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Originally posted by G. Adams,
Erm, labour does inherently have value. The fact I can sell it means it has value. The extent of the value is dependant on the work done, and how efficiently it is being done. |
You assume that it can always be sold. People forget that not all that long ago it was not always possible for people to find places that would buy any old unskilled labor. And the value of labor is not only differentiated by the efficiency and the work done but by the outcome. People do not hire musicians based on how efficiently they play their instruments. The outcome in many cases is far more important than the number of hours or the efficiency of the labor. As the need for unskilled labor continues to decline, this fact of life will become even more glaringly evident.
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You don't have to be doing a hard slog to be part of labour. I'll explain....
There are 2 categories of possession that count in economics: capital and labour
Capital is money invested in order to make a return on it. Someone who does this and lives from such investment is bourgeois.
Somebody who does not possess capital must, in order to live, sell the only thing he has, which is labour. You sell your labour, that is time for working, to someone with capital, who combines your "goods" (that is your labour) with his raw materials, be it iron or data, in order to produce data that can either be sold for profit or used for greater profit making further down the production line.
So anyone who works for somebody else is part of the labour process, because they are selling their labour. I point you to Capital by Marx, most of which is not ideological diatribe, but an explanation of the economic system. |
This is an overly simplistic picture of our current economy. Capital is not what it used to be and simple labor is not all that valued. Knowledge and skill in applying it are becoming far more important than capital or labor. Lots of huge businesses are in existence that not all that long ago had no more capital than can be found in a garage and no more labor than could be applied in the evenings and weekends by one or two people.
I understand that you are simply spouting the dogma of almost one hundred and fifty years ago. But times have changed. Marx is not applicable any more.
Starboy