Wage-Labor and Capital Question

[Stain]

I am almost done with this short pamphlet. Really great read! I am wondering if anybody can explain what Engels is talking about here in the introduction?

"Marx was the first to investigate thoroughly into the value-forming quality of labour and to discover that not all labour which is apparently, or even really, necessary to the production of a commodity, imparts under all circumstances to this commodity a magnitude of value corresponding to the quantity of labour used up. If, therefore, we say today in short, with economists like Ricardo, that the value of a commodity is determined by the labour necessary to its production, we always imply the reservations and restrictions made by Marx. Thus much for our present purpose; further information can be found in Marx’s Critique of Political Economy, which appeared in 1859, and in the first volume of Capital."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/mar...bour/intro.htm (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/intro.htm)

[Blake's Baby]

OK - 'the labour necessary to its production' I think is the point here. Marx, unlike Ricardo, developed the notion of 'socially-necessary labour time'. If two products are the same but one was made by hand and took 10 hours, while another was made on a machine and took 1 hour, then a straight measure of the labour inherent in the products would imply that the hand-made version would have 10 times as much 'value' as the machine-made version.

In the market, who's to know? The two products are the same. The machine-made version sells (in large quantities), the hand-made version doesn't. The labour-power invested in it is mostly unnecessary, and the seller can't realise the value of all of the labour embodied in it.

That's what I think he's on about any way.

[Stain]

OK - 'the labour necessary to its production' I think is the point here. Marx, unlike Ricardo, developed the notion of 'socially-necessary labour time'. If two products are the same but one was made by hand and took 10 hours, while another was made on a machine and took 1 hour, then a straight measure of the labour inherent in the products would imply that the hand-made version would have 10 times as much 'value' as the machine-made version.

In the market, who's to know? The two products are the same. The machine-made version sells (in large quantities), the hand-made version doesn't. The labour-power invested in it is mostly unnecessary, and the seller can't realise the value of all of the labour embodied in it.

That's what I think he's on about any way.

Ahh I see. Yes that's probably what Engels is getting at. I was wondering if he was referring to slave labor, colonial labor, or domestic labor.

Thanks!

[Blake's Baby]

Well, to be honest without Engels making it more explicit what he's talking about, this is merely an assumption on my part.

But it's an assumption that makes sense for the reasons I outlined.