Economic Update: The Contributions of Karl Marx (Part II)
Welcome to part two of this four-part
series on the work and contribution of Karl Marx. Once again I just want to say
that the reason we look at Marx's contribution is that he was the leading,
and remains the leading critic of the economic system we live under, and
therefore to understand his critical perspective is a way to get a deeper
understanding of this system, its strengths and its weaknesses, so that we
can all be better citizens, in terms of how we contribute to making the world a
better place. Let's turn to the core of what Marx's
contribution was, particularly in the realm of economics, which was his chosen
area of concentration. He did talk about many other things. He was a true European
intellectual of his time, when relatively few people were educated and given the
benefits of literacy, so he was interested in many things, but he ended
up even though he began as a philosopher to become what we would nowadays call an
economist. And I'm gonna summarize his findings, because we don't have enough
time to go with him in how he got to them, we're just gonna concentrate on
what they were. So here's the the nub of it, the core. In every society that human
beings have had, from the earliest records we know, right down to the
present, the central achievement of humans, that in a way distinguishes them
economically from animals, and many kinds of animals, is that they were able to
produce and to distribute something Marx called a surplus, and so it's crucial to
begin by explaining what Marx meant. In every society he says, human beings
survive by transforming nature to meet their needs, for example, converting the sheep,
the wool of the sheep into clothing to keep warm, to using the trees of the
forest to build shelters from the rain and the storm, and of course to find the
nuts and berries, and eventually to cultivate the fruits and vegetables, and
to raise the animals that we use to eat. In all societies where human beings have to
do these things to survive, they do labor; they work, they use their brains and
their muscles to transform nature into useful consumable products, and now Marx
says, follow me, when we look deeply into that reality, the reality of labor, all
human beings survive by working at it. They have no choice, and Marx says, in
every human society the following fact is true: not all people work, they don't
all use their brains and muscles to transform nature: the tree into a chair,
the sheep into a coat, the countryside into a meal. There are always parts of
the community that don't do work, and the way that happens, and the only way it can
happen, is if the people in a community, whether by the way it's a small tribal
group in a village, or a whole modern country, the only way there can be people
who survive without working, here comes the punchline, is if the people who are
doing the work, produce more than they themselves consume. There have to be in
the community people who produce a surplus, that's more than they themselves
take for themselves, if there are going to be people who can survive without
themselves working. Well you all know what the best example is: the
children, the babies, the ones who couldn't possibly use their brains and
muscles to transform nature, because they haven't managed to stand up yet. So there
has to be people who produce more than they get, if they are going to be babies
that survive, because they're gonna live off this surplus. The surplus produced by
their parents, the surplus produced by the community of adults. Now Marx takes
this inside, and it takes it a step further. He says, in most societies that
we have records of, the surplus that's produced by some of the people, he calls
them productive workers, those who produce more than they themselves take
for themselves, for their own consumption, this surplus in many societies doesn't
just sustain babies, children, and maybe old people who can't work anymore.
But there are whole blocks of people perfectly able and capable of working to
produce the surplus, who don't however do so, and yet they have a lot of
consumption that they enjoy. So there must be surplus produced by some, to
enable these others to live the comfortable lives they do. So let's, let's
follow Marx, let's start with the slaves. When the slave works on a slave
plantation, everything he or she produces belongs to the master, everything, because
they're just like an animal. They're owned by the master; everything they
produce is ipso facto and immediately, the property of the master. And here's
what the typical master does: he takes a portion of what the surplus, of what the
slave has produced, and gives it back to the slave, so that the slave can survive
until tomorrow, and do it all again. The rest of what the slave produces, the
slave's surplus, what the slave produces above and beyond
what he gets back, belongs to the master, and the master takes that surplus, and he
builds a lovely house with it. How does he do that? He takes that surplus, and he
gives it to a bunch of other people whose job it is to build the house. And
how do those people live? Because they have the surplus from those who do the
work, that allows them to work on the house of the master, without themselves
raising the animals, or the vegetables, or doing any of the productive work. So Marx
begins to say and to teach us that in slavery, the master lives off the surplus,
the work that the slave produces. The master doesn't have to go out into the
cotton fields; he doesn't have to go out and raise the fruits and vegetables, the
cheese, the butter, and the meat. The slaves do all of that. They produce more
cotton than they need to clothe themselves, more food and clothing than
they need for themselves, and all that extra is delivered to the master, and the
master uses it to keep this kind of society going. Why? Because the master
sits at the top; the master has the power; the master has the leisure; the master is
sustained by the surplus of the slaves. The same Marx says goes on in feudalism.
