| This question <40|42> overall <40|42> Kase: <1365|255>. |
| Question 89: Why is labor measured here by labor-time, and not by counting how many movements were made, or by the drops of sweat of the laborer, or by the discomfort of the laborer? |
| [41] Kase: Labor-time. There are a few reasons why labor is measured in labor-time and not number of movements, sweat drops, or amount of discomfort. Labor-time is defined as specific designated amounts of time like minutes, hours, or days. The biggest and most obvious reason for measuring it in labor time is because it is the most common and efficient way of measuring the value of labor given the many different variables that go into producing commodities within many different societies. Some of these many variables include technology, natural environment, application, and degree of skill. Socially necessary labor-time is the amount of time needed to produce the commodity for a given society with the same degree of skill and the concentration of the labor within that society. Time or duration is almost universally agreed upon and is very concrete in its measurement. |
| Number of movements can be very difficult to measure and compare over many different commodities and societies. In the example of a rare commodity such as diamonds, there is a great deal of labor-time that goes into recovering a diamond, but with very small number of diamonds that come from the great labor. So, movements isn't an accurate measurement of the quantity of labor. |
| “Drops of sweat” and “discomfort of the labor” are almost impossible to measure. This is because not everyone is equal in a manner of these terms. You can't measure it in a physical way, it is just too impossible. Also, another example to argue this would be that of two cotton farmers. The first farmer is picking his cotton by hand and the other is picking by machine. Lets say that in one hour they both pick 500 pieces of cotton. The man on the machine feels very little fatigue or discomfort, whereas the hand picking farmer is very fatigued and sore. So, this goes to show that you can't measure the quantity of labor by these terms. |
| Hans: Why are movements especially inappropriate for measuring the value going into diamonds, compared with other goods? I didn't get your argument there. |
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