Labor Theory of Value and Surplus Value in the Light of Quantum Dialectics

The Labor Theory of Value (LTV) and the concept of surplus value stand at the very heart of Marxian economics. They are not marginal technical points but the structural key that unlocks the entire logic of the capitalist system. Together they expose how wealth is created, how it is appropriated, and how this appropriation produces the deep contradictions that destabilize capitalism from within. In showing that labor is the substance of value and surplus labor the source of profit, Marx identified the inner mechanism of exploitation. Capitalism is revealed not as a neutral system of exchange but as a structured extraction of unpaid labor, and the crises that punctuate its history are not accidents but necessary expressions of this underlying contradiction.

In the earlier tradition of classical political economy, labor had already been recognized as central to value. For thinkers like Adam Smith and David Ricardo, labor was conceived as a measure of cost and exchange, the common substance that allowed commodities to be compared. Yet this recognition remained incomplete. Smith diluted it by reintroducing profit and rent as “natural” components of value, while Ricardo was unable to explain how profit could arise if labor was its only source. Marx made the decisive leap. For him, labor was not merely a measuring rod but the very living source of value itself, the creative energy that animates the production process. Surplus value, in this perspective, is nothing mysterious: it is the unpaid portion of labor-time, the difference between what it costs to reproduce the worker and what the worker actually produces. Profit is thus revealed as exploitation, concealed beneath the surface of market exchange.

Yet even this powerful framework can be further deepened and universalized. When interpreted through the lens of Quantum Dialectics, labor and surplus value appear not only as economic categories but as manifestations of a far more general law of reality. They become visible as universal dialectical processes—expressions of cohesion and decohesion working themselves out across multiple quantum layers of matter, life, and society. Labor, in this light, is the force that both unites and transforms: it binds raw materials, tools, and human intention into coherent products, while simultaneously breaking down given forms to bring new ones into existence. Surplus value, correspondingly, is the systemic appropriation of this dialectical energy, the transfer of coherence from one field into another in a way that destabilizes the whole.

Seen in this way, capitalism itself appears as a historically specific quantum field of contradictions. Its production and circulation of value are governed by the same universal dynamics that operate in physical and biological systems: the ceaseless oscillation between cohesion and decohesion, affirmation and negation. Crises then no longer appear as external shocks or malfunctions but as phase transitions, moments when contradictions accumulate to the point where the system reorganizes itself. Revolution, likewise, is not a utopian interruption but an emergent synthesis, the leap to a higher layer of coherence when the old forms can no longer contain the forces they have unleashed.

The roots of the Labor Theory of Value lie in the rise of classical political economy during the late eighteenth century, when the capitalist mode of production was consolidating itself in Europe. Thinkers of this period sought to uncover the hidden laws governing wealth and exchange, searching for a universal measure that could explain why commodities carried value and how they related to one another in markets. Among these early pioneers, Adam Smith occupies a foundational place. His Wealth of Nations (1776) laid the groundwork for a scientific study of political economy, and within it the question of labor assumed a central, though ultimately unresolved, role.

Smith regarded labor as the “real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.” In his view, labor was not just an incidental input but the fundamental substance that allowed commodities to be compared and exchanged. It provided a common denominator, a universal yardstick of value beneath the surface of market fluctuations. For Smith, in humanity’s earliest stages of development, labor alone was the true source of wealth: one could speak of the “toil and trouble” of labor as the essence behind the products of human effort.

Yet Smith did not fully preserve this radical insight. As he elaborated his theory of markets, division of labor, and the accumulation of capital, he reintroduced categories such as profit, rent, and interest as if they were natural returns to different classes in society—the capitalist, the landlord, and the money-lender. In this way, his analysis diluted the primacy of labor. Instead of seeing profit and rent as deductions from labor’s product, he treated them as positive and independent contributors to value. The centrality of labor as the sole source of value was thereby fragmented, its coherence weakened by these additional “natural shares.”

