Karl Marx and Work Karl Marx is known not only as a philosopher but also as a revolutionary whose works inspired the founding of many communist regimes in the 20th century. Marx had a great influence in the creation of the modern world. A philosopher by training, Marx turned away from philosophy in his mid-20s and toward economics and politics. However, in addition to his early, overtly philosophical works, his later writings have many points of contact with contemporary philosophical debates, notably in the philosophy of history and the social sciences, as well as in moral and political philosophy.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay Marx argues that capitalism is distinctive, in that it involves not only the exchange of commodities, but also the The advancement of capital, in the form of money, with the aim of generating profit through the purchase of commodities and their transformation into other commodities that may cost more and thus generate a profit (Philosophy 2003). Marx claims that no previous theorist has been able to explain how capitalism as a whole can make a profit. Marx's own solution is based on the idea of ​​exploitation of the worker. By establishing the conditions of production, the capitalist buys the labor power of the worker, his capacity to work for the day. The cost of this product is determined in the same way as the cost of any other product, in terms of the amount of labor power socially necessary to produce it (Philosophy 2003). In this case, the value of a day's labor power is the value of the goods needed to keep the worker alive for a day. This can be seen in the statement: “we have shown that the worker sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the most miserable of commodities” (Marx nd). Suppose it takes four hours to produce these products. Thus, the first four hours of the working day are spent producing a value equivalent to the value of the salary that the worker will be paid, this is called “necessary labor” (Philosophy 2003). Any work that the worker performs beyond this limit is called “surplus labor,” producing surplus value for the capitalist (Philosophy 2003). Surplus value, according to Marx, is the source of all profit. In Marx's analysis, labor power is the only commodity that can produce more value than it is worth, and for this reason it is known as variable capital. Other products simply transmit their value to the finished products, but do not create any additional value: they are called constant capital. Profit is therefore the result of work performed by the worker beyond what is necessary to create the value of his salary (Philosophy 2003). It is important to understand that for Marx, alienation is not just a matter of subjective feeling or confusion. The bridge between Marx's early analyzes of alienation and his later social theory lies in the idea that the alienated individual is "a plaything of foreign forces." In citizens' lives, they make decisions that have unintended consequences, which then combine to create larger social forces that can have an unintended and volatile effect. According to Marx, the institutions of capitalism themselves look back on the consequences of human behavior to structure their future behavior, determining the possibilities for human action. For example, as long as a capitalist intends to remain in business, he must exploit his workers until.