ABSTRACT
The labour definition of value requires the possibility of defining a constant and given measure of 'simple average labour'. Marx considers 'simple average labour' to vary in different countries and at different times, but in a particular society to be given. In Marx's analysis of capitalism, the transrnstorical constant of labour becomes, for the first time of history, the moving force of the totality of production. In precapitalist societies the (economic) surplus was appropriated by non-economic means, but in capitalist production it appears for what it really is: pure economic exploitation. Marx accepts the advantages of the modern polity as opposed to the monarchy it replaces and applauds the sovereignty it allows the citizen. Marx's intervention constitutes a broadening of the political ideal of the century, bringing in a conception of the social as something more than the political and a historization of the whole possibility of emancipation.
