Question

please answer with lengthy explanations

4. If the dominant class did not need to devote resources to controlling the producer class, how would society be different? What occupations would no longer exist, or be fewer in number?

5. The text says that class is defined by relationship to production of the surplus, not by income. Does this mean that no relationship exists between class and the size of people's incomes?

6. Each class has an interest in getting and keeping an income that is both secure and as large as possible. What steps might the direct producers (workers) take to increase their income security? [Answers may include: workers joining labor unions and going on strike for job security provisions such as layoff in order of seniority; peasants taking over land in order to grow crops on it for their livelihood; workers forming mutual benefit societies providing for funeral expenses or other major life expenses.]

Answer 1

A society must usually also hold a fraction of the new social product in reserve at any time. These reserves (sometimes called "strategic stocks") by definition are not usually available for immediate distribution, but stored in some way, yet they are a necessary condition for longer-term survival. Such reserves must be maintained, even if no other excess to immediate requirements is produced, and therefore they can be considered a permanent reproduction cost, viewed over a longer interval of time, rather than as a true surplus.

An additional complicating factor is population growth, since a growing population means that "more product" must be produced purely to ensure the survival of that population. In primitive societies, insufficient output just means that people will die, but in complex societies, continually "producing more" is physically necessary to sustain a growing population (this is admitted by Marx in Capital, Volume III, chapter 48 where he writes: "A definite quantity of surplus labour is required as insurance against accidents, and by the necessary and progressive expansion of the process of reproduction in keeping with the development of the needs and the growth of population, which is called accumulation from the viewpoint of the capitalist").

At any time, a fraction of the adult working-age population does not work at all, yet these people must somehow be sustained as well. Insofar as they do not depend directly on the producers of the necessary product for their maintenance, they have to be sustained from communal or state resources, or by some other means.

The concept of a social surplus product seems very simple and straightforward at first sight, but for social scientists it is actually a quite complex concept

The most important originators of communist doctrine were Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Like the socialists before them, they wanted to end the exploitation of the masses by the few. The capitalist system at that time required workers to work under harsh and dangerous conditions for little pay. The end goal of communism was to eliminate class distinctions among people, where everyone shared equally in the proceeds of society, when government would no longer be needed.

Karl Marx agreed with Louis Blanc in how labor and income should be managed: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." However, it seems clear from history that Adam Smith had the correct principle, which is that people work in their own self-interest.