M\u2013C\u2013M\u2019 is basically the formula for how capitalists keep getting richer. It starts with M, which is money. The capitalist already has money to begin with. Then they use that money to buy C, which stands for commodities. But that doesn\u2019t just mean random products. It includes the means of production (like machines, buildings, materials) and labor power, meaning workers\u2019 ability to work. So they take their money and invest it into a business by paying for equipment and paying workers wages. The workers then use their labor to create goods or services that get sold. When those products are sold, the capitalist ends up with M\u2019, which is more money than they started with. The whole point is that the money at the end is bigger than the money at the beginning. That extra part, the difference between M and M\u2019, comes from surplus value, which is created because workers produce more value than what they\u2019re paid in wages. The capitalist doesn\u2019t make profit just by sitting there, but by controlling the process where labor creates value and keeping the extra. Then they reinvest that bigger amount of money back into the cycle again, which keeps the process going and expands their wealth over time. So M\u2013C\u2013M\u2019 shows that capitalism isn\u2019t about making things just to use them, it\u2019s about using money to make more money, and it keeps working because labor power creates more value than it costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
M\u2013C\u2013M\u2019 is basically the formula for how capitalists keep getting richer. It starts with M, which is money. The capitalist already has money to begin with. Then they use that money to buy C, which stands for commodities. But that doesn\u2019t just mean random products. It includes the means of production (like machines, buildings, materials)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11324,"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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-board-5-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0505-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0505-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0505-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0505-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0505-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12684"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0505-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12685,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0505-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12684\/revisions\/12685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0505-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0505-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0505-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}