wages because if their workers are being paid the same amount but working less, that's effectively all rising wages. And he suggest, he's saying that will actually, that it was no uh, call corresponding like he said, according to her from Western opinion taken together with the simultaneous. So he's talking about, there was also, he's saying there's also a rise in the agricultural sector at the same time as the 10 bill is happening, thing taken together with a simultaneous where in the wages of the factory operatives, they're ought to have occurred, a tremendous rise in the prices of agricultural produce during the period 1849 to 1859 but what is the fact, despite the Russian war and the consecutive unfavorable horrors are eating 54 HD six the average price of wheat, which is the leading agricultural purpose of England fell farm about three pounds per quarter for the year is 1838 1848 to about two pounds 10 per quarter for the year 1849 to 1859. So he's saying that you are saying that there must be this increase in prices, but we do not see this.
Speaker 1:Right. And I think in fact, mark points out that the price of agricultural products looking specifically at wheat actually fell during this time where workers were being paid more through the shortening of the working day. How does Mark's actually account for that? Uh, Dan, do you have an answer for us?
Speaker 4:Um, I'm trying to think. I mean one would be because the, um, the wages don't, don't determine the value of the commodity. It's, it's like the amount of necessary labor needed to put into Purdue production is what would account for the actual value. So by paying that the workers more and it's not going to increase the price because the, the amount of labor going in is the same
Speaker 1:to be, do you have anything else to add on that? Uh, on that point?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think here he's already said that like the, the thing he's already explained sort of his argument about how demand works either if it's been honest necessaries then there will be a sort of redistribution between different parts of the capitalist class or if it's spent generally, then again, there's really mean increased here. So he's saying that really if you're increasing wages, the distribution is just, you are affecting you this traditional between the workers on the capitalists, the, it's sort of, it's not, it's not changing the aggregate demand.
Speaker 1:Um, I kind of want to just read the last paragraph of this chapter and sort of get your guys reaction to it and reduced to its abstract form. Citizen Weston's argument would come to this. Every rise and demand occurs always on the basis of a given amount of production. It can therefore never increase the supply of articles demanded but only enhance their money prices. Now the most common observation shows that an increase of demand will in some instances leave the market prices of commodities altogether unchanged and will and other instances cause a temporary rise in the market prices followed by an increased supply then followed by a reduction of the prices to their original level. And in many cases below their original level, whether the rise of demand springs from a, from surplus wages or any other cause does not at all change the conditions of the problem. And I think that's, that goes to, um, you know what Dan was saying about, you know, the actual change in production in response to, you know, varying, varying demand so that if the workers are paid more and are therefore able to demand more intern in the form of commodities, then there will be a response to that more commodities will be produced because it is then more profitable, uh, at least in the short term to produce and sell those commodities. Which I think a lot of people tend to assume that, you know, socialists and in particular Marxists tend to dismiss the idea of, you know, supply and demand that the price of things is based on, you know, uh, sort of at this really a simplified level. The, the, uh, the price of a commodity is based upon how much there is and how much, uh, how many people actually want that or how much demand there is for that. And I think that this, his first chapter here is just a really good encapsulation of why supply and demand. It is actually a part of the, of Marxist critique of capitalism itself. And then it, but that is not the end of it. As we'll see as we continue on.
Speaker 3:So supply and demand under Marxist economics, unlike under sort of liberal economics or like Neil economics sort of economic theory, that is sort of boardwalk theory to supply it where supply that's in those economic theories, supply and demand is a primary cause of prices and supply and demand is a primary motivating force of the economy and for Mark's that's so in that sense Marcus does dismiss the concept of supply and demand. There's a, he goes into this in a later chapter so we can talk about this more there, but essentially he's, what he's saying here is supply and Amanda counts for fluctuations. So find a man doesn't account for it was fine. The man is a useful terms to talk about fluctuations in prices, but not in saying that supply and demand some somehow determine what the price is, but supply and demand can be used to explain it, how it changes.
Speaker 1:So then we can probably go into the next chapter here. Wages and currency. Do you guys have any sort of like PR preliminary things you want to say about these particular topics here or, because I think one of the, the main keys about the way that Mark's sort of understands, uh, in particular currency is that, and you know, economics in general is that is it is a dynamic system. It is a system that only works because it is constantly in motion. Whereas you know, when you're, when you think of sort of bourgeois economics, I always think of like equilibria states, they always think of things, they, they model things and think about things in, in these very sort of static terms. Whereas this is a, this I think is a much, much deeper understanding because uh, I like basically every system, it is never a static. It has never just, it doesn't just exist as a thing. It is, isn't incredibly dynamic. And especially when you're talking about capitalism that is constantly changing, it is constantly dynamic and fluid and moving.
Speaker 3:Right? So here this chapter, he's talking about this sort of argument that now the current, the amount of cars that you can use to pay wages is fixed. Which again, we know well we know that later now that we have sort of currencies that are floating and not backed by some other resources, they were in Marx's time that we obviously can see that, that there is no fixed them out. That's evident. But he says there's the, even during this time he says that in reality, this, this sort of relationship between currency and wages is not so straight forward. I say if there's a fixed amount of card and see it, now we have to figure out how to pay wages from that. Uh, he says that you couldn't even live. You look at different countries, you gonna look at England versus the cotton at the time and you will find that the money wages are much, if you cross channel, you'll find that the money wages are much lower than an England, but that there are circulated by a much larger amount of currency. So he's saying that, how do you explain this? If you're saying that Carnes is sort of direct relation to wages. Yeah. He said, he said if a general rise in the rate of wages, for example, a 100% it citizen was supposed to take place in agricultural wages were produce a great rise in the price in accessories and according to his views required an additional amount of currency not to be procured a general fall into wages must produce the same effect in the opposite direction. Uh, and again, we don't see that. We see that it will in wages fall. We still see that. We can see that first of all, prices increase currency in the amount of currency increase. He's still talking about week. Now he's talking about a different time in the wheat and wheat production. He's saying, so look this, uh, while you're stressing here, does that make sense? Yeah, they fit, he would have found that as dogma, fixed currencies, a monstrous air in compatible there everyday movement.
