Marx and Labor

Karl Marx’s Wage labor and Capital discusses and theorizes the rate that our countries capitalistic system has exploited the working class. Capitalism has been around before our time and even before the time of Karl Marx. Marx’s text is seen as an economical observation as how capitalism works through the labors of the proletariat. In today’s terms workers would not consider themselves proletariat because of its undignified meaning. Instead, they look at themselves as bourgeoisie or those concerned with property values. However, if one contemplates for a good minute we all come from the roots of a proletariat. Our jobs today show similarities to that of a working laborer. We all depend on our jobs for support. Even if our jobs do not pertain to physical labor, we are all laboring somehow. Doctors, teachers, lawyers: labor their brains for money. Singers, musicians and athletes: labor their talents for money. Marx’s critical theory on capitalism is imperative for workers everywhere to comprehend. The sooner this happens, the sooner we can stop the exploitive minds of our nation.
It should come to no one’s surprise that company’s today take advantage of their workers. While the workers are making ends meet making minimum wage, the people in the offices are relishing on the business’ success. According to Marx “workers put more value in to a community or good than they are paid for” (659). The exploitation begins “when [the] goods are sold for more than they cost to make” (659). There are numerous businesses in which this instance occurs. Wal-Mart for example, thrives on this very notion and uses it to monopolize the consumer industry, taking down any store big or small who pose a threat. The company relies on the exploitation of its workers producing the materials they sell. Mick Brooks, author of An Introduction to Marx’s Labor Theory of Value states “The rate of surplus value or rate of exploitation is the amount of time the worker puts in to reproduce the elements of her wages compared with the amount of time the workers devotes to enriching the capitalist class” (Brooks). In his text, Brooks is breaking down the Marx’s theory of capitalism to his readers. Therefore, in simpler terms: the rich get rich off workers unpaid labor and Marx’s theory allows us to see that. We all must remember that even though the capitalism class are the one’s who sign our pay checks, but they would be nothing without their workers. It’s just a matter of time before things turn around. Karl Marx said it himself that capitalism will eventually implode


Work Cited

Marx, Karl. Wage Labor and Capital” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Julie Rivkin and Michel Rivkin. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. 659-664.
Brooks, Mick. “An Introduction to Marx’s Labour Theory of Value”. In Defense of
Marxism Oct. 15, 2002. March 18, 2009.