Quiz: Value, Price and Profit

All 46 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. In the yarn example, what determines the price of a pound of yarn?

   The demand for yarn abroad The rate of profit in spinning The level of the spinner’s wages and his hours The total amount of labour worked up in it
2. 2. Who, according to Marx, directly extracts the surplus value from the worker?

   The money-lending capitalist The tax-gatherer of the State The employing capitalist The landlord
3. 3. What does Marx’s example of the number eight show?

   A fixed total can still be divided differently between wages and profits Wages can never rise above a quarter of the total product Prices rise in proportion to wages Production always grows by a fixed amount
4. 4. Which word does Marx apologise for using as “this French word”?

   Bourgeoisie Laissez-faire Exploitation Proletariat
5. 5. How does Marx describe the division of the serf’s working week?

   Three days on his own field and three unpaid on his lord’s estate All his days for his lord, in return for food Six days for himself, and a tithe of his harvest paid in kind to his lord Five days for his lord and only the Sunday for himself on his own field
6. 6. Why, according to Marx, were wages relatively high in the United States?

   Wage-labourers kept turning into independent farmers American unions were stronger and better organized than British ones Immigration had stopped American law fixed a minimum wage in every state of the Union
7. 7. What happened to the price of wheat in 1849–59, while farm wages rose about 40 per cent?

   It stayed exactly the same It doubled It rose by about 40 per cent It fell by more than 16 per cent
8. 8. What illustration did Weston use for his theory of wages?

   A river flowing into the sea A bowl of soup and the broadness of the spoons A loaf of bread cut into thinner or thicker slices A thermometer and its fixed points
9. 9. In Marx’s example, what does the spinner who is paid 3s. a day add to the cotton in twelve hours?

   Twelve shillings’ worth Six shillings’ worth Three shillings’ worth Eighteen shillings’ worth
10. 10. Complete Marx’s sentence: “Time is the room of…”

    human development the worker’s rest social wealth capital’s growth
11. 11. What does Marx say the economists’ “Previous, or Original Accumulation” ought to be called?

    Original Abstinence Original Sin Primitive Communism Original Expropriation
12. 12. Which illustration does Marx use to show how different commodities can be reduced to a common measure?

    Reducing the areas of rectilinear figures to triangles Weighing different metals on one scale Measuring temperatures on a thermometer Converting foreign currencies at a fixed rate of exchange
13. 13. Whom does Marx credit with proclaiming a general limitation of the working day as early as 1816?

    Nassau Senior Thomas Tooke Andrew Ure Robert Owen
14. 14. Weston’s simile reminds Marx of which ancient figure?

    Cicero Tiberius Gracchus Menenius Agrippa Spartacus
15. 15. How, according to Marx’s general law, do the values of commodities relate to the productive powers of labour?

    They are unaffected by them They depend only on wages, not productivity They vary inversely with them They vary directly with them, rising as they rise
16. 16. What comparison does Marx use for the difference between the value of labouring power and its daily use?

    The price of a tool and the years it lasts The food a horse needs and the time it can carry its rider The fuel a steam-engine burns and the cloth its looms weave in a day The rent of a field and the crop it yields
17. 17. According to Marx, what does a man who makes an article for his own consumption create?

    Surplus value A commodity, but not a value A product, but not a commodity A value, but not a price
18. 18. After the power-loom halved the time needed, what did twenty hours of a hand-loom weaver’s labour represent?

    Twenty hours of socially necessary labour Only ten hours of socially necessary labour No value at all Forty hours, because of his greater effort
19. 19. Whose “great merit” was it to destroy the fallacy that wages determine prices?

    John Stuart Mill Thomas Malthus David Ricardo Adam Smith
20. 20. According to Marx, what is the lasting result of a general rise in the rate of wages?

    A general rise in the prices of all commodities, with profits unchanged A rise in rents at the expense of profits A general fall in the rate of profit, with no permanent change in prices A fall in the amount of national production
21. 21. How does Marx define price, taken by itself?

    The sum of wages, profit and rent The monetary expression of value Whatever buyers are willing to pay The cost of production plus a fair profit
22. 22. What does Marx say a general rise of wages would do?

    Raise the prices of all commodities Raise profits by increasing demand Leave both profits and prices unchanged, since money wages are nominal Lower the general rate of profit without affecting values
23. 23. What does Marx say the Ten Hours Bill amounted to?

    A sudden and compulsory rise of wages in the leading industries A tax on factory profits A fall of wages imposed by the employers A measure that ruined English industry, as Senior predicted
24. 24. According to Edward Aveling’s preface, which of these was part of his own contribution to the edition?

