VII – Labouring Power
Having analyzed the nature of value, and its derivative and indirect measure – exchange-value – in respect of all commodities, Marx turns to the value of the specific commodity labour (power). Adam Smith had failed to distinguish between labour and labour-power, and this led him and his followers into an irreconcilable contradiction. If the value of commodities is determined by labour-time, then, the value added in production is equal to the labour provided by the worker. If, then, the worker sells this amount of labour to the capitalist, its value is also equal to this value added, and is what the worker should be paid in money wages. Smith basically saw a continuation of the conditions pertaining for the independent commodity producer, who does obtain in exchange a value equivalent to the value they add via their labour.
Indeed, when Smith looked at the situation of Scottish pebble collectors, and in the relations under the Putting Out System, and the handicraft workshops and manufactories, this was the appearance of things. But, then, if the labourer receives in wages an amount equal to the new value created by their labour, there can be no profit, for the reasons Marx earlier elaborated. Yet, it was clear that quite substantial profits did exist.
It was this which led Smith to abandon his Labour Theory of Value, and to adopt his cost of production theory of value, in which, rather than the value of the commodity being determined by the labour-time required for its production, which only then resolves into the funds required for its reproduction (constant capital, wages, profits) it is the other way around, being comprised of a summation of the different factors of production. Ricardo never accepted Smith's abandonment of the Labour Theory of Value, but only avoided dealing with the contradiction by ignoring it.
It was, and still is, usual for bourgeois economists, and in common parlance, to describe what workers sell as being their labour, and wages as the price of labour. In fact, as Marx sets out, they do not sell their labour, but only their ability to perform labour, their labour-power. This labour-power is a use-value that exists for all labourers, in every mode of production. It is a use use-value that must itself, be reproduced by labour, in the form of various products and services.
The labourer, in the primitive commune, as much as the peasant producer, the wage-labourer, or the labourer in some future communist society, requires food for energy, and, to live, requires clothing, shelter, education and healthcare. And, because labourers, as with all humans, have limited lifespans, they require enough of all these things in order to procreate, and produce the next generation of labourers to replace them.
The difference with wage-labour is that this use-value, labour-power, itself becomes a commodity, and, indeed, the only commodity that the worker can sell. The labourer in the primitive commune reproduces their labour-power as part of the collective activity of the commune. The peasant household reproduces its labour-power through its collective labour that produces its own requirements. The independent commodity producer sells commodities, at their value, a part of which resolves into the value required to reproduce their labour-power.
It is only under capitalism, where the labourer is separated from their instruments of labour, and means of production, that they cannot either reproduce their labour-power via direct production, or via the production and sale of commodities. For that to arise, their labour-power must itself, become a commodity, which they sell on the market at its value.
“... there exists no such thing as the value of labour in the common acceptance of the word.” (p 54)
What the wage-labourer sells is not their labour, but their labour-power. This labour-power is a use-value, sold by them as a commodity, and its value, as with any other commodity, is equal to the labour-time required for its production, i.e. to produce the food, clothing, shelter, education and healthcare etc., required to reproduce the worker. As Marx says, there is no such thing as “the value of labour”, because labour, as opposed to labour-power, is not a use-value or commodity, but is a process, indeed, the process of creating new value. It would be like asking what is the value of value?
“To say that the value of a ten hours working day is equal to ten hours' labour, or the quantity of labour contained in it, would be a tautological and, moreover, a nonsensical expression.” (p 55)
Having made this vital distinction, the contradiction faced by Smith, is easily resolved. If we take the labour-time required to produce a horse, to provide it with food etc., this time is in no way connected to the length of time the horse can be ridden, or that it can be used to plough a field. In the same way, the amount of labour-time required to produce the labour-power of a labourer is not connected to the amount of labour the labourer can perform. Robinson Crusoe, or the peasant may need to undertake only 4 hours labour per day to produce the necessaries for reproducing their labour-power, but, it does not stop them labouring for 8 hours, thereby, creating 8 hours of new value, divided into 4 hours necessary labour/product and 4 hours surplus value/product. The difference is that Robinson owns the 4 hours of surplus product, whereas for the peasant, it is appropriated as feudal rent, by the landlord.
