Liberation Audio11 Jul 2021

Surplus value is the class struggle: An introduction

The notion that the rich are rich because they’re frugal, smart, entrepreneurial, and hardworking, and that the poor are poor because they’re wasteful, lazy, stupid, and irresponsible is widespread. This is the ideology of meritocracy: that success or failure in life is up to the individual’s choices. The ideology takes on different forms, such as the idea that Black liberation is achieved through “Black buying power,” as Jared Ball’s recent book puts it. Whatever form it takes, this ideology serves the purpose of blaming the poor for their poverty and the oppressed for their oppression. The capitalist system that produces both is totally absolved. What’s interesting is that although this notion is widely accepted, it is easily disproved. Who, after all, thinks Donald Trump gained his wealth by employing his intelligence? It’s obvious that his wealth has nothing to do with his own individual personality, characteristics or merits. On the other end, who doesn’t know smart and creative people—maybe even with advanced degrees—who are either working low-waged jobs or are unemployed? Marx was the first to discover and articulate the specific source of inequality under capitalism: surplus value. In a letter he wrote to Engels the year he published the first volume of Capital, Marx said that “the treatment of surplus-value regardless of its particular forms as profit, interest, ground rent, etc.” was one of the “best points” made in the book. But there are a few necessary steps to take before we can really grasp surplus value, which is the real motor of class struggle. Read the full article here: https://liberationschool.org/03-what-is-surplus-value-html/

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