| This question <60|94> overall <91|93> Hans: <90|99>. |
| Question 74: Does skilled labor produce more value per hour than unskilled labor? Explain! |
| [92] Hans: Skill: a protection against exploitation? We received five answers to Question 74: Pinky's [31], MUCHO'S [36], Panacea's [39], Chocolate's [54], and Gilligan's [60]. This Question has so much interest because getting a skill is widely believed to be a protection against exploitation. |
| Here are some comments. Pinky wrote in [31]: |
| In Marx's view, one hour of unskilled labor would be equal to an hour of skilled labor because the unskilled laborer is able to turn out a larger quantity of something that, despite its lesser value, is produced in greater quantities because of the lack of skill it requires. |
| In other words, the value produced is the same, because unskilled laborers must make up for their lack of skill by working faster. Here is my reaction to this: |
| Of course, the capitalist would love it if the skilled workers were to work faster too, but it is much more difficult to control and speed up a skilled laborer than an unskilled laborer. The difference which Pinky observes here is therefore not due to the intrinsic character of skilled or unskilled labor, but it usd “constellational”, i.e., it comes from the side effect that labor which is skilled can also often not be controlled so easily. According to this, getting a skill is a protective measure, like joining a union. |
| The remainder of Pinky's answer makes it clear that she does not know that in the Marxian paradigm value comes from “congealed abstract labor time”, but that she thinks more along the lines of Peaches's [7], which I critizised in [8]. This is a major misunderstanding, which adversely affects her grade. |
| MUCHO's [36] notices that the difference pointed out by Pinky is constellational, he writes that it is |
| depending upon the circumstances or the environments. For instance, different countries, different cultures and the level of complication for the labor. All these can change the level of production no matter how skilled or unskilled labors are in production line. |
| But MUCHO fails to notice that Pinky has the wrong concept of value, and adopts Pinky's error. |
| Chocolate's [54] discusses a different situation than that which the Question referred to. Instead of comparing two workers producing two different commodities, one requiring skill and the other not, she compares two workers producing the same commodity. Therefore Chocolate is really answering Question 53, and she finally gives the economic mechanism which enforces that the labor of the slow worker produces less value than that of the fast worker (compare my [64]): both products are indistinguishable once they are on the market, and therefore the values of the products must be the same, regardless of the circumstances under which they are produced. |
| Panacea's [39] is much too philosophical, and similar to her [38]. Panacea has not yet noticed that this is no longer Econ 509. In 508 we mean business and require specific, rigorous thinking. |
| Gilligan's [60] argues that the skilled workers should come down from their high horse. Often it is not their merit that they had the opportunity to acquire a skill while others did not. This point is well taken, and I agree with it. But Gilligan should not conclude from this that the skilled worker produces no more value than the unskilled worker. Value does not come from merit but it is a very specific economic relationship. |
| In other words, due to this flurry of submissions, we finally have the answer to Question 53, but Question 74 is still not answered properly. |
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