How the Capitalists Exploit and Oppress the Workers
4. How the Capitalists Exploit and Oppress the Workers
Capital and Surplus Value 1
Capitalist production is commodity production aimed at reaping surplus value. To understand the nature of capitalist production, we must study Marx’s theory of capital and surplus value. Only by equipping ourselves with this theory can we understand the exploitative relation of capitalism, realize the inevitable extinction of capitalism and the inevitable triumph of socialism, appreciate the historical mission of the proletariat, and become conscious revolutionary soldiers of the proletariat.
The Secret of the Exploitation of the Workers by the Capitalists
The Conversion of Labor Power into Commodities Is the Precondition for the Production Surplus Value
Every old worker from the old society has a family history full of hardship and suffering. In the old society, the workers “ate like pigs and dogs and toiled like buffaloes and horses.” They “worked until they were old, and their lot was worse than a blade of grass.” They were oppressed politically, and their livelihood was uncertain. But the capitalists never worked. They bossed the workers around and led extravagant and degenerate lives. Their wealth increased all the time. Why? Marx’s theory of capital and surplus value revealed this secret and scientifically answered these questions.
How did Marx’s theory of capital and surplus value reveal the secret of the capitalists’ exploitation of the workers? We must start from that special commodity, labor power.
Labor power means human work, the sum total of a person’s physical and mental effort. In any society, labor power is the chief factor of production. But only in the capitalist society is labor power a commodity. There are two conditions under which labor power becomes a commodity. First, the laborer is a “free man.” He is free to sell his labor power as a commodity. Second, the laborer has nothing aside from his labor. He has no means of production or means of livelihood and must sell his labor power to live. These two conditions occurred when the feudal society collapsed and in the course of polarization between the small commodity producers and primitive accumulation. The employment of workers by the capitalist consists of buying their labor power and converting them into hired slaves.
Once labor power becomes a commodity, it possesses value and use value, like other commodities. The value of labor power, like the value of all commodities, is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor required for its production and reproduction. The capitalist must maintain the labor capacity of the worker if he wants him to work for him. To maintain the worker’s labor capacity, it is necessary to feed, clothe, and shelter him and provide him with means of livelihood. Therefore, the value of labor power must include, first of all, the value of the means of livelihood needed to maintain his sustenance. At the same time, workers grow old and die. In order to maintain the capitalist exploitative system, the capitalist needs new workers as replacements. Therefore, the value of labor power must also include the value of means of livelihood needed by the worker to support his children and other dependents. To more fully exploit the worker, the capitalist generally requires him to master certain skills through general education and training. Thus, the value of labor power must also include the cost of education and training. But this amounts to very little. In general, it can be said that the socially necessary labor needed for the production of labor power is the socially necessary labor needed for the production of the above mentioned means of livelihood. In other words, the value of labor power is the value of the means of livelihood needed to keep the worker alive and his offspring growing.
As for the use value of labor power, it is different from the use value of other commodities. Labor power is a special commodity. Its use value possesses a special characteristic. When the use value of other commodities, like food grains and clothing, is consumed, no new use value is created. But the use of this special commodity labor power, that is, the worker’s work, can create value and, moreover, can create value which is higher than the value of the labor power itself. “When the capitalist purchases labor power, it is this augmented value in which he is interested.” 2 This difference is called surplus value.
The Surplus Value Expropriated by the Capitalist Comes from the Exploitation of Workers
How then does surplus value arise? Let us examine concretely the production process of surplus value. After the purchase of labor power by the capitalist, he forces the worker to work in his factories to produce commodities. There are two aspects of capitalist production process. It is a labor process. It is also a value-augmenting process.
A labor process is the purposeful process by which people use certain labor to transform the labor object for human needs. The characteristic of the capitalist labor process is that the capitalist possesses means of production. The worker toils under the capitalist’s orders while his labor products belong to the capitalist. The result of the capitalist labor process is the production of a certain use value capable of satisfying certain social needs. But that is not the purpose of capitalist production. The capitalist allows the worker to produce certain use value only because use value is the material carrier of value. If he does not provide some use value, there will be no demand for his commodity, and the value (including surplus value) produced will not be realized.
The capitalist production process is also a value-augmenting process. When the workers produce use value, they are also using their active labor to create new value. The new value which the workers create is higher than the value of the labor power itself. This is called value-augmenting. This value-augmenting is the ultimate goal of the capitalist. The value augmenting process is the major theme of the capitalist production process.
