I think two key concepts are the means of production and labor, and the means of production are the tools, machinery, land, and raw materials that are used in order to produce goods. For example, it could be for bakery, ovens mixers, and even flour, but labor on the other hand is the human effort and skill that is applied to those tools like a bigger needing dough and a baking bread and continuation.
Another important concept is value that can be determined by the socially necessary labor that’s required to produce a good or service, for example the hours of skilled work that goes into making in handmade chair, has lots of value and time put into it that goes into saying labor and value are directly connected because laborers were create value, but the more labor that’s put into a product the more valuable it is, and that is important to understand because the difference between labor and labor power is very different. Labor is actual work performed while labor power is a persons capacity or ability to work that can later be sell an employer finally surplus value refers to the difference between the value workers produce, and the wage they are paid, and that explains how capitalists make profit and highlighting the basis of exploitation in class systems because for example, if a worker produces $200 worth of goods in just one day but gets only paid $100 extra 100 is surplus value that the owner keeps.
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hello! It’s not allowing me to post without it being a reply so I’m sorry for the confusion but this is my response to discussion question 5.1.
1. The means of production are the physical tools and resources used to create goods and services. For example, if your goods and services was content creation, as an ongoing example, your means of production would be your cell phone, ring lights, editing software, etc. They are what you use to produce something.
Labor is the human work involved in producing goods or services. It is the physical and mental effort people use to transform raw materials into finished products. Once again, for content creation, the person on video and the person editing the content would be the labor.
2. Value and labor vs value
For content creation, value still comes from labor just in a modern form. Value is the worth of the content being produced (a video, podcast, post, or stream). In the view of Karl Marx, value comes from socially necessary labor time, the average time and effort it takes to create that type of content under normal conditions. A ten minute video can actually be worth hours and hours of editing, recording, planning, promoting. The product is digital and very popular (therefore socially expectable), however, the labor is human. Because content creation can be a very lucrative field if popular, the more labor required to create high quality content, the more value it holds.
3. Labor vs Labor Power
Labor is the activity done by a person. For example, being a carpenter, video editor or setting a table at a restaurant. Labor power is someone’s capacity to work. When you hire someone, you buy their labor power with wages. Simply workers sell their ability to work for x number of hours. Within those hours they exert labor which can create value.
4.Surplus and surplus value
Surplus value refers to the excess labor workers provide beyond their wage. In the theory of Karl Marx, it defines it as labor done in excess of wages. For instance, if someone works an eight hour day and produces $400 worth of goods but is only paid $150 in wages, then there is $250 surplus value paid to the owner as profit.
Surplus value helps explain social classes as it highlights how the owners of capital accumulate wealth from the worker’s production. Only a cut goes to the worker as a wage, rather than the whole product. It demonstrates the relationship between owner and worker, and how capitalism can cause inequality.