PPR295: CRITICAL IPE THEORIES

(MARX: A TLDR)

★ MODE OF PRODUCTION
- Production can assume many modes depending on the form of social organisation
- Covers the means and the relations of production
- The social organisation of the relations of production and reproduction
- The means of production:

● The unity of productive forces and relations of production

- The relations of production:

● Relations of production , distribution, circulation, consumption and

reproduction

★ LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE

- Two key values are involved:

1) Use value
2) Exchange value

- Under capitalism, commodities are the product of labour

- The division of labour is the labour time required for the production of commodities
- Thus:

● The value of a commodity derives from the labour time

socially needed to produce it

- The workers’ surplus value is absorbed by their bosses as profits

★ THE SURPLUS VALUE

- Refers to the rate of exploitation and amount of labour employed
- The surplus value can be increased by:

1) Absolute Surplus Value

● By increasing the length of the working day

2) Relative Surplus Value

● By increasing the productivity involved in the industries
★ CAPITAL
- The money or commodities being used to produce surplus value
- Surplus value is appropriated by the capitalists
- Capital accumulation:

● Refers to the increases in the means of production and labour power

● Involves the relations of exploitation, domination, and competition
● Forms the basis of class antagonism between the workers and the capitalists

★ COMPETITION
- Competition in the capitalist system will inevitably lead to monopolies, crises,
inequalities

★ CRISIS
- Is a natural and inherent part of the capitalist system
- Due to the contradictions of the capitalist system itself

★ HUMAN NATURE
- Dialectical materialism
- People produce their ideas the same way they produce their material life

★ THE STATE
- The state acts on behalf of the capitalists to maintain their interests

★ IMPERIALISM
- The highest stage of capitalism
- Due to the inherent feature of capitalism to spread into as many regions as possible
- Thus leading to inter-capitalist state geopolitical rivalries (and subsequently, war)
(WEEK 4 SEMINAR DISCUSSIONS)

● THE EXCHANGE VALUE:

- Involves the labour time of the workers that was involved in the production of
commodities

● MARX AND SMEs

- The owners own the means of production

- And the workers are the owners too
- Can Marx explain this?:

➢ The exploitation of workers and their labour

➢ The taking away of one worker in large companies won’t affect the production and
distribution of the commodities
➢ But in the SMEs’ case, all of the workers are more “valuable” in the calculations of
the business (taking away one workers will affect production significantly more than
the case of large corporations; SMEs cannot benefit from the economies-of-scale)
➢ Culture is involved as well in the production and consumption of commodities (people
give different values to different commodities/products because of cultural
perspectives) (Veblen)

- Large corporations and distributors are parasitic to SMEs and workers because they
attach themselves to such entities and do not contribute to the surplus
value/generation of value
- Why is Amazon not making value?:

➢ The goods have been produced by the SMEs and workers

➢ Amazon merely added extra profits to these completed products
➢

● Marx, Capitalism and Alienation:

- Capitalism alienated the labour and skill of the workers from their commodities

● Why are large corporations and businesses parasitic?:

➔ Are they actually capitalising on the exchange value of goods?

➔ Or are they producing actual use value?
➔ Alienated the workers from their commodities
● The proletarianisation of businesses:

- SMEs have owners that are also workers of large corporations

- TLDR: Workers’ cooperatives are inherently less tyrannical in production and
consumption than large corporations
- Workers’ cooperatives in a free market (democratic socialist market economy)

● Production makes class:

- Everyone uses commodities (we had to!)

- To be a capitalists, we need to employ people and to own the means of production