Surplus Value Quotes

The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production, is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus value, and consequently to exploit labor-power to the greatest possible extent. ~ Karl Marx

The distinction between "paid labor" and "housework" implied in working-class men's yearning for the domestic ideal persisted in later-nineteenth-century analyses of women's unpaid labor and was eventually replicated in Capital. Because wives' work was laregely unpaid, and because husbands came to the marketplace as the "possessors" of their wives' labor, Marx did not address the role of housework in the labor exchange that led to surplus value. Neither did he attend to the dynamics that permitted the husband to lay claim, in the price of his own labor, to the value of his wife's work. ~ Jeanne Boydston

I love the Army-Navy surplus store Surplus Value Center. They have really good long underwear and multicolored bandanas, cool camo jackets, and really, really scary-looking knives. If you're into that sort of thing. ~ Jill Soloway

Surplus-value and the rate of surplus-value are ... the invisible essence to be investigated, whereas the rate of profit and hence the form of surplus-value as profit are visible surface phenomena ~ Karl Marx

Managers receiving hundreds of thousands a year - and setting their compensation for themselves - are not being paid wages, they are appropriating surplus value in the guise of wages. ~ Michael Harrington

The parallel between these animals sick from surplus value and humans sick from industrial concentration is illuminating. ( ... ) Against the industrial organization of death, animals have no other recourse, no other possible defiance, except suicide. ~ Jean Baudrillard

It is therefore only at the money moment - the moment of capitalist universality - that we can tell where we are in relation to value and surplus-value. ~ David Harvey

You must be aware that the reward for labour, and quantity of labour, are quite disparate things. ~ Karl Marx

within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual labourer; all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labour process in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power; they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labour process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of capital. But all methods for the production of surplus-value are at the same time methods of accumulation; and every extension of accumulation becomes again a means for the development of those methods. It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse. The law, finally, that always equilibrates the relative surplus population, or industrial reserve army, to the extent and energy of accumulation, this law rivets the labourer to capital more firmly than the wedges of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It establishes an accumulation of mise ~ Karl Marx

Most of these first nine chapters prepare the ground for, and then introduce, the notion of surplus value. ~ Anonymous

The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped out of
career, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle. ~ Germaine Greer

Hannah Arendt in her study of totalitarianism borrowed from Immanuel Kant the concept of radical evil, of evil that's so evil that in the end it destroys itself, it's so committed to evil and it's so committed to hatred and cruelty that it becomes suicidal. My definition of it is the surplus value that's generated by totalitarianism. It means you do more violence, more cruelty than you absolutely have to to stay in power. ~ Christopher Hitchens

But now, in the circulation M-C-M, value suddenly presents itself as a self-moving substance which passes through a process of its own, and for which commodities and money are both mere forms. But there is more to come: instead of simply representing the relations of commodities, it now enters into a private relationship with itself, as it were. It differentiates itself as original value from itself as surplus-value, just as God the Father differentiates himself from himself as God the Son ... Value therefore now becomes value in process, money in process, and, as such, capital. (256) ~ David Harvey

The Theory of Surplus Value means that anytime you hire someone, you are exploiting him. If you pay someone to fix your automobile, he has the right, by virtue of being your mechanic, to steal your car. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

I believe in the value of the book, which keeps something irreplaceable, and in the necessity of fighting to secure its respect. ~ Jacques Derrida

Armed with all the powers, enjoying all the wealth they owe to science, our societies are still trying to practice and to teach systems of values already destroyed at the roots by that very science. Man knows at last that he is alone in the indifferent immensity of the universe, whence which he has emerged by chance. His duty, like his fate, is written nowhere. ~ Jacques Monod

The crowding of children into insufficient, often squalid spaces seems an inexplicable anomaly in the United States. Images of spaciousness and majesty, of endless plains and soaring mountains, fill our folklore and our music and the anthems that our children sing. "This land is your land," they are told; and, in one of the patriotic songs that children truly love because it summons up so well the goodness and the optimism of the nation at its best, they sing of "good" and "brotherhood" "from sea to shining sea." It is a betrayal of the best things that we value when poor children are obliged to sing these songs in storerooms and coat closets. ~ Jonathan Kozol

The way God squandered Himself had always hurt her; and annoyed her too. The sky full of wings and only the shepherds awake. That golden voice speaking and only a few fishermen there to hear; and perhaps some of the words He spoke carried away on the wind or lost in the sound of the waves lapping against the side of the boat. A thousand blossoms shimmering over the orchard, each a world of wonder all to itself, and then the whole thing blown away on a southwest gale as though the delicate little worlds were of no value at all. Well, of all the spendthrifts, she would think and then pull herself up. It was not for her to criticize the ways of Almighty God; if He liked to go to all that trouble over the snowflakes, millions and millions of them, their intricate patterns too small to be seen by human eyes, and melting as soon as made, that was His affair and not hers. All she could do about it was to catch in her window, and save from entire waste, as much of the squandered beauty as she could. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

