| This question <41|41> overall <40|42> Jimi: <11|103>. |
| Question 69: What is simple unskilled labor? What are the qualitative differences of the various labor powers reduced to in a commodity-producing economy? |
| [41] Jimi: Labor power--Quality and Quantity Marx defines simple unskilled labor as “labor power which, on the average, apart from any particular development, exists in the organism of every ordinary individual.” (p. 37 of Study Guide 2) This is the labor of the “common man,” labor that has not been prefaced by any sort of special training or education, labor that any ordinary average person can perform. |
| In a commodity-producing society, the qualitative differences in labor power are reduced to simple quantitative differences (Marx proposes that “simple unskilled labor” be the yardstick used to express these differences). Marx puts it this way, “More complicated labor counts merely as potentiated or rather multiplied simple labor, so that a smaller amount of complicated labor is equal to a bigger amount of simple labor.”(p.37 Study Guide 2) He makes it very clear that not all qualitative differences in labor can be reduced to quantitative ones, but that a commodity-producing society generally reduces them to such. |
| Additionally, as noted at the bottom of page 36 of Study Guide 2, Marx makes the point that the capitalist system of production tends to de-skill many labor processes. Here is another way in which commodity-producing societies reduce qualitative differences in different types of labor--by removing the skills that caused the differences in the first place. |
| Hans: The last sentence in your first paragraph is a little paradoxical, and I would have liked a better explanation: |
| He makes it very clear that not all qualitative differences in labor can be reduced to quantitative ones, but that a commodity-producing society generally reduces them to such. |
| But other than that, very good. |
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