LABOR THEORY OF VALUE
LABOR THEORY OF VALUE
(labor theory of value) The idea that goods have value because of the labor or labor expended in their production. This issue was clearly presented by Locke in Chap. 5 "Second Treatise on government"("Second Treatise of Government", ca. 1681). In it, Locke argues that, although God left the earth for people to use in common, nevertheless every person has the right, firstly, to his own body and person and, secondly, as a consequence, to everything that he extracts from the general reserves with his own labor: “Everything that someone extracts from the state created by nature, and remains in it, he combines with his labor, bringing into it something then from himself and thereby making it his own Property." Locke's theory, as a theory of just law (law), was revived by Robert Nozick in the book "Anarchy, State and Utopia" (1974). Together with Thus, the labor theory of property rights is not in itself a labor theory of value, although it provides an ideological justification for the Marxist interpretation of this latter. in full The labor theory of value was developed by classical economists, especially David Ricardo and Marx. Ricardo believed that ideal conditions the price (strictly speaking, exchange value) of a commodity is determined by the amount of labor spent on its production (including the production of the means of production with which it was produced). Marx argued that this value is the remuneration that the worker deserved (thus establishing an invisible connection with what Locke said before Marx, and - paradoxically - with what Nozick argued after him). However, in reality, the worker usually receives a salary that is only enough to enable him to work and reproduce. The difference between these two quantities forms the surplus value produced by the worker (surplus value). Under capitalism, surplus value, contrary to justice, is appropriated by the capitalists; under socialism, it must belong to the workers, according to the classically Marxist formulation of Paragraph IV: 4 of the Constitution of the Labor Party (1918–95), which defines the purpose of the party as “to ensure that the workers? receive full remuneration.” for your work." Today, most authors believe that the labor theory of value is hopelessly discredited by the charge that it does not take into account the role of demand in setting prices. Two workers can expend the same amount of calories extracting the same amount of ore that they started mining together. But if one receives iron as a result, and the other receives silver, then their income will be different.
Policy. Dictionary. - M.: "INFRA-M", Publishing House "Ves Mir". D. Underhill, S. Barrett, P. Burnell, P. Burnham, etc. General editor: Doctor of Economics. Osadchaya I.M.. 2001 .
Political science. Dictionary. - RSU. V.N. Konovalov. 2010.
See what "LABOR THEORY OF VALUE" is in other dictionaries:
- (labor theory of value) The theory according to which the value of a product depends on the amount of labor required to make it. First developed by Adam Smith (1723–1790), this theory became the founding principle of classical... ... Dictionary of business terms
- (labor theory of value) The theory according to which the value (value) of goods or services is determined by the amount of direct and indirect labor costs required for their production. This theory ignores the role of scarce natural... ... Economic dictionary
LABOR THEORY OF VALUE- (labor theory of value) a doctrine in classical political economy (and especially in Marx’s political economy), according to which only labor is the source of surplus value, and the value and price of goods depend directly on labor time,... ... Large explanatory sociological dictionary
Contents... Wikipedia
Labor theory of value- LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE A doctrine developed by classical economists (see Classical economics). Scientists believed that the value of a product is determined by the labor costs for its production, i.e. the ratio of the equilibrium prices of two goods is direct... ... Dictionary-reference book on economics
LABOR THEORY OF VALUE- - theory developed by A. Smith, D. Ricardo, K. Marx (see section 1.1). The theory proceeds from the fact that the value of a good is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor to produce this good... Economics from A to Z: Thematic Guide
Labor theory of value- the theory according to which the value of any product is determined by the amount of labor spent on its production... Dictionary economic terms and foreign words
Labor theory of value- (in economics) (labor theory of value), a theory according to which the value of goods and services depends on the labor invested in them. Smith was the first to express this idea, and it was developed and detailed by Ricardo and Marx. Marx argued that all value... Peoples and cultures
LABOR THEORY OF VALUE- (LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE) According to Marx, the goal of any economy is the creation of use values, that is, useful items. However, in many economies, especially capitalist ones, people do not produce things for their own... ... Sociological Dictionary
Friedrich von Wieser, who proposed the term “imputation theory” Imputation theory (English imputation) is a theory that states that quantitatively defined parts of production and its value owe their origin to labor, land and capital... ... Wikipedia
Page 24 of 36
Labor theory cost.
Historically, the first interpretation of value was given English classics political economyA. Smith, D. Ricardo and others. K. Marx studied this issue most deeply in volume 1 of Capital.