Speaker 1:And so then I think the followup to that is, um, what, what actually influences the circulation or in, what's the word I'm looking forward? The, the actual rate of circulation of a currency because I think that's the key point that he's making here is that the total like the, the aggregate number of currency units, even if it were fixed, is less important than the rate at which that currency is changing hands and and is therefore being traded for different commodities and effecting the, the rate of flow of commodities and services. So what are the actual, like how does, how does mark talk about the actual sort of rate of a currency being exchanging hands in the system?
Speaker 3:Oh I think that the way Marx is, cause it ends up being sort of proven right by history later because later when capital and sort of abandoned, it's the gold standard, things like that. This is to make it a lot easier too quickly allow currency to circulate properly rather than having, it gets stuck because one of the problems with that happens with the gold standard is that there's a lot of deflationary pressures because it's very, it's more difficult to increase the supply of currency. It and Marxists suggest Marxists here are that it is still done, but it makes it a lot more difficult. And that's why we see sort of in America isn't the end of the 19th century. We see these farmers parties start to form that are like, we want to remove the gold standard because what happens when there's deflationary pressures is that the value of your debt over time goes up. Uh, so when there's inflation of the value of your debt overtime goes down, cause it's the face value of your debt is currency. But if there's deflation of questions, the value of your debt goes up over time and the, so people can't pay back their debts because of that. And so that's a problem with the six current, one problem with a fixed currency supply, uh, which is why now the government at adjust the inflation rate as it will, uh, because that's more beneficial to the capitalist economics then having it be backed by gold.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Um, definitely born out by history and especially when you started talking about a heterodox economics currently talking about things like the, um, modern monetary theory. I think that they definitely do pull on this idea of currency and money as this incredibly, as basically just sort of like economic lubricant and, and not a, um, not some kind of fetishized commodity in and of itself. And I think that God, where'd that term go? Okay. So here, um, uh, Marx writes or says that Western would have found that this dogma of a fixed currency as a monstrous error, incompatible with our everyday movement, he would have inquired into the laws which enable a currency to adapt itself to circumstances. So continuously changing instead of turning his misconceptions of the laws of currency into an argument against the rise of wages. So I think he's saying that even even in his current day, that you know, if you, if you actually look at the evidence that the idea that there is a fixed aggregate amount of currency necessarily should impede us in, in pushing for a workers' wages to rise is, you know, an error that doesn't comport with reality. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right. And it's even more plainly silly now than it was at least one marks was alive. I mean, nominal. He says here, a very considerable part of the working man's dilly expensive later on, silver and copper that is say in mere tokens whose relative value to gold is arbitrarily fixed by law like that of in convertible money paper. So at least in cysteine there is this sort of fiction that there is a fixed value of currencies, certain by gold. He's still regularly, he still recognizing that actually this is completely arbitrary. The relationship between money and gold is completely arbitrary, but now even capitalism and recognizes this sports economics recognizes this, that, that, that that was completely arbitrary. So they just moved away from it and had DP backed by nothing at all. So now the amount of currency is, it is plainly, strictly arbitrary because the Federal Reserve or in various countries, they're a national banks adjusts the currency as they will specifically intentionally in order to say like in a certain kind of crisis. Uh, like when we go into recession or depression in capitalist economies, we want to raise the rate of inflation. But whereas when we are in a period of prosperity, you want to decrease the rate of inflation. And they, this is one of the going off on a bit of a to produce sentences here that the European central bank when the recession happened, did not significantly increased inflation and kept inflation very, very low, uh, in contrast to the Federal Reserve's policy during the 2008 recession that started there. Yeah. But like clearly these are just decisions that are made by political actors, not some kind of natural law of the universe.
Speaker 1:So I think that that pretty well sums up that chapter. Um, so unless we have something else to add on that I think we can go into supply and demand, which is a pretty short chapter.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And here, this is the chapter that I was talking about earlier here. He sort of tearing into law of Supply and demand and we know that like you couldn't relate this to what you hear every day in political discourse, in boardwalk economies that we'll, it's just supply and demand. Any sort of economic question can be answered with a simple statement that has just supply and demand. Uh, and it seemingly resolves everything because it sort of taught to logical cause. Obviously you could say that any sort of state could be determined by supply and demand because in any given state that's how much is being supplied and that's how much it's being demanded and is saying, look, this explains literally nothing. He says he will be unable to tell me why a certain amount of money is given for a certain amount of labor efficient. Answer me. This was settled by the law of supply and demand. I should ask him in the first instance by what law supply and demand are themselves regulated and such an answer. What did once put him out of court? The relation between supply and demand of labor undergo perpetual change and with them the market price of labor. If the demand overshoots the supply, we just rise. If the supply overshoots the demand wages sync, although it might in such circumstances be necessary to test the state of demand and supply by a strike for example, or any other method. But if you accept supply and demand, it's a law regulating wages, it would be as childish, as useless to declaim against the rise of wages. Because according to the supreme law, you appeal to a periodical rise of wages as quite as necessary and legitimate as a periodical fall of wages. If CEP supply and demand that's a law regulating. And we just, I again repeat the question why a certain amount of money is given for a certain amount of labor and he says supply and demand regulate nothing but the temporary fluctuations of market prices. They will explain to you when the market price of a commodity rises above or sinks below its value, but they can never account for the value itself. So I think that the chapter, even though it's pretty short, it is quite important in terms of like refuting this sort of Phantasm if you will, in Portugal economics of supply and demand,
Speaker 1:right? Which, um, you know as, as you say, he's basically saying that supply and demand are essentially the response to changes. You know, so if you, if you have more demand, if you suddenly have an increase in demand for something, uh, the, the price will go up because you know, you can charge more for it. But he's saying that they tent that these things tend to equilibriate around a certain value. And that's, you know, what, what a Bushel economist would say is that, you know, the value or the price of a commodity is determined by these, um, you know, fluctuations in supply and demand. Whereas is sort of flipping that on its head and saying that, you know, the, the instantaneous price that you can charge for a commodity, uh, is influenced by supply and demand. But it equilibrates around a value that is set by factors that are not necessarily how much of a commodity is available and how many people wish to purchase that commodity. And so, you know, it. And so he sets up this idea of, you know, what we're actually, what we're actually looking at are the outcomes of a much deeper process of, you know, value creation and the, the chapters to follow. He goes into, okay, so if supply and demand equilibriate around some externally set value, how do we determine where that value is?
