Do You Have Class

(In Your Analysis)?

A presentation by the People’s University as a part of its Summer Organizer School

People’s University

Organizer School

People’s University

People’s University

Organizer School

1850

1875

1900

1925

Economic Crisis in Italy:

1919-1922

World War II

1939-1945

The Long Depression

1873-1896

The Publication of Capital

1867

The American Civil War

1861-1865

SPD (Social Democrats) Elected in Germany

1918

Russo Japanese War

1904-1905

Hyperinflation in Germany

1921-1923

The Great Depression

1929-1939

Hitler comes to Power

1933

Mussolini Comes to Power

1922

The Sherman Act (i.e., an antitrust law)

1908

The US Federal Reserve Act 1913

The Federal Trade Act (i.e., an antitrust law)

1914

Hitler’s Failed Coup

1923

The New Deal 1933-1938

Bretton Woods Agreement

1944

The Marshall Plan

1948

The Technological Revolution, (or the Second Industrial Revolution)

1870s-WW1

Canadian Confederation

1867

Cotton Crisis

1861-1865

The Sykes-Picot Agreement

1916

The Berlin Conference

1884

Spartacist Uprising

1919

World War I

1914-1918

Founding of Standard Oil Company

1870

Formation of Standard Oil Trust

1882

Formation of US Steel, the first billion $ company

1895

1899 → 30 Auto Manufacturing Companies approx

1908 → 253 Auto Manufacturing Companies in the US

1908 → 1 Car = ~12 hours

*1911 ↓ Breaking up of Standard Oil

Ford Assembly Line in

1913

1914 → 1 Car = ~90 minutes

1929 → 44 Automobile Companies total, “Big Three: Ford, General Motors, Chrysler” accounted for 80% of sales

Russian

Revolution, 1917

Chinese Revolution, 1949

Fundamental Contradictions

​

• Forces v. Relations of Production
• Production v. Consumption (realization and overproduction)
• Use Value v. Exchange Value
• Capital v. Labour

People’s University

Organizer School

From Last Time…

What is Class (Analysis)?

The IPO Framework (i.e., Ideology, Politics, Organization)

People’s University

Organizer School

From Last Time…

Historical Materialism

Fundamental Historical Conditions

• Humans act upon nature (labor) in order to meet their needs (food, water, shelter etc.)
• When humans meet their needs they develop new needs
• Humans reproduce socially, through sexual reproduction, the formation of social bonds, and coordinated activity to meet their collective needs

Labour-Power

Objects

of Labour (i.e. raw materials)

Instruments

of Labour (i.e. tools)

Products of Labour

💥

The Labour Process

The Forces of Production

The life process of society as an organic whole

~Society~

maintains

(& shapes)

shapes

(& maintains)

*the conscious aspect

*the unconscious aspect

Scientific Socialism, the science of (proletarian) class struggle

Political Economy, the science of commodity production

Key Concepts Political Economy

Quantitative Measures

• Value of a Commodity, C + V + S
• Constant Capital, C
• Variable Capital, V
• Surplus Value, S

The General Formula of Capital: M—C—M’

Key Concepts Political Economy

Quantitative Relations

• Rate of Surplus Value = S/V
• Organic Composition of Capital = C/V
• Rate of Profit = S/(C+V)

The General Formula of Capital: M—C—M’

~Law of Value~

• The substance of Value is labour
• The measure of Value is labour-time
• The magnitude of a commodity’s value is the socially necessary labour time required to produce it
• The form of Value is exchange-value
• The simple or accidental form - the value of a commodity (relative) expressed in another (equivalent)
• The total or expanded form - the value of a commodity (relative) expressed in all others (many equivalents)
• The general form - the value of all commodities (many relatives) expressed in one other (equivalent)
• The money-form - the value of all commodities expressed in money (universal equivalent)

People’s University

The exchange of commodities is regulated by the principle of equivalent for equivalent.

Purchase: M – C

In this exchange, the value of the money given away should be equal to the value of the commodity that is received.

Sale: C – M

In this exchange, the value of the commodity given away should be equal to the value of the money that is received.

The Law of Value

On the average, commodities are exchanged according to the principle of equivalent for equivalent.

The Law of Surplus Value

Capital requires the production and realization of surplus value.

~Exchange~

~Production~

Is related to both the sphere of…

Capital:

M – C – M’ ← General

M – C … P … C’ – M’ ← Expanded

​

Capital: M – C … P … C’ – M’ – C’ … P … C’’ – M’’

The existence of capital leads to expanded reproduction. In order for surplus value to be realized, the commodities that contain it must be sold; however, the market for commodities is finite and not all commodities can be sold. This leads to a competitive relationship between capitals and the drive to increase surplus value absolutely and relatively.

The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation

The development of capital leads to the formation of an industrial reserve army realization of surplus value.

Capital: M – C … P … C’ – M’ – C’ ... P … C’’ – M’’

​

Expanded reproduction leads to the growth of variable capital (V).

Competition leads to a rising organic composition of capital, i.e., growth of constant capital (C) growing faster than that of variable capital (V).

​

↑C leads to the repulsion of workers from the social production process

↑V leads to the attraction of workers to the social production process

In combination, these lead to the formation of an industrial reserve army.

