As we learned thus far, the capitalist class consists of people who own wealth, as well as the means of production in American society. An important question in understanding how this class works is to ask: how does a capitalist remain wealthy? The answer to this question depends largely on understanding the diagram M-C-M’. So, let’s practice by explaining what happens in this diagram in our own words (but basing our ideas on Reading 5.1). Respond to the following question: Explain M-C-M’ to show how capitalists maintain and increase their wealth. (hint: your answer should weave a summary that includes what you reviewed in the self-assessment exercise question 1-7)

M-C-M is a formula that Marx used make up the capitalist system. M-C-M stands for money-commodity-money. With this form the way the capitalist would maintain and increase their wealth is because they would have an item in its raw state such as wood. They would not sell the wood even though the wood have value of its own but rather hire people that would turn the wood into something such as furniture or paper, etc and obtain surplus value plus the profit of selling the item. So the idea is you start off with money that you use to buy a commodity which is the raw material, then you sell it back for more money.