Marxist Mondays (belated)

Something cool that Marx teaches us is that we aren't compensated based on the value of what we produce; we are paid the going rate for our willingness to work.

This is the brilliance of capitalism: it buys up every family farm and corner store -- every independent means of survival -- and then offers cash payments based on how people feel in the face of starvation.

This is precisely why capital is now "globalized": the most desperate people are in other countries. Those of us in the "developed" world became too spoiled, demanding a decent standard of living. In short, we attached too many conditions to our willingness to work. Therefore, the production process moved elsewhere.

Anyhooker, the difference between what you and I are willing to be paid and the actual market value of what is produced is called "profit" -- it is absorbed by the owner. Now put that in your hash pipe and smoke it.

This note is brought to you by Black Box wine and work/4 hours sleep.

Marxist Mondays (belated)

Capital is a process of wealth accumulation derived from the unequal relations between employers and employees. Employees may perform the necessary work of production, but because they enter into relationships with employers at a disadvantage, what they receive in return is only a fraction of the value of what they have produced; the "surplus-value," as Marx called it, becomes the property of the employer.

Capitalist economics says this is morally inconsequential: after all, the relationship is voluntary; in a word, "free." Nobody is forcing you to work for this or that employer, whereas in previous economic systems they were. Marx's innovation was to remain unimpressed, never divorcing economic relations from their social meaning -- a meaning that is contested politically between competing groups: employers and employees.