Marx and Capitalism
Karl Marx is the most controversial economist in history. His writings are studied and debated. He is frequently linked with communism and that association has biased many people against him. Marx's link to communism were formed because many of the socialist dictators such as Lenin studied Marx intensively, however it is erroneous to assume that Marx was a proponent of communism. He was however a critic of capitalism. He studied capitalism extensively and much of his writings focus on the problems with capitalism and specifically on the exploitation of the worker. By examining the origination of capitalism and the Marxist critique of capitalism, we can gain a better understanding of Marx's viewpoints and separate Marx's views from many of the misunderstandings surrounding Marx. Marx spent a great deal of time examining the conversion of the feudal society to a capitalist society. Before the conversion to capitalism took place, England experienced an industrial revolution. This revolution took place from the 10th to the 14th centuries. Around this time, the Plaque that wreaked havoc on England and wiped out nearly half of its population was over. After the Plague ended, many people inherited a lot of wealth and spendin
If there is little or no training necessary, a workers wages will equal the subsistence wage (the minimum amount necessary for a worker to survive). It will not provide him a way of moving up from the lower classes. Regardless the worker is reduced to a tool used by the Capitalist and he is nothing more than a component in the production process. Although many workers do live and work for a wage below this level, the minimum wage correlates to the wages of the entire working class and this wage is the point about which wages of the workers fluctuates. The value of a good is determined either directly or indirectly by the worker. The other half of the value that the worker added is the surplus value and the surplus value is taken for profit by the capitalist. He believed that a Capitalist economy will grow for decades (although their will be periods of recession and depression), but the capitalist system can not flourish indefinitely because by isolating the worker and creating the tension that must exist between the capitalist and the worker, capitalism must fall. The value is either composed of the actual units of labor used to produce the product or the cost of labor is used as part the valuation of the good (in addition to the other costs such as materials and machinery). In fact, a growth in profits would imprison the worker. The costs can be described as the cost of maintaining and training the worker. It was no longer necessary to learn how to do things directly through human contact. The surplus value is the value of a good above and beyond the value that was paid to the worker in the form of wages. This theory suggests that the value of a commodity is equal to its cost of production. It had been a problem for economists to determine how the value of a good is derived. Supply and demand and the competition for labor determine wages by the capitalists.
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