| This question <85|85> overall <81|83> Nazgul: <1921|240>. graded A |
| Question 80: Imagine you were studying Marxism together with a friend, and the friend said to you: Doesn't the labor theory of value imply that, the more lazy and inept the laborer, the more valuable his commodity would be? How would you answer your friend? |
| [82] Nazgul: A basic definition of the labor theory of value would state that an exchangeable good or service has value in the amount of labor required to produce it, thus giving some individuals the impression that laziness would increase the value of ones commodity. Marx, however, leaves no such impression. |
| Marx makes the clarification in Capital that “...the labour that forms the substance of value is equal human labour, the expenditure of equal human labour power.” Here Marx again puts the focus on society not the individual. There is no way everyone works at the same intensity, knowing this and accepting it, adjustments can be made. |
| In taking the “socially average unit of labour power” it would not be advantageous to a worker to be lazy or inept, the product of their labour is valued the same. |
| Hans: These adjustments are not made because the participants in a commodity society accept the fact that not everybody can work with the same intensity. Rather, these adjustments are made automatically by the market: the buyer only sees the use-value of the product and does not know whether it was produced by a faster or slower worker. If it is the same use-value it must have the same value. |
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