In my last diary I discussed what capitalists and workers are, the basic outlines of Marx's economic theory of society, and why capitalism is necessarily prone to crisis and inequality. In this diary, I'll discuss some more specific Marxist concepts such as the labor theory of value and surplus-value. These concepts sound pretty intimidating, but they're really fairly simple. Why should you care about them? You should care about them because they will help you understand the world around you, where you are in that world, what is going on with your labor, and why businesses and governments pursue certain policies.
As I remarked before, this diary is intended for a non-academic, popular audience, so I'm intentionally dumbing things down. I think us Marxists often shoot ourselves in the foot by insisting on embracing Marx's own dialectical way of speaking, thereby rendering ourselves incomprehensible to any but other academics.
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