The working-class constitutes one single collective worker. The working-day of this one single, collective worker equals the collective working-day, or social working-day. In just the same way that Robinson had to divide up his working-day so as to ensure that he could produce the use values/products required for the reproduction of his labour-power, so too this social working-day must be divided up so as to produce the use values required for the reproduction of the collective worker, i.e. the working-class. The only difference, here, is that, whereas Robinson had to allocate, say, 2 hours of his labour-time to producing fish, say equal to 20% of his working-day, the collective worker, can instead allocate 20% of workers to do nothing other than catch fish, so as to feed the entire working-class, whilst allocating the labour-time of the other 80% of the working-class to producing the other use values that the working-class requires for its reproduction.
In just the same way that Robinson's labour fluctuated from day to day, so this applies to the collective worker. Robinson may feel a little more lethargic one day compared to another, and so be less productive. The value of each of the things he produces will rise, because they required more time to produce. But, another day, he will be more productive than average, and so, over time, the value of the things he produces will approach this average. And, with the collective worker, some workers will be naturally more adept, and so their labour will produce a larger number of use values, the individual value of each will be lower than the individual value of the use values produced by other workers. But, taking the labour of the total collective worker, involved in the production of any given type of use value, it is aggregated to give a single average level of productivity, a single average value for this output.
And, again, this is the materialist foundation from which Marx and Engels develop their theory of historical materialism and the explanation of the development, within the primitive commune, of the division of labour. It is precisely because all concrete labour is not equally productive that the commune quickly discovers that it can produce more use values, using a given amount of labour-time (and so each with a lower unit value), if it has those of its members that are most adept in that production engage in it on behalf of all, and to have other members of the commune, similarly, engage in other forms of production required by the commune as a whole. In this way, the tribe/commune maximises its welfare, i.e. the total amount of use value it can produce.
As a result of increasing the productivity of the tribe/commune, as a collective labourer, it reduces the amount of necessary labour-time required for its collective reproduction. But, its not necessary to go back to the actual primitive commune to see this in practice, Marx, says, (See also Note 31) because the same relations can be seen within the domestic labour of the medieval peasant household.
“These different articles are, as regards the family, so many products of its labour, but as between themselves, they are not commodities. The different kinds of labour, such as tillage, cattle tending, spinning, weaving and making clothes, which result in the various products, are in themselves, and such as they are, direct social functions, because functions of the family, which, just as much as a society based on the production of commodities, possesses a spontaneously developed system of division of labour. The distribution of the work within the family, and the regulation of the labour time of the several members, depend as well upon differences of age and sex as upon natural conditions varying with the seasons. The labour power of each individual, by its very nature, operates in this case merely as a definite portion of the whole labour power of the family, and therefore, the measure of the expenditure of individual labour power by its duration, appears here by its very nature as a social character of their labour.”
(ibid)
And, finally, to illustrate that this materialist Law of Value applies to all modes of production, Marx cites its application to the future communist society.
“All the characteristics of Robinson’s labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual. Everything produced by him was exclusively the result of his own personal labour, and therefore simply an object of use for himself. The total product of our community is a social product. One portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsistence. A distribution of this portion amongst them is consequently necessary. The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers. We will assume, but merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities, that the share of each individual producer in the means of subsistence is determined by his labour time. Labour time would, in that case, play a double part. Its apportionment in accordance with a definite social plan maintains the proper proportion between the different kinds of work to be done and the various wants of the community. On the other hand, it also serves as a measure of the portion of the common labour borne by each individual, and of his share in the part of the total product destined for individual consumption. The social relations of the individual producers, with regard both to their labour and to its products, are in this case perfectly simple and intelligible, and that with regard not only to production but also to distribution.”
(ibid)
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