Capital

[Sunil]

I am quite familiar with a lot of political economy but have not yet read this great tome. I thought I would start a thread to note my observations, if any members have any then please feel free to chime in. I am reading the book alongside David Harvey’s excellent lectures.

[Sunil]

Up to chapter 11 – the theory of surplus value and the working day.
It is very interesting that, as David Harvey observes, a discussion of the working day does not present itself as a big issue within any other economist’s thinking. It has, however, as Marx observed caused substantial debate within the 1800’s in the UK through the Factory Acts and indeed it continues to do this as European working time regulations and conversations over the retirement age.
Marx’s concept of surplus value seems to be focused on a manufacturing relationship where labour power is being purchased to produce more commodities. As people work for longer than the value they are paid a surplus in value is produced. I’m not certain how this translates through to current industry where a lot of jobs are not directly related to manufacture but are services that have no direct impact on sales and profits.

[Erin]

You have to see it that even a service, or non-tangible product are still products -resulting from the means of production i.e., the production process; therefore having Surplus-labour as an element, producing Capital expanding.

[Patrick]

Indeed, Erin is right. If we are to try to apply Marx's ideas to contemporary times, then we need to understand that service labor does produce a product that came about from exploitation of labor-power. David Harvey is a great source for understanding Capital, so continue reading his writings or you can just watch his lectures for free on his website: http://davidharvey.org/

Another useful source is Brendan M. Cooney's blog and his much shorter videos that explain Marxian economics: https://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/

Cheers.