Marx Distinguishes Between Labor Power and Labor

8/2/2019 Marx Distinguishes Between Labor Power and Labor

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Labor-labor power=surplus value:

There is a clear distinction between laborand labor-power. "Labor" refers to theactual activity or effort of producing goods or services (or what Marx calls use-

values). Neoclassical economists sometimes refer to this as "labor services." Onthe other hand, "labor-power" refers to a person's ability to work, his or hermuscle-power, dexterity and brain-power. Marx took over this distinction fromHegel's Philosophy of Rightand gave it a new significance.

In some ways, this concept is similar to that of "human capital". However mostlikely Marx himself would have considered the concept of human capital areification, the purpose of which was to convince the worker that he was really acapitalist.

"Apologetic economists... say... [The worker's] labor-power, then, represents hiscapital in commodity-form, which yields him continuous revenue. Labor-power is

indeed his property (ever self-renewing, reproductive), not his capital. It is the only

commodity which he can and must sell continually in order to live, and which acts

as capital (variable) only in the hands of the buyer, the capitalist. The fact that a

man is continually compelled to sell his labor-power, i.e., himself, to another man

proves, according to those economists, that he is a capitalist, because he constantly

has commodities (himself) for sale. In that sense a slave is also a capitalist,

although he is sold by another once and for all as a commodity; for it is in thenature of this commodity, a laboring slave, that its buyer does not only make it

work anew every day, but also provides it with the means of subsistence that

enable it to work ever anew." - Marx,

Marx distinguishes between labor power and labor. "Labor-power" is the potential

or ability of workers to work, given their muscles, brains, skills, and capacities. It

is the promise of creating value possessed by human labor that has not yet been

expended. "Labor" is the actual activity of producing value. The profit or surplus-

value arises when workers do more labor than is necessary to pay the cost of hiringtheir labor-power.


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Marx's solution was to distinguish between labor-time worked and labor power. A

worker who is sufficiently productive can produce an output value greater than

what it costs to hire him. Although his wage seems to be based on hours worked, inan economic sense this wage does not reflect the full value of what the worker

produces. Effectively it is not labor which the worker sells, but his capacity to

work.

Imagine a worker who is hired for an hour and paid $10. Once in the capitalist's

employ, the capitalist can have him operate a boot-making machine using which

the worker produces $10 worth of work every fifteen minutes. Every hour, the

capitalist receives $40 worth of work and only pays the worker $10, capturing the

remaining $30 which, after deduction of costs (the leather, depreciation of themachine, etc.) leaves a residual, i.e. surplus value or profit.

The worker cannot capture this benefit directly because he has no claim to the

means of production or to its products, and his capacity to bargain over wages is

restricted by laws and the supply/demand for wage labor. Hence the rise of trade

unions which aim to create a more favorable bargaining position through collective

action by workers.

Labor power is a peculiar commodity, because it is an attribute of living persons,who own it themselves. Because they own it, they cannotpermanently sell it tosomeone else; in that case, they would be a slave, and a slave does not ownhimself.

Labor power can become a marketable object, sold for a specific period, only if theowners are constituted in law as legal subjects who are free to sell it, and can enterinto labor contracts. Once actualized and consumed through working, the capacityto work is exhausted, and must be replenished and restored.

In general, Marx argues that in capitalism the value of labor power (as distinctfrom fluctuating market prices for work effort) is equal to its normal or average(re-)production cost, i.e. the cost of meeting the established human needs whichmust be satisfied in order for the worker to turn up for work each day, fit to work.This involves goods and services representing a quantity of labor equal tonecessary labor or the necessary product. It represents an average cost of living, anaverage living standard.


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Included is both aphysical component (the minimum physical requirements for ahealthy worker) and a moral-historical component (the satisfaction of needsbeyond the physical minimum which have become an established part of thelifestyle of the average worker). The value of labor power is thus an historicalnorm, which is the outcome of a combination of factors: productivity; the supplyand demand for labor; the assertion of human needs; the costs of acquiring skills;state laws stipulating minimum or maximum wages, the balance of power betweensocial classes, etc.

Buying labor power usually becomes a commercially interesting proposition only

if it can yield more value than it costs to buy, employing it yields a net positive

return on capital invested. However, in Marx's theory, the value-creating function

of labor power is not its only function; it also importantly conserves and transferscapital value. If labor is withdrawn from the workplace for any reason, typically

the value of capital assets deteriorates; it takes a continual stream of work effort to

maintain and preserve their value. When materials are used to make new products,

part of the value of materials is also transferred to the new products. Consequently,

labor power may be hired not "because it creates more value than it costs to buy",

but simply because it conserves the value of a capital assetwhich, if this labor did

not occur, would decline in value; or because it transfers the value of a capital

assetfrom one owner to another. Marx regards such labor as "unproductive" in thesense that it creates no new value, but it may be absolutely essential and

indispensable labor because without it a capital value would reduce or disappear.

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Marx Distinguishes Between Labor Power and Labor