Edge also implies what Ben Graham ... called a margin of safety. You have a margin of safety when you buy an asset at a price that is substantially less than its value. As Graham noted, the margin of safety 'is available for absorbing the effect of miscalculations or worse than average luck.' ... Graham expands, "The margin of safety is always dependent on the price paid. It will be large at one price, small at some higher price, nonexistent at some still higher price." ~ Michael Mauboussin

We think of GDP as a measure of the wealth that a country generates each year. But from a thermodynamic point of view, it is more a measure of the temporary energy value embedded in the goods or services produced at the expense of the diminution of the available energy reserves and an accumulation of entropic waste. Since ~ Jeremy Rifkin

When you get up every day, I want you to remind yourself that tomorrow will be better than today. That you are a person of value. That you are important. ~ Abi Daré

So really what I am trying to do is create and understand form. But then too, color enters into it because a lot of things are color changes without a value change, which wouldn't show up if you were just using a non-color medium. ~ Nelson Shanks

As artists, we do the work that we do. Receiving an award or not receiving an award in no way diminishes one's talent or value. ~ Phylicia Rashad

Leadership is not about executive position or title. It is about connection and influence. At its highest, leadership is all about adding value to the world and blessing lives through the work you do. ~ Robin Sharma

Through my unique style of playing, I want to prove that you don't have to conform to be accepted. The greatest value comes from loving yourself for who you are. ~ Lindsey Stirling

People still were emotionally connected to the vale by seeing a value in their local cultural life. They were still seriously political and tried to find their identity by inheriting memories from the experiences of each other. For Kashmiris, the struggle to remember never ended. ~ Naveed Qazi

And if any work that I have done should have value beyond my own lifetime, I believe it will be the happy labors of the decade 1869-1878. ~ William Henry Jackson

What gives life its value if not its constant cry for self-transcendence? ~ Sri Chinmoy

I will place no value on anything I have or may possess except in relation to the kingdom of Christ. ~ David Livingstone

There are so many opportunities to make a bad decision in building a robot company on top of all the normal ways that entrepreneurs screw up that it is incredibly difficult to truly create value because it is so cost-sensitive. ~ Colin Angle

Even in the domain of conventional currencies, this trend is in evidence. Today, 14 U.S. states, namely, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, have taken action to create their own state currency, usually backed by a precious metal such as gold or silver.24 In the case of Utah, for example, the Utah Legislature has passed a bill allowing gold and silver coins to be used as legal tender in the state - and for the value of their precious metal, not just the face value of the coins. Utah's bill allows stores to accept gold and silver coins as legal tender. It also exempts gold and silver transactions from the state's capital gains tax, though that does not shield exchanges from federal taxes. ~ Bernard A. Lietaer

The Austrian theory of subjective value teaches us that there are many ways to incentivize or motivate or induce someone to commit an action for you: you can promise sexual favors, promise to pay money, hire someon, and so on. Also, there is no reason to think that both the boss and his underling cannot both be 100% responsible: in the law this is called joint and several liability. ~ Stephan Kinsella

Remember always that the ultimate value is meditation, so anything you do, do meditatively; and all things can be done in a meditative way. ~ Rajneesh

Every second is of infinite value. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Instruments are a phenomenal investment, especially violins and violas and celli, because the value really doesn't go down, and it just rises up at incredible speed and has done, and I believe will continue to do so, because these rare instruments are not getting more. They are getting less and less through the years. ~ Aleksey Igudesman

If you want to cry, then cry. Decide by yourself whether you are important or not. Even if other people value you, nobody can do anything for you. Ultimately, it's your problem so if you live without regrets, then over time I think that your problems would disappear. ~ Kyo

Innovation is about practical creativity - it's about making new ideas useful ... ~ Max McKeown

If we see everything as uncertain, then their I value fades away. ~ Ajahn Chah

What's funny is that you can think you really value your life until you almost lose it. ~ Alan Alda

In the world's history certain inventions and discoveries occurred of peculiar value, on account of their great efficiency in facilitating all other inventions and discoveris. Of these were the art of writing and of printing, the discovery of America, and the introduction of patent laws. The date of the first ... is unknown; but it certainly was as much as fifteen hundred years before the Christian era; the second-printing-came in 1436, or nearly three thousand years after the first. The others followed more rapidly-the discovery of America in 1492, and the first patent laws in 1624. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have. ~ Epictetus

All life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Unfortunately, by forcing more and more value off the books as the world economy turns into an information economy, the ideal of "free" information could erode economic interdependencies between nations. ~ Jaron Lanier

The world values power, comfort, success, and recognition. Jesus frees us to value grief, sacrifice, weakness, and exclusion. ~ Timothy Keller

Escapism has value, even if I don't know what its value is, exactly. Maybe it's just part of some healthy way that we deal with the world. ~ Lev Grossman

