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Everything belongs to the workers
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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Assuming this is serious: There's a slew of jobs that aren't part of commodity production, but still vital: organization, administration, management, transportation, distribution, maintenance, point-of-sale workers, etc. They make up a smaller proportion of workers, and are paid out of the surplus value created by the commodity producers, because they're still 100% necessary for production.
Well put, but at that point is it even surplus value? Loosely speaking, if they perform necessary labor in the supply chain, and they're paid a fair rate (money to live on, not get rich on), wouldn't their wage count as part of the cost of production?
It's an issue that Marxist economists debate about. We have ways of calculating the costs for machine depreciation (so we can factor maintenance into surplus value), but it can get really difficult, or is sometime impossible, to calculate things like the value that a transport worker adds.
Meanwhile for commodity / direct producers, surplus value is an easy calculation: worker value added - wage paid.
There's also the issue that transportation and point of sale workers are in different economic sectors, in many different countries, which has implications for their place in the class struggle. John Smith's I imperialism in the 21st century gets into some of these.
I think one of the better explanations is to view production along the entire supply chain as the production of the commodity, not just in the moment of a factory. Socially necessary functions all require socially necessary labor, and this amalgum of socially necessary labor and raw materials forms the commodity. A commodity is not just a commodity in itself, it is a commodity that has been transported, advertised, and sold. It does get more complicated to calculate, but you can also break it down into its constituent elements.
Comrade, surplus value has absolutely nothing to do with current production costs.
Surplus value is the capitalist's profit—nothing more.
According to Marx, surplus value is the value created by the unpaid labor of a wage worker—over and above the value of their labor power—and appropriated gratuitously by the capitalist. It is the hidden source of all forms of unearned income: entrepreneurial profit, commercial markup, bank interest, and ground rent.
In the USSR, there was no surplus value whatsoever; any "surplus" consisted solely of taxes earmarked for social benefits and similar expenditures.
Consequently, goods in the USSR cost a mere fraction of what the very same goods cost in the West.
Surplus value is the very mechanism by which capitalists grow rich—it is money out of thin air.
This isn't correct. Production costs must be subtracted to calculate surplus value.
Surplus value is "worker value added". To get worker value added, you must subtract out the cost of materials, etc.
This is also incorrect. Socialism and the USSR has / had a surplus, its just that its directed and controlled by working-class political decision-making, and not by private capitalists. It may direct that surplus into defense, research, social services, etc. It has a different form than capitalist surplus value.
Here's some vids on this:
Not quite. Price fluctuates around value, profit can come from discrepancies between price and value, or from the raising of socially necessary labor time due to sudden events (like a factory blowing up) and thus the price of unsold commodities rises. Marx made it clear that supply and demand do cover each other as they pull towards one another, and thus there is a "value" they gravitate towards, but that profit can be made via avenues not related to surplus value (though not as a rule, always temporary).
As for the USSR, there was appropriated surplus, it was just redirected towards development by the working classes, and in the interests of the working classes. This is very much a surplus, even if it isn't appropriated privately. This is important, because an individual worker will not be entitled to the "full value of their labor," it is the working classes that will be, and thus can distribute from ability to need.
No, lemmy told me those are all bourgeoisie and go under the guillotine.
Who did?
There's like 5 examples in the comments of this post...
Link to one.