One of the most important products of Marx's Labour Theory of Value was the discovery of the source of capitalist profit in the exploitation of the working class. Let us assume that a worker labours for ten hours a day. For his efforts, in a capitalist system, he will receive a money wage. He uses this money to buy food, clothing, and all the other necessities of life. In other words, he receives a share of the social product in return for hiring out his labour-power for ten hours. SOURCE OF PROFIT Marx shows that while the worker is paid the full value of his labour-power, he is not paid the full value that that labour power can produce when it is set to work with machinery and raw material. The value of labour-power is determined in the same way as the value of any other commodity: it is the amount of socially neeessary labour-time required to reproduce that labour power; in other words, the equivalent to all the consumer goods and to be able to reproduce the same standard of work for ten hours each and every day. But what is peculiar about the commodity labour-power is the fact that unlike any other commodity, its consumption produces new value. By setting the labour power to work in the factory for ten hours, the capitalist will get much more value than the equivalent of the consumer goods and services required to reproduce the labourer. It is this which is the source of profit. Marx calls the amount of labour embodied in the consumer goods received by the workers the variable capital, denoted by the letter V. The length of the working day is made up of the time of work equivalent to the value of the consumer goods the workers buy plus the portion of labour time which is taken by the capitalists.
Thic we can express the length of the working day as V+S. If S is zero there will be no profit for the capitalists, and the system will not be able to function for any length of time. Marx measured the degree of exploitation by dividing S by V (S/V). This expresses the amount of surplus value taken for each unit of labour time received by the workers in the form of consumer goods. The traction S/V is known as the rate of surplus value.
COMPOSITE The major part of Marx's Capital is devoted to a capitalist system which is perfectly competitive. Marx also shows how the labour of a highly skilled worker can be regarded as an intensive composite of the general average labour in the society If it is assumed that the labour force is freely mobilel and for the sake of simplicity there is no skilled labour, then workers will move around in search of higher wages until every worker receives the same money wage for a day's work. In this situation the rate of surplus value for each worker will be the same, as each worker will buy a similar bundle of consumer goods with his wage.
This theory of exploitation - central to Marxist economic theory - is significantly absent from bourgeois economics. Marx's theory of surplus value explains the origin of profit, but this does not mean that profit and surplus value are the same thing. In fact, they are not only numerically different; they are measured in terms of different accounting systems: one in terms of values and the other in terms of prices. It is unfortunate that the confusion between values and prices has occasionally been made by accomplished Marxist writers. It is only by separating surplus value from profit that the Marxian theories of exploitation and profit can gain their full force and significance.
In Belgium today the school students' movement is waging a mass struggle against the introduction of repressive legislation: a bill to quash exemption from military service Jane Walsh reports from Brussels on Army Law. both repressive bills. It was after the 24 January sabre charge that the revolutionaries in the movement - particularly our