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to think marx wrote all of this without even a single can of monster energy

Me speaking to a right-winger: "Do you agree with this? The marketplace 'is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man' where 'both buyer and seller of a commodity, let us say of labour-power, are determined only by their own free will. They contract as free persons, who are equal before the law. Their contract is the final result in which their joint will finds a common legal expression', and it is pure Freedom and equality even though 'each looks only to his own advantage. The only force bringing them together, and putting them into relation with each other, is the selfishness, the gain and the private interest of each' – do you agree with that?"

Right-winger: "Yes! That's exactly what you commies need to learn!"

Me: "Oh yeah? Well you just agreed with Karl Marx lmao pwned!"

It's pretty interesting how rarely labor-power is directly mentioned in any of the Marxist Economics 101 content that exists online. I guess that means we have made it further than the people making that stuff, congratulations.

I’m imagining the sequence of the Capitalist buying cotton, spindles, and labor and just breaking even as an “always sunny” plot where Frank keeps trying crazy schemes to turn a profit on 40 pounds of thread.

Chapter 6 was really good. It really made me look at things in a different perspective a bit? As in like for example the labor market, actually being a market of sorts? Like I always heard labor market before, but it didn't have much meeting? Just a platitude, meaningless words. Other than like, it's hard and frustrating to get a job and how silly the entire process behind job hunting is. But like going to this chapter, it being a market since labor power being a commodity explains it more? or feels like so, but also feels grosser in a way. but I think Marx's kind of describes that gross feeling at the end of the chapter with this

He, who before was the money-owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but — a hiding.

I also found these interesting, just gonna spoiler tag it as to not take up too much space.

spoiler

the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer.

His means of subsistence must therefore be sufficient to maintain him in his normal state as a labouring individual. His natural wants, such as food, clothing, fuel, and housing, vary according to the climatic and other physical conditions of his country. On the other hand, the number and extent of his so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves the product of historical development, and depend therefore to a great extent on the degree of civilisation of a country, more particularly on the conditions under which, and consequently on the habits and degree of comfort in which, the class of free labourers has been formed.

In all cases, therefore, the use-value of the labour-power is advanced to the capitalist: the labourer allows the buyer to consume it before he receives payment of the price; he everywhere gives credit to the capitalist. That this credit is no mere fiction, is shown not only by the occasional loss of wages on the bankruptcy of the capitalist, [13] but also by a series of more enduring consequences.

but like the later part of this chapter just reminded me of like, my mom living paycheck to paycheck. enough to maybe make food and ends, but never enough to like fully live life? also the idea of like working kind of being a form of credit is something I never thought of. especially with this footnote.

spoiler

“All labour is paid after it has ceased.” (“An Inquiry into those Principles Respecting the Nature of Demand,” &c., p. 104.) Le crédit commercial a dû commencer au moment où l’ouvrier, premier artisan de la production, a pu, au moyen de ses économies, attendre le salaire de son travail jusqu’à la fin de la semaine, de la quinzaine, du mois, du trimestre, &c.” [“The system of commercial credit had to start at the moment when the labourer, the prime creator of products, could, thanks to his savings, wait for his wages until the end of the week.”] (Ch. Ganilh: “Des Systèmes d’Econ. Polit.” 2éme édit. Paris, 1821, t. II, p. 150.)

Watching Moneybags lead the seller of labour power out of the market and into the private sphere of production with a "No Trespassing" sign on it like:

Next week will be Chapter 9 + sections 1-3 of Chapter 10

Has anyone discussed how the (Marxist) concept of 'surplus value' corresponds to the (non-Marxist economic) concept of 'value added'?

e.g. if I take $5 worth of ingredients and cook and sell a cooked meal for $8, Marx would say I created a use-value (the meal) that absorbed my labour (cooking). The government would say that I added $3 value-added, and if VAT is 10%, I owe them $0.30

They seem like similar concepts. This from Ch.6

Although a use-value emerges from the labour process, in the form of a product, other use-values, products of previous labour, enter into it as means of production. The same use-value is both the product of a previous process, and a means of production in a later process. Products are therefore not only results of labour, but also its essential conditions.

...

Although itself already a product, this raw material may have to go through a whole series of different processes, and in each of these it serves as raw material, changing its shape constantly, until it is precipitated from the last process of the series in finished form, either as means of subsistence or as instrument of labour.

This talk gets me thinking of economic complexity. These output>input chains gets longer through the centuries: in the Stone Age, Grug made use-values out of virgin materials, and in Shenzhen, factories assemble components that come from other factories that use components that came from refineries. The complexity of the web grows.

That said, the complexity of modern industry is not byzantine. Comrade Haerdin says here – https://www.haerdin.se/files/videos/marx22_360p.webm – at around 51:30 that there can be around 160 inputs to one workplace; not myriads.

