11: The Value of Labour Power

As has been shown, in the contemporary Soviet Union labour power is bought and sold: it is a commodity.

The value of labour power, according to Marx's analysis, is determined, like that of any other commodity, by the amount of socially necessary labour required for its production, i.e., by the value of the means of subsistence conventionally -- in a particular society at a particular time -- required for the maintenance of the worker and his dependents:

"The value of labour power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour time necessary for the production, and consequently also for the reproduction, of this special article.. In other words, the value of labour power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer...

On the other hand, the number and extent of his so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them,... depend... to a great extent on the degree of civilization of a country....In contradistinction therefore to the case of other commodities, there enters into the determination of the value of labour power a historical and moral element. Nevertheless, in a given country at a given period the average quantity of the means of subsistence necessary for the labourer is practically known...

The sum of the means of subsistence necessary for the production of labour power must include the means necessary for the labourer's substitutes, i.e., his children, in order that this race of peculiar commodity-owners may perpetuate its appearence in the market."

(K. Marx: "Capital", Volume 1; London; 1974; p. 167, 168).

Contemporary Soviet economists, denying that labour power is a commodity in the Soviet Union, are compelled to declare that here the concept "value of labour power" does not exist:

"Since in a socialist society the economic laws that make labour power a commodity do not exist, the category 'value of labour power' is also absent".

(E.N. Zhiltsov: "Concerning the Subject of the Economics of Higher Education", in: "Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta: Seriia ekonomika" (Journal of Moscow University: Economic Series), No. 1, 1973, in: "Problems of Economics", Volume 17, No. 5; September 1974; p. 76).

But, although using circuitous language to say so, they are compelled to admit the existence of the concept of "value of labour power" in the Soviet Union in reality. The "expenditures of labour on the cost of reproducing labour power", or the "cost of reproducing labour power" are, they say, "assessed in value terms" which are precisely equivalent to the value of labour power as analysed by Marx:

"The objective factor which determines this level (of wages -- WBB) is the need to provide factory and office workers... with the means of livelihood sufficient for the reproduction of labour power ...

The general law of the need to replace the expenditure of labour power operates under socialism. Its substance is that society objectively needs to reproduce labour power and restore the workers' physical and mental energies expended in the production process and has to provide workers and their families with the material and cultural means of livelihood."

(Y.L. Manevich: "Wages Systems", in: "The Soviet Planned Economy"; Moscow; 1974; p. 230).

"Under socialism,... the expenditures of labour on the reproduction of skilled labour power are assessed in value terms. The cost of reproducing skilled labour power is the value assessment of equivalents of the living means that form the fund for the compensation of labour power or, in other words, it it the monetary assessment of the standard of living of the population of socialist society in a certain period of time".

(E.N. Zhiltsov: ibid.; p. 76).

These economists claim that the "cost of reproducing labour power" in the Soviet Union is distinguished from the value of labour power in orthodox capitalist countries by the fact that the former rises with the development of productive forces:

"Under socialism, the specific feature of the law of the reproduction of labour power and the extended reproduction of workers' living conditions is the direct and immediate link between these conditions and the development of the productive forces. This is one sign of the tremendous advantages of the socialist economy over the capitalist... Under socialism the development of the productive forces not only provides suitable opportunities for raising wages but also created the need to increase them in full conformity with the growth of material resources available to society."

(Y.L. Manevich: ibid.; p. 230-1).

But Marx held that the value of labour power depends partly on the "degree of civilization" existing in a particular country at a particular time. Thus, if the productivity of labour rises, the degree of civilisation rises and so also the value of the means of susbsistence conventionally required for the maintenance of the worker and his dependents and therefore the value of labour power:

"The value of labour power rises because there is a rise in the value of the means of subsistence required for its reproduction."

(K. Marx: ibid.; Volume 3; p. 114).

This is admitted by contemporary Soviet economists:

"Under capitalism, of course, the general law of growing needs also operates".

(Y.L. Manevich: ibid.; p. 231).