Marx’s Theory of Extra Surplus Value: Reconstruction and Implications for Uneven Development

This article reconstructs Marx’s theory of extra surplus value (ESV) and develops a framework clarifying its role in uneven development. We precisely define ESV and decompose it into two components: value creation, arising from productivity differentials, and value transfer, arising from the maintenance of prices above social value through monopoly power. This decomposition reframes the long-standing theoretical bifurcation between production-based and exchange-based explanations of global inequality, demonstrating that the divide reflects the dual mechanisms generating ESV. Applying this framework, we show how their interplay shapes the digital economy paradox—driving productive efficiency while entrenching information rents—and the bifurcation of industrial policy between technological upgrading and rent preservation. By situating uneven development within the production and accumulation of ESV, the article identifies structural conditions through which capitalist technical change and monopoly power jointly reproduce global disparities.