Take the example of cotton yarn production. The capitalist first purchases enough means of production for a worker’s twelve-hour workday. Suppose the value of these means of production is equal to forty-eight hours of labor, totaling twenty-four yuan. He also purchases a day’s labor power from a worker. Suppose the value of a day’s labor power is equal to six hours of labor, totaling three yuan. Then the worker is made to spin yarn. Since what the capitalist has purchased is a day’s labor power, he will not ask the worker to work for only six hours. Suppose the worker toils twelve hours a day. Then, the value of the cotton yarn produced is equal to sixty hours of labor, totaling thirty yuan, of which twenty-four yuan is transferred from the means of production and six yuan is the new value created by the worker in twelve hours’ labor. In this labor process, the capitalist gets only twenty-seven yuan, of which twenty-four yuan are used for purchasing means of production and three yuan for paying wages. The remainder is three yuan. This is the augmented value created by the worker and expropriated by the capitalist. The process of value augmenting is the production process of surplus value.
What takes place above still follows the principle of equivalence in exchange. But value is augmented, and surplus value produced. The key of this process is that the capitalist obtains the right to use the labor power he has purchased.
“The use value of the labor power, that is, the labor itself, belongs just as little to the vendor as the use value of oil which has been sold belongs to the oil dealer. The owner of money has paid the daily value of labor power. Consequently, its use during the day, the whole day’s labor, belongs to him. The daily sustenance of labor power only costs half a working day, although such labor power can be in action the entire day. Consequently, the value which its employment creates in a single day is double its own daily value.” 3
That the capitalist can build larger factories and accumulate ever more wealth is due to the fact that the value created by labor is far larger than the value of labor power and the difference is expropriated by the capitalist. Through the analysis of the production process of surplus value, we can see clearly that surplus value is created by workers in the production sphere.
But to conceal the exploitation of workers, the bourgeoisie and their agents insist that the new value obtained by the capitalist conies from the circulation sphere. We must thoroughly expose such lies. Surplus value cannot be explained by saying that the buyer buys commodities below their values or that the seller sells commodities above their values, since the gain or loss obtained through the transaction will be offset by the change in roles between buyers and sellers. Neither can surplus value be explained by deceit, because even though deception may increase the welfare of one party at the expense of another, it cannot increase the total wealth of both parties. “The whole capitalist class of a country cannot become richer by deceiving themselves.” 4 If there is any relation between surplus value and the circulation sphere, it is the fact that the capitalist cannot divorce himself from the circulation sphere in buying labor and selling commodities. In the circulation sphere, the capitalist buys labor power which provides the condition for producing surplus value. And the capitalist realizes this surplus value through selling his commodities. In any case, surplus value can only be created in the production sphere and not in the circulation sphere. Surplus value can only be the product of the capitalist’s exploitation of the worker in the production process.
Once we understand the secret of capitalist exploitation, we can appreciate the nature of capital and the basic economic law under capitalism. Capital is a value that can bring about surplus value, or it can be said to be a value with self-value-augmenting power. Capital is not a simple thing. It expresses the capitalist mode of production, namely the class relations whereby the capitalist exploits the workers.
This relation expressed by capital is a result of historical development. Means of production and money existed before the emergence of the capitalist mode of production. But only under the capitalist mode of production when capital is owned by the capitalist and is used as a means to exploit the worker’s surplus value does it become capital. Marx pointed out, “The Negro is simply a negro. Only under some conditions does he become a slave. A spinning machine is a machine for spinning cotton. Only under some conditions does it become capital.” 5 Bourgeois economists insisted that the means of production is capital. According to this reasoning, the stone implements and wood clubs used by primitive man were capital. The purpose of their fallacies was to conceal the class relations among people with the relations among things, to conceal the nature of capitalist exploitation, to negate the fact that capital is a historical category, and to explain capitalism as eternal and existing from time immemorial.
Marx pointed out in his analysis of the capitalist mode of production that “to produce surplus value and to make money is the absolute law of this mode of production.” 6 This law of surplus value is also the basic economic law of capitalism. It reveals the objective purpose and nature of capitalism. There would be no capitalist production without the production of surplus value. All the activities of the capitalist are aimed at squeezing the sweat and blood from the worker for profit. The capitalist’s greed for money is never satisfied and his thirst for surplus value is never quenched. This is the nature of the capitalist. “The purpose of capital is not to satisfy needs, but to produce profit.” 7 “Capital and its increase in value are the beginning and the end of production and are the means and the end of production.” 8 The whole capitalist system is based on the cruel exploitation of the worker by the capitalist. Capitalism is the evil system in which man exploits man.
