Property as the Right to Alien Labour

David McLellan
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David McLellan: University of Kent

Chapter 16 in Marx’s Grundrisse, 1980, pp 110-112 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Now, from the standpoint of capital: as far as surplus capital is concerned, the capitalist represents value as an entity in itself, the third function of money — wealth, through the mere acquisition of alien labour, in that each element of surplus capital — material, instrument and means of subsistence — is resolved into alien labour, which the capitalist does not acquire by means of exchange for existing values, but which he has acquired without exchange. Of course the original condition for this surplus capital was the exchange of a part of the values belonging to the capitalist, or the objectified labour that he possesses, against alren living labour power. Let us term surplus capital, as it originated from the first production process, surplus capital I. For the creation of this capital, i.e. for the acquisition of alien labour, of objectified alien labour, a condition appears to be the possession of values on the part of the capitalist, of which he exchanges one part, as a matter of form, for living labour capacity. We say ‘as a matter of form’ because living labour has to replace and give back again the exchanged values. But he can please himself about this. In any case the condition for the existence of surplus capital I, i.e. for the acquisition of alien labour or of the values in which it has been objectified, appears as the exchange of the values belonging to the capitalist, placed by him into the circulation, and conveyed by him to living labour power — but which do not derive capital from relationship. In the second case, the presupposition itself is mediated, i.e. the precondition is collective production; the community is the foundation of production. The labour of the individual is established from the start as collective labour. But whatever the particular form of the product which he creates or helps to create, what he has bought with his labour is not this or that product, but a definite participation in collective production. Therefore he has no special product to exchange.

Date: 1980
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-05221-9_17

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