Speaker 3:Right? And even in terms of the fluctuations, he's not going to again do the boardwalk and Dominic path of saying that it's enough to say that price changes that supply and demand because he's using a supply and demand on our terms, not causes they're terms that can be used to describe a phenomenon. But we want to find out why that phenomena is happening earlier when he was talking about wages and wages increasing in or not, or not increasing prices, he was he, when he's used the word and demand, he didn't just use them as a first cause. He was describing how they come out of things. He was saying that this results in this phenomenon called more demand or this phenomenon called more supply and that creates something else. So he's not using them as like these, uh, sort of mythological prime movers as they are in the kind of economics. You might learn it in this country,
Speaker 1:right? Yeah. I don't think I said that clearly enough. Like so. So what I was saying is, is that, you know what he's looking at, what, what a bourgeois economists sees as supply and demand, like you said, are the outcomes of deeper processes. And so I think we can probably go into the, the next chapter here, wages and prices where he's actually talking about, he's been getting his beginning to talk more about those deeper processes. Uh, Dan, do you want to vamp for a second about this next chapter here? Wages and prices while I, um, do a quick scan.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So just like explain what it's about.
Speaker 7:Yeah. If you could, okay.
Speaker 4:So this next chapter we just, some prices it starts to get into exactly
Speaker 7:what, what
Speaker 4:do you know, how you design, what, how much someone gets paid for our wage and what defines like the value or price of that
Speaker 7:of the commodity. Yep,
Speaker 3:exactly. So he's saying that what Western he's, he's saying that Western physician that you could determine the price of commodities by the wages. Uh, makes no sense. It just, it's a sort of a, again, this sort of circular going round and round and anything we sell on supply and demand where it just, you're, you're not getting anywhere. You're not explaining, uh, anything. He, he says, uh, yeah, we come to a standstill. Uh, he says, first he told us that wages regulate the prices of commodities and they consequently, when wages rise, prices must rise. Then he turned around to show us that a rise of wages will be no good because the prices of commodities had risen and because wages were indeed measured by the prices of the commodities upon which the hours spent. That's we begin by saying the value of labor determines value, commodities and we wind up by saying the value of commodities determines the value of labor. Thus we moved to and fro in the most vicious circle and arrive at no conclusion at all. Right? So essentially says that the, the final part of chapter, he says that the dogma that we just turned the price commodities expressing as well. ASRAC cars come to this of value in return by value. And this is all she means, that in fact we done nothing at all about value. That's something has promise. This premise, all reasoning of what the general as a political enemy turns into mere tweddle
Speaker 6:title
Speaker 3:it was, there was for the sick burns. Those therefore the great merit of Ricardo that in his work on the principles of political economy, he fundamentally destroy the old popular and worn out fallacy that wages determine prices. A fallacy, which Adam Smith, his French predecessors had spurned and the really scientific part of their researchers, but loose, they reproduce and then were exoterically and vulgar rising chapters. He's, he's really going in here.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Really, really sticking that knife and every, every time. That's one of the things that I love is just that he's so catty. He's so rude. He's giving a speech here this like, I can't imagine actually like, well, I guess except on Twitter, this is basically how people on Twitter do this. He's like, all right citizens, it's time for some game theory. Oh God. It's time for some economic theory. Okay. So yeah, value and labor. So now we're getting into the, into the real meat of the first section is basically, um, Mark's putting up all of the, all of Westerns arguments and saying, bullet point by bullet point, let's, let's accept this premise. And if, if we accept that, then all of these things happen that are contrary to your conclusions and therefore your conclusion is wrong. And he basically does that with basically every single point which sort of leaves the reader or listener. Okay. So if, if none of these arguments, uh, actually hold up and you know, you're talking about there's this underlying value that is related to labor but is not wages, then then what is that value and what does the relationship between that value and the actual price of commodities.
Speaker 3:And here we go, the Labor theory of value. Yes, that is what is he's going to, if this chapter, that's where he's, his argument's been bleeding and now he's going to say that in fact, I'm going to explain to you a little value is love because you can't explain it with this sort of logic that western uses. But I can explain it with my logic. And so he says, but if I say a quarter of wheat and exchanges with iron and a certain proportion or the value of a quarter of what he's expressed in a certain amount of iron, I say that the value of wheat and it's equivalent in Ireland are equal to some third thing, which is neither weak nor iron. Because I suppose I'm to express the same magnitude in two different shapes. Either of them, the wheat or the iron must therefore independently the other be reducible to this third thing, which is their common measure,
Speaker 1:right? Which, you know, he then goes into like that, that third thing, uh, which they are both, um, relating to and are therefore relating to each other is the amount of, uh, sort of labor and capsulated in that product or, or in that commodity. And let's see, where is it? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Here I have the line here as the exchangeable values of commodities are only social functions of those things. And I have nothing at all to do with the natural qualities we must first ask. So what is he saying here? He's saying that, just pause there for a second saying that the price isn't about the objective characteristic of a commodity, right? The price isn't about just like some kind of natural property of wheat or iron that like as part of the atomic composition of those things he says, or not the price to value, I should say. It's very important to be precise with your language when you're talking to what Marxist economics. Uh, because Mark's will be, uh,
Speaker 1:and, and not even just value. He's talking specifically in exchange value, right?