How many lazy men's truths have been admitted in the name of imagination! How often has the term imagination been used to prettify the unhealthy tendency of the soul to soar off in a boundless quest after truth, leaving the body where it always was! How often have men escaped from the pains of their own bodies with the aid of that sentimental aspect of the imagination that feels the ills of others' flesh as its own! And how often has the imagination unquestioningly exalted spiritual sufferings whose relative value was in fact excessively difficult to gauge! And when this type of arrogance of the imagination links together the artist's act of expression and its accomplices, there comes into existence a kind of fictional "thing" - the work of art - and it is this interference from a large number of such "things" that has steadily perverted and altered reality. As a result, men end up by coming into contact only with shadows and lose the courage to make themselves at home with the tribulations of their own flesh ~ Yukio Mishima

Though I have no productive worth, I have a certain value as an indestructible quantity. ~ Alice James

The average Jordanian has much in common with the average American in terms of the values that we share, the fact that we all value the family unit, our work ethic. ~ Queen Rania Of Jordan

Courage is not a virtue of value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values. Without courage our love pales into mere dependency. Without courage our fidelity becomes conformism. ~ Rollo May

I am a non Zionist because the Jew, in seeking a homeland of his own, seems to me to be giving up something of infinitely greater value of the world. ~ Arthur Hays Sulzberger

Archipelago was created with the vision of making markets better for all investors, a vision that we share with the NYSE and has led us to this historic day. I am extremely proud of the innovation, the technology and the value Archipelago has brought to its customers and shareholders and am excited about combining our strengths with those of the NYSE. ~ Robert D. Putnam

In preparing a study or a picture, it seems to me very important to begin by an indication of the darkest values ... and to continue in order to the lightest value. From the darkest to the lightest I would establish twenty shades. ~ Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

As you have seen the treachery of love because of me, I have seen my cruelty because of you. But you learned mercy from me, and from you I learned resilience. As you came to understand me enough to know the value I placed on selfless love, I understand your nature better. ~ D. Morgenstern

How we, too, are still pious. - In science, convictions have no right of citizenship, so it is said and with good reason: only when they decide to descend to the modesty of a hypothesis, a provisional experimental standpoint, a regulative fiction, may they be granted admission and even a certain value in the realm of knowledge - though always with the restriction of remaining under police surveillance, under police suspicion. But, ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I learned something then, and I believe it still. There is a value in taking a stand whether or not anyone may be noticing and whether or not it is a risky thing to do. And if even those who are in danger can raise their lonely voices, isn't more required of all of us, in this land where liberty had her birth? In America, the true patriots are those who dare speak truth to power. ~ Teresa Heinz

Four centuries and more of modern thought have been, from one point of view, an experiment in the possibilities of knowledge open to man, assuming that there is no Revealed Truth. The conclusion--which Hume already saw and from which he fled into the comfort of "common sense" and conventional life, and which the multitudes sense today without possessing any such secure refuge--the conclusion of this experiment is an absolute negation: if there is no Revealed Truth, there is no truth at all; the search for truth outside of Revelation has come to a dead end. The scientist admits this by restricting himself to the narrowest of specialties, content if he sees a certain coherence in a limited aggregate of facts, without troubling himself over the existence of any truth, large or small; the multitudes demonstrate it by looking to the scientist, not for truth, but for the technological applications of a knowledge which has no more than a practical value, and by looking to other, irrational sources for the ultimate values men once expected to find in truth. The despotism of science over practical life is contemporaneous with the advent of a whole series of pseudo-religious "revelations"; the two are correlative symptoms of the same malady: the abandonment of truth. ~ Seraphim Rose

Another bottle was brought out and poured into the reservoir. Once more I climbed inside the car and pressed the spurter button. Once more nothing happened--and once more, when we looked inside the reservoir, we found it empty.
"Two litres!" I said. "Where has it all gone?"
They'd vaporized, evaporated. And do you know what? It felt wonderful. Don't ask me why: it just did. It was as though I'd just witnessed a miracle: matter--these two litres of liquid--becoming un-matter--not surplus matter, mess or clutter, but pure, bodiless blueness. Transubstantiated. I looked up at the sky: it was blue and endless. I looked back at the boy. His overalls and face were covered in smears. He'd taken on these smears so that the miracle could happen, like a Christian martyr being flagellated, crucified, scrawled over with stigmata. I felt elated--elated and inspired.
"If only..." I started, but paused.
"What?" he asked.
"If only everything could..."
I trailed off. I knew what I meant. I stood there looking at his grubby face and told him:
"Thank you."
Then I got into the car and turned the ignition key in its slot. The engine caught--and as it did, a torrent of blue liquid burst out of the dashboard and cascaded down. It gushed from the radio, the heating panel, the hazard-lights switch and the speedometer and mileage counter. It gushed all over me: my shirt, my legs, my groin. ~ Tom McCarthy

A canteen I remember vividly, and maybe one other thing, I can't remember. And I knew then that he had bought them in an army surplus store that day and he wanted to maybe enhance himself in my eyes, and say, "Well, yes, I have been in the army." Or [he] simply just didn't want to disappoint me. It could have been one or the other. But I knew that he had lied to me. And this filled me with a tremendous sort of anger towards him. At the same time, knowing he was trying to please me, so feeling good about him. ~ Paul Auster