Surplus Value

Abstract

Abstract Determining the source of social surplus was the most important scientific and political question addressed by classical political economists. Marx accepted British political economists' argument that a product's value is based on the amount of socially necessary, simple, abstract labor that is required for its production, measured as time. Marx's theory of surplus value stems from his theory of value and has four key elements: all commodities exchange as equivalents of value; workers do not have direct access to the means of production but are free to sell their ability to work (or labor power) in order to survive; like every commodity, labor power has a value; and workers and employers exchange equivalents with workers agreeing to work a specified period of time in return for their labor power's full value (employers do not create surplus value by paying workers below their value). The key to surplus value is the unique ability of labor power, in a system of equivalent exchange, to produce, throughout an entire workday, more value than the value exchanged with the worker (the bearer of labor power). According to Marx, labor power is the sole source of surplus value and thus workers and their labor power are the source of social surplus in capitalist societies.