Abstract: The derivation of the theory of surplus value from the dual character of labor constitutes a central argument in Volume I of Capital. Starting from labor′s duality as both abstract and concrete, Marx demonstrates that the capitalist production process carries a dual determination: it is at once a labor process (the universal moment) and a valorization process (the particular moment). Through this dialectical movement, he arrives at the concepts of surplus value and the rate of exploitation-concepts specific to the capitalist mode of production as a historically distinct stage of social development. Around the 1980s, analytical Marxism sought to show that there is no necessary link between the labor theory of value and surplus value/exploitation, and attempted to construct a theory of exploitation independent of the labor theory of value. Yet the labor theory of value, which they aimed to exclude as the determination of abstract labor, resurfaces in their own arguments as a tacit precondition. This recurrent slippage indicates that dialectics remains an indispensable theoretical perspective for comprehending the capitalist mode of production.

Key words: labor theory of value, surplus value, exploitation, analytical Marxism