Marx argues that the method of exploitation built into the capitalist economic system is the source of social dislikes that will eventually lead to the demolishing of capitalism itself. Marx distinguishes ordinary money from capital. A commodity is transformed into money, which is then transformed back into a commodity, and then sold for money and then that money is used to buy a commodity and so on. His concern with the exchange-value of labor power is to show that origin of surplus value is not about cheating the workers during the sale of their labor-power, but to show that surplus value may occur in an equal exchange. However, for labor-power to become a commodity, there are social conditions that are necessary. The individual must be selling …show more content…
Its value is determined in the same way as for the other commodities, and capitalists use it as just another commodity in the production process. This relates back to the socially necessary labor time. Capitalists do not see money as a means of exchanging the commodities they produce for the commodities they need but as something to be sought after for its own sake. Capitalists are primarily interested in the accumulation of capital and not in the commodities themselves. Marx also talks about the minimum limit of labor-power. He explains that the limit is formed by the value of the substance. But, if the price of the labor falls to the minimum, then it falls below its value. So is there really a minimum limit after all? No. Since a commodity’s value equals the labor time congealed in it, this extra value can only come from the workers. In fact, says Marx, the capitalist forces the worker to work longer hours to generate this surplus value. “With a given mass of surplus-value, then, the larger the one part, the smaller the other. Other things being equal, the ratio of these parts determines the magnitude of the accumulation. But it is the owner of the surplus-value, the capitalist, who makes this