Read chapter 6 today, feel like things really kinda clicked to me. Especially provocative to me was this:

If the owner of labour-power works today, tomorrow he must again be able to repeat the same process in the same conditions as regards health and strength. His means of subsistence must therefore be sufficient to maintain him in his normal state as a working individual. His natural needs, such as food, clothing, fuel and housing vary according to the climatic and other physical peculiarities of his country. On the other hand, the number and extent of his so-called necessary requirements, as also the manner in which they are satisfied, are themselves products of history, and depend therefore to a great extent on the level of civilization attained by a country; in particular they depend on the conditions in which, and consequently on the habits and expectations with which, the class of free workers has been formed. In contrast, therefore with the case of other commodities, the determination of the value of labour-power contains a historical and moral element. [Penguin/Fowkes p. 275]

As I see it, we really start to see here how the labour-capital relationship becomes a locus of social conflict when labour-power is commoditized and valued as Marx explains. For example, what, to the labourer, differentiates the "so-called necessary requirements" from the (pardon the internet-speak) "treats," and how much treats must I get to live a happy and fulfilled life? And, to the capitalist, is my having a happy and fulfilled life really that important? Do the capitalists, as purchasers of labour-power, consider it socially necessary that those in their employ not constantly be fantasizing about killing themselves and everyone around them? Or are they content to preside over the most miserable workforce they can without losing stable reproduction? And on what timescales are the capitalists seeking to maintain the process of social reproduction? And if only a depressing and miserable life of the labourer should be deemed socially necessary, so that even those who accept the bargain to work in this society are desperately unhappy - what then is the recourse of the workers to express, in a socially impactful way, their dissatisfaction with the process?

chapter 7 is really make me realize the importance of time and the importance of clocks? in a way to measure that like labour-time crystalized into products?

A service is nothing other than the useful effect of a use-value, be it that of a commodity, or that of the labour. [17]. In Zur Kritik der politischen Okonomie, p. 14 [English edition, p. 37], I make the following remark on this point: 'It is easy to understand what "service" the category "service" must render to economists like J. B. Say and F. Bastiat.'

Guys, is Granddad being sarcastic again? What is he saying here?

I think in the body-text he is saying that things conceptualised as "services", as distinct from commodities, are actually commodities in action, and labour is a commodity. So a doctor provides the patient with the use-value of his (expert) labour. But I don't really understand the footnote text at all; he's hinting I don't know at what.

I started chapter 7 and like, it really helped me make much more sense of what like what the means of production means. since I always found it a bit confusing? but like this chapter really clarifies some stuff

"For this very simple operation, all you need to know is that A+B=C/D. Easy! Now let's have a basic example to make sure you got it:

§ is 7⅗ of a schling, which will amount to 13⅚ of a schproing in a week and two days, considering that the rate of rh'ling keeps constant at 7,63% an hour. Naturally, this gives us a rate of profit of 100%."

'valorization' is a hideous word, what was Fowkes thinking

I'm kind of curious but like how many of this stuff that's been covered, can be applied to like the united states fucked up healthcare system? I was kind of thinking about my experiences here without insurance. but like hospitals do somehow make money here, or at least some do. and like how does any of this works for things like health insurance? the more I think about the more confusing it gets. since like hospitals aren't exactly making commodities, and kind of seem like unproductive labor yet somehow they are increasing their money. and like, aren't hospitals buying a doctor's labor power when they employ a doctor? so how does that increase wealth? or is like, the doctor's labor power, somehow productive labor and making a commodity or product of sorts and then the hospital takes some of that surplus value, from the entire labor process?

"The process of the consumption of labour-power is at the same time the production process of commodities and of surplus-value. The consumption of labour-power is completed, as in the case of every other commodity, outside the market"

Remember in Chapter 3 Section 2, Marx had said a commodity "falls out of the sphere of exchange into that of consumption": labour does this when put to work. So the creation of surplus-value is not a market process (the point made in Ch.5), but a workplace process.

rather like the foolish virgin who admitted that she had had a child, but only a very little one'.

I thought Crowley was being funny when he wrote in the early 20th century that "Even the smallest baby is incompatible with the virginity of its mother", but I guess it was a stock phrase going around.

Let us now assume.... that the exchange-value of the cotton varies, either by rising to six times its former value or falling to one-sixth of that value. In both these cases, the spinner puts the same quantity of labour into a pound of cotton, and therefore adds as much value, as he did before the change in the value: he also produces a given weight of yarn in the same time as he did before. Nevertheless, the value that he transfers from the cotton to the yarn is either one-sixth of what it was before the variation, or, as the case may be, six times as much as before. The same result occurs when the value of the instruments of labour rises or falls, while their useful efficacy in the process remains unaltered.

Ok, what?

Isn't he suddenly denying the labour-theory of value and saying that exchange-value can change at a whim?

"The activity of labour-power, therefore, not only reproduces its own value, but produces value over and above this. This surplus-value is the difference between the value of the product and the value of the elements consumed in the formation of the product, in other words the means of production and the labour-power."

Marxism in a nutshell

I never thought about this aspect of labor from like the view of preserving value, I always thought in a way when strikes happen for example, or like a crises, it was more like, capitalists being mad at the loss of future profits. not so much like that preservation of value side of stuff as well as like the profit stuff

He is unable to add new labour, to create new value, without at the same time preserving old values, and this, because the labour he adds must be of a specific useful kind; and he cannot do work of a useful kind, without employing products as the means of production of a new product, and thereby transferring their value to the new product. The property therefore which labour-power in action, living labour, possesses of preserving value, at the same time that it adds it, is a gift of Nature which costs the labourer nothing, but which is very advantageous to the capitalist inasmuch as it preserves the existing value of his capital. [4] So long as trade is good, the capitalist is too much absorbed in money-grubbing to take notice of this gratuitous gift of labour. A violent interruption of the labour-process by a crisis, makes him sensitively aware of it