Under feudalism, as other forms of slavery, the landlord appropriates the surplus labour/product, either as Labour Rent, or Rent In Kind, or finally Money Rent. The peasant is forced to either openly provide free labour, or to hand over a quantity of their production, or else, having sold commodities, for money, on the market, to hand over the money equivalent of their surplus. Under capitalism, this appropriation of the surplus labour/value/product is hidden, because it appears that the labourer is free, and enters as an equal into a contract with the capitalist to sell their “labour”.
“... we might ask, how does this strange phenomenon arise, that we find on the market a set of buyers, possessed of land, machinery, raw material, and the means of subsistence, all of them, save land in its crude state, the products of labour, and on the other hand, a set of sellers who have nothing to sell except their labouring power, their working arms and brains? That the one set buys continually in order to make a profit and enrich themselves, while the other set continually sells in order to earn their livelihood? The inquiry into this question would be an inquiry into what the economists call “previous or original accumulation,” but which ought to be called original expropriation. We should find that this so-called original accumulation means nothing but a series of historical processes, resulting in a decomposition of the original union existing between the labouring Man and his Instruments of Labour.” (p 56)
That condition, having arisen as a result, ultimately, of the independent commodity producers being differentiated into bourgeois and proletarians, the reality is that, although the contracting parties are free agents, they are far from being equal. The owners of capital certainly cannot produce unless the owners of labour-power undertake labour, whilst the owners of labour-power cannot produce unless the owners of capital allow them to use their instruments and means of production. However, the owners of capital do not just own means of production. As a class, they also own the means of consumption, and money. The owners of capital, relatively small in number, can sit back and consume the stocks of consumption goods in their possession, or use their money to purchase additional consumption goods from small producers, or foreign producers. The workers, large in their numbers, must eat and so on. The owners of capital, therefore, can always hold out in order to strike a favourable deal in their contracts with workers.
There is no point in the owners of capital employing labour-power, unless its price is lower than the amount of new value it creates by its application. In other words, the worker, in order to be employed, so as to live, must freely enter into a contract in which they accept their own exploitation, by providing a certain amount of free labour, just as much as does the slave or the peasant. The wage-labourer, unlike the slave or serf, is free, at the end of the contract, to sell their labour-power to some other employer, but, all of these employers are governed, in their actions, by these same economic laws. None is going to employ labour-power, unless it provides this unpaid labour.
However, this freedom of the wage-labourer, compared to the slave or serf, does mean that they can always seek the highest price for their labour-power, and competition between employers for workers, thereby, acts to set a market price for labour-power equal to its value. Like any market price, it will move above or below that value, determined by supply and demand. But, as Marx noted earlier, as the worker always hands over something to the capitalist for nothing, the fact that, at times, wages rise above the value of labour-power only means that this amount of free labour is reduced. It does not mean that the worker makes a profit from that exchange, only that the profit of the capitalist is reduced. Moreover, at other times, wages will fall below the value of labour-power.
Labour-power, as a use-value/commodity, is again distinguished from labour, because the former is always concrete, specific labour-power, whereas labour, the essence of value, is abstract. The labour-power of each worker is different, because each worker is different, as Marx also describes in The Critique of The Gotha Programme. Two carpenters have different levels of skill, ability to work faster or longer, as well as having different needs for food and shelter and so on. But, also, the labour-power of a carpenter is different to that of a brain surgeon, who requires more education and training, not just initially, but throughout life.
“... as the costs of producing labouring powers of different quality differ, so much differ the values of the labouring powers employed in different trades. The cry for an equality of wages rests, therefore, upon a mistake, is an inane wish never to be fulfilled. It is an offspring of that false and superficial radicalism that accepts premises and tries to evade conclusions. Upon the basis of the wages system the value of labouring power is settled like that of every other commodity; and as different kinds of labouring power have different values, or require different quantities of labour for their production, they must fetch different prices in the labour market. To clamour for equal or even equitable retribution on the basis of the wages system is the same as to clamour for freedom on the basis of the slavery system. What you think just or equitable is out of the question. The question is: What is necessary and unavoidable with a given system of production?” (p 57-8)
Indeed, as Marx sets out in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, it is not just under the wage system/capitalism that this is true. Even under the first stage of communism this remains true, so that “equal right”, results in inequality of outcomes. Yet, even under the first stage of communism it is not possible to provide equality of outcomes, which requires “unequal rights”. Only when the level of productivity rises to a level whereby there is an abundance of all the necessities of life (the definition of which also constantly changes) is it possible to introduce these “unequal rights” so as to implement the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.”
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