VirtualBread [she/her]

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Joined 1 年前
Cake day: 2023年8月14日
  • VirtualBread [she/her]tomarxism•The difference between profit and surplus value?
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    18 天前

    My understanding of it:

    Surplus value = value workers produce in excess of what they need to live. So if I work 8 hours but only needed to work 3 in order to maintain my current standard of living, my surplus value is 5 hours of labor-time.

    Profit = the net earnings of the capitalist through the act of production. The capitalist earns the surplus value produced by workers through exploitation, of course, but not only do they have to pay the workers' wages, they also have to pay for constant capital, which is machinery, equipment, and other things needed for production besides labor.

    So profit = surplus value generated - the cost of constant capital.

  • VirtualBread [she/her]toanarchism•Max Nettlau (Anarchist Historian) - New General Megathread for the 29th-30th of April 2024
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    7 个月前

    Am reading a bourgeois macroeconomics textbook right now (why do I torture myself so), and the example they give to explain the theory of comparative advantage made me physically cringe. It goes something like this:

    "Suppose that South America can produce 400 units of food or 200 units of computers, and Europe can produce 200 units of food or 400 units of computers. South America has a comparative advantage in producing food, while Europe has a comparative advantage in producing computers. So it would be mutually beneficial for South America to specialize in making food and Europe to specialize in making computers"

    My god, what a painfully ironic example, given that the theory of comparative advantage originated from 19th century Britain, which promoted the theory because it wanted to force foreign nations to open themselves up to British exploitation. But neither the colonialist interests behind the origin of the theory nor the way in which this racist example perfectly plays to said colonialist origins ever crossed the minds of the author.

    Death to bourgeois economics