Speaker 3:Uh, we must first ask what is the common social substance of all commodity? So there's social substance. What's common to all commodities in a social context? It is Labor to produce a commodity. A certain amount of labor must be, was stowed upon it or worked up in it. And I see not only labor, but social labor. A man who produced an article for his own immediate use to consume it himself creates a product but not a commodity. There's all standing producer who has nothing to do with society, but to produce a commodity, a man was not only producing article satisfying. Some social watt, but his labor itself must form part and parcel of the total sum of labor expended by society. It must be subordinate to the division of Labor within society. It is nothing with without the other divisions of labor and it on its part is required to interrogate, integrate them.
Speaker 1:Right. Which, you know, then he goes on to talk about sort of the encapsulation process, which I think Dan, you had something to speak on that point.
Speaker 4:Well I was to say, yeah. Basically like the worker is, is selling his labor power, which is ability to work to head, you know, what adds to the value. The commodity is the labor power. I don't know if I'm skipping ahead a bit, but still he repower is basically equal to her. The, you know, what, what he need that worker needs to live right? Like sue rent shelter.
Speaker 3:Yes. So he does he just go into this a little later? Uh, yeah. You're skipping ahead a little. Um, it's a labor, the disinterested in labor and labor power will become important. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, he, he does sort of hint at that point here in the next chapter, uh, stating that the correlative quantities of commodities, which can be produced in the same time of labor are equal or the value of one commodity is to the value of another commodity as the quantity of labor fixed in the one is to the quantity of labor fixed in the other. And, you know, keeping in mind that, that he is talking about social relations. He's not talking about specifically like if I go out in my garden and I spend 10 hours to grow tomatoes for myself to eat, there is no sense of, you know, this, this sort of labor encapsulated within that because it is not then being exchanged with other commodities, uh, that were also produced by, by, you know, some, some labor force. So that is, it is only in, um, you know, going back to this, this idea of dynamic systems, it is only in that process of exchange where that Labor is sort of taken into account because otherwise you just have a thing on its own. There. There is no, you know, there's, there's no sort of like intrinsic Quanta that, that you could examine under a microscope. Like you said, it's not part of the atomic structure. It is a, the, the commodity is a social relationship. You know, where as he's talking about things that you produce for yourself or, or, or that aren't exchanged, don't have the same kind of relationship to labor as a, you know, a, a worker in a factory and has to the commodity that is, you know, eventually produced and sold on the marketplace.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So he says this is sort of where he starts going into wages. So he says, invest determining the relative values of golden corn. Do we refer in any way, whatever to the wages of the agricultural labor and the minor? Not a bit. We leave it quite yet determined to have their days or weeks labor was paid or even whether wage labor was employed at all. If it was wages may have been very unequal. Their wages can't, of course not exceed, not be more than the value of these commodities they produce, but they can be less in every possible degree. Their wages will be limited by the values of the products, but the values of their products will not be limited by the wages. So he's saying that like the, the sort of, the value of the commodity encapsulates his Labor, but the wages are something different. That's what he's, he's gonna elaborate on how it leeches are different later on.
Speaker 1:Right. And, and so the, the, the question that that came to my mind when I read this is that, so, so the value of labor is this sort of, um, third kind of,
Speaker 8:okay.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Kind of thing that's not really concrete. So
Speaker 8:yeah,
Speaker 1:I don't know. It's, it's Kinda hard to, it's kind of hard to, to sort of like wrap your head around the fact that there is this distinction between the actual value of your labor and the actual, uh, so, so if, if, if the amount of actual currency exchanging Haynes between the capitalists and the Labor, uh, if that doesn't necessarily set, you know, what, what the actual value of the commodity that is produced. Sort of walk me through cause there's, there's something that I'm just really like, and this is, this is why I had to like read it twice because there's just something that I'm just fundamentally not sort of grokking here that that relationship between the actual, the value of labor and the value of the commodity cause cause there is, there, there seems to me a linkage that I'm sure he's explaining that I just don't see going on here.
Speaker 3:So the way I am an reading this and the way I sort of interpreted them sort of steer you economics here, uh, is that you can't really speak of the value of labor as such because value itself is under capitalism emerges from the socially necessary labor. So labor itself produces that value. So if you're talking about the value lever produces, then that is whatever commodity is created essentially or as wages are not exactly the value of labor, which is exactly why he says that in this determining the values according to corn, do we refer to their wages? No. So their wages are kept by the value of what they produce. So they produce a commodity. It has certain amount of socially necessarily were encapsulated in it. That's the limit of their wages. However, the value is not kept by the wages. So, which is how profit happens, which you'll go into later, is that the sort of the value of the commodity can be higher than the wages they're receiving because the wages are receiving are determined by something else than the value that they're creating. Which is I think, I believe in the next chapter it talks about labor power.