From the perspective of Quantum Dialectics, Smith’s work can be seen as containing both a cohesive and a decohesive moment. The cohesive moment lies in his recognition that labor provides the common measure of commodities, binding them into a coherent field of exchange. This was the great unifying insight of his system, the point where he touched the underlying law of value. But his decohesive moment came when he attributed value also to capital and land, dispersing the unity of labor into multiple, supposedly independent sources. This fragmentation mirrors the contradictory movement of cohesion and decohesion itself: even within the thought of Smith, we see the struggle of categories reflecting the real contradictions of emerging capitalism.

If Adam Smith laid the foundation of the labor theory of value, it was David Ricardo who gave it sharper theoretical form. Writing in the early nineteenth century, at a time when industrial capitalism was advancing rapidly in Britain, Ricardo sought to refine Smith’s scattered insights into a more rigorous framework. For Ricardo, the relative value of commodities could not be explained by subjective preferences or accidental market fluctuations. Instead, he insisted that value ultimately depends on the quantity of labor embodied in the production of each commodity.

This was a significant advance. By emphasizing that labor was not merely a measure but the substance of value, Ricardo cut closer to the hidden law of capitalist exchange. In his model, commodities could be compared and exchanged because each contained a definite quantum of human labor-time. Here lies the cohesive moment of Ricardo’s theory: he recognized labor as the universal element that unites all commodities within a coherent field of value. His work represents an important step toward uncovering the objective structure beneath the apparent chaos of markets.

Yet Ricardo’s framework remained incomplete. While he grasped that labor is the substance of value, he could not fully explain how profit arises within this system. If commodities exchange at their values, and value is created only by labor, then from where does the capitalist’s gain come? Ricardo’s inability to answer this question without resorting to circular explanations revealed a profound gap in classical political economy. The decohesive moment in his analysis is thus his failure to uncover the mechanism of surplus value. Without recognizing the distinction between labor and labor-power, Ricardo could not explain why the system of value production generates profit without assuming that workers are somehow perpetually cheated.

From the standpoint of Quantum Dialectics, Ricardo’s contribution can be seen as a moment of sharpening contradiction. His insistence that labor is the universal substance of value pushed the theory toward greater coherence, but at the same time his inability to explain profit exposed a fracture that could not be resolved within the classical framework. The tension between these cohesive and decohesive poles was not a personal shortcoming but a reflection of capitalism itself—a system in which the production of value and the extraction of profit are inseparable yet contradictory processes. It was left to Marx to resolve this contradiction by uncovering the secret of surplus value, thus completing the dialectical movement initiated by Smith and refined by Ricardo.

It was Karl Marx who carried the labor theory of value beyond the limits of classical political economy and transformed it into a revolutionary science. Where Adam Smith had first recognized labor as the measure of value, and Ricardo had refined it into the substance of value, Marx went further: he exposed the inner contradiction that neither of his predecessors could resolve. His breakthrough lay in a decisive distinction—between labor and labor-power.

The worker, Marx observed, does not sell “labor” as such. What is sold in the labor market is the capacity to work—labor-power. The value of this capacity is determined, like any other commodity, by the amount of socially necessary labor-time required to reproduce it, i.e., the cost of subsistence for the worker and their family. Yet once this labor-power is purchased by the capitalist and set into motion in the production process, it produces a value far greater than its own cost of reproduction. The worker may, for instance, produce in six hours the equivalent of their subsistence wages, but continue to labor for twelve or more hours in the day. The additional value created in these extra hours does not return to the worker; it is appropriated by the capitalist. This difference between the value of labor-power and the value created by labor in action is what Marx called surplus value, the hidden source of profit.

