General Marx's Theories - Essay Example

 Topic: Das Kapital As an economist, Karl Marx inherited the labor theory of value from the classical school. But he took a radical break. For Marx labor is value. Marx is aware that the computation of value needs to be a well-researched and well-articulated assignment. For, it has to be judged and computed from several competing aspects. Marx’s concept of value is—fragments of the total labor potential prevalent in a given society at a given period, say a month or a quarter, which is the base for the output of a given commodity.

Value needs to be judged from social, objective and historical perspectives. Marx gives reasons as for the need of such assessment. Value is social because it is determined by the total result of the fluctuating efforts of each individual producer; objective because it is given, upon the completion of the production of a given commodity, and becomes independent from personal or collective valuations of customers on the market place; it is historically relative because it is linked to each important change, progress or otherwise, of the average productivity of labor in a given segment of output, including transportation and agriculture.

The significant statement of Karl Marx (1818-1883), in relation to labor is “Nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labor contained in it; the labor does not count as labor, and therefore creates no value" (260) To him labor is a commodity. This does not, however, mean that Marx’s concept of value is detached from consumption. He only distinguishes between the living labor and dead labor, like tools and raw materials. But he says values determine prices only basically and in the medium-term sense of the word.

Marx respects the operation of market laws, also of law of supply and demand, in determining the short-term fluctuations. The Communist Manifesto declares, “The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations and has left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest…”(Communist Manifesto) Marx does treat labor as a commodity but one can not say that his value theory is unscientific and wrong. His observation should not be read in isolation.

Karl Korsch points out, “It was never the intention of Marx to descend from the general idea of value as expounded in the first volume of Capital, by means of ever closer determinants to a direct determination of the price of commodities. The particular importance of the law of value within Marx’s theory has nothing to do with a direction fixation of the prices of commodities by their value.” (Review…) Marx is fully seized of the issue, and the possible leverage the bourgeois economists would avail to level criticism on the issue.

According to him, “There is no economic or other rationally determinable relation whatever between the value of the new commodities produced by the use of labor power in the workshop and the prices paid for this labor to its sellers.”(Review….) Marx divides production in to two parts to explain the concepts of surplus and exploitation for the clear understanding of the labor theory of value. Firstly, the cost of production and secondly the surplus value which is the difference between the good’s price and its cost of production.

Marx makes a realistic assessment of the scenario and he avers that any economy will produce more goods and services than are required to pay all the real social costs of production. At this stage, Marx intervenes strongly because this is the playing ground for the capitalists to plan strategies that go against the interest of the workers. His question is what is an equitable way to distribute this socially produced surplus among participants in the society? Marx’s concern for the labor indicates that he does not consider labor as a lifeless commodity.

His issue is about the exploitation of labor. His point is, this surplus created by labor is taken from it because it has no ownership of means of production. Thus, surplus and exploitation are the relevant issues. Large profits are considered as surplus that is taken from workers. ****************** Works Cited: Karl Marx How are the production of commodities and the division of labor related according to Marx (261).

- Cached –Retrieved on October 15, 2009Review of 'Karl Marx' by Karl Korsch. by Paul Mattick…- Cached - Retrieved on October 15, 2009