Those who do not own and control such means of production have no choice if they are to make a livelihood, beyond the minimum provided by welfare programmes, other than to try to sell their ability to work to those that do. They get paid a wage, while their labour produces goods that are the property of those who control the means of production. Some of the value of these goods is used to cover the wages of the workers, some to pay for the materials used in production, some to cover the wear and tear of means of production. But some forms an excess which is the basis of the profits of the owners-what Marx called "surplus value" and some non-Marxist economists simply call "the surplus" .
Adam Smith had already suggested where this surplus came from (although he did not stick consistently to this view) :
In the original state of things, which precedes both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole product of labour belonged to the labourer . . . But as soon as the land becomes private property, the landowner demands a share of the produce . . . The produce of almost all other labour is liable to the like deduction of profit. In all arts and manufactures the greater part of the workmen stand in need of a master to advance them the materials of their work, and their wages and maintenance till it be completed. He shares in the produce of their labour, or in the value which it adds to the materials upon which it is bestowed; and in this share consists his profit. <sup>20</sup>
Profit, then, arises when the land, tools and materials required for production become the private property of one section of society. This section is then able to get control of the labour of others.
Marx's Concepts
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