Speaker 1:Well I think he sets it up in this chapter. Uh, cause he, he spared in this paragraph here he talks about it might seem that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labor bestowed upon his production, the lazier a man or the clumsy man, the more valuable has commodity because the greater time the labor, the greater time of labor required for finishing the commodity
Speaker 3:Prager u argument against the Labor theory,
Speaker 1:right. Uh, this however, would be a sad mistake. He will recollect that I use the word social labor and many points are involved in this qualification of social, in saying that the value of the commodity is determined by the quantity of labor worked up or crystallize inside it. We mean the quantity of labor necessary for its production. In a given state of society under a certain average, under certain social average conditions of production with a given social average intensity and average skill of the labor employed. So I think, I think this, this sets up, you know what he's talking about with the distinction between Labor and labor power, right? And just before we go onto that, so, so the, so the way that I was thinking about that as um, you know, a, an hour at a specific hour of a specific workers labor, having a specific value that in and of itself doesn't make sense because the, because then you're sort of like recursively talking about the workers labor power, creating value, which then feeds back into the value of the workers labor power. So it's this, this recursive definition and that is where exactly, okay
Speaker 3:there you saying you were going back to the same problem he's saying that, uh, so in that, in that Chapter I have quoted several times now in Tulsa, the wages and the, and the amount of labor he says to determine the value commodity by the relative quantities of labor of fixing them is therefore to think quite different. And then talk to logical method of determining the value of the commodity by the value of labor. So we're not determining the value of commodities by the value of labor, in fact, what determined by the relative quantity of labor fixed in them, which is different because of this decision and labor and labor power.
Speaker 1:Right. And I think that distinction is again, set up by the, the chapter, the paragraph that I just quoted, which is talking about the necessary social labor. Do we have anything to say about social labor before we move on to the rest of the chapter?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll just quickly say that. Uh, this is basically the whole, the you'll hear reaction or I say this, they're like, oh it doesn't, or on a boardwalk economists they'll just say it was a difference. Really. They'll say that. Um, the, the labor theory of value, does it make sense? It if, if, if one person makes something and they're bad at it and they take more time to do it, that doesn't make it more valuable than if someone makes it the same thing and they're good at it. And like that's self, I wouldn't leave these people must have never read marks because he has never once argued that that's how it works. He's talking about on average socially how much labor does it take for us to create it? Not for any one of us to create it, but on average, given the sort of average skill of everyone in the population or not, everyone is really trying to sit with the people who are making these obviously like it's not determined by how well anyone is good at programming, but how old programmer, how good programmers are programming. And he's saying that on average that's, that's going to be the value is not determined by just any individual person making commodity.
Speaker 1:Right. And then he says, apart from the different natural energies and acquired working abilities of different peoples to productive powers of labor must principally depend firstly upon the natural conditions of labor, the fertility of soil mines and so forth. Uh, secondly, uh, upon the progressive improvement of social powers of labor, such as derived from production on a grand scale, concentration of capital and combinations of Labor's subdivisions of labor, he's talking about basically, you know, as, as our technology for or increases that then feeds back into affecting the necessary social labor that is required to produce something. So, so if, if an inventor comes up with a better process or a new way to create something that allows a worker to an average worker to make more of something than they did before, that changes the socially necessary labor that goes into producing it and therefore changes the value of the commodity itself.
Speaker 3:Right. So note the inner, the implication of this is that technological progress is lowering the value of commodities over time. It takes us less time to make them overtime. They're value is going down. That's just an, that's an important thing to note as an implication of this in other parts of oxys theory.
Speaker 1:Okay. I think that takes care of the questions that, that I sort of had as, uh, you know, uh, as part of this chapter, at least the first part of this chapter. Uh, and that, no, he goes into the actual having till now only spoken a value. I shall add a few words about price, which is a peculiar form assumed by value. So now he's, he's making that connection between what the underlying value is and what the price at market is.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And this, he says exactly how I talked about earlier, fluctuating and coordinated supply and demand, uh, well not according to find that, but according to click, one of those phenomenon occur. It fluctuates around this sort of value. So the price does not exactly correspond to the value, but generally fluctuates around it and so on. Then that's, that's basically the argument theory. He then goes into this thing about, okay, now how are we getting profit? So he says it's nonsense to suppose that profit, not an individual case, but the constant unusual profit of different trades spring from the price of commodities or selling them at a price over and above their value. So he's saying, look, you can't explain profit by saying that what's happening here is that they're selling things from more than they're worth and they're keeping, you know, the difference, which is sort of how Warshaw economics commonly looks at it, right? Like you sell something and you made it for a certain amount of money and you sell it for more and that's how you make money. So he says, this can't be, this can't be true in a general level. He's saying maybe on an individual level someone might rip someone off like that, but the economy can't work like that. This is what a man would constantly, when as a salary would constantly lose as a purchaser. It would not do to say that there are men who are buyers without being sellers or consumers of being producers. What these people pay to the producers, they must first get it from them for nothing. If a man first takes her money and afterward returns that money buying your commodities, you will never enrich yourselves by selling your commodities to deer to that same man. So it's like, it makes no sense to say that. Like if you're saying that everybody's effectively ripping each other off, that how has anyone making any money? So he's saying that to explain the general nature of profit, you must start from the theorem that on average commodities are sold at their real values and that profits are derived from selling them at their value. So this is the critical sort of insight I would say, of Marcus economic theory. That profit comes from selling commodities at value. So he says this seems paradox and contrary to everyday observation. But that's the sort of great insight is that this is, this is sort of the central truth that like profit comes from just selling things for, for what they're worth.
Speaker 1:Right. And, and, and the way that you get to that point is by making that distinction between the value and the price. Am I, am I sort of hearing that correctly?
Speaker 3:I think that the, that you get to that point, but because of the distinction in labor and labor power, the distinction and price and value, he's saying that. So in this case he's saying that it's not as important cause he's just stressing that let's assume that on average commodities are sold it real values because it like again, he's saying that it can't be true that we're making it like profit profits emerging from prices generally being above values. Because again, that will just result in money changing hands but not an anyone profiting. He's saying that the real profit is emerging from commodities exchanging basically at their value, but the fact that their value is determined by the Labor in them. But the wages aren't, that's the key.