Here Marx uncovered the full dialectic of capitalist production. On the one hand, labor is the source of value—the cohesive force that unifies material, tools, and human effort into products with social worth. On the other hand, surplus value is the systemic appropriation of unpaid labor—the decohesive extraction of coherence from the worker’s life-activity, siphoned into the circuit of capital. Capitalism as a system lives precisely through this contradiction. It survives only by continuously deepening the gap between necessary labor (the reproduction of the worker) and surplus labor (the unpaid portion appropriated as profit). The drive for accumulation compels the capitalist to lengthen the working day, intensify labor, or revolutionize technology—all strategies that expand the extraction of surplus value.

From the standpoint of Quantum Dialectics, Marx’s leap can be seen as the moment where the contradictory poles of cohesion and decohesion were revealed in their full systemic operation. Labor-power represents a quantum potential—a cohesive capacity that, when activated, generates new value. Surplus value represents the systemic decoherence of this potential, the transfer of coherence from the worker’s field into the capitalist’s field. Capitalism thus appears as a historically specific quantum system, sustained by the ceaseless oscillation between these poles. Its vitality depends on exploitation, but this very exploitation produces instability, alienation, and crisis. In Marx’s revolutionary leap, the labor theory of value became not merely an economic doctrine but a dialectical weapon—a key to understanding why capitalism cannot endure indefinitely and why its contradictions necessarily point toward transformation.

In the framework of Quantum Dialectics, labor emerges as more than an economic activity. It is the living expression of the universal dialectical force that governs all reality—the ceaseless interplay of cohesion and decohesion, affirmation and negation, creation and destruction. Labor is not simply a mechanical expenditure of energy; it is the uniquely human capacity to transform the given into the new, to reorganize matter in ways that embody purpose, imagination, and social need. It therefore represents one of the highest expressions of the dialectical movement that permeates the universe.

Viewed through this lens, labor reveals a dual and contradictory character. On the one hand, it performs a cohesive function: labor unites the raw materials of nature with tools, skills, and human intention to create coherent products. The scattered potentials of matter are gathered, organized, and stabilized into forms that serve human life. A lump of ore becomes steel, a seed becomes cultivated grain, scattered pieces of wood become a table. Labor, in this sense, is the cohesive force that binds disparate elements into new wholes.

On the other hand, labor simultaneously embodies a decoherent function. To produce something new, labor must first negate what is given. It dissolves the raw form of matter, breaks down existing structures, and rearranges them into new patterns. The act of cultivation disrupts the spontaneous growth of the forest; the act of smelting destroys the natural form of ore; the act of construction dismantles wood from its organic context. Labor negates in order to create, dismantling old forms as the necessary condition for the emergence of new ones.

In this dual capacity, labor functions as a dialectical quantum operator, ceaselessly oscillating between cohesion and decohesion. It does not merely add value in a linear way; it performs a transformative role analogous to quantum processes, where particles shift between states, entangle, or collapse into new configurations. Labor, likewise, moves between dissolution and synthesis, destruction and creation, embodying in the social field the very rhythm of dialectical movement that governs the cosmos.

Thus, labor can be understood as the economic manifestation of the Universal Dialectical Force—the principle that underlies the birth of stars, the folding of proteins, the flow of rivers, and the evolution of societies. In the sphere of human production, labor channels this universal law into a conscious, purposive activity. Through labor, humanity inscribes itself into the dialectical unfolding of matter, becoming both participant in and transformer of the universal field of cohesion and decohesion.

At its most immediate and physical level, labor can be understood as the directed conversion of human energy into socially useful forms. The human body, nourished by food and sustained by metabolism, becomes a reservoir of potential energy. When this energy is channeled through purposeful activity—digging, weaving, writing, assembling—it is transformed into external structures that carry value. Labor is thus not merely a biological expenditure of calories, but a directed and socially mediated conversion of energy, where the vital forces of the body are externalized into durable forms that circulate within society.

