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Socially necessary labour time in Marx's critique of political economy is what regulates the exchange value of commodities in trade. In short, socially necessary labour time refers to the average quantity of labour time that must be performed under currently prevailing conditions to produce a commodity.
He proves that this theorem is logically false. However, Marx himself never argued that surplus labour was a sufficient condition for profits, only an ultimate necessary condition (Morishima aimed to prove that, starting from the existence of profit expressed in price terms, we can deduce the existence of surplus value as a logical consequence).
That is, the concept abstracts from the particular characteristics of all of the labor and is akin to average labor. "Socially necessary" labor refers to the quantity required to produce a commodity "in a given state of society, under certain social average conditions or production, with a given social average intensity, and average skill of ...
For example, when new technology or new business practices increase the productivity of labor a capitalist already employs, or when the commodities necessary for workers' subsistence fall in value, the amount of socially necessary labor-time is decreased, the value of labor-power is reduced, and a relative surplus value is realized as profit ...
It is simple labour [English economists call it "unskilled labour"] which any average individual can be trained to do and which in one way or another he has to perform. The characteristics of this average labour are different in different countries and different historical epochs, but in any particular society it appears as something given." [23]
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 ...
The problem is that what is "socially necessary" depends entirely on whether or not there is demand for the finished product, i.e., the knotted cord. In this way, introducing the "socially necessary" qualifier into the labor theory of value simply converts the theory into a roundabout and imprecise description of supply and demand.
However, the labour market differs from other markets (like the markets for goods or the financial market) in several ways. In particular, the labour market may act as a non-clearing market . While according to neoclassical theory most markets quickly attain a point of equilibrium without excess supply or demand, this may not be true of the ...