ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses about Marx's phenomenology of labor or practical activity and his hermeneutics of value, which deals with alienation and commodity fetishism, before turning to the concepts of use-value, exchange-value, and surplus-value. These concepts provides the building blocks of Marx's larger theory of capitalism, in which labor is the source of value and at the root of the dialectical formation of class and class conflict. Extracting surplus value is the goal of capitalists, the mechanism of capital accumulation, and the basis of exploitation. Wealth becomes capital only when it is invested in production for the purpose of creating surplus value, and it is the struggle over this surplus that is at the heart of class conflict. The historical experience of the failures of Leninism gave rise to alternative forms of Marxist theory and praxis, from Frankfurt School critical theory to various forms of ecosocialism, autonomism and Open Marxism, which favors economic and anti-authoritarian forms of organization and resistance.