The essence of the labor theory of value can be summarized in the following basic principles.
First position. Heterogeneous products of market exchange have same internal contents – cost, therefore they can be equated to each other in a certain exchange proportion.
Second position. The value of all goods is created social work commodity producers. This labor is social because the manufacturer of a market product does not work for himself, but creates useful thing for others. This means value is social labor embodied in goods. And the equality of products in terms of their value means that they contain the same amount of labor.
Third position. The labor itself that creates value varies in its complexity or quality. You can select simple(not requiring any preparation) and difficult(skilled) labor for which time and human effort are first spent in order to acquire the necessary labor skills and knowledge. Therefore, one hour of complex labor is equivalent to several hours of simple labor.
K. Marx wrote that “relatively complex labor means only raised to a power or, rather, multiplied simple labor. A commodity may be the product of the most complex labor, but its value makes it equal to the product of simple labor."1
Fourth position. Labor has an internal measure - working hours. If labor is the same in quality (let’s say simple labor), then it is measured by its length in time.
Fifth position. In every industry commercial farming workers usually spend different amounts individual working hours. Because they have different production conditions, differ in the level of qualifications, in the degree of intensity of labor effort. Therefore, commodity producers supply the market with their products of the same type and quality, but having different sizes. individual cost.
But on the market, identical goods cannot be sold at the individual cost of each manufacturer. Indeed, in this case, the person who spent the most working time on his product (this could be the laziest and most inept) would benefit more than others. Therefore, for products of the same type and quality, it is established public(market) price.
The basic law of commodity economy is law of value expresses an objective need for the cost of goods was determined socially necessary labor time. This is the working time that is spent on the manufacture of products under the following conditions: a) socially normal (prevailing) state of production; b) average qualifications of workers and c) average labor intensity. Practically given time is spent on the creation of most goods.
Let's sum it up . The labor theory of value characterizes economic relations that can be schematically reflected in the formula:
The cost of a product depends in direct proportion to the amount of labor and complexity of labor, and in inverse proportion to labor productivity. Here is a view of commodity-market relations only with positions producer and seller useful thing.
A. Smith developed the theory of value from a dual position. Emphasizing the important role of labor in establishing the “real price” of a product, he at the same time noted that value is defined as the sum of income (wages, profits and rent), since in every developed society all these three components are included to a greater or lesser extent in the price of the vast majority of goods. In this statement, he is more inclined not to the labor theory, but to the cost theory.
Another classic of political economy - the French economist Jean Baptiste Say (1767-1832), who based his teaching on the works of Smith, developed the theory of the three main factors of production, in which he showed the interrelation and interdependence of labor, capital and land as the main factors of social production and value creation social product. The production factor “labor” generates wages As the income of workers, the factor “capital” generates profit as the income of capitalists, and the factor of production “land” generates rent as the income of the land user.
Thus, the labor (cost) theory of value reduced cost to costs, labor costs. Currently, we find a continuation of this approach in estimating the price of a product by calculating the costs of producing the product and including a certain profit in it. The starting point for this is the concept of cost. Cost price- this is the monetary expression of the cost of production and sale of products produced by the enterprise.
Proponents of the labor theory of value (these include A. Smith, D. Ricardo, J. S. Mill, K. Marx, although these economists have certain differences in their approach to determining the value of a product) believed that the basis of exchange is what is embodied in the product labor is the substance of value, its fundamental principle.
A. Smith explores various types labor as a general basis - the value of goods, using the generalized concept of labor. According to V. Petty, the relationship between the amounts of labor required to acquire various items is the only basis for developing rules governing the exchange of one product for another. D. Ricardo believes that if 1 thousand pounds sterling worth of labor is spent on one product, and 2 thousand pounds sterling on another, then the values of these goods will be in a ratio of 1:2 and in this proportion they will be exchanged. The relative values of goods are thus determined by the relative quantities of labor expended in their production.
So, the value of a product is determined by labor costs, but not specific labor, but labor in general: as energy costs common to all types of activity. The measure of labor that creates value, according to K. Marx’s theory, is working time. In this case, value is created not by the individual expenditure of working time of individual commodity producers, but by the expenditure of socially necessary labor time.
Socially necessary, from the point of view of the labor theory of value, is the time required to produce any use value under existing normal conditions of production and at the average level of skill and intensity of labor in a given society. In this case, relatively complex labor appears in value as simple labor multiplied and raised to a power, therefore, a larger amount of simple labor is equal to a smaller amount of complex labor.
