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Superprofit (or surplus profit or extra surplus-value; in German: extra-Mehrwert), is a concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy, subsequently elaborated by Lenin and other Marxist thinkers. Comment: 'extra-Mehrwert' is NOT the same thing as superprofits! While 'extra-Mehrwert' has to do with above-average surplus-value obtained through, i.e., technological advantages in a company or sector of the economy that the competitor does not have (yet), superprofits refer specifically to profits obtained by the imperialist/colonial bourgeoisie in their exploitation of work force in the dependent, by imperialism dominated, countries. As Lenin put it: "Obviously, out of such enormous superprofits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their own country) it is possible to bribe the labour leaders and the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy." http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/pref02.htm
The origin of the concept in Marxs Capital The term "superprofit" (extra surplus-value) was first used by Karl Marx in Das Kapital. It referred basically to above-average enterprise profits, arising in three main situations: We could - although Marx does not discuss this in detail (beyond referring to international productivity differentials in the world economy) - also include a fourth case, namely superprofits arising from structural unequal exchange in the world economy. In this case, superprofit arises simply through buying products cheaply in one place and selling them at a much higher price elsewhere, yielding an above-average profit margin. This type of superprofit may not be attributable to extra productivity or monopoly conditions, and represent only a transfer of value from one place to another. Leninist interpretation According to Leninism, superprofits are extracted from the workers in colonial (or "third world") countries by the imperialist powers (in the "first world"). Part of these superprofits are then distributed (in the form of increased living standards) to the workers in the imperialists' home countries, in order to buy their loyalty, achieve political stability and avoid a workers' revolution. The workers who receive a large enough share of the superprofits have an interest to defend the capitalist system, so they become a labor aristocracy. Superprofit in Marxist-Leninist theory, is the result of unusually severe exploitation or superexploitation. All capitalist profit in Marxist-Leninist theory is based on exploitation (the business owners extract surplus value from the workers), but superprofit is achieved by taking exploitation above and beyond its normal level. There are in Marxism-Leninism no profits that could result from an activity or transaction that did not involve exploitation, except socialist profits in a Soviet-type economy. In Marxism-Leninism, super-profit is therefore a dirty word because it is identical in meaning with abnormally severe capitalist exploitation. Criticism of Leninist interpretation Critics of Lenin's theory (including many Marxists) hold a different view. Their argument can be summarised in the following points: Leninists reply that cheap consumer goods are precisely the method through which global capitalists allow workers in their home countries to share in their superprofits. The capitalists could sell those consumer goods at higher prices and obtain higher profits. But they choose to sell them cheap instead, in order to make them widely available to workers in their home countries and thereby spread a consumer culture that erodes class consciousness and removes the threat of revolution. In other words, capitalists sacrifice some of their superprofit, either consciously or unconsciously, for the sake of increased stability at home. Once a worker owns a foreign-made fridge, car, stereo, DVD-player and vacuumcleaner, he no longer thinks of revolution and thinks capitalism is the best of all possible worlds. Other Marxists however regard this line of thinking as a vulgar economic reductionism, and regard it as a fallacy to think that capitalists "choose to sell goods cheaply" for some political purpose. That would be only an exception to the rule, which is that goods are sold at the highest price that enables those goods to be sold. Mandels theory Ernest Mandel argues in his book Late Capitalism that the frontline of capitalist development is always ruled by the search for surplus-profits (above-average returns). But, he argues, the growth pattern of modern capitalism is shaped by the quest for surplus-profits in monopolistic and oligopolistic markets, in which a few large corporations dominate supply. Thus, the extra or above-average profits do not arise so much from real productivity gains, but from corporations monopolising access to resources, technologies and markets. It is not so much that enterprises with superior productivity outsell competitors, but that competitors are blocked in various ways from competing (for example, through cartellisation, mergers, fusions, take-overs, government-sanctioned licensing, exclusive production and selling rights etc.). ] In that case, the extra profits have less to do with "reward for entrepreneurship" than with market position and market power, i.e. the ability to offload business costs onto someone else (the state, consumers, other businesses), and force consumers to pay extra for access to the goods and services they buy, based on supply monopolies. See also | ||||||||
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