The value of labour power?
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I know what you're all thinking: "wtf not another Sympo thread relating to value, can the USSR please start existing again so I can get shot in a mass grave"
But hear me out, this is a new question (atleast I think so).
From the MIA encyclopedia:
"The value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer."
From an article on this website:
"The value of a commodity, said Marx, is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour contained in it"
So the value of commodities (well, some, like food and clothes etc) determine the value of labour, and the value of labour determines the value of commodities.
Isn't this circular reasoning?
This question must have an obvious answer because I've never heard this objection to the LTV.
Sympo wrote:I know what you're all thinking: "wtf not another Sympo thread relating to value, can the USSR please start existing again so I can get shot in a mass grave"Why would we think that? You must know that we don't think that the USSR was socialist and don't advocate or support mass shootings.I thought your questions were sincere, but this suggests otherwise.
ALB wrote:I thought your questions were sincere, but this suggests otherwise.I think he was joking..
Maybe, but it wasn't funny, no more funny that if he "joked":
Quote:"wtf not another Sympo thread relating to value, can Nazi Germany please start existing again so I can get gassed"DJP wrote:Is it only part 7 that is supposed to help or does one have to the read the entire manuscript? I read 7 and 8 but it didn't help me understand things better.In the manuscript, Marx says "its value is determined by the quantity of labour necessary to produce it." But isn't the value of those things determined by the labour it took to make them aswell?What is it that I'm not seeing?
Btw I was joking earlier. The joke wasn't saying that SPGB members want to execute me. It was that SPGB members find my questions so annoying and repetitive that they would rather get executed by the Soviet state than reply to another one of my threads. Which is an exaggeration of the annoyance one can feel when discovering a new thread concerning value theory created by me.It was just a stupid joke and I understand if people find it inappropiate or gruesome. I meant no harm with it.
Sympo wrote:Is it only part 7 that is supposed to help or does one have to the read the entire manuscript? I read 7 and 8 but it didn't help me understand things better.Part 7 is where the distinction between "labour" and "labour-power" is made.If you say the the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of labour needed to reproduce it then you would end up in a circle if we were to try to work out what the value of labour is.But the labourer doesn't sell labour. They sell thier labour-power, not their actual labour but their capacity to labour, and the value of labour-power is determined by the value of the goods needed to reproduce it.I think this helped me get a handle on it:http://www.theoryandpractice.org.uk/library/reproduction-everyday-life-fredy-perlman-1969
Sympo wrote:In the manuscript, Marx says "its value is determined by the quantity of labour necessary to produce it." But isn't the value of those things determined by the labour it took to make them aswell?Value (not price) in Marx is determined by the amount of *abstract* socially necessary labour time necessary to reproduce a commidity at any given time. Perhaps this could be regarded as an "axiom" I'm nor sure…
iWell there was a circular reasoning problem before Karl introduced the idea of labour power being a commodity. The worker sells his ability to do 10 hours of labour for what actually 5 hours work can produce; which he purchases with his wages. And thus what five hours can produce is what is required for him to replenish himself and keep himself going. But he produces 10 hours ‘worth’ of stuff. The additional five hours of stuff is the profit or surplus value of the capitalist. And as much as the capitalist doesn’t consume all of it himself and accumulates it; it is all around us in the form of roads, buidings factories and machines etc.
In fact, this is the most important part of Marx' work, because it means that the whole relationship of receiving a wage/salary is exploitative. Our labour power, our abstract ability to work, is alienated, and treated as if it were a commodity like any other: our labour is entirely unpaid. Just as if you buy a screwdriver, it is yours to do with as you please, so too the employer of human labour power. Sadly a human mind comes attached.We are not paid for the work we do, for our outputs. The workers in a car factory aren't selling car assembley nor car parts to their employer, they are selling the right to their employer to direct their labour upon his/her capital.The source of profit, then is the difference between the value cost of producing and reproducing our ability to work and the value of the work we do.This is a key concept, and drives prettyy much everything else.
DJP wrote:They sell thier labour-power, not their actual labour but their capacity to labour, and the value of labour-power is determined by the value of the goods needed to reproduce it.Are these two statements correct: 1. The value of labour power is determined by the value of the goods that is needed to reproduce the labour power. 2. The value of those goods are determined by the amount of (socially necessary) labour put into them. If these are correct, then what determines the value of labour? Or does labour have no value?
Sympo,the latter is true in both cases, the value of labour power is the value of the socially necessary labour time put into proucing it.Socially necessary labour time is value, it's a bit like asking what is the length of an inch.
Chuck wrote:A use value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because human labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? Plainly, by the quantity of the value-creating substance, the labour, contained in the article. The quantity of labour, however, is measured by its duration, and labour time in its turn finds its standard in weeks, days, and hours.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S1
Chucky wrote:Labour is the substance, and the immanent measure of value, but has itself no value.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch19.htm
harlie wrote:Secondly, the product is the property of the capitalist and not that of the labourer, its immediate producer. Suppose that a capitalist pays for a day’s labour-power at its value; then the right to use that power for a day belongs to him, just as much as the right to use any other commodity, such as a horse that he has hired for the day. To the purchaser of a commodity belongs its use, and the seller of labour-power, by giving his labour, does no more, in reality, than part with the use-value that he has sold. From the instant he steps into the workshop, the use-value of his labour-power, and therefore also its use, which is labour, belongs to the capitalist. By the purchase of labour-power, the capitalist incorporates labour, as a living ferment, with the lifeless constituents of the product. From his point of view, the labour-process is nothing more than the consumption of the commodity purchased, i. e., of labour-power; but this consumption cannot be effected except by supplying the labour-power with the means of production. The labour-process is a process between things that the capitalist has purchased, things that have become his property. The product of this process belongs, therefore, to him, just as much as does the wine which is the product of a process of fermentation completed in his cellar.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm
Ah, missed one..
