Labor and the Economy

Labor and the Economy

Labor force

Before Marx, this problem has often been raised by great thinkers and economists such as Adam Smith.But none was able to provide a sufficient explanation. It has been argued that the capitalist, by ruse, bought or sold below above the true value of things. But since each buyer is sometimes, sometimes seller, the benefits of this cheating would cancel each other. Capitalists know cheat, of course. But in the best case, this process would explain a shift of wealth - not their creation (Marx, 1867).

Marx solved this puzzle by showing that there is a commodity with a special property: its consumption is creative new value. And this merchandise is not working as such, but the labor force, the worker's abilityto work. That is not the work itself, the capitalist buys. From this premise, Marx was able to explain the source of profit and the process of capital formation, without questioning the basic premise according to which the basis of political economy is the exchange of equivalents.

The working day

The labor force is materialized in the form of living that worker to meet his needs and those of his relatives, need a quantity of means of subsistence (food, clothing, etc.).. The value of the worker's labor force is determined, like any other commodity, by the labor-time necessary to produce their means of subsistence. Suppose that at the end of the fifth hour of a day of eight hours, the employee has produced an amount of wealth equal in value to that of its labor force (that is his salary for one day).The capitalist has bought his labor, not for five hours, but for the whole day. Therefore, the employee will continue to work for three hours. The worker then performs surplus labor three hours, beyond the five hours required. In five hours, it provides the capitalist equivalent of his daily wage. This represents the value of ...