Surplus value

Summary

Dominique Pagani defines surplus value as a generic concept, of which profit and rent are species1. Since competition prevents prices from being raised, he locates its key in a segment of labour that is not paid at its value2. It therefore comes from a minus: the worker works beyond the time needed to reproduce his labour power, the only commodity that yields a return when it is consumed3. He compares this "plus that comes from the minus" to the superiority that man draws from his lack, in connection with Hölderlin4. In his view, the extortion of surplus value is what makes the proletarian, and it gives the producer, deprived of consumption, an ethical basis for his claim. He places it at the heart of the mystery of the modern world. He takes the royal favourite as its figure: the enjoyment of the owner, which Rousseau comes to contest. He does not condemn every levy: the question is whether surplus value goes to the community or is captured by private interests5. Finally, he links beauty to an extension of surplus value over several millennia.

1. 1Worldliness in Clouscard: the world as “cunning of reason”22 Jul 2023 · 1:49:12
2. 2Marx on the Beach 2/21 Feb 2016 · 52:53
3. 3The religion of money29 Sept 2019 · 26:55
4. 4Hölderlin, poetry and politics19 Mar 2022 · 1:22:00
5. 5Worldliness in Clouscard: the world as “cunning of reason”22 Jul 2023 · 2:03:44

Summary produced automatically from 15 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.