But Michael, "number of pages produced" is a measure of labor performed, not labor power. And in Marxian terms, "the value produced by labor" is to some extent redundant, since to Marx labor *is* the substance of value, no? It would be more accurate to say on the basis of your example that the British paid by, ahem, the value marginal product of the author's labor. But Dickens was indeed paid by the word, since his stories were serialized. In much the same way, Samuel Clemens was in effect paid by the page, since his books were sold by subscription, and the book price increased with its length. Which explains why a lot of his books --A Tramp Abroad, e.g.--benefit from significant editing. Gil
In a way, the violinists' demands are not as strange as they seem. Richard Biernacki has argued that the Germans and the British had a different conception of labor -- the Germans historically measured labor by something like Marx's labor power; the British, by the value produced by labor. For example, in German publishers paid authors by the number of pages they produced rather than by the sales of the books.
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
