Wages, prices and profits

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Wage, price and profit is the name of a lecture manuscript by Karl Marx from 1865, which was first published in 1898 by Marx's daughter Eleanor . It contains the Marxian theory of surplus value in broad outline, as it is presented in detail in Capital of 1867.

Origin and publication history

The 50-page long text was created for a lecture that Marx gave during the meetings of the General Council of the International Workers' Association on June 20 and 27, 1865. The text was written between the end of May and June 27, 1865. It was first published in 1898 by Eleanor Marx in English under the title Value, price and profit with a foreword by Edward Aveling . He also divided the text into sections, which he consequently entitled himself. The German-language Marx-Engels works are based on the English-language manuscript of the lecture. They also structured the text, which is similar to Aveling's except for the 11th section, which is missing in the MEW. The text is available in 13 languages ​​in the Marxists Internet Archive .

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In his speech, Marx questions the connection between the price of goods and wage payments. Commodity prices would behave according to the law of supply and demand ; Wage payments are due to the negotiations between workers and capitalists . Since the working class has to spend a large part of its income on food, a general increase in the wage rate would lead to increased demand and thus an increase in market prices. However, Marx shows, using some examples of contemporary British economics, that prices did not always fall when wages were reduced and did not always rise when wages were increased. He therefore rejects the " dogma " coined by David Ricardo in 1817 in "On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation " that commodity prices are determined or regulated by wages. To illustrate this, he shows that "on average, high-paid work can produce low-priced goods and low-paid work high-priced goods" .

The value of a commodity is rather to be determined by the mass of social labor that all necessary in the promotion of raw materials for the goods and the production of the product itself has been, done. The mass of social work is to be added up according to the duration of the working hours that the extraction of raw materials, their processing and the development of the necessary instruments (devices, machines) took up. The resulting commodity value, which Marx also calls "natural price" based on Adam Smith , is (as he defines himself) "directly proportional to the hours of labor applied to their production and inversely proportional to the productive power of the labor applied." It should not be equated with the market price, which is made up of the value of a commodity and the profit , i.e. the part of the sales price that is left after the deduction of wages, rents and material costs.

The value of labor would correspond to the "value of food [as a commodity] necessary for the production, development [growing up], maintenance [cost of living] and perpetuation [reproduction] of labor" . The value of food can therefore be converted into the value of labor. Only the value of labor would be paid to the worker at the end of a defined time frame (e.g. a day), but he would have to work longer for the capitalist than he needed to produce the commodity value corresponding to his labor. Marx calls the surplus labor power surplus value for the capitalist. To the worker, however, it appears as if all the work he has done is only worth the wages he receives. This is a decisive difference to historical forms of work, which had a ratio of 1: 1 to the values ​​of their labor.

The surplus value (also profit ) of the capitalist would now come about because he sells the goods at the price that would make up the supposed value of the goods after the equivalent of the hours worked. In doing so, however, the capitalist converts the labor power actually produced by the worker to its value, although he has not paid him the wage that corresponds to this value. The labor that the worker has put into the production of commodities after he has already worked out the equivalent of his wages, the capitalist crops in as surplus value free of charge. The capitalist may have to cede part of this surplus value to other capitalists in the form of rent or interest payments . Overall, (labor) wages and profit would be in an oppositely dependent relationship. If the wages of the worker rise, the profit of the capitalist falls; if wages fall, profit increases.

Then Marx describes the possibilities of increasing wages or counteracting their lowering. He names five cases:

  1. Decreased productive power of workers leads to additional workers being hired, food prices to rise and surplus value to decrease. The worker could profit from it if he insisted on a wage commensurate with the new food prices.
  2. The discovery of new gold mines and the associated devaluation of the gold price is associated with an increase in the value of other goods (including labor and food). Their relative value to one another would, however, remain the same.
  3. Limitation of daily working hours and the abolition of child labor give the work that is then still done its value back.
  4. In the struggle for a higher wage, the worker opposes the increasing devaluation of his work. This struggle can be successful, especially in times of economic boom . An increase in wages in the case of economic prosperity compensates for a wage reduction in a poor economic situation.
  5. The fight for a higher wage must be constant. Marx alludes here to organized workers' representatives.

Finally, Marx speculates about the chances of success of these measures. In general, as with all commodities, the market price of labor would never be able to adjust to its value. However, the value of work is determined by the local traditions and living standards, which can be changed. In addition, the socially stronger group decides on the design of the economic system and even on the system itself. Continuous pressure from the workers (also through the state) on the capitalists would therefore help increase wage payments. The working class would only fight against undesirable effects, not against the causes. Only the struggle against the wage system per se could stop the tendency of the capitalist system.

Publications

First editions

  • Karl Marx: Value, price, and profit. Addressed to working men . Ed. by Eleanor Marx Aveling. S. Sunshine, London 1898
  • Wages, prices and profits. Lecture given in the General Council of the "Internationale" on June 26, 1865 by Karl Marx . In: The new time. Review of intellectual and public life. 16.1897-98, 2nd volume (1898), issue 27, pp. 4-13 digitized
  • Wages, prices and profits. Lecture given in the General Council of the "Internationale" on June 26, 1865 by Karl Marx . In: The new time. Review of intellectual and public life. 16.1897-98, 2nd vol. (1898), issue issue 28, pp. 36-42 digitized
  • Wages, prices and profits. Lecture given in the General Council of the "Internationale" on June 26, 1865 by Karl Marx . In: The new time. Review of intellectual and public life. 16.1897-98, 2nd vol. (1898), issue 29, pp. 68-76 digitized
  • Wages, prices and profits. Lecture given in the General Council of the "Internationale" on June 26, 1865 by Karl Marx . In: The new time. Review of intellectual and public life. 16.1897-98, 2nd volume (1898), issue 30, pp. 111-118 digitized
  • Wages, prices and profits. Lecture given in the General Council of the "Internationale" on June 26, 1865 by Karl Marx . In: The new time. Review of intellectual and public life. 16.1897-98, 2nd volume (1898), issue 31, pp. 131-140 digitized
  • Wages, prices and profits. Lecture given in the General Council of the “Internationale” on June 26, 1865 by Karl Marx . Translated by E [duard]. [and] R [egina]. Amber. Volksstimme bookstore, Frankfurt am Main, 1908
  • Karl Marx: Salaires, price, profits . Trad. by Charles Longuet . Giard, Paris 1899

Online editions

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Marx: wages, prices and profit. Section 5: Wages and Prices .
  2. ^ Karl Marx: wages, prices and profit. Section 6: Value and Labor .
  3. ^ Karl Marx: wages, prices and profit. Section 7: The Worker .