The law of value, according to which the exchange of goods is carried out in accordance with socially necessary labor costs, is recognized as the fundamental law of commodity production. Socially necessary costs labor act as a kind of standard, the effect of which is revealed in the market. The law of value regulates prices, forming the initial basis of price proportions, and through the mechanism of fluctuations in market prices around value, this law affects the movement of factors of production from industry to industry and thereby regulates the relationship between the output of various goods. Ensuring the distribution of masses of labor and capital between various areas national economy, the law of value determines the correspondence of the volume and structure of production to social needs. Thus, it is a regulator of social reproduction and proportionality.
Since the law of value presupposes the establishment of socially necessary labor costs as the basis for price, there is an incentive to reduce the individual labor costs of the commodity producer. Let us assume that the same product is created by three producers, whose individual costs are, respectively, 4, 6 and 8 hours of labor time per unit of product. The consumer recognizes (of course, indirectly, through purchase and sale on the market at a certain price) a cost level of six as socially necessary and, accordingly, subject to reimbursement. In this case, a producer whose individual costs reach 8 units, exceeding socially necessary ones, will not receive the equivalent of two hours of labor. And the manufacturer who managed to achieve lower costs will receive the equivalent of 6 hours for 4 hours of work. Enterprises in such conditions strive to improve and increase production efficiency, become receptive to scientific and technological progress, and the economy as a whole benefits. After all, reducing individual costs provides real economic benefits: high income, acceleration of sales, opportunities for production development.
Since the individual costs of commodity producers are not the same, the operation of the law of value means the inevitable differentiation of income. Those producers whose costs are less than socially necessary receive additional income and a source for the development and improvement of their production. Those of them whose individual costs are higher than socially necessary ones are doomed to losses or bankruptcy,
Thus, the functions of the law of value are:
® regulation reproducing; ® incentives for producers; ® differentiation of commodity producers.
According to the labor theory of value, only in the market during exchange is the socially necessary level of labor costs revealed. Value receives its form of expression in the form of exchange value in relation to the seller and the buyer. Therefore, value is a relation. The labor theory of value emphasizes the socio-economic nature of this category, while at the same time recognizing its objectivity. Since value is created in the sphere of production and only appears in the sphere of circulation, it is objective, that is, it exists regardless of a person’s feelings, of how he evaluates the usefulness of a thing.
In contrast to this theory, at the end of the 19th century. a different approach arose that moved the problem of value into the sphere of subjective individual assessments of the utility of the goods exchanged. Representatives of the theory of marginal utility (W. Jevons, K. Menger, E. Böhm-Bawerk, F. Wieser, L. Walras, etc.) argued that the basis of exchange is not labor value, but utility.
If a product is purchased, it is because the product has a certain value for the buyer. Value is formed in the market and simply does not exist outside the sphere of exchange. It is no coincidence that the term “value” itself was used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. translated into Russian precisely as “value”. And value is a subjective category.
According to E. Condillac (1715-1780), value (cost) is not something inherent in a certain thing. It reflects our perception of its usefulness and suitability to our needs. Value increases or decreases according to how our needs expand or decrease. The consumer's assessment is thus the determining factor of value.
Subjective value is associated with the rarity of a good, i.e., the size of its supply. As one of the representatives of the Austrian school, E. Boehm-Bawerk, noted, value presupposes a limited number of things, the absence of value. their excess. As the need is satisfied, the degree of saturation increases and utility decreases. This. means that each subsequent unit of a good that satisfies a certain need has less utility than the previous one, and with a limited supply there is a limiting instance of a good of a given kind that satisfies an urgent need. For example, the only bag of grain for Robinson on desert island can become a means of survival, unlike the tenth in a row, delivered by him from a sinking ship. The utility of the last unit of each good is called marginal utility. This is what determines value. Thus, objective exchange proportions or prices of goods depend on the subjective assessments of the consumer, and the subjective assessment of each good is directly determined by the marginal utility of this good.
The determination of price by marginal utility has made it possible to explain many mysteries of economic life. For example, the famous paradox of A. Smith: why is water, so useful for humans, cheaper than diamond, the need for which is not so great? By relating value to the rarity of a good, i.e., the size of its supply, and the degree of intensity or saturation of the need for it, the theory of marginal utility allows us to answer this question.
Nevertheless, the outstanding English economist A. Marshall, who developed the principles of the theory of neoclassical synthesis, saw one-sidedness in explaining value (cost) and prices only by utility. From his point of view, arguing about whether value is regulated by utility or production costs is tantamount to discussing which blade of scissors - upper or lower - is used to cut a piece of paper.