From the standpoint of Quantum Dialectics, this process acquires a deeper ontological meaning. Labor is not only the transfer of energy but the applied force of space itself. Space, redefined in quantum dialectical terms as a quantized, materially real substrate of cohesion and decohesion, becomes the field within which labor operates. When human beings labor, they are effectively reorganizing this spatial substrate, imprinting their intentional patterns onto the very quanta of matter. In other words, labor functions as a restructuring of material quanta into emergent structures: clay becomes pottery, silicon becomes circuits, vibrations of air become music. Each act of labor transforms the underlying quantum-layer potentials of matter into new, socially meaningful configurations.

This means labor is not simply a bridge between energy and matter but a dialectical mediator between potentiality and actuality. It is through labor that latent possibilities embedded in the material world are unlocked and reorganized into coherent forms that serve human needs and aspirations. The carpenter’s hammering, the scientist’s experimentation, the coder’s typing—all are acts of reorganizing quanta, condensing decoherent flux into stable, emergent wholes.

Seen in this light, labor is the human mode of cosmic creativity, where the universal rhythm of cohesion and decohesion finds conscious direction. Just as stars fuse hydrogen into heavier elements, or evolution reorganizes genetic material into higher forms of life, labor transforms the given into the new. It is the uniquely human way of participating in the ongoing dialectical conversion of energy into structure, of space into form, of possibility into realized existence.

In Marxian economics, value does not exist as a timeless essence hidden within commodities. It is not a metaphysical quality or an invisible property that simply “resides” in things. Rather, value is an emergent property, the outcome of a layered process in which contradictions are progressively organized and synthesized. To understand value is therefore to trace its genesis through different levels of material and social reality, where each layer contributes a necessary condition but no single layer suffices on its own.

The first layer is the material layer, where nature provides the substratum of potential value. In this raw state, matter possesses utility and natural form but not value in the strict economic sense. A tree in the forest, a vein of iron ore in the ground, or flowing water in a river embody natural wealth, but they are not yet commodities. They remain potential, awaiting activation by human activity. From the perspective of Quantum Dialectics, this is the field of cohesive potentiality: matter exists in its natural coherence, carrying within it possibilities for transformation but not yet inscribed with social significance.

The second layer is the labor layer, where human activity intervenes to reorganize this material substratum. Through labor, matter is imprinted with socially necessary labor-time, transforming it into value-substance. The tree becomes timber, the ore becomes steel, the river is harnessed for energy. Here, labor acts as the dialectical operator, breaking down natural forms (decohesion) and recombining them into products that embody human intention (cohesion). At this stage, value emerges as a potential but still incomplete form, for it exists only as labor materialized in products—value-in-itself but not yet value-for-others.

The third layer is the social layer, where commodities enter the field of exchange. Only here does value achieve its full actuality, as commodities are compared, equated, and measured against one another. In this process, the diverse labors embodied in different goods are abstracted into a common substance—abstract labor—which crystallizes in the form of prices. It is only in this relational field of equivalence and exchange that value becomes socially real, transcending the particularities of individual labor and assuming the form of a universal category. From a dialectical standpoint, this is the layer where individual acts of labor are subsumed into a collective quantum field, and value manifests as a systemic coherence binding the entire circulation of commodities.

Taken together, these layers demonstrate that value is not reducible to any single element—neither nature, nor labor alone, nor market exchange by itself. Rather, it is the emergent outcome of a layered dialectic in which material potential, human energy, and social relations are bound together. Each layer introduces its own contradictions—between nature and human appropriation, between concrete and abstract labor, between use-value and exchange-value—and it is through these contradictions that value arises and reproduces itself. In the language of Quantum Dialectics, value is a coherent quantum field generated from the oscillation of cohesion and decohesion across multiple levels of matter, life, and society.

Value, once understood as a layered emergence, must also be grasped in its dynamic form. It is not a static magnitude that simply inheres in commodities as a fixed property, waiting to be measured. Instead, value behaves more like a field, sustained and transformed by the constant interplay of forces within the social and material system. Just as a magnetic or gravitational field exists only as a relation among interacting bodies, value exists only within the web of production, exchange, and circulation. It is therefore a relational and processual reality, not an isolated or self-contained essence.

