No.8164
Hello /edu!!
I am struggling to understand some of the basics of capitalist poliical economy, and i was hoping someone here could help we with my learning. Specifically the equation for the Rate of Surplus-Value escapes my grasp :(. Pic related, from Political Economy, A Textbook issued by the Institute of Economics of the Academy of sciences of the USSR, page 108.
So I understand surplus-value (s) to be the value of labour-power that the worker isn't compensated for, and variable capital (v) to be the portion of capital spend on supplying the worker with wages. In the example, $6 is the value of the worker's surplus-value, while $6 is also the variable capital spent on supplying the worker with wages.
I am not sure how they come to the conclusion that half of the worker's labour is surplus, and half is nessessary. If the capitalist spends $6 on wages, and extracts $6 of surplus-value, wouldnt the worker be fully compensated in this case? The capitalist wouldnt recieve any profit. I think im missing something obvious here, but ive been mulling over it for days now. Please assist!
>>
No.8165
>So I understand surplus-value (s) to be the value of labour-power that the worker isn't compensated for, and variable capital (v) to be the portion of capital spend on supplying the worker with wages.
This is basically correct, but the intuition is that labor needs food, shelter, etc to live, have children and reproduce society. Everything not spent on that is surplus value. That surplus value is extracted from the workers.
>If the capitalist spends $6 on wages, and extracts $6 of surplus-value, wouldnt the worker be fully compensated in this case?
Fully compensated would mean that the workers receive 100% of the value they create. If there is any extraction at all by the capitalist then it's not full compensation is it?
>I am not sure how they come to the conclusion that half of the worker's labour is surplus
I think they just simplify it to mean whatever is paid in wages vs whatever is kept as profit.
>The capitalist wouldn't receive any profit.
Aren't they receiving 6$ in profit?