* From: Walt Byars <[EMAIL PROTECTED] The one problem I still have difficulty with in Marxian economics is the idea that labor power - the mental and physical capacity of humans to work - is sold, rather than labor (not that I think its incorrect, I just have some problems in understanding it).
Intuitively, it seems like the reasoning for the sale of labor power is that it is the only thing the worker *has*; the thing which possession over transfers to the capitalist. Could someone elaborate why what the laborer sells must be a thing he or she *has* rather than something he or she *does in the future*? Does this have to do with the materialist conception of history? Or could someone explain (Better than Ch 6 of Capital 1 does) why it is labor power rather than labor which is sold if there is a different justification for this idea? ^^^^^^ CB: To a certain extent, this distinction is a setup for the secret of surplus value or some such. Labor power is a unique commodity, with a very critical characteristic for Marx's thesis. It is the _only_ commodity in the production process that can add more value to the commodity produced than the value that went into making it. Labor done ( not labor power) creates value, adds value to what it produces. It is the only source of _new_ value ( exchange-value !).The only value added by non-labor elements in the production process ( raw materials, machine processing, the means of production and instruments of production)is the value that is in them from the human labor that extracted or made them. So, labor is the only source of new value. And labor power is the only commodity that can add more value to a product than the value that went into making the labor power. Humans really do have a capacity to work, not work. Labor or work is the use-value of the commodity labor power. Workers sell the use of their labor power. If the capitalists only bought work expended, they couldn't make any surplus value, under Marx's thesis. They pay what it costs to reproduce labor power, which is the price of the labor power, and that labor power or potential can produce more than its own price.