From the perspective of Quantum Dialectics, this field-like character of value reflects the ceaseless oscillation between cohesion and decohesion. On the cohesive side, value is stabilized by socially necessary labor-time—the universal measure that binds commodities into a coherent whole and allows them to be compared on a common plane. This cohesion ensures that value does not dissolve into pure arbitrariness or subjective whim; it gives commodities their objective commensurability. Yet, on the decohesive side, value is perpetually undermined by forces such as competition, technological innovation, obsolescence, and the destruction of commodities through crises. These forces destabilize value, disrupting its coherence and scattering it into new forms.

In this light, value resembles a quantum wave—a pattern of probability and potentiality that exists only in relation to a system of interactions. A commodity has no value “in itself,” in isolation from the network of social labor and exchange. It acquires value only when positioned within the field of relations that connects it to other commodities, to the labor that produced it, and to the social totality that validates its existence through exchange. Just as a quantum particle exhibits properties only in interaction with its environment, commodities exhibit value only within the relational coherence of the social field.

This conception highlights the profoundly unstable and contradictory nature of value under capitalism. The very forces that hold it together—labor, exchange, and social necessity—also generate the pressures that tear it apart—competition, innovation, and crisis. Value persists only because cohesion and decohesion remain in dynamic equilibrium, neither side ever fully overcoming the other. In this sense, value is not simply an economic category but the manifestation of a dialectical quantum field—a constantly regenerating balance of contradiction that reveals the deep structure of capitalist social relations.

The decisive breakthrough in Marx’s critique of political economy was his discovery of the mechanism of surplus value. He showed that profit, the lifeblood of capitalism, does not arise from exchange itself, nor from the circulation of commodities, but from production. The secret lies in the distinction between labor and labor-power. The worker sells their labor-power for a wage, the value of which is determined by the cost of reproducing their subsistence. Yet once this labor-power is set in motion, it produces more value than its own reproduction requires. For example, a worker may create in half a day the equivalent of their wages, but the capitalist compels them to work the full day. The additional value created in the remaining hours is surplus labor, appropriated by the capitalist without equivalent exchange. This surplus becomes the source of profit, rent, and interest—the entire edifice of capitalist accumulation.

Through the lens of Quantum Dialectics, this process can be reframed as a profound asymmetry in the oscillation of cohesion and decohesion. During necessary labor-time, the worker performs the cohesive function of reproducing their own existence as a coherent system. The labor expended during this time is sufficient to secure food, shelter, clothing, and the other necessities required to sustain life and ensure the ongoing availability of labor-power. It is labor directed toward the maintenance of equilibrium within the worker’s quantum field.

However, once this threshold is crossed, the worker enters the realm of surplus labor-time, where they are compelled to expend additional energy beyond the point of personal equilibrium. Here labor shifts from cohesion to decohesion. The worker’s life-energy, no longer directed toward reproducing themselves, is siphoned into the capitalist system. In effect, the worker’s quantum coherence is transferred into another field—the field of capital—which absorbs this surplus and converts it into accumulation. This act of forced transfer creates a structural imbalance, a quantum asymmetry, whereby one field (capital) grows stronger only by systematically draining coherence from another (labor).

The result of this asymmetry is systemic instability. Because capital depends on perpetual extraction of surplus labor, it must constantly push the limits of the working day, intensify productivity, or introduce technological innovations that expand exploitation. Yet each of these strategies destabilizes the system further, leading to crises of overproduction, unemployment, and social unrest. What appears on the surface as profit is, in quantum dialectical terms, the symptom of an ongoing transfer of coherence that cannot remain indefinitely balanced. Surplus value thus reveals itself not simply as the engine of accumulation but as the very principle of capitalism’s fragility—a process of systemic decoherence that ensures its eventual breakdown.

