Surplus Value.

In the previous "Sociology ... " discussion, Carolyn reminded us that: "Riane Eisler, in her book The Chalice and the Blade, writes that the roots of both Capitalism and patriarchy lie in women’s development of agriculture, when men began to appropriate and accumulate the surplus value of women’s labor. Society ceased to be egalitarian as men became the property owners and claimed the right to exploit the labor of women and to control them as property." - end posted.

Marx credits Adam Smith (after Ricardo) with the trope (putting out an idea), that the origin of value, is through labour; bodily action by an energetic being, interacting with the natural world. Secondly, Smith's concern was with "wealth".

Here I have rearranged in reverse order the ideas Marx begins Part 3 with: "The Production of Absolute Surplus Value". Following it, is the actual paragraph in the book "Capital".

My rearrangement:
"Under given social conditions" presumes at least three original motifs: Indigenous "production", Eastern "production", Western "production".
Labour power is independent of the particular form it assumes.
General character of production is not altered by Capitalist.
The fact that the Capitalist controls the production of use-values or goods, doesn't alter general character.
The Capitalist sets the labourer to produce a particular use-value, a specified article.
In order that the labourer may re-appear in a commodity, it must, before all things, expend it (the worker's effort) on something useful.
By working, the labourer becomes actually, what before it only was potentially, labour-power in action, a labourer.
In order that its labour may re-appear in a commodity, it must, before all things, expend it on something useful, on something capable of satisfying a want of some sort.
The capitalist buys labour-power in order to use it; and labour-power in use is labour itself.
The purchaser of labour-power consumes the labour power, by setting the seller of it to work.

Marx's actual paragraph on Page 197 of the Modern Libraries edition of "Capital" is:

"The capitalist buys labour-power in order to use it; and labour-power in use is labour itself. The purchaser of labour-power consumes it by setting the seller of it to work. By working, the latter becomes actually, what before he only was potentially, labour-power in action, a labourer. In order that his labour may re-appear in a commodity, he must, before all things, expend it on something useful, on something capable of satisfying a want of some sort. Hence, what the capitalist sets the labourer to produce, is a particular use-value, a specified article. The fact that the production of use-values, or goods, is carried on under the control of a capitalist and on his behalf, does not alter the general character of that production. We shall, therefore, in the first place, have to consider the labour-process independently of the particular form it assumes under given social conditions."

Here is my generalized statement of what I am trying to express, regarding political-economy, and the type of insight Occupiers need.

Politics and Economics should be seen as “who controls the flow of food”. This can be expressed mathematically as 1/x. Substituting the variable S for 1 and the variable V for the variable x, the mathematical expression corresponds to Karl Marx's original way to express surplus value, which was “S/V” or “s/v”. The manifold of relationships that compose North America's First Nations, express the same idea through the use of the medicine wheel, also called the Four Directions and the Four Quarters, reflecting the four seasons and the four points of a compass, itself corresponding to longitude and latitude.

The manifold of relationships that govern politics and economics is equivalent to Surplus Value, because the value of a particular politic or economic, causes people to reject (low value and very disparate portions of value being metted out), or it causes people to accept (high value and fair distribution of food), a particular politic and economic. Before Karl Marx, such value could be expressed as spiritual value, value to the church, the price of a commodity, or the value of life itself. After Karl Marx, the mathematics suggests that such value is none of the above four ideas/things. Instead it is the value of work and what it produces. Instead it is the physical result of food being metted out unfairly. The medicine wheel expresses this. The medicine wheel is easily translated into the mathematical expressions “1/x” or “s/v”.

Surplus Value, can be thought of as those goods and services that can be stolen from other persons. The person or its group could perish because of the theft. Alternatively, the person or group can live on, becoming accustomed to her/his reduced status.

hi sea ... i love these conversations, but if you go to the NatGatOpenSandbox Public Group on Loomio under "Activist" category, that's where I'm hanging out for the reasons that are stated there in writing. I have deep concerns for transparency with I/O, yet I DO TRUST that they WANT to be trusted and want to understand why I do not trust them. If you can explain it to them, let me know and i'll rejoin the discussion group. But until then, anyone is welcome in the sandbox where being excellent to one another is just a given. =)

@nikiv Please explain your transparency concerns—here or in that group, for which I am searching now; I am unclear on what you feel is hidden.

I think that, since the time Marx and Engels wrote, the rate and mass of the formation of surplus value, and its physical causes and effects, have remained largely unexplored. Yet classes, industry, labor unions, management, allocations of capital, etc, have changed a lot. Don't we need to look more carefully at the math and physics around the discovery of Surplus Value?

As Jackie said, we're beset by "an economic system based on exploiting frontline communities, workers, and natural resources". I believe this involves science and math, as they are used. Are we able to use science and math to fight back? Or do Occupiers accept the published science reports, even though we don't have a strong "scientific" background, per se. Science and math corroborate what frontline communities and workers already know. I think in his exploration of Surplus Value, that Marx was applying science and math to what workers and communities already know. Yet the power to change what we already know, depends on knowing more about the math and science, and being less dependent on the experts that agree with us. So I'm saying that, without a strong idea of the math and science of Surplus Value, our movement will lack the power of that knowledge. And we'll be less able to consider experts who don't agree with us, who may yet be able to help us.

oh, its not so much what i feel is hidden, its things i know are not transparent because sometimes we are looking only for the ways things are not transparent. because EVERYTHING in our reality has been rewritten and what we think is real about even the structure of our government isn't really how it is. so, while YOU (and Jackie) always have answered my questions -- if i wasn't so noisy like I tend to be and merely made the same assumptions that this reality is the same as all the other reality i experience . . . . oh, you know what i mean. =)

I (Elaine) did in the https://www.loomio.org/g/NScqO2b4/natgatopensandbox write the kind of for instance that when having the dialog at this level in here is just playing out a drama (hence Niki stays around drama queen!), when questioning "why are there transparency issues?" "why is Donna so upset?" I'm just kinda like "uhm, did you read what elaine wrote? and that was the level of response?" i felt like I was reading my sentencing transcripts -- two different realities talking to one another and they have no relationship save the fact they are happening in the same place at the same time, yet the context is completely different.

there's no reason to be involved with "excellent" in a relationship ever defined like that unless you are getting paid lots and lots of money (and even that is something i suspect most of us have already walked away from as well). <3

YET ... i'm loving the dialog on marxism and all that jazz, learning lots! i'm finding #DavosPlanB really just manages most of the issues and problems where other systems have failed, but maybe i'm just being too simple. #KeepItSimpleSmartie is what I remind myself all the time! =)

It seems like we understand exploitation and so for us to specify the value seems unclear. As an artist knows ways and mothers and engineers and figures things out, science, which is fully invested in intuition spirituality history women's bodies, etc, can paint a picture as aesthetic as a gallery. And its the basic math and science that controls our technology and those who understand it can hack it. I for one can't aceed to Nobelian science. Medicine is the one area where it shines. However that's only in our "Western" minds. Writers like Vine Deloria Jr explain science history and spirituality in terms of the land and people of North America. He insists on the most rigorous science.

The whole world has turned socialistic since Marx wrote, and Women gained strength. Capitalism is a veneer. Its only the science that insures a power's success. The challenge is to see how Marx's physics and math improves our understanding. And its not the gobbly-gook math of academia and silicon valley, its the simple math of deciding between two numbers to begin an investigation and the easiest are 1 and x . Little beyond sums and differences, like counting from one to 10.