Marx was very critical of Malthus. He said that an abstract law of population did not exist for men (Marx, 1974). All historical modes of production have their own special laws of population which are valid only within their limits.
Marx discussed the law of population, applicable to capitalist mode of production in chapter XXV of Capital , entitled, “The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation”. Two books An Outline Theory of Population and The Theory of Population , both edited by Valentey and published by Progress Publishers, provide a lucid discussion of Marxist theory of population. To understand Marxist theory of population it is important to understand his concept of surplus labour. According to Marx, a capitalist society consists of two basic classes:
To Marx, in a capitalist society, production is controlled by the capitalist class. They earn from profit only. They hire workers and supply them the wherewithal of work – instruments of production and raw material. According to the labour theory of value, it is only workers who create value addition through their labour, i.e., work done by the labourers only creates value and the means of production on their own cannot produce anything. The workers are, however, given wages which are always less than their contribution. The difference (surplus) is expropriated by the capitalists and added to a fixed capital under their possession.
To put it in other words, capital consists of two parts: constant capital and variable capital. The part of the capital which is represented by the means of production, raw and auxiliary material, and instruments of labour is the constant capital. The part of the capital represented by labour power is the variable capital. While the constant capital does not undergo any change of the quantitative value, the variable capital produces its own value and a surplus. |