For Marx, the concept of alienation captures the profound estrangement that characterizes the worker’s condition under capitalism. Alienation is not simply a feeling of dissatisfaction or psychological unease; it is a structural reality. The worker becomes separated from the product of labor, which confronts them as an alien power; from the process of labor, which is dictated not by creative freedom but by external compulsion; from their own species-being, that is, their capacity for conscious, purposeful activity; and from the wider community of human beings, as competition and commodification replace solidarity. Alienation thus names the total disconnection of the worker from the essential conditions of life and creativity.

Reinterpreted through Quantum Dialectics, alienation can be understood as the decoherence of entanglement. Human labor, at its most fundamental level, represents a coherent quantum field where creativity, material transformation, and social interconnectedness converge. Under capitalism, this coherence is fractured. The worker’s quantum field is separated from the product it generates: the object of labor does not return as affirmation of the worker’s life-activity but is expropriated, commodified, and sold. Likewise, the coherence of human creativity is fragmented into discrete, repetitive, commodified acts—motions divorced from the totality of purpose and stripped of intrinsic meaning.

In this state, labor loses resonance with the collective field of humanity. Instead of labor being a medium of mutual recognition and entangled flourishing, it becomes an isolating compulsion, mediated only through the abstractions of wage, price, and profit. The social fabric that should unite laborers in shared creativity is torn into competitive fragments, scattering what ought to be collective resonance into disconnected vibrations.

Alienation, therefore, is the disentanglement of labor’s quantum coherence. It is the scattering of emergent potentials into isolated fragments that no longer reinforce one another but instead clash, compete, and negate. Where labor could function as a unifying force that brings individuals into resonance with the species and with nature, under capitalism it becomes the very mechanism of separation. In this sense, alienation is not merely an ethical or cultural problem but a quantum dialectical phenomenon: the forced decoherence of human entanglement, resulting in systemic dissonance at every layer of existence—individual, social, and ecological.

At the heart of Marx’s critique lies the value-form—the way value appears and operates in capitalist society. On the surface, commodities seem to exchange simply on the basis of price, as if they were independent things entering into market relations. But beneath this appearance lies a deeper structure: the value-form is the social relation of labor taking the shape of commodities. It is the mode in which human labor, abstracted and quantified, becomes the hidden substance linking products across society. Yet this form is not a neutral vehicle of exchange; it is riven with contradiction.

From the perspective of Quantum Dialectics, the value-form itself can be seen as a quantum paradox. On the side of cohesion, exchange value functions as the binding principle that unites commodities into a universal field. Through exchange, diverse labors are rendered commensurable; commodities are drawn into an integrated circulation, and society achieves a measure of systemic coherence. Exchange value thus acts like a bosonic field, pulling individual products into a unified whole.

But this cohesion is continuously undermined by its opposite pole: decohesion. The very drive for surplus value—the compulsion of capital to extract ever more unpaid labor—destabilizes the coherence of the system. Competition among capitals, the introduction of new technologies, and the relentless push to reduce necessary labor-time fracture the equilibrium of the value-field. This produces contradictions that manifest as overproduction, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, periodic gluts of commodities, and waves of unemployment. The same law that unites commodities also pushes them toward breakdown.

In this light, capitalist crises appear not as accidental disruptions or external shocks but as quantum phase transitions. They are moments when decohesive forces overwhelm cohesion, forcing the system to reorganize at a higher or different level. Just as in physical systems, where a field can suddenly shift state when contradictions reach a threshold—water freezing into ice, or particles undergoing a phase change—the capitalist system undergoes crises when its internal contradictions become unsustainable. Overproduction, falling profit rates, and mass unemployment are not anomalies but the visible expressions of this universal dialectical law.

