Chapter VIII: Outlines of Socialist Economic Theory

The sociological viewpoint pervades all Marx's work--Commodities defined--Use-values and economic values--Exchange of commodities through the medium of money--The labor theory of value in its crude form--Marx and Benjamin Franklin--Some notable statements by the classic economists--Scientific development of the labor theory of value by Marx--"Unique values"--Price and value--Money as a price-expression and as a commodity--The theory of supply and demand as determinants of value--The "Austrian" theory of final utility as the determinant of value--The Marxian theory not necessarily exclusive of the theory of final, or marginal, utility--Labor-power as a commodity--Wages, its price, determined as the prices of all other commodities are--Wherein labor-power differs from all other commodities--"Surplus Value": why Marx used the term--The theory stated--The division of surplus value--No moral judgment involved in the theory--Other theories of the source of capitalist income--Wherein they fail to solve the problem--Fundamental importance of the doctrine 235