Speaker 1:Okay. So then I think that, um, uh, you know, much like value, price and profit itself, I don't think we can really go much further without actually getting into what labor power actually is. Yup. Uh, which conveniently is the next chapter. Um, yeah. So, so I think, um, I think the reading the introductory paragraph here for this, this chapter sort of sets up exactly what he's, what he's trying to do. And the question, the question is he's trying to answer, having now as far as it could be done in such a cursory manner, analyze the nature of value, the value of any commodity, whatever, we must turn our attention to the specific value of labor. And here again, I must startle you by seeming by a seeming paradox. And I think this is the seeming paradox that I'm actually getting hung up on. So I do want to sort of, you know, make a point that, that we should discuss this. All of you feel sure that what they daily sell in their labor, that therefore labor has a price and that the price of a commodity being in monetary expression of its value, there must certainly exist, uh, such a thing as the value of labor. However, there exists no such thing as the value of labor in the common acceptance of the word we have seen in the amount of necessary labor crystallize in a commodity constitutes in value or we have seen that the amount of necessary labor crystallize in a commodity constitutes its value. Now applying this notion of value, how could we define, say the value of 10 hours working day, the value of a 10 hours working day, how much labor is contained in that day, 10 hours labor. So, so that's the, it's that same sort of circular thing that you can't talk about the, the value of labor per se. Because if it, you know, did defining the value of a commodity by the amount of labor in it, well you have an hour of labor per hour of labor and therefore like there's, you have to talk about something else. And that something else that marks introduces is laboring power.
Speaker 3:And this, again, this is a sort of, this is the key insight cause like marks, they get marks dot. Invent the labor theory of value. Uh, the labor theory of value had already been elaborated by economist. He talks about here like uh, Ricardo. But the thing that Ricardo couldn't explain with it is why there's profit cause cause the Ricardo was like, yeah, okay so labor determines the value of these commodities. We have these commodities so and then people work 10 hours, so their labor is worth 10 hours. So they sell it for 10 hours worth of labor. That capitalist gets to a commodity that's worth 10 hours of labor and then they sell it. But where's the profit here? That is a thing that Ricardo couldn't explain. And Marx has his explanation and he says what the working man sells is not directly his labor, but is laboring power, the temporary disposal of which he makes over to the capitalists. And so what, what does it sort of laboring power like that of every other commodity is value is driven by the quantity of labor necessary to produce it. The laboring power of a man exists only as living in individuality. A certain mass of necessaries must be consumed by a man to grow up and maintain his life, but the man like the machine will be, it must be replaced by another man besides the massive necessaries required for his own maintenance. He wants another amount of necessary to bring up a certain quota of children that are replacing one to market and to perpetuate the race of labor. Bowers, moreover to develop is laboring power to acquire a given skill. Another amount of value must be spent. He said, the Andy says it will be seen at the value of laboring. Power is determined by the value of the necessities required to produce, develop, maintain, and perpetuate the laboring power. So the Labor sells their ability to work and the capitol is buys this for the price that it costs to allow the worker to live, to do that work to Blake, have the skills necessary to be able to Blake have the energy to do it, to be alive and to reproduce, to have more labor as leader. That is what that is, what's being sold. Notice that has nothing to do with how much value the labor is producing. The Libor is producing a value equal to the amount of labor spent. So like if the worker works 10 hours, they've produced an hour, it's a value, but the capitalist isn't buying 10 hours of value of the capital's is buying over many of those hours it takes to sustain the worker and the rest of it is profit,
Speaker 1:right? Or surplus value, uh, as, as Mark's puts it. Yes.
Speaker 3:Uh, so yeah, this is basically the distinction between a labor and laboring power that's so important to Marxist economics
Speaker 1:right now. Suppose the average amount of the dailiness necessaries of a laboring man requires six hours of average labor for their production. Suppose more over six hours of average labor to six hours of average labor to be also realized in a quantity of gold equal to three shillings. Then three shillings would be the price or monetary expression of the daily value of the man flavoring power. If he worked sick, if he worked daily, six hours, he would daily produce a value sufficient to buy the average amount of his daily necessaries or to maintain himself. Uh, so yeah, so he's, he's saying that, you know, if we connect the amount of time necessary for the things that, that I need to live and we say that, you know, once we do all the calculations and in our specific context, whatever we come up with, okay, so I need$50 a day and in order to survive in the system and you know, if I'm working at$10 an hour, then I must work for five hours in order for me to be able to survive a, but that is not, uh, you know, but in talking about, you know, socially necessary labor, any if, if, if that is all that we put in, was the amount of labor necessary to keep ourselves going, then the capitalist who wouldn't be able to generate a profit because the amount that they're paying is essentially just the amount that actually goes into maintaining the labor force. And on aggregate, this would mean that there is, there is no value being generated above and beyond the, just the subsistence of the laboring class itself. And so therefore, in order for the capitalists to actually maintain a profit, they, you must induce the workers to create value above and beyond what they are, what they need in order to maintain themselves or they need to generate a value surplus to the value that they need to maintain themselves. And therefore the capitalists must keep people working beyond that point where they actually have enough to sustain themselves and then essentially just not pay them for the rest of that. So going back to what to to like the, you know,$50 a day, uh, I think, I think you can probably explain it better than I can. Uh, cause I'm still just trying to like work through this in my own head, but I think that's sort of the broad strokes of it. Let me know if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's, that's basically correct. I'll note that Mark's doesn't take that this idea of the necessaries did, he's using here in his economic works. He is talking about it in the sort of like way as if it's determined and fixed. But he does recognize one of the problems you might have with this is it doesn't, he does recognize that the of necessaries was what is the necessaries of life is going to value based on very based on the social context. So in a given social context, you'll have a certain amount of things that are considered the amount necessary to maintain a human being. I just want to make sure that that's clear. Other than that, I think, yeah, I think what