Crisis, then, is both destructive and generative. It dissolves the coherence of the value-field, scattering established relations, but in doing so it also opens the possibility of new forms of organization. In this sense, crisis is the dialectical threshold of capitalism: the point where its contradictions demand resolution, either through temporary stabilization within the old order or through revolutionary transformation into a higher systemic coherence.

The extraction of surplus value cannot be confined to the economic sphere alone. Its effects radiate outward, destabilizing multiple layers of human existence, from the most intimate dimensions of individual life to the vast ecological systems that sustain our species. Through the lens of Quantum Dialectics, surplus value reveals itself as a multilevel phenomenon: a force of systemic decoherence that reverberates across the quantum layers of society and nature.

At the individual layer, surplus labor operates as a direct extraction of life-force from the worker. By compelling workers to labor beyond the time necessary to reproduce their subsistence, capitalism drains their vitality, resulting in exhaustion, physical debilitation, and psychological alienation. What could be coherent human creativity, unfolding in resonance with personal needs and communal purpose, is fragmented into repetitive, commodified exertion. The individual’s quantum field of energy is siphoned into capital’s circuit of accumulation, leaving behind fatigue, estrangement, and a sense of disconnection from one’s own humanity.

At the productive layer, the logic of surplus value drives the relentless expansion and transformation of the forces of production. Capitalists, in competition with one another, must continuously innovate, intensify, and rationalize production. This dynamic fuels overproduction, where more goods are created than can be profitably sold, and technological displacement, where machines and automation replace living labor. The paradox here is stark: the very drive to extract surplus value undermines its own basis, since only living labor produces new value. In dialectical terms, cohesion (productivity) and decohesion (displacement) become inseparably entangled, generating systemic instability at the level of production itself.

At the social layer, the pursuit of surplus value manifests as chronic unemployment, widening inequality, and deepening class antagonism. Workers displaced by machinery or rendered superfluous by crises become part of the “reserve army of labor,” held in precarious conditions to discipline the employed workforce. Wealth becomes ever more concentrated in the hands of capitalists, while vast sections of humanity are pushed into insecurity. Social relations, which might otherwise cohere around solidarity and cooperation, are fractured into conflict, competition, and antagonism. The social quantum field is polarized, with cohesion eroded by the centrifugal pressures of inequality and exploitation.

At the ecological layer, surplus value reveals its most destructive and expansive contradictions. In its drive to extract unpaid labor, capital must also extract natural wealth without regard for long-term sustainability. Soil fertility is depleted, forests are razed, rivers are poisoned, and the climate is destabilized. This is what Marx called the “metabolic rift”—the rupture in the exchange of matter between humanity and nature. From a dialectical perspective, this is the decoherence of the planetary field: the disintegration of the delicate balance between social reproduction and ecological regeneration. Capitalism treats nature as an inexhaustible reservoir for exploitation, but in doing so, it undermines the very conditions of its own survival.

Taken together, these layers reveal that surplus value is not merely an economic mechanism but a universal destabilizer. It erodes the coherence of the worker’s body and mind, the equilibrium of production, the solidarity of society, and the metabolism of nature. Surplus value is thus the axis around which the contradictions of capitalism revolve. In Quantum Dialectical terms, it represents a systemic force of decohesion, destabilizing not only the economy but the entire quantum field of human existence.

The contradictions inherent in surplus value point not to an eternal destiny of exploitation but to the necessity of a new social order. If capitalism embodies the decoherent appropriation of surplus, then socialism can be understood as the conscious reorganization of coherence. It is not merely a redistribution of wealth within the old framework but a qualitative transformation of the entire field of production and exchange. The dialectic of labor and surplus value thus carries within itself the seeds of its own transcendence.

Under capitalism, labor is commodified: sold piecemeal on the market, fragmented, and estranged from its creative potential. Surplus, extracted as profit, is appropriated privately and reinvested according to the compulsions of accumulation, regardless of human or ecological cost. By contrast, under socialism, labor becomes freely associated activity rather than coerced commodity. Human creativity is no longer reduced to wage-labor, but becomes the conscious unfolding of collective capacities, oriented toward needs, aspirations, and solidarity.