Carlos wrote:The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article. So far as it has value, it represents no more than a definite quantity of the average labour of society incorporated in it. Labour-power exists only as a capacity, or power of the living individual. Its production consequently pre-supposes his existence. Given the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer. Labour-power, however, becomes a reality only by its exercise; it sets itself in action only by working. But thereby a definite quantity of human muscle, nerve, brain, &c., is wasted, and these require to be restored. This increased expenditure demands a larger income. [6] If the owner of labour-power works to-day, to-morrow he must again be able to repeat the same process in the same conditions as regards health and strength. His means of subsistence must therefore be sufficient to maintain him in his normal state as a labouring individual. His natural wants, such as food, clothing, fuel, and housing, vary according to the climatic and other physical conditions of his country. On the other hand, the number and extent of his so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves the product of historical development, and depend therefore to a great extent on the degree of civilisation of a country, more particularly on the conditions under which, and consequently on the habits and degree of comfort in which, the class of free labourers has been formed. [7] In contradistinction therefore to the case of other commodities, there enters into the determination of the value of labour-power a historical and moral element. Nevertheless, in a given country, at a given period, the average quantity of the means of subsistence necessary for the labourer is practically known.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm
"…………If these are correct, then what determines the value of labour? Or does labour have no value?…." We must now examine more closely this peculiar commodity, labour-power. Like all others it has a value. [5] How is that value determined? The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article. So far as it has value, it represents no more than a definite quantity of the average labour of society incorporated in it. Labour-power exists only as a capacity, or power of the living individual. Its production consequently pre-supposes his existence. Given the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer. Labour-power, however, becomes a reality only by its exercise; it sets itself in action only by working. But thereby a definite quantity of human muscle, nerve, brain, &c., is wasted, and these require to be restored. This increased expenditure demands a larger income. [6] If the owner of labour-power works to-day, to-morrow he must again be able to repeat the same process in the same conditions as regards health and strength. His means of subsistence must therefore be sufficient to maintain him in his normal state as a labouring individual. His natural wants, such as food, clothing, fuel, and housing, vary according to the climatic and other physical conditions of his country. On the other hand, the number and extent of his so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves the product of historical development, and depend therefore to a great extent on the degree of civilisation of a country, more particularly on the conditions under which, and consequently on the habits and degree of comfort in which, the class of free labourers has been formed. [7] In contradistinction therefore to the case of other commodities, there enters into the determination of the value of labour-power a historical and moral element. Nevertheless, in a given country, at a given period, the average quantity of the means of subsistence necessary for the labourer is practically known. The owner of labour-power is mortal. If then his appearance in the market is to be continuous, and the continuous conversion of money into capital assumes this, the seller of labour-power must perpetuate himself, “in the way that every living individual perpetuates himself, by procreation.” [8] The labour-power withdrawn from the market by wear and tear and death, must be continually replaced by, at the very least, an equal amount of fresh labour-power. Hence the sum of the means of subsistence necessary for the production of labour-power must include the means necessary for the labourer’s substitutes, i.e., his children, in order that this race of peculiar commodity-owners may perpetuate its appearance in the market. [9]In order to modify the human organism, so that it may acquire skill and handiness in a given branch of industry, and become labour-power of a special kind, a special education or training is requisite, and this, on its part, costs an equivalent in commodities of a greater or less amount. This amount varies according to the more or less complicated character of the labour-power. The expenses of this education (excessively small in the case of ordinary labour-power), enter pro tanto into the total value spent in its production.The value of labour-power resolves itself into the value of a definite quantity of the means of subsistence. It therefore varies with the value of these means or with the quantity of labour requisite for their production.Some of the means of subsistence, such as food and fuel, are consumed daily, and a fresh supply must be provided daily. Others such as clothes and furniture last for longer periods and require to be replaced only at longer intervals. One article must be bought or paid for daily, another weekly, another quarterly, and so on. But in whatever way the sum total of these outlays may be spread over the year, they must be covered by the average income, taking one day with another. If the total of the commodities required daily for the production of labour-power = A, and those required weekly = B, and those required quarterly = C, and so on, the daily average of these commodities = (365A + 52B + 4C + &c) / 365. Suppose that in this mass of commodities requisite for the average day there are embodied 6 hours of social labour, then there is incorporated daily in labour-power half a day’s average social labour, in other words, half a day’s labour is requisite for the daily production of labour-power. This quantity of labour forms the value of a day’s labour-power or the value of the labour-power daily reproduced. If half a day’s average social labour is incorporated in three shillings, then three shillings is the price corresponding to the value of a day’s labour-power. If its owner therefore offers it for sale at three shillings a day, its selling price is equal to its value, and according to our supposition, our friend Moneybags, who is intent upon converting his three shillings into capital, pays this value.The minimum limit of the value of labour-power is determined by the value of the commodities, without the daily supply of which the labourer cannot renew his vital energy, consequently by the value of those means of subsistence that are physically indispensable. If the price of labour-power fall to this minimum, it falls below its value, since under such circumstances it can be maintained and developed only in a crippled state. But the value of every commodity is determined by the labour-time requisite to turn it out so as to be of normal quality. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm
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