Absolute added value

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In Karl Marx's main work “ Das Kapital ”, absolute surplus value describes a form of surplus value production . According to Marx, this results from the formal subsumption of labor under capital , i.e. the subordination of the worker to the command of a capitalist.

principle

The worker sells his labor to a capitalist for a certain period of time. It is true that labor is inextricably linked with the body of the worker, but the capitalist has it at his disposal. He uses the labor for his own purposes. He makes the worker work longer than he would have to work to produce a mere equivalent of his wages. Marx calls the process the production of absolute surplus value : the production of surplus value with the means of command over foreign labor.

In the third section of the first volume of "Das Kapital", Marx describes the methods of producing absolute surplus value as historically emerged with the earliest beginnings of capitalism in Europe. The methods essentially consisted in lengthening the working day beyond any historical and natural barrier until the English state was the first to intervene with the factory laws against the completely reckless exploitation of the labor of (initially only) women and children.

Furthermore, the working day can also be extended by making better use of the working hours. In this way, break times can be shortened or certain preparations are no longer counted as part of official working hours. Finally, the capitalist can make the workers work more intensely, which would have the same effect as extending working hours.

It is true that the extension of the working day and the production of surplus value come up against physical and legal limits, but real subsumption and the methods of producing relative surplus value , which are based on formal subsumption, enable the rate of surplus value to be increased further .

See also

literature

  • Karl Marx: Capital. MEW 23, especially pp. 192-330.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Heinrich: Critique of the political economy. An introduction . 14th edition. Butterfly Verlag, Stuttgart 2018, p. 102-103 .