This video is about some of the basic ideas of Marxist economics. Since it is a short video and not a huge multi-volume text, it inevitably will glaringly oversimplify this incredibly nuanced and complex topic. This is no replacement for any of the actual readings, but perhaps it will be helpful. Owning the means of production. You depend on material conditions to survive. This is stuff made out of things, like food, clothing, and shelter. You also depend on what is needed to make these things, like land, farming tools, building tools, building materials, that kind of thing. The first kind of thing is called the means of subsistence, and the second is called the means of production. This is important. Notice that if you have access to the sufficient means of production, you can produce some of your own means of subsistence. But having the means of subsistence does not allow you to produce anything if you have no access to means of production. Here is a central characteristic of capitalism. People can own the means of production. All this really means is that other people either aren't allowed to use it or must use it on the owner's terms. So if you don't own any means of production, you must arrange a deal that is satisfying to someone who does in order to get your means of subsistence and thus survive. Use, value, and exchange value. Usually, we find things valuable because they are useful. I could trade you a basket of food for a shovel, and this would make sense because you have a use for food, and I have a use for a shovel. Exchanging your shovel for a bag of garbage would not make sense to you, because I assume you do not have much use for garbage. So generally speaking, in order for something to be valuable for trade, it must be useful. This is a pretty fundamental principle here. Exchange value, something valuable for trading, depends on use value, something valuable in its utility. However, something with use value doesn't necessarily have exchange value. Air is useful, we use it to breathe, but we do not trade for it because it is everywhere. So in addition to use value, there is one more variable that is critical for something to have exchange value, and that is labor. Shoes have use value because they protect our feet, but if, like air, they required no labor to get, why would you trade anything for them? No one in the right mind would, so shoes would have no exchange value. But alas, we live in a world where people need to work to produce shoes. Thus they are indeed valuable for trade. Notice that labor does not always create exchange value either. I doubt you would find my crown doodles very valuable, even though I put a lot of work into them. It is only when labor creates a previously unavailable use value that exchange values also created. One characteristic of exchange value is that it is more easily quantifiable than use value. It is hard to say whether a potato is more useful than a match, but it is easier to imagine a potato being worth, that is, exchangeable for, a number of matches. This is where money comes in, to serve as a universal unit of account through which to compare all items with exchange value. Appropriation of surplus value. Part of me for assuming, but I imagine that you want means of subsistence so that you can survive. Let's also further imagine that you don't own the means of production. And let's say that some fine lad comes to you and says, I'm a capitalist, which means that I own the means of production, and I pay others to operate it. You can use what I pay you to purchase means of subsistence and it will all be hunky-dory. Let's say you accept and work the means of production all day using your labor to create things with use value, thus creating new exchange value. The capitalist takes everything you produce and gives you some money, which represents much less than the exchange value you produced. This is enough for your means of subsistence for the day, but no more. I guess you'll have to come work tomorrow too. As the weeks go by and you continue to work for the capitalist, the capitalist continues to accumulate the value you produce. Some of this he uses for maintenance, keeping the means of production in good working order. Some is used to get the raw materials used in production. The rest is either used to scale up and get more means of production or for his own means of subsistence and personal luxuries. This last bit here is known as surplus value, which is important. Here's a fascinating question. If you, the worker, are doing the actual productive labor and the capitalist is not, why does the surplus value go to him and not to you? Wouldn't it be more fair for you to have it as you're the one doing the actual work? After all, since your wages are only covering your means of subsistence, your only choices are to continue working for the capitalist or starve. Therefore, under Marxism, the capitalist profiting, that is, taking surplus value generated by workers, is considered exploitation. This exploitation is only made possible by the institution of private property. And private property is only made profitable through exploitation. Private property, where no one was exploited, where everyone got to keep the value that they themselves produced, would hardly be private at all. Private property and exploitation are inseparable. So we are presented with a choice to accept exploitation as a part of how we live, or declare private property inherently unjust and abolish it altogether. Crisis and Revolution Let us assume that capitalists are not a huge fan of the idea of abolishing private property. They decide to keep their control of the means of production and keep profiting through exploiting people. So our capitalist keeps taking the surplus value you produce, uses it to get better productive equipment so you can produce more, and makes an even larger profit. Now imagine a neighboring capitalist is competing by selling the same commodities for a lower price to attract consumers. It's not a huge deal though. Our capitalist can just lower his prices too. After all, his new equipment makes production faster and cheaper. Larger amounts can be produced and sold cheaply, while the profits remain the same. And since this competition is producing this effect with all capitalists, the means of subsistence has gotten cheaper for you to buy. The capitalists can thus lower your wages to increase his profit and you will still be able to survive and come back and work for him. But then the neighbor gets even better equipment, scales up production and again lowers his prices. So our capitalist must again upgrade his means of production, scale up and lower his prices along with your wage. Since this is happening across the board, a problem soon arises. More goods are being produced than society needs. And because wages are so meager, no one can afford to buy them anyway. So the capitalists cannot sell their goods and their profits begin to fall. Since it is no longer profitable to hire people and produce goods, the capitalists lay off their workers and try to sell their means of production. No one who wants it can afford to buy it. So we end up with means of production that no one is allowed to use and a population producing nothing. Not even their own means of subsistence. So what do we do? One obvious answer is for the workers to say to hell of this and come together and work the means of production anyway, regardless of whose private property it is. The capitalists may object, but they are sorely outnumbered, so the means of production is seized from them by force. This time around, the value that is produced will go directly to the people who put labor into producing it. This is known as a communist revolution, and it must happen sooner or later, or else all of the world's productive forces will grind to a halt forever. This was a simple overview of some of the thoughts of Karl Marx. There are many more of his ideas that are central to his work that we did not even touch upon, so hopefully this stoked your curiosity to learn more. In many ways, conditions today are different from how they were in Marx's time. It's hard to say what a modern day communist revolution would look like, but it is clear that a deep change must happen if we want to survive. What will it take for humans to live in peace? Thank you for watching this video. I do not run ads, and I never will, so if you want to support me, you can do so on Patreon.