Brand-Added Value

[Roger Odisio]

James Heartfield wrote:
> 
> The economic theories of where additional value comes from reflect the
> competing claims on the surplus, so landlords see land as productive of
> new value, industrialists industry and merchants' trade. In a sense
> additional value is a no-brainer: all societies above the level of Colin
> Turnbull's benighted Ik people produce more than they consume. In
> Britain in 1999 24 million people worked a sum total of 47 736 million
> hours. In that time they created first goods and services to an
> equivalent of their wages, £491.3 billion, and then an additional value
> of £787.4 billion for their employers. The economic form that the
> surplus takes depends on the conditions under which it is appropriated:
> as Tribute in ancient Rome, rents in feudal Europe, industrial profits
> under the factory system, as 'brand value' today.

Interesting numbers, Jim.  But where did you get them and what do they
mean?  Do the 24 million include all who draw a paycheck, including
executives/manager capitalists, or was some attempt made to confine the
numbers to working class, or even, perhaps productive labour?  Does the
491.3 billion pounds include what the US Nat. Income Accounts calls
employee compensation (fringes as well as wages and salaries)?  And what
about that additional value?  Includes money to replace capital stock
(depreciation), doesn't it, not just surplus available to
capitalists--in other words, money capitalists must advance to reproduce
dead labor as well as that advanced to living labor?

Have you ever looked at time series of these data?  

RO