It is with the works of A. Marshall that the departure from attempts to create a monistic theory of value and price is associated. The principle of monism presupposes the search for a single source (substance) of value, a single basis for price. So, in the theory of K. Marx
living labor is recognized as such a source. For the theorists of the Austrian school, this is the ultimate utility.
In A. Marshall's theory, determining value and price comes down to clarifying the interaction of market forces lying both on the demand side (marginal utility) and supply side (production costs). The value of a product is determined equally by utility and production costs.
Value thus acts as a relationship: the relationship between seller and buyer. The interaction of the forces of supply and demand leads to the formation of a market price. Therefore, supply and demand factors are of interest.
Market demand is related to individual demand. The theory of consumer behavior and subjective utility allows us to understand its changes. Supply is ultimately determined by the behavior of the firm. Therefore, to study it, the theory of production and the theory of costs are certainly necessary. To answer the question about the cost and price of a product, it is important to pay attention to people’s attitude to two fundamental economic phenomena - needs and resources - in their relationship and interaction, not limited only to the sphere of production or only to the sphere of consumption.
Value as a relationship between the producer and consumer of a product is usually established with the help of money, and therefore in the form of the price of the product. Both the seller and the buyer participate in determining the price. Each of them is guided by their own ideas about an acceptable price level, so the supply price and the demand price appear first, in other words, the seller’s price and the buyer’s price. However, the interaction of the forces of supply and demand leads to the formation of the “price of agreement” - the market price at which the purchase and sale of goods is actually carried out.
The result of the functioning of commodity production is product. Product- is a product of labor that satisfies any human need by means of exchange. → a product has two properties: use value and value.
Use value- the ability of a thing to satisfy any human needs. Its features:
1) represents the natural material form of the product and phenomenon. mater. an expression of the country's wealth;
2) its form is determined by the raw material, material, and qualifications of the worker;
3) acts as a general consumer value; because it is designed for others, and beneficial properties the product has an individual character.
However, use value cannot fully explain the basis of exchange. Exchange is based on value. It should be noted that there are labor and non-labor theories of value.
Labor theory of value. Its founders were A. Smith, D. Ricardo and K. Marx. Basic provisions of the labor theory of value:
1. Cost is the cost of total labor for the production of goods. Cost is the internal content of the product. It is the labor costs for goods that create the common basis for exchange, because as values, goods are qualitatively homogeneous and quantitatively commensurate. Value expresses the same or unequal amount of labor embodied in the goods exchanged. Use value and value are organically united.
When creating something, a person always expends muscular and mental energy, and by expending energy, he always creates some use value.
However, these properties of a product also express its internal inconsistency: as use values, goods are qualitatively heterogeneous and quantitatively incommensurable, but as values, they are qualitatively homogeneous and quantitatively commensurable.
In the process of exchange, these properties are isolated: the fact is that for a given producer, his product is used not as a use value, but as a value for the acquisition of another use value.
2. Special role in the labor theory of value it is given to the characteristics of the labor spent on a product. On the one hand, labor appears in a specific form, i.e. as labor that creates a certain thing, use value. Specific work- this is work in a specific form; it forms the natural material form of the product, since it uses certain types means of production, raw materials and worker qualifications. On the other hand, a person, expending specific labor, at the same time expends physical and mental energy, i.e. labor not in a concrete, but in a physiological form - abstract labor. Labor determines the value of a product. His distinctive features yavl. homogeneity and universality.
But since there is a contradiction between value and use value, there is also a contradiction between concrete and abstract labor, appearing in the exchange process as a contradiction between private and general labor. Concrete labor appears in production and exchange as private labor, i.e. This is the work of the owner of the means of production and his product, this is labor that is expended at his own discretion, often without knowledge of the absolute value of the total need for a given product (commodity).
However, due to the general division of labor and the specialization of producers, each commodity producer produces its own product for sale, for others, i.e. for the community By purchasing, the community recognizes the general usefulness of this type of labor, i.e. at the same time, labor has a general character.
However, the general nature of labor manifests itself only on the market, only during purchase and sale. In this regard, every company today plans to sell as many goods as possible. But, as noted, there is industry and inter-industry competition in the market. And the desire of everyone to increase their share in satisfying a given need with a given product, as a rule, is not realized, i.e. not everyone is able to achieve a reduction in individual costs compared to the generally necessary ones. As a result, part of private labor is not realized and is not recognized by the public as common. This is the essence of the contradiction between private and general labor - the main contradiction of simple commodity production.
