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[37] Caren: Marx's labor theory of value Marx's labor theory of value is primarily concerned with the basic
problem of why goods have prices at all. The slave owner takes by force
what slaves produce. The feudal lord claims as a right some part of what
is produced by the serfs. Only in capitalism is the distribution of what
is produced a function of markets and prices. Marx's explanation of this
anomaly concentrates on the separation makes necessary. As a result of
this separation, all the things that workers produce become available for
exchange, indeed are produced with this exchange in mind. “Value” is the
general social form taken by all the products of alienated labor. (The people
who do the work in capitalism own none of the means such as machines and
raw materials that they use in their work. These are owned by the
capitalists, to whom workers must sell their labor power, in return for a
wage. This system of productive activity, playing no part in deciding
what to do or how to do it. The worker is alienated from the product of
that activity, having no control over what is made or what becomes of it.
The workers is alienated from the product other human beings, with
competition and mutual indifference replacing most forms of cooperation.
And the worker is alienated from the distinctive potential inherent in
the nation of human being.). Such products could only sell (have “exchange
values”) and serve (have “use values”) in ways that express and contribute
to this alienation. |
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