ABSTRACT
The substance of value, Karl Marx’s argues, is ‘congealed labour-time’, and all the components of the capitalist labour process, namely, constant capital and variable capital are analysed as quantities of value. Once the working class had become the main producer of value, which was divided with capital through class struggle, then, wages became a significant issue for study. In Capital, Marx took issue with the idea that wages comprised a fixed amount of the total product at any given time, and that any improvement in wages could only come with fewer workers, through emigration, or lower birth rates. Malthusian theories implied that no matter what the system – capitalist or socialist – the same population dynamic would assert itself, and so obscure the real reasons for the condition of the working class. Capital has all the advantages given the two-tiered labour markets, the subservience of the state, and the permanent revolution in computer-based technology.
