capital ch. 1; surplus value; acculumation; marx on slavery; du bois and west

commodity

goods or products produced for exchange in the market; have a use value and exchange value

use value

commodity’s concrete utility/usefulness as a good or service

exchange value

value a commodity has in terms of its exchange for other commodities; no regard for specific use or utility

concrete labor

work that can be done in a certain period of time; actual labor performed to create a commodity

abstract labor

“socially necessary” measure of time to produce a commodity; social construct

social relationships

…in capitalism are masked through relationships through commodities (fetishism of commodities)

total labor value

sum total of all the values of all commodities produced by society

labor

humans utilize this as a NOT INSTINCTUAL form of self expression that becomes an extension of ourselves; basic form is creative and unique to human species

self-determined work

positive, enjoyable

money-commodity-money

money is invested in a commodity, commodity is then sold for money (ideally, creating a profit)

objective factors

means of production

subjective factors

human labor

labor power

commodity; no longer part of human self-actualization but rather a mode of creating other commodities for profit that belongs to the capitalist

stolen wages

= surplus value; capitalists only pay workers enough to continue existing at the bare minimum and retain the “rest” of the wages as profit— surplus value created from LABOR POWER rather than the market

johnson on marx

evaded slavery as a topic, believed it had nothing to do w/ generation of capital, slavery is no longer a part of capitalism’s structure

marx on slavery

slavery necessary to capitalism’s development (slavery → colonies → world trade →large-scale industry) and therefore backbone of modern world economy and large scale industry; capitalism did not adapt to slavery but slavery adapted to capitalism

modern slavery

most brutal form of slavery bc slaves function as both capital assets and labor power— slaves’ combination with capital means all that matters is extracting surplus value, so human life becomes a value to be extracted under modern capitalist slavery

slaveowner capitalism

variant of colonialism and capitalism (slaves extracted as raw material), slavery has been used across time to create surplus value

seven years rule

modern slaves were often worked to death w/i seven years— how much labor power could be extracted from them before their death?

slave labor vs. wage labor

slave’s LIFE is the exchange value, labor is the exchange value of the wage laborer