you said is basically correct. And so he talks about this in the production of surplus value. Uh, and this is how, this is where surplus value is coming from. Uh, in buying the laboring part of the work man and paying his value. The capitalist like every other purchaser has acquired the right to consume or use the commodity bought you consume or use a laboring power of a man by making him work as you consume or use a machine by making it run, by buying the daily or weekly valued the laboring power of the work. Man, the capitalist is therefore acquired the right to use or make it that Labor in power during the whole day or week. Yeah, so here we were going back to the spinner. Take the example of our spinner. We have seen that to daily reproduces laboring power. He must deal to reproduce the value of three shillings, which she will do by working six hours daily, but this does not disable him from working 10 or 12 or more hours a day. But by paying the daily or weekly value of the spinners, labor power, the capitalist has acquired the right of using that laboring power during that whole deer week. He will therefore making it work, say daily, 12 hours over and above the six hours required to replace his wages. What is the value of delivering power? He will therefore have to work six other hours, which I shall call hours of surplus labor, which surplus labor will realize self in a surplus value surplus produce. If our spinner, for example, by as the liver of six hours at three shillings value to the cotton of value forming an exact equivalent to his wages, he will in 12 hours at six shillings works or the cotton and produce for proportional surplus Vr as he is sold as labor power to the Capitol is the whole value of produce greater by him belongs to the capitalist. By advancing three shillings to capitalist will therefore realize value of six shillings because advancing of value in which six hours of labor or crystallize he will receive in return a value in which 12 hours really burrow crystallized by repeating the same process of the capitalists will daily advance three shillings and daily pockets, six shillings, one half of which will go to pay wages are new and the other half which will form surplus value for which the capitalist pays no equivalent. So we can see that. Now we're starting to see how you're getting surplus value by selling commodities at their value. We can probably move on to the next check cause this is all sort of one what I'm talking about as sort of the whole argument that he's making here. So we can just really moved through these chapters I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Um, unless a, Dan, do you have anything specific to add?
Speaker 4:It's the only thing I would add. Sorry, honestly can forgot how he describes it as is how, because not everybody makes the same weight. It's like how does he actually described how some people's labor power's worth more. Obviously people go to school or um, have more training or, or worth or paid more and worth more. But exactly how it is that tied into labor power they could have done like apparently selling.
Speaker 3:All right. So that's sort of in the, in the labor power section, he should just say that like to develop his leave empowered to acquire a given skill and other amount of value must be spent. So the sort of the value of education, like for a Labor who the capitol is, needs to be educated, the capitalist has to pay for that to happen essentially. Uh, so that, that, that's, that would be why that if it takes more time to train a worker to do the thing that you need them to do, then their labor is going to cost you more.
Speaker 1:Okay. Um, yeah, so let's roll into the value of labor and we must now return to the expression value or price of labor. We have seen that in fact, it is only the value of laboring power measured by the value of commodities necessary for its maintenance. But since the work man receives his wages after his Labor is performed and knows more over that, what he actually gives to the capitalist is his Labor. The value or price of is laboring power necessarily appears to him as the price or value of his Labor itself. If the price of is laboring power is three shillings in which he works, uh, uh, uh, um, he necessarily considered oh yeah. So, um, he's basically saying that, you know, being on the receiving end of, of this, it looks to the worker as though the value of his Labor is solely the price, uh, or, or solely the value which is necessary to exchange in the form of commodities for his own maintenance. Uh, but however, that that is the, that is only the, what he himself sees the, the actual value of his Labor is higher end in this case is, is actually double because he, he's working for six hours, uh, essentially for his own maintenance and then an extra or a surplus, six hours for the capitalist if for the entire working day or 12 hours for which he is only paid or remunerated in value for that six hours.
Speaker 3:Right. And this is what he says, this is the difference between wage labor and other kinds of labor. So under wage labor, the appearance is that you're, that everything is paid. So the appearance is that all labor is paid labor, when in fact whatever portion of it is not. This is an under slavery, for example, the appearances that everything is unpaid because there's no sort of transaction happening under the feudalism. He talks about the peasants relationship to the Lord. There's a clear distinction. So like the Lord does not have, the Lord just says you have to work certain number of days on my field, certain number of days on your field. So it's clearly distinguished and he says, are liberals overflowed with moral indignation at the proposer is notion of making a man work for nothing. And then he says, of course, that's the deal. That's exactly what's happening under wage labor, but it's masked by the intervention of a contract and the pay receives at the end of the week. So the capitalist tells you that they're buying your wages and it seems to you that that's what, that that's what they're buying. So like you're working for that and that's what they're giving them money in exchange for that one. In fact, they're, they're giving you money in exchange for sustaining you and not for what you're producing.
Speaker 1:Right. And then, which, which I think rolls into profit is made by selling a commodity at is value. So, so tying it again back into the idea that you don't make a profit by selling a commodity above its actual value, but you actually make it by, uh, the, the profit is essentially baked into the relationship between the employer and the employee, not the relationship between the owner of the commodity and the purchaser of the commodity.
Speaker 3:Yup. And so logically this follows. So he's saying that like, Yup. Still going through, he loves sticky into one very specific example about like coats or something. That's the common joke about capital. Cause it's the one he uses their, here he's using a different example. All economists honestly just love doing that. That's just the thing about economists and examples. Yeah. And he's saying that you're selling it just, you're, the capital's just sells the commodity at value. But the thing is that the capital is, didn't pay for the Labor and the commodity, the capitalist paid for the amount necessary to sustain that amount of labor. Not that amount of labor.
Speaker 1:I mean those, those two chapters, um, profit is made by selling a commodity at its value and the value of labor are pretty intimately tied together. And I think that we have gone over those two well enough. Um, Dan, do you have anything to add?