To maintain the capitalist system and conceal the nature of capitalist exploitation, the bourgeoisie and their spokesmen fabricated all sorts of fallacies to deceive the masses. They said that the suffering of the workers was due to their “bad luck” and that the wealth of the capitalist was a result of their “diligence and thrift.” These are all lies. The capitalist never works; how can he be “diligent”? He leads an extravagant and evil life; how can he be “thrifty”? In the old society the suffering of the worker was not because of “bad luck,” but because most of the products produced were expropriated by the capitalist. In short, the poverty of the worker and the wealth of the capitalist arose from the same source. It was the capitalist exploitative system based on the capitalist’s private ownership.
The Cruel Means by Which the Capitalists Exploit and Oppress the Workers
The Rate of Surplus Value Reflects the Degree of Exploitation of the Worker by the Capitalist
The capitalist is capital in disguise. His soul is the soul of capital. The capitalist is a bloodsucker. He will not stop if there is still something left to be squeezed out of the worker. To get more surplus value, the capitalist tries his best to increase the exploitation of the worker. We can gauge the degree of the capitalist’s exploitation of the worker by the rate of surplus value.
To understand the rate of surplus value as a gauge of the degree of the capitalist’s exploitation of the worker, we must understand the different roles played by the means of production and labor power in the creation of value and in augmenting value and the difference between constant and variable capital.
Means of production is consumed in the process of production and loses its original value in use. But its value is not lost. It is simply transferred to new products through the worker’s labor. But this transfer cannot add any new value. Therefore, the part of capital which is used to buy means of production is called constant capital. In contrast to constant capital, the part of capital used by the capitalist to buy labor power is called variable capital because the new value created by labor exceeds the value the labor power received. Surplus value is the product of the augmenting of variable capital.
Let us use “c” to denote constant capital, “v” for variable capital, and “m” for surplus value. Then, the advance payment for capital, is c + v and the total value of products is c + v + m. Since the value of c is unchanged in the production process, m is merely the result of the augmenting of v. So, to indicate the degree of exploitation of the worker by the capitalist, we can ignore c and contrast only m with v. Then m /v is the rate of surplus value. Using the above example of spinning, v is three yuan, and m is also three yuan. The rate of surplus value reflecting the degree of exploitation by the capitalist is thus m/v, that is, 100 percent.
From the process of value-augmenting, we can see that the labor time of a workday can be divided into two parts: one is the value (wage) used to reproduce variable capital. That part of labor time is needed for the sustenance of the worker and is called necessary labor time. The other part is used to produce surplus value for the capitalist and is called surplus labor. Therefore, the rate of surplus value can also be expressed as:
| rate of surplus value | = surplus value (m) | = surplus labor time |
| variable capital (v) | necessary labor time. |
To Obtain Absolute Surplus Value through Lengthening Labor Time
The capitalist always tries to increase the rate of surplus value by increasing the exploitation of the worker. In order to increase the rate of surplus value, the capitalist generally resorts to lengthening labor time. Under capitalism, the labor time of a worker in a day is the sum of necessary labor and surplus labor time. Under the condition of constant necessary labor time, the longer the labor time, the longer the surplus labor time. If, in the beginning, the daily labor time of a worker is twelve hours, six hours of which are necessary labor time, then six hours are surplus labor time. Now the capitalist extends the labor time to fifteen hours. With necessary labor time constant at six hours, surplus labor time becomes nine hours, three hours more than before. Thus, the ratio between surplus labor time and necessary labor time changes from six to six to nine to six. And the rate of surplus value is increased from 100 percent to 150 percent. This surplus value produced by the absolute lengthening of the daily labor time is called absolute surplus value.
In old China, the working time of the worker was incredibly long. The daily labor time was 15, 16 or even more than 18 hours. It was not unusual for a worker “to see stars in the sky before he went to bed late at night and to see stars when he had to get up early the next morning.” Prior to liberation, the workers in Sant’iaoshih, Tientsin, had to work 357 days a year and about 20 hours a day. Reckoning on the basis of 8 hours a day, it was equivalent to working 893 workdays. One year’s labor was equivalent to nearly 3 years. To lengthen the labor time of the workers, the capitalists thought up all kinds of restrictions, such as 10 minutes for meals and registration before going to toilets. They even resorted to the mean trick of setting the clock back! The longer the worker’s labor time, the longer the surplus labor time and the longer the absolute surplus value obtained by the capitalist. Under the cruel exploitation of the capitalist, this constant physical exhaustion severely strained the worker, often resulting in early death.
