People's Democracy

 THINKING TOGETHER

Whether `surplus value' theory still exists in the age of high technological production? If so, how it can be understood and explained as was done per unit production in the age of manual production by employment of labour?

Dipak Kr. Bhattacharjee, Agartala, Tripura

THE theory of `surplus value' exists as long as capitalism as a mode of production exists.  Enough work has been done not only by Marxists but by classical economists to show the validity of surplus value even in the times of increasing mental production as opposed to manual production. It has also been shown by people like Pierro Sraffa, a neo-Ricardian classical economist, in his famous work Production of commodities by means of commodities that machines also have what is called embodied labour, i.e., the labour that has gone into their production.  When commodities are produced by machines, there is   accumulative labour value, which, under all circumstances, is less than the value of the commodities thus produced.  It is this difference that constitutes the surplus value. 

We seek our readers’ indulgence to suggest that this "Thinking Together" column cannot be a shortcut to acquire knowledge.  Self-study is to be encouraged, especially on such theoretical issues, as the one we are discussing, on which there is a host of available material.   These should be pursued.  For, in the final analysis, there is no shortcut to knowledge.