Read the passage and answer the following question.
One of the founders of modern sociology, Karl Marx, was also a critic of modern capitalism. Marx understood capitalism as a system of commodity production, or production for the market, through the use of wage labour. As you have already learned, Marx wrote that all economic systems are also social systems. Each mode of production consists of particular relations of production, which in turn give rise to a specific class structure. He emphasised that the economy does not consist of things (goods circulating in the market), but is made up of relations between people who are connected to one another through the process of production. Under the capitalist mode of production, labour itself becomes a commodity, because workers must sell their labour power in the market to earn a wage. This gives rise to two basic classes - capitalists, who own the means of production (such as the factories), and workers, who sell their labour to the capitalists. The capitalist class is able to profit from this system by paying the workers less than the value of what they actually produce, and so extracting surplus value from their labour. Marx's theory of capitalist economy and society provided the inspiration for numerous theories and debates about the nature of capitalism throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Capacity for labour; the mental and the physical capabilities of human beings that are used in the process of production.
The above definition can be best associated with which concept.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Labour power
Option (1) Labour — Incorrect. Labour is the work itself, the actual activity of producing. The definition speaks of the capacity to work, the abilities a worker brings, which is a different idea.
Option (2) Labour power — Correct. Labour power is the worker’s capacity to work: the mental and physical abilities used in production. Under the capitalist mode of production, labour itself becomes a commodity, because workers must sell their labour power in the market to earn a wage.
Option (3) Surplus value — Incorrect. Surplus value is what the capitalist gains by paying the workers less than the value of what they actually produce. It is the profit taken from labour, not the worker’s capacity to work.
Option (4) Capitalism — Incorrect. Capitalism is a whole economic system: a system of commodity production, or production for the market, through the use of wage labour. It is not a name for the abilities of a human being.
Note: The passage of Q6-Q10 is NCERT’s own paragraph on Karl Marx and capitalism, from the chapter ‘The Market as a Social Institution’, reproduced by NTA. One paragraph read with care was worth five questions here; the key terms of every such paragraph deserve a second look.
NCERT (2025-26): “4.2 Understanding Capitalism as a Social System … One of the founders of modern sociology, Karl Marx, was also a critic of modern capitalism. Marx understood capitalism as a system of commodity production, or production for the market, through the use of wage labour. As you have already learned, Marx wrote that all economic systems are also social systems. Each mode of production consists of particular relations of production, which in turn give rise to a specific class structure. He emphasised that the economy does not consist of things (goods circulating in the market), but is made up of relations between people who are connected to one another through the process of production. Under the capitalist mode of production, labour itself becomes a commodity, because workers must sell their labour power in the market to earn a wage. This gives rise to two basic classes – capitalists, who own the means of production (such as the factories), and workers, who sell their labour to the capitalists. The capitalist class is able to profit from this system by paying the workers less than the value of what they actually produce, and so extracting surplus value from their labour. Marx’s theory of capitalist economy and society provided the inspiration for numerous theories and debates about the nature of capitalism throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” |