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[135] Ricky: How to measure labor. The concept of human labor is very important in Marxian economics. For
Marx, labor measured in time is the determinant of value in a commodity.
Marx would define labor-time as the period in which human creative
energy (labor power) is expended in the production process. The
measurement of labor in terms of time is common in nearly all economic
perspectives. However, there are other potential ways of measuring
labor. For example, one could measure labor in terms of output. The
amount of goods or services produced would be a reflection of the total
labor expended. One modern example of this is any type of job paid
strictly on commission. We all likely know someone who has sold
door-to-door products. That person is typically paid on the amount of
goods sold rather than the amount of time spent knocking on strangers'
doors. Yet the number of items sold may or may not be an accurate
measure of expended labor. If a salesman knocks doors all day long but
does not close a deal, his output would not be an accurate measure of
the energy he expended. Moreover, a talented salesman may sell more
total goods than an amateur to the same number of people. The talented
one could have sold (produced) more, but expended the same amount of
labor as the amateur. Therefore the same amount of expended labor could
hypothetically produce differing amount of outputs. The same criticism
could apply to labor-time. It is very probable that two laborers who
both work the same amount of time would expend different amounts of
labor power. The economic principle of labor productivity reconciles
the concepts of labor-time and labor-output. Labor productivity is the
ratio of goods or services to labor hours spent in the production
process. Yet it is likely that any measure of labor is, at best, a
rough estimate of the real amount of labor power expended. |
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