Only there the productive workers are serfs, and the surplus they produce is
owned and received by the Lord. You might enjoy knowing what the name is, that in
feudal society, what the name is given to the surplus that the serf produces and
delivers to the Lord. The word is rent, a word that we still have, don't we.
And now Marx's point: in capitalism, which thought it was, which promised it would
be, the end of the slave system, and the feudal system. What we actually have is the
same thing, but it's a little disguised: we have the employee and the employer.
And what Marx does in first volume of capital, his major book, is to show us
that right in the relationship between the employer and the employee, is another
production and delivery of surplus. And I'm gonna do it with you now in the
simplest language I know, so that the idea is anchored in your mind, because
the insight Marx achieved here is remarkable. Let's do it this way. You go
to look for a job. You find an employer, because that's where jobs are, and you
sit down with this employer, let's say it's at a factory that makes ladders, and
you sit down with the employer, and you discuss with him what time you have to
come to work, what kind of work you will do, and all of that, and then you get to a
certain point in the conversation where it's time to talk about money. How much
are you gonna get paid for working on making ladders. And the employer and you,
let's say you reach an agreement. I'm going to pay you $20 an hour. You come at
8:00; you go home at 5:00, Monday through Friday, you know the typical pattern, and
I will give you 20 hours, for every, $20 excuse me, for every hour that you're
here helping us produce ladders. And the employer knows that by hiring you, and
having you work all those hours, there will be more ladders than he would have
otherwise to sell, if he didn't hire you. That's true of every worker.
Well Marx says, wait a minute, and then Marx plays a little game. He
tells us what we already know, if we think about it. He says, the only reason
an employer will ever pay you $20 an hour, is if during that hour
you produce more than $20 worth of ladder for him to sell. Why? Because if
all your labor did, was produce $20 more of lat, of ladders to sell, when the
employer sold the extra your labor produced, he'd get 20 bucks, which he
would have to pay to you, and there'd be nothing in it for him. He's not gonna do
that, however much you and he are friends. It's not part of what a capitalist
business is or does. The employer will give you $20 an hour if, and only if, your
labor, each hour, produces more, or if you like, adds more value to what the
employer sells, that it costs him to have you come there. And guess what Marx then
says to us: there's the surplus again; there's the mass of employees producing
a surplus, and delivering it to the capitalist. It's not as obvious as the
serf on the land delivering so many bushels of corn as rent to the Lord; it's
not as obvious as a slave, whose product is immediately and totally the profit,
property of the master; it's a little more hidden, it's a little more
complicated, but it isn't fundamentally different. Wow! In the core of capitalism,
in the relationship between an employer and an employee, is the production of a
surplus by the one, the employee, and the receipt, the gathering of that surplus
into his own hands by the employer. Folks, that's pretty much what the serf and the
Lord had as their relationship, and it replicates the master-slave as well. So,
we have uncovered the secret history, if you like, the kernel of capitalism that
Marx is going to show us is the problem, because the absence of liberty, equality,
fraternity, and democracy in slavery, and the absence of
liberty, equality, fraternity, and democracy in feudalism, is going to be
re-established tragically in a capitalism, because it hasn't challenged
or broken down this either-or situation. It's just changed it a little bit.