Speaker 4:Um, yeah, I guess do they see, just like one quick summation I guess I could think of is that like unpaid laborers is the source of the surplus value and that's where the profits come from.
Speaker 3:Yup. And He, this next chapter is sort of talks about various forms of surplus value. So the, the reason that I was corrected earlier, cause you don't want it again, the precision of language is really important and sort of profit as we discussed it today. It will, she said here is industrial profit is not the only form of surplus value. There's also rent, which I think everyone should be intimately familiar with and interest. Uh, and these are things that also come from the surplus value of the commodity. Uh, essentially unpaid labor. Uh, the, so when the, when you work you have to produce enough to sustain yourself. And then you know, sustain her landlord and you have to sustain your boss. And I think that's why this theory is so I think like honestly this section just seems, it's like kind of, it's very impressive to me and how quickly it goes through. It's sort of just builds this logical, very evident chain. And it says, look, this is, I mean any labor could see this.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think it is, it is important to understand, you know, when, when we're talking about the social relationships that make up our current capitalist system, that it is not just the relationship of the worker to the employer and, and the extraction of surplus value out of, out of that relationship. There are many relationships which form society and in each case where we see profits being made, for instance, when a bank or loans out money and then expects more to be returned to them after a certain period of time, that requires a certain amount of labor above and beyond what that original currency or money monetary exchange could produce. And the same when you're talking about your rent, there is this, there's a certain amount of value encapsulated in that rent, which, which goes towards the maintenance of the place that you live. Right? And then above and beyond that necessary maintenance. And, and I think it's, it's a, it mirrors the relationship between the employer and the worker. But as much more explicit because we're talking about a, a house or a thing, it is very easy to see to see the necessary amount of that goes into maintaining that thing. Uh, and then anything else that doesn't go into that maintenance is then pocketed by the landlord or, or the, the, you know, the, their own ca. And, um, you know, that profit that the landlord pockets is ultimately coming from the, uh, the, the value that workers produce and is therefore encapsulated within that surplus value.
Speaker 3:Right? Because note that, so the circle size, they get different forms here and notes. The capitalists is actually paying for this surplus value. The capital's is paying for the surplus value that the landlord is getting. So when the capital is, gives you the wages, the capitalist is obviously already taken that surplus value that they are taking, but they must in your wages, they have to include the surplus value the landlord needs. That's like, you know, cause in order for you to live somewhere, you have to pay a landlord. So the capitalist must include that in your wages, the amount that goes to the landlord.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think that, um, I think that pretty well sums up that sort of section. So I think that what we can do is, because we're already, we're already pretty well over an hour right now and I don't want these to go on too long. I think we should, uh, we can go ahead and if we have anything else to say about laboring power, we can, we can do that now. And then we will revisit the last section when we next meet and hopefully incorporate some of the comments and feedback from this section. Uh, so that we make sure that we're covering as many questions as, you know, the listeners have on what is sort of like the central thesis of Marxian Economics.
Speaker 3:Sure. And I don't know how many people are listening to stuff, but like get any questions people have, I guess, I don't know where they would submit those, but we could answer those on here, I guess. I don't know, just thinking out loud now.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you know, folks can email the show left coast podcast@gmail.com or they can tweet at us at, at the show itself, you know, at left-pad Lef t p o d on Twitter. I think if you just go ahead and use the Hashtag Mark's headroom, uh, that would be, I can set up the, uh, you know, tweet deck column for that. So I can, anytime that someone tweets at that with that Hashtag I'll be able to see it. Or you can, for those of us in, in the discussion today, our personal Twitter handles will be on the or in the show notes. So if you have specific questions of us, uh, go ahead and you know, tweet at us. But yeah, it's the, do we have anything that we want to sort of wrap up with, uh, in terms of labor power and the value of labor, the or, or anything else about the discussion that we've had so far?
Speaker 3:No, I think it's like, it's just a very, even though it's kind of an argument is obviously very complex in some ways. I think that once you sort of grasp, it's very, very elegant, very simple. It just sort of explains things and it does, it does develop in a very sort of straight forward way. Kind of just follows like you because you saw that like when we were just talking about the chapters before we kind of ourselves reached the conclusions that he would tell us in later chapters.
Speaker 1:Dan, do you have anything that you'd like to end on?
Speaker 4:I don't know. I guess one thing I would say about this texts in general, it's just like, it's a really good intro to reading capital to help get some of the ideas down before you try to tackle that very hard book. So, um, I really liked this, this text because it just, it really boil stuff down and lets you think about when you're at, you know, when you're doing your own job, like exactly how exactly you're getting paid and whatnot.
Speaker 1:Or if you're like me, you just struggle with this book itself and then eventually you may or may not understand it and then move on to capitol. But yeah. So that is our discussion of the first, um, first two sections of value, price and profit. Join us next time when we, um, you know, talk about the final section, what and, and go into more about sort of what that means for the workers struggle itself and, uh, perhaps tie that more into our current context and, and how we should be thinking about our, our own relationship to capitalism and how we can more concretely explain to people why their intuitions about capitol sucking are actually correct. So with that, I am ty barriers. Grok is signing off for this episode of Mark's headroom.
Speaker 4:I'm Daniel or Dan.
Speaker 1:Yeah,
Speaker 3:I am civy outer Siberia on Twitter.
Speaker 1:All right. And all have something to, you know, I use go in peace and be in solidarity. I feel like the, it's a, it's a pho par to use that on two different episodes are two different shows. So on needs, we'll think of something I'll, I'll think of something to say to end the show on. Um, nothing to lose but your chains. That's a good one actually. I like that. Uh, uh, yeah. So, um, we'll just end on that then. And this episode is already over, so I don't know why I'm continuing to talk. Okay. I can stop the recording now.