Was in a conversation with someone who argued that slaves don’t produce surplus value, that surplus value is unique to a worker-owner relation as in liberalism. Is anyone familiar with this idea? It didn’t make a great deal of sense to me. One would think that slaves would give you as much if not more surplus value than workers you have to pay.
Agree with your take here.
It could probably be argued that it’s not surplus value in a strictly academic sense, but it is in a very practical sense.
In this case, it’s a distinction without a difference, and I can’t imagine the benefit of making that distinction.