Ruthless Criticism
Von webmaster • Juli 7th, 2013 • Kategorie: InternationalMarx’s arguments against wage labor, or:
“v” – the sum of money in capitalism which is the basis for the production, growth and distribution of wealth
[Translated from GegenStandpunkt 2-1992]
1.
In the critique of political economy, the abbreviation “v” stands for variable capital. That is, a part of the value that a capitalist (in modern terms: an employer, an investor, an entrepreneur, a job creator …) invests in the form of money in order to increase it (in modern terms: to realize a return on an investment, to put the company in the black, to show a positive balance sheet …). This part of the advance differs from the constant capital “c” in that it changes its magnitude and thereby the total sum laid out for the business.
This attribute of expanding itself, of course, does not belong to the sum of money, but to the commodity purchased with it; the labor-power that it acquires comes to the company in the figure of a worker (today: employee) and the work he does using the means and objects of labor that is represented in “c” creates products; selling these products allows the rightful owner to gain more money than he spent on the components of the production process. According to Marx, the reason for this growth, universally accepted as the goal of the free market economy, is that labor creates products whose peculiar use-value consists in being turned into money, or creating value; and more value than it cost the employer to pay for the labor-power.
(…)
http://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/v.htm
cf:
Die Behauptungen des Karl Marx, die Lohnarbeit betreffend, oder:
„v“ – die ökonomische Größe im Kapitalismus, auf der die Produktion, das Wachstum und die Verteilung des Reichtums gründet
http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/gs/1992/2/gs19922074h2.html
