Labour Power

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_power

Labour power (in German: Arbeitskraft; in French: force de travail) is a crucial concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalistpolitical economy. Marx distinguished between the capacity to do work, labour power, from the physical act of working, labour.^[1] Labour power exists in any kind of society, but on what terms it is traded or combined with means of production to produce goods and services has historically varied greatly.

Under capitalism, according to Marx, the productive powers of labour appear as the creative power of capital. Indeed, "labour power at work" becomes a component of capital, it functions as working capital. Work becomes just work, workers become an abstract labour force, and the control over work becomes mainly a management prerogative.

Marx introduces the concept in chapter 6 of the first volume of Capital, as follows:

"By labour-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description."^[2]

He adds further on that:

"Labour-power, however, becomes a reality only by its exercise; it sets itself in action only by working. But thereby a definite quantity of human muscle, nerve. brain, &c., is wasted, and these require to be restored."^[2]

A much shorter, to-the-point explanation of labour-power can be found in the introduction and second chapter of Marx's Wage Labour and Capital.^[3]

According to Marx, there is a clear distinction between labour and labour-power. "Labour" refers to the actual activity or effort of producing goods or services (or what Marx calls use-values). Neoclassical economistssometimes refer to this as "labour services." On the other hand, "labour-power" (or "labouring power") refers to a person's ability to work, his or her muscle-power, dexterity and brain-power. Marx took over this distinction from Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Rightand gave it a new significance.

In some ways, this concept is similar to that of "human capital". However most likely Marx himself would have considered the concept of human capital a reification, the purpose of which was to convince the worker that he was really a capitalist. The evidence for this interpretation is the following quote from Capital Vol. 2:

“

"Apologetic economists... say:... [the worker's] labour-power, then, represents his capital in commodity-form, which yields him a continuous revenue. Labour-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 labour-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 the nature of this commodity, a labouring 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." ―Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 2, Chapter 20 section 10[4]

”

The distinction Marx introduces between labour and labour-power was intended to solve a




problem which David Ricardo failed to solve—the problem of explaining how surplus valuecould arise out of the exchange between capital and labour.

Under capitalism, according to Marx, labour-power becomes a commodity – it is sold and bought on the market. A worker tries to sell his or her labour-power to an employer, in exchange for a wage or salary. If successful (the only alternative being unemployment), this exchange involves submitting to the authority of the capitalist for a specific period of time.

During that time, the worker does actual labour, producing goods and services. The capitalist can then sell these and obtain surplus value; since the wages paid to the workers are lower than the value of the goods or services they produce for the capitalist.^{[citation needed]}

Labour power can also be sold by the worker on "own account", in which case he is self-employed, or it can be sold by an intermediary, such as a hiring agency. In principle a group of workers can also sell their labour-power as an independent contracting party. Some labour contracts are very complex, involving a number of different intermediaries.

Normally, the worker is legally the owner of his labour power, and can sell it freely according to his own wishes. However, most often the trade in labour power is regulated by legislation, and the sale may not be truly "free"—it may be a forced sale for one reason or another, and indeed it may be bought and sold against the real wishes of the worker even although he owns his own labour power. Various gradations of freedom and unfreedom are possible, and free wage labour can combine with slave labour or semi-slavery.

The concept of labour power as a commodity was first explicitly stated by Friedrich Engels in The Principles of Communism (1847):

“

"Labor is a commodity, like any other, and its price is therefore determined by exactly the same laws that apply to other commodities. In a regime of big industry or of free competition – as we shall see, the two come to the same thing – the price of a commodity is, on the average, always equal to its cost of production. Hence, the price of labor is also equal to the cost of production of labor. But, the costs of production of labor consist of precisely the quantity of means of subsistence necessary to enable the worker to continue working, and to prevent the working class from dying out. The worker will therefore get no more for his labor than is necessary for this purpose; the price of labor, or the wage, will, in other words, be the lowest, the minimum, required for the maintenance of life.[5] Labour power is a peculiar commodity, because it is an attribute of living persons, who own it themselves in their living bodies. Because they own it within themselves, they cannot permanently sell it to someone else; in that case, they would be a slave, and a slave does not own himself. Yet, although workers can hire out themselves, they cannot "hire out" or "lease" their labour, since they cannot reclaim or repossess the labour at some point after the work is done, in the same way as rental equipment is returned to the owner. Once labour has been expended, it is gone, and the only remaining issue is who benefits from the results, and by how much. Labour power can become a marketable object, sold for a specific period, only if the owners are constituted in law as legal subjects who are free to sell it, and can enter into labour contracts. Once actualised and consumed through working, the capacity to work is exhausted, and must be replenished and restored. In general, Marx argues that in capitalism the value of labour power (as distinct from 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 which must 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 labour equal to necessary labour or the necessary product. It represents an average cost of living, an average living standard. The general concept of the "value of labour power" is necessary because both the conditions of the sale of labour power, and the conditions under which goods and services are purchased by the worker with money from a salary, can be affected by numerous circumstances. If, for example, the state imposes a tax on consumer goods and services (an indirect tax or consumption tax such as value-added tax or goods and services tax, then what the worker can buy with his wage-money is reduced. Or, if price inflation increases, then again the worker can buy less with his wage money. The point is that this can occur quite independently of how much a worker is actually paid. Therefore, the standard of living of a worker can rise or fall quite independently of how much he is paid—simply because goods and services become more expensive or cheaper to buy, or because he is blocked from access to goods and services. Included in the value of labour power is both a physical component (the minimum physical requirements for a healthy worker) and a moral-historical component (the satisfaction of needs beyond the physical minimum which have become an established part of the lifestyle of the average worker). The value of labour power is thus a historical norm, which is the outcome of a combination of factors: productivity; the supply and demand for labour; the assertion of human needs; the costs of acquiring skills; state laws stipulating minimum or maximum wages, the balance of power between social classes, etc. Buying labour power usually becomes a commercially interesting proposition only if it can yield more value than it costs to buy, i.e. employing it yields a net positive return on capital invested. However, in Marx's theory, the value-creating function of labour power is not its only function; it also importantly conservesand transfers capital value. If labour 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, labour 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 asset which, if this labour did not occur, would decline in value by an even greater amount than the labour cost involved in maintaining its value; or because it is a necessary expense which transfers the value of a capital asset from one owner to another. Marx regards such labour as "unproductive" in the sense that it creates no new net addition to total capital value, but it may be essential and indispensable labour, because without it a capital value would reduce or disappear. The larger the stock of assets which is neither an input nor an output to real production, and the wealthier society's elite becomes, the more labour is devoted only to maintaining the mass of capital assets rather than increasing its value.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_power