When a financial transaction is made between two parties it always involves an exchange of a commodity for a good. Transactions in which one commodity is traded for another is not a financial transaction because there is no cash involved. All commercial transactions are either commodity for cash, commodity for commodity or cash for cash. But it is the first type that is the basis of the capitalist system.

If an economic system is to work commodities must be bought and sold according to some set price. The price that is attached to a commodity for sale is directly tied to its intrinsic value. But how do you assign a commodity a value? There is something called a “use value” which is basically what the term implies. A thing has value according to its use value. If we use this definition for value, then we see that air is one of the most, if not the most, valuable thing on the planet. Yet it is basically free. It is the same with water. So, use value is not a good measure of value for commercial transactions. Karl Marx had a better way to measure the value of a thing. You measure it according to how much labour went into producing it. This way you can assign a value to all commodities by a universal standard that is easily measurable.

When a capitalist conducts his business, he buys a commodity for a price and sells it for a higher price than what he paid for it in order to turn a profit. If he buys the commodity at a price that is set at its value, he must sell it for a price that is more than its value. But if all capitalists made money that way, all the extra money in the system would get drained away. The only way money can be made without bankrupting the financial system is if the capitalist, who is typically a businessperson, buys the commodities he deals with at a lower price than their worth.

You can assume for argument’s sake that the price of a product that is for sale, in so far as it as a value is directly linked to its value. So, assume that the value of an hour of labour is directly linked to a certain amount of money. If a thing in a store costs 50 dollars, let’s say it has a value of two hours of labour attached to it, which means that labour has a worth of 25$ per hour in this system. This is just an arbitrary way of linking labour to money, so that when you go to buy something you don’t have to actually perform some task of labour to get it. You just hand over the money, which is associated with a certain value that is measured in labour hours.

The only way a capitalist can make a profit for his investment is if he buys it at a price less than the value attached to the labour that went into it. For instance, using the example above, he might pay 25$ for a thing, which took two hours to make. In other words, he pays 25$ for something which he can sell at its fair price, 50$. In this way, no extra money is put into or taken out or the system. 50$ are produced by the worker, half of which goes to him, and half of which goes to the owner of the corporation.

You might wonder why the labourer agrees to receive only half of what he is worth. Why doesn’t he hold out so that he gets full value for his work? The answer is that he has a certain value in the system, which is called his social value. This social value is the value of everything needed to keep him alive and healthy and producing offspring to contribute to the system. As long as he gets enough to ensure that he can live and raise his offspring, he is less likely to complain about not getting his fair share. One of the contributing factors to the problem is his own ignorance. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He only knows that if he doesn’t have a job, he doesn’t eat. And the businessowner isn’t about to fill him in on the details of how he is getting shortchanged. You can see that this idea of treating a person as a commodity that can be bought and sold, i.e. valuing a person for his own time and sweat alienates him or her from his own work. People work presumably because they want to do something useful, which should give their work a certain quality about it that provides personal satisfaction. They should get a fulfillment from their job that goes beyond just paying for their basic needs. If they don’t get this, then they are slaves to their own physical needs. And in effect they are slaves to their employers.

It wouldn’t be so bad if a fair amount of that excess capital produced was directed back to the labourer in the form of benefits like better medical care and working conditions, or social benefits, like affordable housing, clinics, education and meal plans. In this country, you do see these things being addressed and a lot of supporters of the system point their fingers and like to say how well the working class is taken care of. But if things are so fair as these people like to claim, why are their so many people who are well off and who barely have to lift a finger to earn their paychecks? The fact is Canada is severely tilted towards one large segment of society. Most of the wealth produced by the capitalist system is earmarked for pockets that don’t do most of the work to produce it.

It is more than just a matter of a lot of the wealth being concentrated in the hands of a few big business owners. I would argue that an unfair amount of all the wealth goes to a very large segment of the population that doesn’t do its share, yet receives more than its share when all that money is divided up. The truth of the matter is most of the wealth this affluent country has in its bank accounts is produced by the working class. But the working class doesn’t even get one sniff of most of it. Most of it goes right to middle class drones who sit around in offices all day doing basically nothing but dreaming about how to spend their fat paychecks when the weekend rolls around.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking this is a progressive and fair country. That is exactly the lie they tell themselves. And it is the lie they tell you as well, even as they fleece you of all that is rightfully yours. Something needs to change. The situation is unjust and unfair, and you, the bleu collar worker in Canada are on the receiving end of a duplicitous, thieving, lie-fueled con job that has been going on in this country since confederation.