Though the lengthening of labor time by the capitalist to increase exploitation is an easy method, it inevitably leads to opposition from the worker. At the same time, the capitalist cannot extend the work time to twenty-four hours a day because there is a physical limit to labor power expenditure. Thus, the capitalist adopts another, more obscure method by shortening the necessary labor time and thus lengthening the relative surplus labor time to increase his exploitation of the worker.
To Extract Relative Surplus Value through Shortening the Necessary Labor Time
How can the necessary labor time be shortened? We know that the necessary labor time is the labor time needed for the reproduction of the value of labor power. And the value of labor power is determined by the value of necessary means of livelihood for the sustenance of the worker and his dependents. If the capitalist adopts new techniques and new machines to increase general labor productivity and thus reduce the value of means of livelihood necessary for the reproduction of labor power, then, even if the total daily labor time of the worker is constant, the relative surplus labor time can be lengthened because the necessary labor time can now be shortened because the value of labor power is reduced. Suppose the original necessary labor time is six hours and the surplus labor time is also six hours. Now, if the general labor productivity has been doubled, the value of the means of livelihood necessary for the worker and his dependents will be reduced by half, and the labor time necessary for reproducing the labor power value will also be shortened from six to three hours. And the surplus labor time will be lengthened from six to nine hours, three hours more than before. The ratio of surplus labor time to necessary labor time changes from six to six to nine to three. The rate of surplus value increases from 100 percent to 300 percent. This surplus value created by the shortening of the necessary labor time and the relative lengthening of the surplus labor time is called relative surplus value.
It must also be pointed out that the efforts of the individual capitalist to adopt new techniques and new machines to force the worker to increase his labor productivity cannot reduce the value of means of livelihood. Therefore, 46 he cannot immediately fulfill his aim of extracting relative surplus value. If this is the case, why does the capitalist adopt new techniques and new machines? The direct motive of the capitalist for adopting new techniques and new machines is to reduce the individual labor time for commodity production below the socially necessary labor time, so that when he sells his commodities at values determined by the socially necessary labor time, he can get more surplus value than other capitalists. The surplus value resulting from lower individual labor time of commodities than the socially necessary labor time is called excess surplus labor. But the capitalist who first adopts new techniques is not likely to enjoy this excess surplus value for long because of similar actions by other capitalists to share part of the excess profit. When the new techniques and new machines have been widely adopted and the general labor productivity elevated, the value of commodities will come down. The gap between individual labor time and socially necessary labor time leading to excess surplus value will disappear. Excess surplus value will also disappear. However, as a result, general labor productivity will have been elevated. The values of many commodities will come down, and the means of livelihood constituting the value of labor will be cheaper. The value of labor power will be cheaper, and the necessary labor time will be shortened. Consequently, the capitalist can extract more relative surplus labor.
The greedy capitalist not only resorts to elevating labor productivity to increase his relative surplus value, he also resorts to shortening the necessary labor time by increasing labor intensity to extract more relative surplus value. Marx said:
“In a sense, the elevation of labor productivity and the increase of labor intensity serve the same function. They will increase the total production derived from a given period of time. Consequently, they will shorten the part of the workday needed for the production of the workers’ own means of livelihood or other equivalents.” 9
The capitalist quickens the operation of machines, raises the labor quota, and reduces total employment but not total workload to increase the labor intensity of the worker. The labor of the worker is ever more demanding. After one day’s work, he is completely exhausted. Take the example of the Shanghai Shen hsin Yarn Mill. In 1933, 440 workers were employed for every 100,000 spindles. In order to compete with the Japanese-operated yarn mills and to get more surplus value, the capitalists of this mill forced up labor intensity by reducing the number of workers. In 1934, only 270 workers were employed for 100,000 spindles. In the old society under the oppression of the capitalist, the workers were so overworked that many became senile at age forty.