3. According to theory labor cost, the value of a product is determined by the cost of abstract labor. Since this type Since a product is produced by many producers, the time of each individual producer acts as individual working time. However, in a market where all producers of a given product meet, an average, generally necessary time is formed, according to which the price is formed. Generally necessary labor time is the time required to produce goods at average this society production conditions, with an average degree of intensity and skill of labor.
Generally normal, or average, production conditions are those conditions that determine the production of the bulk of a given type of product entering the market.
If the general need is greater than the quantity of a given product on the market, then society will recognize not only average, but also worse conditions of production as normal conditions. And vice versa, if supply is greater than demand, then the conditions under which goods are produced at the lowest cost will be considered normal.
The value of the product is affected by various factors. The main ones are: productivity and labor intensity.
Labor productivity affects inversely proportional to the value of goods.
Labor productivity- is the number of products produced per unit of time.
Labor intensity- this is the amount of labor spent per unit of time. Labor intensity affects directly proportionally the total cost, but the unit cost of production does not change.
The main condition for reducing the cost of goods is. growth in labor productivity.
The level of complexity of labor also influences the value of a product. There is a distinction between complex and simple work,
Difficult work- This is work that requires preliminary special training.
Simple labor- this is work that does not require special training (digger).
Complex labor creates a higher value per unit of time than simple labor.
However, in practice, in exchange, all goods are reduced to simple labor.
Labor theory of value
As is known, English classics political economy(V. Petty, A. Smith, D. Ricardo) were the first to define the essence of value.
1. Heterogeneous products of market exchange have the same internal content - value. Therefore, on the market they are equated to each other in a certain exchange proportion.
2. The value of goods is created by the social labor of producers. This labor is social because the producer of the market product creates it for others. Therefore, value is social labor embodied in a commodity. And the equality of products in terms of their value means that they contain the same amount of labor.
A. Smith explained: “It was not with gold and silver, but with labor alone, that all the wealth of the world was originally acquired; and the value of them to those who own and who want to exchange them for any new products is exactly equal to the amount of labor that he can buy with them or have them at his disposal."
3. The labor that creates value differs in its complexity or quality. Simple (not requiring any training) and complex (skilled) labor can be distinguished. The latter requires a preliminary investment of time and human effort in order to acquire the necessary knowledge and work skills. Therefore, in the market exchange of goods, one hour of complex labor can be equated to several hours of simple labor.
4. Labor itself is measured using working time. If labor is of the same quality (for example, simple labor), then it is quantitatively measured in hours of work.
5. To produce the same type of product, workers usually spend unequal amounts of individual working time. Because they have different production conditions (means and objects of labor), differ in the level of qualifications, in the degree of intensity (intensity) of labor efforts. Therefore, goods of the same type and quality (for example, potatoes) usually have different individual values.
But on the market, goods cannot be sold at the individual value of each of their owners. Indeed, in this case, the person who spent the most labor time on the same product would benefit more than others (but this could be the most inexperienced and lazy). On the market, a social (market) value is established for products of the same type and quality. Therefore, the labor theory of value revealed economic connections that can be schematically reflected in the formula “commodity producer - social labor - commodity - social value - market price.” It is noticeable that here we present a view of commodity-market relations from only one side - from the position of the commodity producer and seller of the product.
1.1. Labor theory of value and trends in technological development.
Today, there are several economic theories that form models that everyone is encouraged to follow in everyday life. Entrepreneurs are interested in models that allow them to increase personal wealth, income, and profit. It is this problem, at a fundamental level, that the labor theory of value put forward by Adam Smith was supposed to solve.
A. Smith put forward very interesting idea. He argued that wealth is not some kind of absolute given, but the result of labor costs. Current labor and labor previously accumulated in the form of capital. This is how one can interpret the essence of A. Smith’s works on this issue.
A. Smith wrote that gold as a measure of wealth (or a measure of labor) is not suitable for use in economics, because gold itself is a commodity that has its own price. The price of gold changes in the market depending on various circumstances. Nothing can be a standard if it itself changes.
Adam Smith's idea: the more labor you can exchange on the market, the greater your income. This is the first. And second. The measure of value is labor, as a constant standard. Everything is created by labor. And gold, money - only convenient way to measure, in certain conditions, labor costs, but not a measure of value, i.e. not a standard. Gold itself is a commodity whose price changes on the market.
