Karl Marx and Capitalism
Karl Marx devoted a great part of his life to the study of capitalism I order to describe the capitalist method of production of his own age and for all ages to come. By studying capitalism, Karl Marx wanted to know the guiding principle of its change. Karl Marx studied the capitalism with missionary spirit to make a scientific forecast on its development. The salient feature of the feudal production was production for local consumption. In the age of feudalism, persons used to produce for themselves and for their feudal lords. In those days, production was meant for consumption. Gradually feudal units of production began to break up. Profit became the only aim of production in the modern world. Production for profit required two things, capitalists’ means of production, and the laborers whose only chance of getting a livelihood was to sell his labor.
In this new system of production, there was a complete change. Now the laborers produced things not for their personal use. On the contrary the production was meant for the capitalist to sell for money. In this new system of production, things were produced not for consumption but for sale in the market. Laborer received his wages for his capitalist employer for his work and the capitalist employer received profit. Karl Marx is of the view that profit arises in the course of production. Sale of products does not produce profit.
According to
Karl Marx, the exchange value of product depends upon the Labor Time spent in its production. A product has a great exchange value if more human labor has been put into its production. Labor time spent in producing labor power means the time spent in producing the food, shelter, clothes and other such things which are essential for the laborer maintenance. Nowadays a laborer is able to produce in a day more than is necessary to his survival but he is paid by his employer a wage commensurate with a subsistence level of existence. The difference is called surplus value. In the modern capitalist society this surplus value is appreciated by the capitalist employer.
Karl Marx is of the view that
capitalists are permanent profit makers because they appropriate surplus value. It is very true that there is always a difference between the exchange value of a product produced by laborer and the value of labor power. In simple terms this difference may be called surplus value. Karl Marx opined that under capitalist structure of production in each and every factory and industry,
“the wages paid to the workers are not the equivalent of the full value they produce, but only equal about half this value or even less. The rest of the value produced by the worker during his working days is taken outright by his employer.”
In the capitalist system of production, the capitalist always become greedy and ambitious to increase the amount of surplus value which means more profit for him. Lust for profit is the prime factor in the capitalist system of production. The capitalist make more profit only by exploiting the laborer. According to Karl Marx exploitation of the laborer is another salient feature of capitalism. This exploitation results in class struggle. Class struggle is perennial and perpetual in the capitalism. The worker is fighting for the existence of his life and he wanted to avoid intimidation and ultimately class struggle starts. The laborer demands higher wages and shorter hours of work for improving his position. On the other hand, the capitalist wants to make more profits and hence there is a constant clash and struggle between the capitalist and the laborer, which can never come to an end so long as the capitalist system of production lasts.
Karl Marx is of the view that
property in any form is not capital, unless it is used to produce surplus value. The early accumulation of capital was very largely open robbery. But there was another way also through which capital came into existence. According to Karl Marx the primitive accumulation is the real origin of capital. He ridicules the legend of men, moderate in food and drink who served from their meager living.
Karl Marx said,
“This primitive accumulation plays in political economy about the same part as original sin played in theology. Adam bit the apple, and thereupon sin fell upon the human race. In times long gone by there were town sorts of people; one, the diligent, intelligent and above all frugal elite: the other lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more in riotous living. Thus it came to pass that the former sort accumulated wealth and the latter sort had a t last nothing to sell except their own skin. And from this original sin dates the poverty of the great majority that, despite all its labor, has up to now nothing to sell but itself and the wealth of the few that increases constantly although they have long ceased to work.”
With the victory of the proletariat, the class struggle puts an end to this process by ending capitalist system of production. Apart from class-struggle, there are other obstructions to the smooth development of capitalism. In other words we may say that these obstacles as a matter of fact are inherent in the capitalism. The most important among these obstacles, is the economic crisis. This crisis creates a great obstacle to the smooth course of capitalist development. Whenever economic crisis occur, it checks the expansion of capital. Economic crisis do not check the expansion of capital, but often led to the destruction of the capital accumulated in past years.
Karl Marx said,
“In these crisis there broke out an epidemic that, is all earlier epochs, would have become an absolutely the epidemic of over-production.”