Value Theory of Labor
= to be distinguished from the "labor theory of value"
Description
Brian Holmes explains:
"It's a matter of layers, and there is always a next layer. Thus, the
ontological status of human labor as the source and measure of value in
capitalist societies continues to justify the hyper-exploitation of
factory workers and sweatshop laborers all over the planet, and
therefore, to govern important aspects of the economic relations between
classes, as well as the geo-economic relations between core and
peripheral states. But at the same time, at least two further types of
social relations that Marx did not directly observe are layered onto
that. The first layer came in the 1930s and reached maturity in the
1950s: it is the welfare state, which created large tracts of socialized
capital (public facilities of all kinds, redistribution mechanisms for
retirement, health care, education etc). This has been described
extensively by David Harvey as the "secondary circuit of capital" and it
has made a huge change in the way capitalism works within the core
states where it was applied, creating a new mediator class between
bourgeoisie and proletariat which is commonly and perhaps rightfully
described as the "middle class." One important consequence of this for
Marxist thought was the realization that the "socially necessary labor
time" required for the reproduction of the labor force was itself a
function of the standards that apply in any given society at any given
time, a fact to which Marx does allude at one point, but whose full
implications only became visible with the rise of the welfare state.
Today, some theorists including Harvey speak not of the labor theory of
value but rather of the "value theory of labor," stressing that it is
the agency of the working classes, gained through conflict and struggle,
that determines what the standard wage and the minimum acceptable
standard of living will be.
For this, see an excellent short piece by Bob Jessop:
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/papers/jessop-limits-to-capital.pdf "
(IDC mailing list, October 2009)