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The buyer of labour-time pays wholly for the labour value provided, but the worker in turn provides surplus labour which the capitalist collects as value. The w
by ue_ 10y ago
The buyer of labour-time pays wholly for the labour value provided, but the worker in turn provides surplus labour which the capitalist collects as value. The worker is paid for the the time that the capitalist has purchased, not the surplus. The worker does not "profit" from this; the worker must work in order to survive.
- WalterBright 10y agoThe worker sells his labor for profit because the money is worth more to him than his labor.
- ue_ 10y agoIf you are forced to do something in order to survive, would you say this is profitable? The worker must sell his labour time in order to survive. If this is how profit is defined, then so be it - but it is a very strange way of "profit" if your profit is that you get to live. This also does not address the surplus labour issue, in which the worker is not and within capitalism cannot be compensated for the additional labour, for if he was then the capitalist, even in a system of equal exchanges between the capitalist and the buyer, would not be able to make profit.
- WalterBright 10y agoThe blacksmith cannot eat iron, and the farmer cannot grow corn to eat unless his horses are shod. Does that make their trade of extra corn for horseshoes unprofitable for both of them?