Rainie
18th August 2007, 18:28
Is anyone surprised???
Workers' wages represent only a portion of the wealth created by their labor. The unpaid portion is pocketed by the owners. Today, a private-sector employee is likely to work two hours for herself or himself (the value created and paid back in wages) and six or more hours for the boss (the value realized and pocketed by owners after expenses). The latter portion is what Marx described as "surplus value," the source of the owners's wealth. Capitalists themselves have a similar concept: "value added in manufacture." For example, in 1995, management estimated that the General Motors autoworker added $150,000 to the value of products for which he or she was paid $38,000, or one fourth of the value created. Workers employed by Intel and Exxon received only about one-ninth of the value they created, and in industries such as tobacco and pharmaceuticals, the workers' share was a mere one-twentieth of the value added. Between 1954 and 1994, the overall average rate of value added (the portion going to the owner) in the United States increased from 162 percent to 425 percent, far above the exploitation rate in other western industrialized countries.--- Dr. Michael Parenti, Democracy for the Few, (7th edition; 2002, though now updated in an 8th edition)
The wealthy few live off the backs of the restless many. There can be no rich slaveholders living in idle comfort without a mass of penniless slaves to support their luxurious life style, no lords of the manor who live in opulence without a mass of impoverished landless serfs who till the lords' lands from dawn to dusk. So too under capitalism, there can be no financial moguls and industrial tycoons without millions of underpaid and overworked employess.--- Dr. Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds (1997)
Workers' wages represent only a portion of the wealth created by their labor. The unpaid portion is pocketed by the owners. Today, a private-sector employee is likely to work two hours for herself or himself (the value created and paid back in wages) and six or more hours for the boss (the value realized and pocketed by owners after expenses). The latter portion is what Marx described as "surplus value," the source of the owners's wealth. Capitalists themselves have a similar concept: "value added in manufacture." For example, in 1995, management estimated that the General Motors autoworker added $150,000 to the value of products for which he or she was paid $38,000, or one fourth of the value created. Workers employed by Intel and Exxon received only about one-ninth of the value they created, and in industries such as tobacco and pharmaceuticals, the workers' share was a mere one-twentieth of the value added. Between 1954 and 1994, the overall average rate of value added (the portion going to the owner) in the United States increased from 162 percent to 425 percent, far above the exploitation rate in other western industrialized countries.--- Dr. Michael Parenti, Democracy for the Few, (7th edition; 2002, though now updated in an 8th edition)
The wealthy few live off the backs of the restless many. There can be no rich slaveholders living in idle comfort without a mass of penniless slaves to support their luxurious life style, no lords of the manor who live in opulence without a mass of impoverished landless serfs who till the lords' lands from dawn to dusk. So too under capitalism, there can be no financial moguls and industrial tycoons without millions of underpaid and overworked employess.--- Dr. Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds (1997)