Raw materials, fractional products, means of production, and logistics/transportation.
All of those add up into what's called "static" value. Or value that they directly impart on a commodity in accordance with their market/exchange value. The reason it's static is because the surplus value/labor value of the product has already been extracted by another capitalist.
So a chair uses $15 worth of wood, nails, glue, and machine life (power, maintenance, etc). This means that the chair now has exactly $15 worth of value, but no use value so also no real exchange value yet. When a carpenter leverages their labor against those means of production with static value, they generate "variable" value or "labor value".
Example: $15 worth of parts, $15/hr wage for the carpenter, 3 chairs per hour. Each chair sells for $20. In this situation, the value of the commodity is true. It's equal to the labor imparted by the carpenter plus the static values associated with costs of production.
Now the capitalist who owns the chair factory isn't happy with this. So they try to reduce material costs. They buy wood that's a bit cheaper and get the material cost down to $13, but when they go to sell the chairs they find that the chair is now only worth $18 so they still get no profit.
Going back to the factory, the capitalist decides that he's going to work his carpenters harder. Now they have to make 4 chairs per hour instead of 3 and lo and behold when he goes to sell the chairs the next day, each of his workers is now making him $5/hr worth of profit!
With this knowledge, he realizes that he can make an extra $20/day off his 4 workers by extending their shift from 8 hours to 9. He also realizes that hiring more workers means he can generate even more profit per day (as each man hour worked makes profit).
He hires 6 more workers and is now bringing in $50/hr for himself.
From this relationship, all of capitalism springs. All it's issues are centered around contradictions that arise from this simple example.
Raw materials, fractional products, means of production, and logistics/transportation.
All of those add up into what's called "static" value. Or value that they directly impart on a commodity in accordance with their market/exchange value. The reason it's static is because the surplus value/labor value of the product has already been extracted by another capitalist.
So a chair uses $15 worth of wood, nails, glue, and machine life (power, maintenance, etc). This means that the chair now has exactly $15 worth of value, but no use value so also no real exchange value yet. When a carpenter leverages their labor against those means of production with static value, they generate "variable" value or "labor value".
Example: $15 worth of parts, $15/hr wage for the carpenter, 3 chairs per hour. Each chair sells for $20. In this situation, the value of the commodity is true. It's equal to the labor imparted by the carpenter plus the static values associated with costs of production.
Now the capitalist who owns the chair factory isn't happy with this. So they try to reduce material costs. They buy wood that's a bit cheaper and get the material cost down to $13, but when they go to sell the chairs they find that the chair is now only worth $18 so they still get no profit.
Going back to the factory, the capitalist decides that he's going to work his carpenters harder. Now they have to make 4 chairs per hour instead of 3 and lo and behold when he goes to sell the chairs the next day, each of his workers is now making him $5/hr worth of profit!
With this knowledge, he realizes that he can make an extra $20/day off his 4 workers by extending their shift from 8 hours to 9. He also realizes that hiring more workers means he can generate even more profit per day (as each man hour worked makes profit).
He hires 6 more workers and is now bringing in $50/hr for himself.
From this relationship, all of capitalism springs. All it's issues are centered around contradictions that arise from this simple example.