The M\u2013C\u2013M’ diagram shows how capitalists use labor to turn money into more money, which helps them keep and grow their wealth. A capitalist starts with money (M) and uses it to buy things (C), like raw materials, machines, and most importantly, labor power. Workers get paid, but the value of the goods and services they make is more than what they get paid. The capitalist gets this extra value, called surplus value, when the finished goods are sold for more than the original investment. This is called M’, or more money. The capitalist reinvests the profit, which is the difference between M and M’, to start the cycle over again. Over time, capitalists use strategies like speedups, downsizing, and contract labor to make more surplus value and cut costs, which helps them stay on top of the economy. This cycle shows that in capitalism, getting rich isn’t just about having money. It’s also about controlling the means of production and getting value from work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The M\u2013C\u2013M’ diagram shows how capitalists use labor to turn money into more money, which helps them keep and grow their wealth. A capitalist starts with money (M) and uses it to buy things (C), like raw materials, machines, and most importantly, labor power. Workers get paid, but the value of the goods and services…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11015,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-board-5-2","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11015"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11336,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11335\/revisions\/11336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0501-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}