| This question <560|60> overall <55|57> Jeffrey: <56|56>. |
| Question 93: 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? |
| [56] Jeffrey: In response to my friend's comments about the labor theory of value, I would tell him that Marx actually brought up the same argument. In response to his idea that the quantity of labor is measured by its duration and in “well-defined pieces of time”, Marx talks about the lazy and inept laborer. He makes the point that more time required in production, as a result of laziness, would seem to justify more value. |
| I would then explain to my friend that Marx went on to clarify that the labor in a given commodity isn't a result of any individual labor-power, but more as the total labor-power of that society. And although there may be extreme variations in the individual labor-powers, each adds to the whole as it follows the social average. In reference to this, Marx talks about how to produce a commodity, it takes no more labor-time than the average amount, and no more than is socially necessary. |
| Essentially it would be absurd to think that the value of a commodity would increase if it were produced by a lethargic labor-power. Marx is fully aware of this fact, and in response brings up the idea of a social average. In regards to this latest point, it would make sense to say that the value of a commodity would increase if the total labor-power of society spent an increased amount of time producing the commodity. |
| It would also be accurate to explain to my friend that there are a lot of different factors that go into determining the total labor-power of a society, and also in determining what is socially necessary. You would need to take into account not only labor-time, but the skill and intensity as well as current technology. Through an explanation of these different ideas, my friend would be clear about why the lazy producer doesn't increase value in his/her commodity. |
| Hans: You are telling your friend the whole section in Marx's book. Not everything in this section is necessary to make the point. |
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