Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Surplus Labour, Labour Power, Class Conflict
19 Nov 2015
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Document Summary
Karl marx on exploitation, the state, and human nature. Exploitation is the extraction of surplus labour. Workers are sacrificed on the demand of owners. : they buy the labour power of the worker, a person"s ability to work. : what they produce is more than what is needed for subsistence; a surplus value. Capitalist profit is the surplus value created by workers. Marx: capital is the dead holding the living; a vampire. History is the history of class struggle. Conflicts of interest are linked to our relation to the means of production. Politics plays a major role in this conflict. The state exists to deal with conflicts of interest generated by coercive surplus extraction. 2. the state as an independent actor (based on 19th-century french and german politics: many classes, maintained some degree of autonomy. Revolution is likely in state that fail to integrate their excluded classes.