In this new framework, surplus is transformed into collective surplus. It ceases to be an alienated extraction and becomes a consciously managed reservoir of social energy. Rather than serving private accumulation, surplus is reinvested into the advancement of human development—education, culture, and health—into the expansion of science and technology as instruments of liberation, and into the restoration of ecological balance. The surplus once drained as a force of systemic decohesion becomes, in socialism, a cohesive resource for collective flourishing.

The transition from capitalism to socialism cannot be imagined as a smooth reform or a simple adjustment of policy. It is, in quantum dialectical terms, a phase transition—a revolutionary leap in which contradictions are not merely managed but sublated into a higher coherence. Just as matter shifts from one state to another when thresholds of pressure or temperature are crossed, society transforms when the contradictions of surplus value accumulate to a critical point. The breakdowns of capitalism—its crises, inequalities, and ecological rifts—become the very conditions that make possible a new synthesis.

In this sense, revolution is not an accident or an external imposition; it is the necessary resolution of systemic contradictions. Capitalism, by deepening its exploitation of labor and nature, prepares the ground for its own transcendence. Socialism, as the higher synthesis, represents the reconstitution of human society at a new quantum layer of coherence—one in which labor is liberated, surplus is socialized, and humanity consciously governs its metabolism with nature. It is the moment when the oscillation of cohesion and decohesion, which under capitalism takes the form of crisis and exploitation, is reorganized into a dynamic equilibrium that allows for collective advancement.

When viewed through the lens of Quantum Dialectics, the Labor Theory of Value and the concept of surplus value attain a new depth of meaning. They reveal that labor is not merely an economic category, nor simply the expenditure of human effort, but the universal dialectical force of coherence and transformation. Labor is the operator that unites matter, energy, and intention, reorganizing the given into new forms that embody social meaning. Surplus value, conversely, is the systemic appropriation of this force by capital—a process of decoherence that drains vitality from the labor field, destabilizing individuals, production, society, and nature. Capitalism, in this sense, is not simply a mode of exploitation but a quantum system organized around the asymmetry of this appropriation.

Yet contradiction, as Marx and dialectics more broadly remind us, is not only destructive. It is also the engine of emergence. Every rupture, every crisis, every fracture in the coherence of labor contains within it the potential for a new form of organization. Just as in physics, where fermions embody individuality and bosons embody unity, oscillating in their relations to generate the structures of matter, so too in society labor oscillates between poles of alienation and emancipation. In one moment, labor is fragmented, estranged, and commodified; in another, it seeks connection, creativity, and solidarity. These oscillations are not accidents but the expression of a universal law—the ceaseless interplay of cohesion and decohesion.

The dialectic of labor and surplus value therefore points beyond capitalism toward the necessity of transformation. It indicates the emancipation of labor from its commodified form, the collectivization of surplus as a conscious resource for human development, and the emergence of a new systemic coherence. At this higher quantum layer, humanity would no longer appear as a collection of isolated individuals bound by competition, but as a consciously entangled species, organizing its activity in resonance with both social solidarity and ecological balance.

In this vision, labor ceases to be a site of alienation and becomes instead the medium of collective creativity—the process through which human beings inscribe themselves into the unfolding of the universe. Surplus ceases to be a force of systemic decohesion and becomes the shared energy of advancement, reinvested in culture, science, freedom, and the renewal of nature. The contradictions of capitalism, far from being the end of history, thus become the preconditions of a new epoch. Labor, reinterpreted through Quantum Dialectics, is revealed as the key to humanity’s future coherence—the universal force by which we may transcend exploitation and reorganize ourselves as a planetary civilization in conscious harmony with the dialectic of reality itself.