The next world-class thinker who dealt with this problem is David Ricardo. He said that work also cannot be a standard. Its value changes even more significantly than gold in different conditions and skills. IN different times The production of one product requires significantly different labor inputs. Those. Nothing can be determined using labor as a standard in a market environment. But at the same time, one can interpret the views of D. Ricardo in such a way that the price depends on the total labor costs (capital and current labor), and the higher the income, the lower the current labor costs. But in any case, the cost corresponds to the labor expended.
However, both of these thinkers do not have a clear explanation of how labor costs generate income .
Here it is also appropriate to clarify what exactly in economics is meant by the terms “capital”. Capital – in in a broad sense– the accumulated (total) amount of goods, property, assets used to generate profit, wealth. House money is not capital. Money in the bank, if it earns interest, is capital.
A machine at home is not capital, it is props. Machines that produce parts that are then sold on the market to make a profit are capital. Those. a plant that does not produce products is zero, and a working plant is capital.
When West and East Germany were united, large factories were sold for one mark. There were few takers, since in fact these were ruins in which a significant amount of money had to be invested in order for them to become capital.
Apparently, the complexity of the problem under consideration is so great that up to today, it was not possible to reach a consensus on the ideas of A. Smith and D. Ricardo. One gets the impression, and as Ghislain Delaplace, a major researcher of the history of economic doctrines, directly writes, economists themselves were confused in the ideas of A. Smith and D. Ricardo.
“The characterization of Ricardo as a labor theorist of value, popularized by both Schumpeter and Marx, is highly inaccurate.” One of the greatest economists of the twentieth century, Piero Sraffa, established this fact in his work “Production of goods through goods. Prelude to criticism economic theory».
The founders of economic theory, minds such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, believed that the essence of the value of a product or service is associated with the labor costs incurred in its production. Powerful critical analysis labor theory of value, made by an unknown, young researcher Karl Marx, should have at least undermined, if not overthrown, this theory. Marx demonstrated that the approaches of both Smith and Ricardo within the framework of labor theory do not explain the most important phenomenon market economy. Namely, the main thing remained unacceptably vague. How an entrepreneur's profit is formed.
The irony and even tragedy of the situation lies in the fact that Marx himself gives a brilliant explanation of this phenomenon. Everything was decided by the idea of surplus value. This probably brilliant misconception not only saved the labor theory of value (albeit for a while), but also split the world into two parts, led to revolutions, wars, innumerable misfortunes, as well as to amazingly large-scale social experiments.
The first thing Marx argued: on the market everything is bought and sold according to the cost of labor.
Second. If labor is a measure of value, then labor must be exchanged for labor in exactly the same amounts.
That is, on average in the market, there can be no unequal exchange. Everyone strives to get more for their goods, but as a result, the market leads to the fact that, on average, as much as one participant in the transaction spent labor for the products that he offers for exchange, so much labor did the other one spend for his products. The exchange occurs with equal labor costs on both sides. And it doesn’t matter whether you spent labor now or earlier, in the form of capital.
That is, all value is always formed by labor. Only one part of it is past labor that was once spent. And the other - current labor, or living labor, i.e. the labor of a hired worker who is paid a salary.
In fact, K. Marx put forward two hypotheses:
1) all value is created by labor;
2) everything is sold and bought on the market at a cost corresponding to labor costs.
The work can be difficult, it can be simple. Complex work, taking into account skills and intelligence, is valued much higher than unskilled labor. But in any case, cost is equal to labor. Cost = price = quantity of labor.
For example, let's look at how the cost of a chair is determined.
Let's imagine that a chair is being made in production. In this case, costs are incurred for:
Wood – 5 units. labor
Metal – 5 units. labor
Capital – 10 units. labor
- living labor – 10 units. labor (4 units + 6 units)__________________________________________________
30 units labor
But if you spend 30 units of labor and sell the chair for 30 units, where does the profit come from?
K. Marx put forward a paradoxical idea that solves this problem. According to the statements of K. Marx, the entrepreneur gives the employee only part of the labor he invested, and appropriates part of the labor. This part is surplus (added) value. This idea puts everything in place.
For example, an entrepreneur gives 6 units to a worker, and keeps 4 units for himself when 10 units of living labor have been spent.
Living labor is always divided into unequal parts. Part goes directly to the performer who spent this labor, and part is taken by the entrepreneur. And then everything comes together.
If an enterprise employs 100 people and a worker receives money per day for 6 units of labor, then the entrepreneur will receive 400 units of income. 4 units out of 10 is the so-called rate of surplus value. Those. part is given to the worker, and part is taken by the entrepreneur.