| This question <139|36> overall <30|32> Hurricane: <520|184-1>. |
| Question 66: First Marx says that the quantity of value is determined by labor time, and then he continues: “It might seem that if the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of labor spent in its production, the more lazy and inept the laborer, the more valuable his commodity would be.” Why does Marx write here: “it might seem that”? Does his prescription how to measure the quantity of value lead to absurd results or does it not? |
| [31] Hurricane: Marx begins his statement with, “it might seem that...” to suggest something contrary to fact. From the surface it may appear that if one were to work slower one would increase the value of a given commodity. After all, Marx states that, “labor,...,is measured by its duration,... which finds its standard of measurement in well-defined pieces of time like days, hours, etc.” To understand labor concretely one must then reason that the longer it takes to produce something means the amount of labor involved was much more. This leads to an “absurd result” that the more inept or unskilled one is, the more value one's commodity has. |
| However, Marx clarifies his statement by suggesting that labor is different for each individual person. Labor cannot be quantified, just like in basic algebra x's and y's cannot be added together. They are two different things. Marx answers the question by stating that labor is not measured by individuals, but rather by society as a whole. |
| Does Marx's claim that the quantity of labor is measured in time lead to an absurd result, in which the lazier and more inept one is, the more valuable one's commodity would be? No. It might seem that Marx is suggesting that, but one must take into account that the labor of one worker is not comparable with the labor on another worker. Labor is measured by society, it is not measured by the individual. The labor of individuals is thrown into a pot and then allocated to what the “equal human labor” required for a task is. This resolves the apparent absurdness of Marx's statement. |
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