From London’s holly-sellers to Engels’s flaming Christmas centrepiece, the plum pudding was more than festive fare in Victorian Britain, says KEITH FLETT
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What’s the difference between ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ surplus value?
The MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY unpicks the two principal ways in which capitalists maximise the difference between what they put into the workplace and workforce – and the much greater profits they get out
PERFECTLY ILLUSTRATED: Unionised GMB workers rally outside the Amazon fulfilment centre in Coventry during a strike in January 2023
Once the bustling heart of Christian pilgrimage, Bethlehem now faces shuttered hotels, empty streets and a shrinking Christian community, while Israel’s assault on Gaza and the tightening grip of occupation destroy hopes of peace at the birthplace of Christ, writes Father GEOFF BOTTOMS
From a lockdown digital project to a vital tool for class solidarity, ROBERT POOLE and HENRY FOWLER reflect on half-a-decade of struggle
After years hidden away, Oldham’s memorial to six local volunteers who died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war has been restored to public view, marking both a victory for campaigners and a renewed tribute to the town’s proud International Brigade heritage, says ROB HARGREAVES
The June 2025 attacks on Iran have heightened the risk of a wider war, exposed the fiction of a rules-based international order and left ordinary Iranians trapped between external aggression and internal repression, says the Committee for Defence of Iranian People’s Rights
While pretending to seek peace, Europe is heading toward a collision course with Russia – using security guarantees, troop deployments, expropriation and censorship as tools, writes SEVIM DAGDELEN
A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction
LET’S start with a recap on “surplus value.” Before Marx, economists recognised the key importance of work — a distinctive feature of our species — to the creation of everything that humans need to survive.
What Marx added is the recognition that under capitalism, in “selling” labour power (their capacity to work) to any employer, workers receive less than the value they produce.
The difference — “surplus value” — is taken by the owners of capital, some of which is invested in more capital (“capital accumulation”) enabling them to extract more surplus value; for the capitalist, this is a virtuous cycle, underlying the extraordinary dynamism of capitalism.
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