Every theory must be based upon some fundamental law. The theory of evolution on the law of natural selection, the theory of the development of the universe on the law of gravity, and so on. The theory of historical materialism is similarly based on the Law of Value. The Law of Value is the natural law that applies to all societies, and drives the changes within society. It is The Law of Value that determines what can be produced within the constraints of the material conditions existing at any time and place. And, it is The Law of Value that determines that, in order to relax those constraints, Man has to raise labour productivity, so as to be able to produce a greater quantity and range of use values, with the labour at his disposal, and that is done by developing a social division of labour, and by developing the means of production, or instruments of labour. As Marx says in The Critique of the Gotha Programme,
“And what is "useful" labour? Surely only labour which produces the intended useful result. A savage – and man was a savage after he had ceased to be an ape – who kills an animal with a stone, who collects fruit, etc., performs "useful" labour.”
And, this is significant, because already, here, we see a distinction, and the basis of class society. Marx, here, rails against the Lassallean notion that labour is the source of all wealth and culture, and that useful labour is only possible as a result of society.
“Labour is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labour, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labour power. the above phrase is to be found in all children's primers and is correct insofar as it is implied that labour is performed with the appurtenant subjects and instruments. But a socialist program cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the conditions that alone give them meaning. And insofar as man from the beginning behaves toward nature, the primary source of all instruments and subjects of labour, as an owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labour becomes the source of use values, therefore also of wealth. The bourgeois have very good grounds for falsely ascribing supernatural creative power to labour; since precisely from the fact that labour depends on nature it follows that the man who possesses no other property than his labour power must, in all conditions of society and culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labour. He can only work with their permission, hence live only with their permission.”
(ibid)
Now, the owners of these forces of Nature, be it land, or capital – or in the case of slave societies human labour-power itself – are able to charge a price for it, and, thereby, to extract a portion, or indeed all of the surplus product, or surplus value created by the producer. The owner of land, in feudal society is able to extract rent directly from the producer. Under capitalism, the capitalist farmer extracts surplus value from the labourer, and the owner of land, extracts rent from the capitalist, thereby indirectly appropriating a part of the surplus value created by the labourer. The industrial capitalist extracts profit, because they do not utilise their capital unless they can obtain the annual average rate of profit, and ultimately, that means that workers are not employed, unless they hand over surplus labour to the owner of capital, as the price of being allowed to work. The money-lending capitalist extracts interest from the industrial capitalist, and, thereby, appropriates a portion of the surplus value produced by the labourers, and first appropriated as industrial profit by the industrial capitalist. Herein lies the material basis for the social classes that arise upon these different forms of property, and the social relations that develop between them.
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