A2 Marxism

A2 Marxism

1. Capitalism - like previous class societies, capitalism is based on a division between a class of owners, bourgeoisie or capitalist class, and a class of labourers, the proletariat or working class.

2. Unlike slaves, the proletariat are legally free and separated from the means of production. Because they do not own any of the means of production, they have to sell their labour power to the bourgeoisie in return for wages in order to survive.

3. This is not an equal exchange - the proletariat do not receive the values of goods that their labour produces , but only the cost of subsistence - of keeping them alive. The difference between the two is the surplus