The victories that followed the American civil war and the 1960s civil rights era are once again under attack, echoing earlier efforts to roll back equality and redefine democracy, says JOE SIMS
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What’s the difference between ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ surplus value?
The MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY unpicks the two principal ways in which capitalists maximise the difference between what they put into the workplace and workforce – and the much greater profits they get out
PERFECTLY ILLUSTRATED: Unionised GMB workers rally outside the Amazon fulfilment centre in Coventry during a strike in January 2023
In 2010, faced with the closure of their local library, a Buckinghamshire town’s locals turned to an unconventional tactic – borrowing every single book – to defend a cherished community space. MAT COWARD tells the story
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Journalist STEVE SWEENEY talks to Roger McKenzie about narrowly surviving an Israeli air strike last week while documenting the mass displacement of civilians – and explains why the real story goes far beyond the attack on him
After 27 years in Holyrood, the former first minister urged unity and respect — but, says NEIL FINDLAY, her time in power told a very different story
The Employment Rights Act 2025’s focus on individual rights forces workers into slow and costly litigation to assert rights, rather than empowering unions. A Campaign for Trade Union Freedom-Strike Map rally at the weekend called for a more radical sequel, reports BEN CHACKO
LET’S start with a recap on “surplus value.” Before Marx, economists recognised the key importance of work — a distinctive feature of our species — to the creation of everything that humans need to survive.
What Marx added is the recognition that under capitalism, in “selling” labour power (their capacity to work) to any employer, workers receive less than the value they produce.
The difference — “surplus value” — is taken by the owners of capital, some of which is invested in more capital (“capital accumulation”) enabling them to extract more surplus value; for the capitalist, this is a virtuous cycle, underlying the extraordinary dynamism of capitalism.
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