In mainstream economics, economic surplus (also known as total welfare or Marshallian surplus after Alfred Marshall) refers to two related quantities. Consumer surplus or consumers' surplus is the monetary gain obtained by consumers because they are able to purchase a product for a price that is less than the highest price that they would be willing to pay. Producer surplus or producers' surplus is the amount that producers benefit by selling at a market price that is higher than the least that they would be willing to sell for.
In some schools of heterodox economics, the economic surplus denotes the total income which the ruling class derives from its ownership of scarce factors of production, which is either reinvested or spent on consumption.
In Marxian economics, the term surplus may also refer to surplus value, surplus product and surplus labour.
Read more about Economic Surplus: Overview, Consumer Surplus
Famous quotes containing the words economic surplus, economic and/or surplus:
“Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.”
—Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960)
“Three factors—the belief that child care is female work, the failure of ex-husbands to support their children, and higher male wages at work—have taken the economic rug from under that half of married women who divorce.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped out of—career, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)