Depress Wages below the Value of Labor to Extract More Surplus Value
The tricks adopted by the capitalist to exploit the worker are numerous. He often depresses and deducts wages. When we analyzed absolute surplus value earlier, we assumed that the capitalist pays wages according to the value of labor power. But the wages of the worker are often below the value of his labor power. The capitalist tries his best to depress the worker’s wages. Even though the worker’s wages may barely be enough for his sustenance, he still tries to make all sorts of reductions to depress wages below the value of labor power so that even a minimum level of subsistence cannot be maintained by the worker. For example, there was a regulation in K’ailuan Coal Mine: forty-seven cents daily for the mule as fodder, but not more than twenty-two cents daily for the miner in wages. “Men were inferior to mules.” Also, in old China, many plants had penal codes for the workers, with all sorts of fancy items. Sometimes, the fine was even higher than the wage. For example, emptying water indiscriminately was punishable; looking out of the window was also punishable; assembling and associating were even more punishable. All the fines finally ended up in the capitalist’s pockets as an additional source of income.
The capitalist employed a large number of women and child laborers to engage in more cruel exploitation. With the employment of a large number of women and child laborers, the worker’s wages were often reduced to below the value of labor power. The wages of women and child laborers were even lower. In old China, women worked for more than ten hours daily, just like men, but their wages were only two-thirds or half that of men. The wages for child laborers were even lower, often only half that of women. Some capitalists merely provided some cheap meals with no money wage. The capitalist treated the “young apprentices” and the “child laborers” as less than human. Marx pointed out that the capitalist “extracts silk out of the blood of children who are so young that they have to be helped to their workshop” 10 Children in the growing stage and at school age were underfed, under-clothed, and tortured by the capitalist. They were often beaten up and cursed. A large number of child laborers perished under the cruel exploitation of the capitalist.
In capitalist society the capitalist not only cruelly exploited the worker, he also ruthlessly oppressed him. In old China, many capitalists stipulated plant regulations to oppress the worker. The tens or even a hundred penalty code items stripped much of the worker’s freedom. Examples were “searching before and after work” and “the management has the right to fire workers.” The plants were like prisons, and the workers were like prisoners. Some capitalists even had military and police forces stationed in the plant to oppress the workers.
Capitalism brought untold suffering to the worker. It is an evil, exploitative system. But renegade Liu Shaoch’i tried his best to defend the capitalist exploitative system and advocated that “exploitation has its merits.” He even said, “Capitalist exploitation is not only not evil, it has its merits.” This is all nonsense! Marx’s theory of surplus value is the most eloquent criticism of that 48 so-called “exploitation has its merits.” Liu Shao ch’i and company’s vain attempt to restore the capitalist exploitative system in socialist China could only expose their evil countenance as the spokesmen of the bourgeoisie.
Wages Conceal the Exploitative Relation of Capitalism
Wages Are a Disguised Form of the Value or Price of Labor
In capitalist society, the worker toiled in the capitalist’s plant and earned wages from the capitalist. The worker received a day’s wages after he toiled for a day. He received a week’s wages after he toiled for a week. On the surface, it looked as if all his labor had been compensated and that it was an “equivalent exchange.” In fact, the form of wages concealed the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist.
Marx pointed out: “Wages are not what they appear to be. They are not the value or price of labor, but a disguised form of the value or price of labor power.” 11 The wages advocated by the capitalist as “the value or price of labor” are entirely fictitious.
The key lies in the distinction between labor power and labor. This “involves an extremely important question in political economy.” 12 Under the capitalist system, what is being sold and bought as a commodity is labor power, not labor.
Why is labor not a commodity and why can it not be bought or sold? This is because, first, if labor is a commodity, it should exist before it is sold, just like other commodities. But, in fact, labor is the exercise of labor power. It does not exist before it is sold. It exists only after it is sold and used in the labor process. Also, once the worker’s labor is hired out, it no longer belongs to the worker himself. His labor belongs to the capitalist. Second, if labor is a commodity, according to the requirements of the law of value, it must be exchanged for equivalent value. Then the capitalist should pay the worker the full value created by the worker as his wage and as payment for the worker’s labor. If this were the case, then the capitalist would lose his source of wealth and surplus value would be abolished. There would no longer be capitalism. Third, if labor is a commodity, it should have a value. How should this value be determined? We know that the value of all commodities is determined by the amount of embodied labor. If the value of labor is also determined by the amount of labor, the result is to evaluate labor with labor. This is a tautology.
From this we can see that labor is not a commodity. It has no value. There is no such thing as “the value or price of labor.”
Under capitalism, the capitalist purchases labor power from the worker, but not labor. The wage paid to the worker by the capitalist is equivalent only to the value of the labor power. The remainder of what the worker’s labor creates over and above the value of the labor power is surplus value which is exploited by the capitalist. Therefore, the capitalist wage reflects the relation between the hiring capitalist and the hired worker, between the exploiting capitalist and the exploited worker.
