Necessary Labour Time

[The-Spark]

How can you tell the difference between "Necessary Labour Time" and "Surplus Labour Time". How do you know when you work long enough to sustain your own standard of living?

[mikelepore]

I think the ratio of necessary to total labor time is the same as the ratio of wages to value added by labor. Value added is one of the concepts that Marxian economics and capitalist economics both use. I'm unable to find the article right now but I have seen a New York Times article from the early 1990s about a Federal Trade Commission report that gave actual numbers for how much the average manhfacturing worker in the U.S. was paid in a certain year versus the value added by the average worker. The numbers were such that the workers received in the form of wages about one-fifth or one-sixth of the amount that their labor added to the product.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Necessary labor time is reserved for the reproduction of the workers themselves, for the maintenence of the means of production and their expansion and upgrades, and for the social fund out of which healthcare and education are emphasized. In other words, the labor provided by these services are essential; they are necessary to the preservation of society. There will still be needs that will have to be met, so they would require for production to take place according to plan.

In the realm of surplus labor is where commodity production predominates. It is there where one could choose not to work any extra time at all, or one could work all the extra time one is able and willing to. It is there that we can start with the full democratization of the workplace, for the election of supervisors and the right to recall them, for the drafting of initiatives and referendums on the various rules that govern it. But since some things are beyond debate, like whether everyone will get food or an education, not everything can be held up for a vote; production for need comes with demands of it's own.