Marx spent a great deal of time examining the conversion of the feudal society to a capitalist society. Before the conversion to capitalism took place, England experienced an industrial revolution. This revolution took place from the 10th to the 14th centuries. Around this time, the Plaque that wreaked havoc on England and wiped out nearly half of its population was over. After the Plague ended, many people inherited a lot of wealth and spendin

It had been a problem for economists to determine how the value of a good is derived. It had been determined that prices of all commodities including labor, are continuously rising and falling and that the price of the goods can rise and fall because of factors that had nothing to do with the production of the good itself. The determination of value was a problem that many economists tried to resolve. Marx was the first economist to investigate thoroughly the notion that the value of a good is determined by the labor put into producing the good. He believed that the value of a commodity was based on all labor, past and present, put into creating the good. This established a way of measuring the true value of good.

However this theory had some problems. How is the value of labor determined? How do we express the value of labor when labor itself is used to measure value? Classical Economists contrast these problems that were faced by Marx (as well as other economists such as David Ricardo), with another theory. This theory suggests that the value of a commodity is equal to its cost of production. Under this idea, the value of labor can be determined by the cost of sustaining him or the cost of replacing him.

By looking at the relationship between the worker and the capitalist one thing is certain. The value of a good is determined either directly or indirectly by the worker. The value is either composed of the actual units of labor used to produce the product or the cost of labor is used as part the valuation of the good (in addition to the other costs such as materials and machinery). Regardless the worker is reduced to a tool used by the Capitalist and he is nothing more than a component in the production process. And that is what Marx felt would cause the strain and the inevitable rebellion of the worker.

Marx refers to the manner in which a capitalist controls the worker and reaps the rewards of his labor as "exploitation of the worker". The capitalist exploits the worker by using him in the production of goods and using the profit that was generated by the worker's labor for his own gain. We will look at how this is done, but first we need to understand how the value of a good or a commodity is measured. By gaining that understanding we can then look at the value added to a product by the laborer and what portion of that value is rewarded to him.

Some common words found in the essay are:
According Marx, England Charles, Rate Exploitation, Marx Marx, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Charles England, Classical Economists, subsistence wage, surplus value, exploitation worker, capitalist worker, workers wages, value commodity, capitalist society, means production, worker capitalist, twenty dollars, surplus value surplus, exploitation worker examining, relationship capitalist worker, value labor determined, value surplus value,
Approximate Word count = 2698
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)