LP

​

MP

LP

​

MP

LP = Labour Power, i.e., Variable Capital (V)

MP = Means of Production, i.e., Constant Capital (C)

Growth of

Variable Capital

(i.e., an absolute increase in variable capital, v)

The Progressive Production of a Relative Surplus Population

(i.e., formation of an

Industrial Reserve Army)

The greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its growth, [the development of the accumulation process] and, therefore, also the absolute mass of the proletariat [variable capital, v] and the productiveness of its labour [the organic composition of capital, c/v], the greater is the industrial reserve army. The same causes which develop the expansive power of capital, develop also the labour power at its disposal. The relative mass of the industrial reserve army increases therefore with the potential energy of wealth. But the greater this reserve army in proportion to the active labour army, the greater is the mass of a consolidated surplus population, whose misery is in inverse ratio to its torment of labour. The more extensive, finally, the lazarus layers of the working class, and the industrial reserve army, the greater is official pauperism. This is the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation.

~The General Law

of Capitalist Accumulation

V rises

C rises faster than V

A Rising

Organic Composition of Capital

(i.e. a relative decrease in variable

capital, V, compared to constant capital, C)

​

The Rate of Profit

The Rate of Profit

​

At its logico-historical limit

The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall

The development of capital leads to the formation of an industrial reserve army realization of surplus value.

Capital: M – C … P … C’ – M’ – C’ ... P … C’’ – M’’

​

Biological limits lead to a (relatively) stable rate of surplus value.

Competition leads to a rising organic composition of capital.

In combination, these lead to a decline in the rate of profit.

LP

​

MP

LP

​

MP

Constant

Rate of Surplus

Rising

Organic Composition

A Rising

Organic Composition of Capital

(i.e. a relative decrease in variable

capital, V, compared to constant capital, C)

​

A Relatively Constant

Rate of Surplus Value

(i.e., a consistent relationship between variable capital, V, and surplus value, S)

A Tendential Fall in

the Rate of Profit

(i.e., the rising intensity of competition & concentration of capital)

This mode of production produces a progressive relative decrease of the variable capital as compared to the constant capital, and consequently a continuously rising organic composition of the total capital. The immediate result of this is that the rate of surplus-value, at the same, or even a rising, degree of labour exploitation, is represented by a continually falling general rate of profit. (We shall see later why this fall does not manifest itself in an absolute form, but rather as a tendency toward a progressive fall.) The progressive tendency of the general rate of profit to fall is, therefore, just an expression peculiar to the capitalist mode of production of the progressive development of the social productivity of labour. This does not mean to say that the rate of profit may not fall temporarily for other reasons. But proceeding from the nature of the capitalist mode of production, it is thereby proved logical necessity that in its development the general average rate of surplus-value must express itself in a falling general rate of profit.

~The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall

Key Concepts Political Economy

Quantitative Relations

• Rate of Surplus Value = S/V
• Organic Composition of Capital = C/V
• Rate of Profit = S/(C+V)

The General Formula of Capital: M—C—M’

People’s University

May 19, 2025

Organizer School

What is Class (Analysis)?

Wages

Profit

Merchant Profit

Money-Dealing Profit

Interest

Ground-Rent

Wages

Wages

Wages

Wages

Interest

Industrial Profit

Commercial Profit

The Proletariat

The Bourgeoisie

Industrial Capital

Merchant

Capital

Commercial Capital

Money-Dealing Capital

Interest-Bearing Capital

Landed Property

Industrial Profit

Commercial Profit

Commercial Profit

Industrial Profit

Industrial Profit

*Money-Dealing Profit

M — C … P… C’—M

The Proletariat

The Bourgeoisie

Industrial Capital

Commercial Capital

Interest-Bearing Capital

Landed Property

MP

​

LP

Reproductive Proletariat

Parasitic Proletariat

Commercial Proletariat

Industrial Proletariat

Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by…

Their relationship to the means of production�(tools, machinery. technology)

Their role in the social organization of labour

• Share (How much) of social wealth
• Mode of acquiring social wealth (How)

Determines…

~Classes & Struggle~

• Class: a social group, defined by its relation to production. Classes exist in antagonistic pairs, with one exploiting the other (i.e., appropriating surplus value).
• Class struggle: the conflict between opposite classes; the motor force of history.
• State: an instrument for the political rule of one class by another.

People’s University

May 19, 2025

Organizer School

People’s University

Investigation

​

Who are they?

What are their problems and what do they think about them?

What is their readiness to struggle?

Analysis

“... all science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided.”

Social

Class

Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 3

People’s University x EVWA

When we say class analysis, we mean an analysis that attempts to:

1. identify the different classes and balance of class forces that are operating in a given social formation;
2. elaborate that formation's class structure (i.e., the size, strength and hierarchy of the classes) and the roles of the various classes in that formation;
3. determine the material interests of the various classes;
4. assess the arenas and forms, the intensity and sharpness, the stage and progress of the struggle between the classes;
5. assess the class character of their ideas and activity outside of the social production process as well as their self-consciousness as a class.

Analysis

Class

Revolutionary Class Line

Mass Line

What determines level of advancement?

• Class consciousness
• Readiness to struggle

Advanced: “Clear understanding, ready to struggle to change them”

Middle: “Understand need for change, but reluctant and hesitant to move”

Backward: “Easily influenced by backward ways of thinking, resistant”

People’s University x EVWA

Objective class position

≠

Class consciousness

≠

Willingness to struggle

March 30, 2025

People’s University

Organizer School

The IPO Framework (i.e., Ideology, Politics, Organization)

Ideology

Politics

Organization

An ideology is a system of ideas that is meant to be internally consistent.

A politic is a set of demands.

An organization is a group of people that are united in their goal and divided in their tasks.

Proletariat vs. Bourgeoisie

Correct vs. Incorrect

Advanced vs. Backward