The Downward Trend of the Real Wage of the Worker
The capitalist usually pays wages in money form. When the worker sells his labor power, he obtains a certain amount of money. The wage expressed in money form is called the nominal wage. The amount of money cannot reflect the actual standard of living of the worker. The real standard of living can only be reflected by the amount of means of livelihood purchasable by the money wage. This wage that reflects the real standard of living of the worker is called the real wage.
The nominal wage and the real wage are not always the same. With the nominal wage held constant, the real wage can decline. When the purchasing power of money declines and the prices of the means of livelihood go up, the same amount of the nominal wage can only be exchanged for a smaller amount of means of livelihood. Then the real wage falls. Sometimes even if the nominal wage goes up a bit, but less than the increase in prices of the means of livelihood, the real wage will still decline.
In capitalist society, there is a downward trend in the real wage of the worker. The bourgeoisie always use inflation, price increases, and rent hikes to increase the gap between the nominal and the real wage and to exploit the worker.
In old China, “wages increased at a snail’s pace while prices went up like a balloon.” To maintain their reactionary rule and plunder the people, the Chiang [Kai-shek] dynasty quickened the operation of the money printing press. In the twelve years between 1937 and 1949, the issue of notes increased by 140,000 million times and the price index increased by 8,500,000 million times. The worker in old China had more than his share of suffering from inflation. On the eve of the collapse of the Chiang dynasty, on every payday “the price of rice jumped three times while one trudged across the street.” In old China, the worker not only was paid a low wage, but what he could buy with it was even less. The wage was not worth a damn. It was almost impossible to support a family. Sometimes after strikes the nominal wage might go up a little, but prices went up a lot more. The lot of the worker was getting worse every day. What was even worse, the rents were very high. Even a rundown thatched shed cost a fortune. Marx and Engels pointed out,
“After the exploitation by the plant owner, another group of bourgeoisies — landlords, proprietors, and pawn shop owners — were waiting to take turns getting their shares from the worker’s wages.” 13
The Working Class Struggles against Capitalist Exploitation
The decline in the real wage reduced the majority of workers to cold and starvation. The working class naturally rose to oppose capitalist exploitation.
The economic struggle which the working class undertook to increase wages in order to protect their right to survive and to oppose the cruel exploitation of the bourgeoisie was very significant. This was because it not only delayed the decline of real wages, but it was also able to strengthen the unity of the working class, elevate their class consciousness, and temper their combat spirit. But we must not exaggerate the significance of economic struggle. Marx pointed out that the working class “should not forget: in this daily struggle they are only opposing the effect, but not the cause that produces this effect; they are only delaying the downward trend, not changing the direction of the trend; they are only suppressing the symptom, not curing the disease.” 14 Therefore, if the working class wants an ultimate solution, it cannot limit itself to economic struggles but must also extend from economic struggles to political struggles, overthrow the reactionary rule of the bourgeoisie, and demolish the capitalist exploitative system.
However, all sorts of scabs advocated: It is only necessary to engage in economic struggles. According to their fallacies, there is no need for the working class to seize political power through violent revolution and demolish the capitalist system. It should be contented with a little wage increase and some improvement in working conditions. These fallacies peddled by a handful of scabs were intended to vainly lead the proletarian revolutionary movement to the stray path of bourgeois reformism. They wanted the working class to serve as the capitalists’ hired slaves forever. “Workers should not abide by the conservative motto ‘a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s labor!’ They should write on their banner the revolutionary slogan: ‘Do away with the system of hired labor!’” 15
Major Study References
Marx, Capital. Vol. 1, Chapters 4, 5, 10,17.
Marx, Wage Labor and Capital.
Marx, Wage. Prices and Profit.
Chairman Mao, “The Analysis of Chinese Social Classes.”
Chairman, Mao, “The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party,” Chapter 1, Section 3; Chapter 2, Section 4.
Review Problems
- How does surplus value arise? Why do we say that the production of surplus value is the nature of capitalist production?
- What methods does the capitalist use to exploit and oppress the worker?
- Why do we say that the capitalist wage is merely a disguised form of the value or price of labor power?
- Why do we have to learn Marx’s theory of surplus value? How do we use Marx’s theory of surplus value to criticize Liu Shaoch’i and company’s viewpoint that “exploitation has its merit”?
15 Footnotes
