"The magnitude of the rate of surplus value is directly determined by three factors: the length of the working day, the quantity of commodities entering into the real wage, and the productiveness of labor. The first establishes the total time to be divided between necessary and surplus labor, and the second and third together determine how much of this time is to be counted as necessary labor. Each of these three factors is in turn the focal point of a complex of forces which have to be analysed in the further development of the theory. The rate of surplus value may be raised either by an extension of the working day, or by a lowering of the real wage, or by an increase in the productiveness of labor, or, finally, by some combination of the three movements. In case of an increase in the length of the working day, Marx speaks of the production of absolute surplus value, while either a lowering of the real wage or an increase in productivity, leading to a reduction of necessary labor, results in the production of relative surplus value."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Editors from the United StatesPeople from New York CityEconomists from the United StatesMarxists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chap. 4 : Surplus Value and Capitalism
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Sweezy
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Paul Sweezy
Paul Marlor Sweezy (April 10, 1910 – February 27, 2004) was an American Marxian economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine .
19 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Paul Sweezy →
Related Quotes
"Capitalist society is characterized by a degree of labor mobility much greater than prevailed in any previous form of…"
"Turning from political economy in a narrow sense, it is apparent that the commodity-producing form constitutes the mo…"
"In every society, from the most primitive to the most advanced, it is essential that labor be applied to production a…"
"Supply and demand will be in equilibrium only when the price of every commodity is proportional to the labor time req…"
"Under simple commodity production, to which we have so far largely confined our attention, each producer owns and wor…"
"The expansion of value, which is the objective basis or main-spring of the circulation M-C-M, becomes his subjective …"
"So far as the individual capitalists are concerned, each takes the wage level for granted and attempts to do the best…"
"Mr. Sweezy did not think of himself as a Stalinist or sectarian. His Marxism developed as a response to the Great Dep…"
"In possessing exchange value relative to one another, commodities show their unique characteristic. It is only as com…"
"The real danger from advertising is that it helps to shatter and ultimately destroy our most precious non-material po…"