Instead of slaves and serfs, we have employees, instead of masters and lords,
we have the capitalists. It might help us explain Marx's clever use of words when
he sometimes referred to what workers in capitalism could be called, and he used
the phrase wage slaves. That was not just a casual remark. It was intended to make
us connect in our minds, the condition of the wage earner, and that of the slave. We
thought a wage earner was a free person, but when you look at the surplus, no
freedom at all. Trapped in a system where the only option to producing surplus for
your employer, is to quit and do it for another employer. There's no freedom
there. Freedom requires changing the system, because otherwise you are forever
trapped in it. Marx is going to hammer at the point, that in a society that
organizes production in this way, a relatively small number of employers on
the one hand, and a mass of employees on the other, in which the employees, the
mass of people, produce a surplus that becomes the private property of the
employer, you are going to see these employers using that surplus they gather
into their hands, to make sure this society stays the way it is, giving the
dominant position to the employers. And true enough, if you look around
capitalism a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, or right now, it's the employer
class who are dominant in politics, in culture, in living the highlife off the
top of the hog, right, and the mass of people, who are worried about how well
they will do, whether they can send their kids to college, etc, etc. It isn't new, and
you all know it. But Marx, his contribution was to locate the
fundamental mechanism whereby this happens, and happens over time, in the
relationship between the employer and the employee. We've come to the end of
the second part of this four-part series. I want to thank you for being with us. I
hope you learned something and found it of interest. I want to urge you as always,
please, visit us on patreon.com/economicupdate, that's P-A-T-R-E-O-N slash economic update, where you can become a
supportive part of our Patreon community, have access to documents like this, that
we enjoy producing, and don't forget to follow us as well on Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram, and through our websites rdwolff with
two FS dot com and democracyatwork.info. I look forward to the installment
number three which comes next.
Economic Update: Capitalism, Revolution & Socialism
Economic Update: Socialism & Worker Co-Ops
Economic Update: Morality and Economics
Economic Update: Which Way For US Economy
Tagged and, Democracy, economics, economy, inequality, Justice, labor, Richard Wolff, that, the, work
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42 thoughts on "Economic Update: The Contributions of Karl Marx (Part II)"
Michael nunya says:
Karl Marx wrote about how capitalism would eat itself and here we are witnessing it play out in real time.
Ed Phillips says:
Do machines produce surplus labor?
Karen Cole says:
No one gets hired for the actual value they add.
That being said, managers/employers may add value to the product we make. It depends. Did the manager open more markets? Did they provide materials? Did they add value to the product?
It seems to me that the lesson in part II is the the hierarchical idea that managers/ owners are better is bad because they don't contribute to the making of a product nearly as much as the value/control they have.
Frank Sears says:
Yeah, there's a word for this—-thievery
Once again, thank dog for the impending biosphere collapse
Matt Pfarr says:
Didn't you know the rich are creators, they call themselves " job creators " . 🙄
TACIII says:
If people want ACTUAL examples of what Marx envisions, it's not the Soviet Union (that all went down hill when Trotsky was ousted) or the Nordic European nations, these examples would be the Zapatistas in Mexica, Rojava in Syria, and town in Spain that has an all communist economy (and its thriving believe it or not) don't believe me? Please look it up because it's amazing! I think that's what communism looks like and what Marx likes to see.
lloyd moore says:
It is the same with the credit card company, then a lot of folks wonder why there credit is no good.thank you SIR.
J. Crenshaw says:
If anyone is in doubt, just look at the student "loan," system. Dig a bit, and you will discover it is a GIANT scam. Cut funding to higher ed, in favor of tax "breaks," "Loan," the money to people desperate to survive. Take away ONLY for student "loans," a basic constitutional right: bankruptcy protections. Let the banks gouge people with loans guaranteed by the government. Disgusting. But it is right in line with this economic "system."
Zedd says:
6:20 were getting somewhere. Now we just need to recognize rhe psychological impact for the worse that the master incures himself by not working and how poor leadership therefore results.
mudpie mudpie says:
That woodwork behind Prof. Wolff is spectacular! And great discussion, too.
Thor Crowley says:
I come here and read the comments to find those rare people still capable of critical thinking.
Thank you and happy yule 😉
jsbart96 says:
Love this series
ifti hasan says:
Thanks for explaining this system of surplus. But, if the added value produced by the employee who is being paid 20 dollars per hour but producing more then 20 dollars does not go to the employer, why would the employer run the business at all? I guess the ownership structure has to be changed. How do you suggest that this value addition be distributed? What will be the motive of production if the owner does not have access to the profit?
