SOCA01H3 Lecture 8: SOCA01 Lecture 8.docx
Document Summary
Based on private ownership of the means of production (land, raw materials, factories, machines). Capitalists and workers are involved in relationships of unequal legally free, but economically coercive exchange (capitalists control the means of production, workers have no choice but to sell their labor) Workers are paid as little as possible and capitalists try to extract the most amount of work possible in a working day. Dominant ideology denies that employees care about their work (only owners care). Goal of production: maximizing profits (surplus value), not producing use value. Domination of market and money as means of distribution. Use of new forms of energy: water, steam, internal, combustion, nuclear ( manufactory production uses only human and animal energy) Increasingly detailed division of labour, therefore increasing use of unqualified, cheap labour: women and children. Increasing productivity of labour: the amount of goods a worker produces in a unit of time.