Concept
Surplus product
Overview
Surplus product (German: Mehrprodukt) is a concept theorised by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. Roughly speaking, it is the extra goods produced above the amount needed for a community of workers to survive at its current standard of living. Marx first began to work out his idea of surplus product in his 1844 notes on James Mill's Elements of political economy.
Notions of "surplus produce" have been used in economic thought and commerce for a long time (notably by the Physiocrats), but in Das Kapital, Theories of Surplus Value and the Grundrisse Marx gave the concept a central place in his interpretation of economic history. Nowadays the concept is mainly used in Marxian economics, political anthropology, cultural anthropology, and economic anthropology.
The frequent translation of the German "Mehr" as "surplus" makes the term "surplus product" somewhat inaccurate, because it suggests to English speakers that the product referred to is "unused", "not needed", or "redundant", while most accurately "Mehr" means "more" or "added"—thus, "Mehrprodukt" refers really to the additional or "excess" product produced. In German, the term "Mehrwert" most literally means value-added, a measure of net output, (though, in Marx's particular usage, it means the surplus-value obtained from the use of capital, i.e. it refers to the net addition to the value of capital owned).
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
His revenue is, in this case, derived from his labour only. This is the state of the greater part of the labouring poor in all countries. But when he possesses stock sufficient to maintain him for months or years, he naturally endeavours to derive a revenue from the greater part of it, reserving only so much for his immediate consumption as may maintain him till this revenue begins to come in. His whole stock…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
States what Surplus product is; the author is tied to Surplus product in the knowledge graph.
In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer. In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is…
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
States what Surplus product is; the author is tied to Surplus product in the knowledge graph.
Is the surplus product of the olive and the vine worse employed in the frugal sustenance of persons, whom the fictions of a pious imagination raise to dignity by construing in the service of God, than in pampering the innumerable multitude of those who are degraded by being made useless domestics, subservient to the pride of man? Are the decorations of temples an expenditure less worthy a wise man, than ribbons, and…
Edmund Burke, Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
Names Surplus product twice; opens on Surplus product.
Related ideas
- Productive forces
- Gross domestic product
- Hedonism
- Power (social and political)
- Habitat
- Karl Marx
- James Mill
- Decadence
- Adam Smith
- Prehistory
- Mesopotamia
- Georges Bataille
- Socialism
- State (polity)
- Abstraction
- Zambia
- Social order
- Relations of production
- Capitalist mode of production
- Surplus value
- Herbert Marcuse
- Marxian economics
- György Lukács
- Morality
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Communism.