Renard Leblanc says:
It seems fatalist to believe that Capitalism is the absolute pinnacle of human society… is modern society truly as good as it gets? Is there truly nothing better than this? Is capitalism the end of the road, or is there more and better yet to come?
You can deliberate over what may come next, what it looks like, how it functions, but if Capitalism really is as good as it gets, we may as well just lie down and stop trying, right here, right now.
OR: "far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." Roosevelt extended the persistence of capitalism, but I'm pretty sure there are mightier things to dare yet still ahead of us.
FROZEN RODENT says:
Marx contribution was to intellectualize jealousy and envy.
To rationalize the need to murder millions of people if they stand in the way of your idea of "progress".
The fact this crap is taken seriously at all is God Damn disgusting!
Ратмир Курманов says:
I'm confused. So your american pupils don't get this information near 8th grade at school in history lessons as we russians do? Very strange.
Sam Norris says:
so this is where the commie crybaby losers hang out. 'Democracy at work' – that's a good joke. Snakes trying to hide in plain sight, I get it.
It's all fun and games in your socialist utopia until you get sick of standing in line for your state-assigned bread ration, make the mistake of complaining to someone and Dictatorship of the Proles declares you an enemy of the State for wrongthink then sends you to zee gulag for "re-education" right comrades haha nervous laugh
Jonas Steinberg says:
Incredible insights and delivery!
John Buckner says:
Can somebody please explain to me why the workers only option is to quit and go work for another employer? Why can't the worker quit and form a co-op?
UniDeathRaven says:
The only time I've worked as a worker in capitalist society is between my age from 19-20 years. After that, I understood how bad it is to be a worker and never ever worked on somebody again except myself. So, you either give me my % from any company I am going to work for or suck muh di*k .
uhlijohn says:
You fucking commies are all alike! Mass murder by followers of Marx in the hundreds of millions! You sir are a piece of shit and should be shoveling coal in hell with Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and their cousin Hitler!
Augur Cybernaut says:
NarrowRoy CrashDummie says:
When you see it, you can not un-see it. The dirt in the squares above his head. Gottcha! Love you too. Merry Christmas
GeeAmbler says:
This is simply ESSENTIAL knowledge to possess in order to survive & transform the current global economic reality. SALUT to Professor Wolff!
Eugene Fisher says:
4:38 Okay How is that right? So I should produce more for someone who just doesn't work at all when I'm working to help provide for folks that are working and producing? How is that fair?
7:42 similar to CEO's businesses. They're never in the trenches at the job but claim and dictate what you're not doing enough or fire you without even knowing what you've actually done just by hearsay.
So folks who are Marxist and Socialist do really "hate" the fact folks have money while others don't? Or do you folks truly feel that the money has been indeed stolen and NEVER earned?
locolo Kuromanhs says:
Wow, after many years of listening and believing to understand Marx's surplus, know I REALLY do get it. That was very insightful. This is the explanation of why we in the west are literally living on the backs of the poorest nations. Because even though they produce way more surplus than us, it is us that benefit from it. We in the west are the employeers of the rest of the world. The richest countries are rich because they employee other countries sucking up their surplus. They produce most of the pie while we leave them with scraps and we take the rest. Wow I feel like a whole new worldview was given to me. I can't thank you enough.
Denise G- Hill says:
What I find amazing is the worship of someone who when living in London scrounged off his banker Uncle and friends whose wife and children went hungry and who did moonlight flits because of Non payment of rent. Finally making money as a journalist and left $4 million in todays money in his will.
Never mind over 100 million deaths under socislism/communism.
mike park says:
What contribution has snake oil made to the world? It has killed a lot of people and poisoned millions more.
demagreg says:
Claims to be a communist then puts on a sport coat, sits at a desk, and asks for money. smh
I bet he ate food from a farm today too. Checkmate, communists.
juan zapata says:
Proffesor please you have to keep this up, dont let the momentum on Marx get lost, I would like you to do more reviews on some of Marx´s most important texts and Works, please and thankyou
Brad Briggs says:
According to Wikipedia:
In the Year of Grace, 1866 – The National Labor Union (NLU) was the first national labor federation in the United States. Founded in 1866 and dissolved in 1873, it paved the way for other organizations, such as the Knights of Labor and the AFL (American Federation of Labor). It was led by William H. Sylvis and Andrew Cameron.
