Now at 115,000 members and in some polls level with Labour in terms of public support, CHRIS JARVIS looks at the factors behind the rapid rise of the Greens, internal and external
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
Witnessing a war of words at a meeting on tackling militarism at The World Transformed, BEN COWLES spoke to a union rep who is organising against war from inside the arms industry itself, to hear about worker-led solutions to ending weapons production
FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ, ROGER D HARRIS and JOHN PERRY contrast Trump’s warships and F-35 fighters threatening Venezuela with the $20bn bailout for Milei’s collapsed economy, all enabled by a highly ideological IMF
KAY GREEN explains how the Middle East and colonialism were explored at at last weekend’s FiLiA conference
ROS SITWELL reports from Europe’s largest feminist conference – hosted this year in Brighton
Morning Star campaigns manager CALVIN TUCKER gives an update on the drive to raise £95,000 to see the people’s paper keep fighting the good fight against the rich and powerful
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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