| This question <32|36> overall <32|34> Martin: <20|34>. |
| Question 88: Does skilled labor (i.e., labor for which schooling and training is necessary, for instance the labor of an engineer) produce more value per hour than unskilled labor (like the labor of a janitor)? Explain! |
| [33] Martin: Skilled labor vs. Unskilled labor Yes, skilled labor does produce more value per hour than unskilled labor. There are a number of reasons. One is that skilled labor comes from skilled labor power, and skilled labor power contained more labor, eg in the form of teaching and training, than unskilled labor. But there are probably other factors as well, and I welcome HE suggesting that there is no general law governing the reduction of skilled labor to unskilled labor. |
| One factor may be that even under developed capitalism the market does not operate as a “perfect” market. There may be restrictive practices controlling the number of skilled trained people or professionals, who then have a semi-monopoly position. It is particularly difficult for people to be sure where to start training to raise the price of their labor power in five or ten years time. The fifth footnote of Capital notes that “In bourgeois society the legal fiction prevails that each person, as a buyer, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of commodities.” This is hard in relation to skilled labor. |
| The Study Guide says that international differences will be discussed in another chapter. I would particularly like to know which one. |
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