The first labor federation was the National Labor Union (NLU). The NLU professed that all wealth and property were the products of labor, and that a just monetary system was necessary to ease labor's distress. Working men were receiving too little, and "nonproducing capital" was receiving too much of the wealth produced.[3] William H. Sylvis, president of the Iron Molders International Union and, in 1868, president of the NLU, believed that unionization was important, but by itself it could not solve the problem of poverty. He declared… "The cause of all these evils is the WAGES SYSTEM. So long as we continue to work for wages… so long will we be subjected to small pay, poverty, and all of the evils of which we complain."[4]
The federation was anti-monopolist, and advocated communitarianism — the pursuit of a more just society established on cooperative principles. The organization also favored shorter work hours, and the establishment of libraries for the express purpose of educating workers.[5] The 1868 NLU convention also embraced Sylvis's view that a "bank… is a licensed swindle." Sylvis was against privatizing the commons, and also appeared to favor progressive taxation. The NLU wanted congress to control interest rates, which they thought would help to address the fairness issue.[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Sylvis
1869 – 28 DECEMBER Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was an American labor federation active in the late 19th century, especially the 1880s. It was founded on December 28, 1869 by Uriah Smith Stephens, James L. Wright, and a small group of Philadelphia tailors as a secret organization known as the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor[3] it reached 28,000 members in 1880, then jumped to 100,000 in 1884. By 1886, 20% of all workers were affiliated, nearly 800,000 members.[4] Its frail organizational structure could not cope as it was battered by charges of failure and violence and calumnies of the association with the Haymarket Square riot. Most members abandoned the movement in 1886–1887, leaving at most 100,000 in 1890. Many opted to join groups that helped to identify their specific needs, instead of the KOL which addressed many different types of issues.[4] The Panic of 1893 terminated the Knights of Labor's importance.[5] Remnants of the Knights of Labor continued in existence until 1949, when the group's last 50-member local dropped its affiliation.
DECEMBER 1871 – 1872 NEW YORK, NY Communist Manifesto first U.S. publication. Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly was the first paper in the United States to print The Communist Manifesto in serial form.
1872 – The 1872 United States presidential election was the 22nd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1872. Despite a split in the Republican Party, incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant defeated Liberal Republican nominee Horace Greeley. The election is notable for being the only presidential election in which a major party nominee died during the election process. Grant was unanimously re-nominated at the 1872 Republican National Convention, but his intra-party opponents organized the Liberal Republican Party and held their own convention. The 1872 Liberal Republican convention nominated Greeley, a New York newspaper publisher, and wrote a platform calling for civil service reform and an end to Reconstruction. Democratic Party leaders believed that their only hope of defeating Grant was to unite around Greeley, and the 1872 Democratic National Convention nominated the Liberal Republican ticket.
prg54 says:
Excellent from Professor Wolf against, among others, the wolves of Wall St.
Lexi Shannon says:
the ladders are all made in China now though so….
atticstattic says:
Is your ladder maker hiring?
Gary Schnakenberg says:
Afghan papers….Worse than anything our country has ever done in the last 40 years….corruption at the highest level….from the top—–folks…
PAULY AYALA says:
MR WOLF YOU SHOULD BE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!
PLEASE DEAR SIR DO NOT. TIRE FROM ANY OF YOUR GOOD WORKS IN DUE SEASON YOU WILL REAP THE REWARDS… GOD BLESS YOU…!
Sam Ann says:
1% want 99% fight each other to fights to their deaths for their penny.
James Murphy says:
It's the amount of surplus we should ask yourself ! Remember the lost of surplus
heat cliff says:
He(Karl Marx) is wrong. Please understand it's the same old…nothing changes under the sun or night. It Arabs aka a robbery. Buying the doll I made for nothing and to sell its for millions is your demon. Capitalism is what I make, those who sell it are arabbery. Today capitalism is dead and it industrism or Americanism or criminology or crime pays all in they fight. This is due to humanitarian laws.