> > BTW, can someone out there help me on whether to call my son in law a
> > capitalist or a worker? he has paid for and accumulated a lot of musical
> > instruments and related recording equipment which i assume is capital.
> > however, when he performs he is laboring with his trade tools. is he a
> > capitalist or worker?
>
> He is a petty producer: i.e., because he owns his means of production he
> gets to appropriate himself the surplus value he creates.
Before I go back to sleep, just a correction here, Carroll, in hopes you might some day get this straight, and perhaps more important, might not continue to confuse others. In this case, he is a worker, selling his labor directly for revenue. No surplus value is created because no capitalist is involved. Surplus value is a term reserved for that value which is extracted from labor by capital by paying the worker for his labor power, and appropriateing the difference between that and the value of the worker's labor (value of product or work).
The price he charges for his work will have to cover his living expenses (subsistence) and money he needs to replenish his equipment (means of production). He may charge more than the sum of those things, but that would simply be higher wages for him, as can also exist when a worker is employed by a capitalist (when wages exceed the value of labor power), not surplus value.
RO