Marx’s Law of the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall
Capitalist crisis and the class struggle In Capital Volume Three, chapter thirteen, Karl Marx distilled the essence of a commodity to its fundamental components. He found that a commodity was made up of three parts; Capital (c). This includes everything used in the means of production, plant, machinery, raw materials, intellectual property. Everything a worker requires to produce a product. Wages (v). This is to pay for the ability to work but not work put in as we’ll see. Surplus Value (s). This is the profit or value obtained from utilising labour power (v) to work the means of production (c). From this we can see that Commodity = c+v+s. There are two formulae we can draw on to show the rate of exploitation of labour and also the rate of profit. Rate of Surplus Value (s/v) = % | Rate of Profit (s/c+v) = % This was one of the elements that Marx would draw together to expose the laws that underpin modern capitalism and makes it unique as an economic system. Zentralbiblio...