    Finding the manuscript among Engels’s papers Dividing the paper into chapters and naming them Writing the footnotes on Weston Translating the paper from German
25. 25. Instead of the capitalist’s will, what does Marx say we must inquire into?

    The opinions of the economists on what a fair rate of wages should be His power, the limits of that power and the character of those limits The laws passed by Parliament to regulate the length of the working day His intentions, his conscience and the motives behind his bargains
26. 26. Which examples does Marx give of scientific truths that seem paradoxical?

    The earth moving round the sun, and water being two inflammable gases The blood circulating through the body, and the earth being a sphere Heavy and light bodies falling at the same speed Light being a wave, and heat being motion
27. 27. What two elements form the value of labouring power?

    A skilled element and an unskilled element A money element and a commodity element A physical element and a historical or social element A natural element and a legal element
28. 28. From what supposition does Marx say profit must be explained?

    That money loses value over time That commodities are, on average, sold at their real values That workers are always made to buy commodities below their values That capitalists sell commodities above their values, adding a profit
29. 29. How can £52 of yearly wages be paid with a single sovereign, according to Marx?

    The Bank of England reissues the coin at a higher value each time it returns The coin returns weekly through shopkeeper, banker and manufacturer and is paid out again The sovereign is lodged with the bank, which issues notes against it to pay the rest of the year’s wages The worker saves the coin and lends it at interest until it grows to £52
30. 30. What did English factory owners do after the abolition of the Corn Laws, according to Marx?

    Reduced wages by ten per cent Shortened the working day to ten hours Moved their mills abroad to cheaper countries Raised wages by ten per cent, as they had pledged
31. 31. How does Marx describe Weston’s defence of opinions unpopular with the workers?

    As a joke not worth answering As proof he is in the employers’ pay As a misreading of Ricardo As moral courage that all must honour
32. 32. What did the anonymous author of An Essay on Trade call the workhouses he proposed?

    Houses of Correction Houses of Industry Houses of Terror Houses of Order
33. 33. What, according to Marx, do supply and demand regulate?

    The amount of currency in circulation The value of every commodity The general rate of profit Only the temporary fluctuations of market prices
34. 34. What does Marx name as the “common social substance” of all commodities?

    Money Utility Labour Scarcity
35. 35. Which earlier thinker does Marx say “instinctively hit upon” the idea that what is sold is the use of a man’s power?

    Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan John Locke, in the Second Treatise Adam Smith, in the Wealth of Nations Jeremy Bentham, in the Principles of Morals and Legislation
36. 36. What should workers inscribe on their banner instead of “A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work!”?

    “Abolition of the wages system!” “Workers of the world, unite!” “Eight hours for work!” “The land for the people!”
37. 37. If money loses value and wages do not rise, the worker, says Marx, is being paid with what?

    Names instead of things Promises instead of money Credit at the shop instead of cash Goods from the shop instead of wages
38. 38. What, for Marx, are rent, interest and industrial profit?

    Costs of production added to the price Deductions from wages made by the state Returns produced by land, money and capital Different names for parts of one surplus value
39. 39. What does Aveling call the paper “in a partial sense”?

    An epitome of the first volume of Capital A summary of Ricardo’s Principles A reply to Proudhon’s Philosophy of Poverty A draft of the Communist Manifesto
40. 40. What were Weston’s two premises?

    That wages and profits always rise together That money and credit are both fixed amounts That rent and profit are fixed shares of the national product That national production and real wages are both fixed amounts
41. 41. In Marx’s example, what is the total value of the product when 24 hours of past labour and 12 new hours are embodied in it, at sixpence an hour?

    Eighteen shillings Fifteen shillings Twelve shillings Six shillings
42. 42. According to Marx, how does the capitalist normally make his profit?

    By selling commodities above their value, adding a fixed profit on top By cheating his customers on weights, measures and the quality of goods By buying raw materials below their value By selling commodities at their value, which contains unpaid labour
43. 43. With £100 surplus value, £100 laid out in wages and £500 total capital, what rate of profit does the usual (total-capital) measure give?

    Five per cent Twenty per cent Fifty per cent Ten per cent
44. 44. What makes the question of wages urgent, according to Marx’s opening remarks?

    A fall in the price of gold A new Factory Act before Parliament The failure of a great bank An epidemic of strikes on the Continent
45. 45. Whose essay on paper currency does Marx credit with hitting upon “the true nature of value”?

    David Ricardo Thomas Tooke Thomas Hobbes Benjamin Franklin
46. 46. To what does Marx compare the demand for equal or equitable pay on the basis of the wages system?

    Asking the sea to stand still Clamouring for freedom on the basis of slavery Building a house on sand Expecting a rise in wages to raise all prices equally