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Capital, Volume I
''Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Volume I: The Process of Production of Capital'' () is the first of three treatises that make up , a critique of political economy by the German philosopher and economist Karl Marx. First published on 14 September 1867, Volume I was the product of a decade of research and redrafting and is the only part of to be completed during Marx's life. It focuses on the aspect of capitalism that Marx refers to as the Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory), capitalist mode of production or how capitalism organises society to produce goods and services. The first two parts of the work deal with the fundamentals of classical economics, including the nature of Value (economics), value, money, and commodities. In these sections, Marx defends and expands upon the labour theory of value as advanced by Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Starting with the next three parts, the focus of Volume I shifts to surplus value (the value of a finished commodi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labour Theory Of Value
The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the exchange value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The contrasting system is typically known as the subjective theory of value. The LTV is usually associated with Marxian economics, although it originally appeared in the theories of earlier classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and later in anarchist economics. Smith saw the price of a commodity as a reflection of how much labour it can "save" the purchaser. The LTV is central to Marxist theory, which holds that capitalists' expropriation of the surplus value produced by the working class is exploitative. Modern mainstream economics rejects the LTV and uses a theory of value based on subjective preferences. Definitions of value and labor According to the LTV, value refers to the amount of socially necessary labor to produce a marketable commodity; Accor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Technological Unemployment
The term technological unemployment is used to describe the loss of jobs caused by technological change. It is a key type of structural unemployment. Technological change typically includes the introduction of labour-saving "mechanical-muscle" machines or more efficient "mechanical-mind" processes (automation), and humans' role in these processes are minimized. Just as horses were gradually made obsolete as transport by the automobile and as labourer by the tractor, humans' jobs have also been affected throughout modern history. Historical examples include Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, artisan weavers reduced to poverty after the introduction of Power loom, mechanized looms. Thousands of man-years of work was performed in a matter of hours by the bombe codebreaking machine during World War II. A contemporary example of technological unemployment is the displacement of retail cashiers by Self-checkout, self-service tills and cashierless stores. That techn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wage Slavery
Wage slavery is a term used to criticize exploitation of labour by business, by keeping wages low or stagnant in order to maximize profits. The situation of wage slavery can be loosely defined as a person's dependence on wages (or a salary) for their livelihood, especially when wages are low, treatment and conditions are poor, and there are few chances of upward mobility. The term is often used by critics of wage-based employment to criticize the exploitation of labor and social stratification, with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital, particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages, such as in sweatshops, and the latter is described as a lack of workers' self-management, fulfilling job choices and leisure in an economy.. The criticism of social stratification covers a wider range of employment choices bound by the pressures of a hierarchical society to perform otherwise unfulfilling work that deprives humans of their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proletariat
The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist philosophy regards the proletariat under conditions of capitalism as an exploited class forced to accept meager wages in return for operating the means of production, which belong to the class of business owners, the bourgeoisie. Karl Marx argued that this capitalist oppression gives the proletariat common economic and political interests that transcend national boundaries, impelling them to unite and to take over power from the capitalist class, and eventually to create a socialist society free from class distinctions. Roman Republic and Empire The constituted a social class of Roman citizens who owned little or no property. The name presumably originated with the census, which Roman authorities conducted every five years ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Class Conflict
In political science, the term class conflict, class struggle, or class war refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequalities of power in the socioeconomic hierarchy. In its simplest manifestation, class conflict refers to the ongoing battle between the rich and poor. In the writings of several leftist, socialist, and communist theorists, notably those of Karl Marx, class struggle is a core tenet and a practical means for effecting radical sociopolitical transformations for the majority working class. It is also a central concept within conflict theories of sociology and political philosophy. Class conflict can reveal itself through: * Direct violence, such as assassinations, coups, revolutions, counterrevolutions, and civil wars for control of government, natural resources, and labor; * Indirect violence, such as deaths from poverty, malnutrition, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economic Growth
In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and Service (economics), services that a society Production (economics), produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted Output (economics), output of an economy in a given year or over a period of time. The rate of growth is typically calculated as List of countries by real GDP growth rate, real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, List of countries by real GDP per capita growth, real GDP per capita growth rate or List of countries by GNI per capita growth, GNI per capita growth. The "rate" of economic growth refers to the Exponential growth, geometric annual rate of growth in GDP or GDP per capita between the first and the last year over a period of time. This growth rate represents the trend in the average level of GDP over the period, and ignores any fluctuations in the GDP around this trend. Growth is usually calculated in "real" value, which is real v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succeeding the Second Agricultural Revolution. Beginning in Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain around 1760, the Industrial Revolution had spread to continental Europe and the United States by about 1840. This transition included going from craft production, hand production methods to machines; new Chemical industry, chemical manufacturing and Puddling (metallurgy), iron production processes; the increasing use of Hydropower, water power and Steam engine, steam power; the development of machine tools; and rise of the mechanisation, mechanised factory system. Output greatly increased, and the result was an unprecedented rise in population and population growth. The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods, and textiles b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Means Of Production
In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the classical factors of production (land, labour, and capital) as well as the general infrastructure and capital goods necessary to reproduce stable levels of productivity. It can also be used as an abbreviation of the "means of production and distribution" which additionally includes the logistical distribution and delivery of products, generally through distributors; or as an abbreviation of the "means of production, distribution, and exchange" which further includes the exchange of distributed products, generally to consumers. The concept of "Means of Production" is used by researchers in various fields of study — including politics, economics, and sociology — to discuss, broadly, the relationship between anything that can have p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Accumulation
Capital accumulation is the dynamic that motivates the pursuit of profit, involving the investment of money or any financial asset with the goal of increasing the initial monetary value of said asset as a financial return whether in the form of profit, rent, interest, royalties or capital gains. The goal of accumulation of capital is to create new fixed capital and working capital, broaden and modernize the existing ones, grow the material basis of social-cultural activities, as well as constituting the necessary resource for reserve and insurance. The process of capital accumulation forms the basis of capitalism, and is one of the defining characteristics of a capitalist economic system.''Capital'', Encyclopedia on Marxists.org: http://marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/a.htm#capital Definition In economics and accounting, capital accumulation is often equated with investment of profit income or savings, especially in real capital goods. The concentration and centralisa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted with the proletariat by their wealth, political power, and education, as well as their access to and control of cultural, social, and financial capital. The bourgeoisie in its original sense is intimately linked to the political ideology of liberalism and its existence within cities, recognised as such by their urban charters (e.g., municipal charters, town privileges, German town law), so there was no bourgeoisie apart from the citizenry of the cities. Rural peasants came under a different legal system. In communist philosophy, the bourgeoisie is the social class that came to own the means of production during modern industrialisation and whose societal concerns are the value of private property and the preservation of capital t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relations Of Production
Relations of production () is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their theory of historical materialism and in ''Das Kapital''. It is first explicitly used in Marx's published book '' The Poverty of Philosophy'', although Marx and Engels had already defined the term in '' The German Ideology'' which was only published posthumously in 1932. Some social relations are voluntary or freely chosen (ie. a person chooses to associate with another person or a group). But other social relations are involuntary, i.e. people can be socially related, whether they like that or not, because they are part of a family (ie. biosocial kinship) a group, an organization, a community, a nation, etc. By "relations of production", Marx and Engels meant the sum total of social relationships that people ''must'' enter into in order to survive, to produce, and to reproduce their means of life. As people ''must'' enter into these social relationships, i.e. because participatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
