>>> Paul Phillips Charles Brown wrote: > By the way, the commodity produced by a teacher is labor power. > > CB > Not necessarily. There is a huge adult education industry out there with teachers instructing in everything from foreign languages for tourists to music appreciation to craft welding all designed for the 'ultimate consumer'. Many such courses are delivered 'for profit' both by private companies (e.g. Berlitz) and by public education systems. Thus the product/service is both a commodity and creates surplus value.
Paul Phillips ^^^^^ CB: You say "not necessarily" then what you say seems to support what I say. The service of teaching produces the commodity of increase in the skill of the labor power of the student. The student's labor power is increased in value by the training. Marx discusses skilled and unskilled labor power. Increased skill in the labor power of the laborer is the rationale for paying the skilled worker at a higher rate than the unskilled laborer. Labor power as a commodity is , of course, a defining characteristic of capitalism. Commodities have been produced for millenia. It is with the rise of the capitalist mode of production that labor power becomes a commodity. > ^^^ > No -- only a _commodity_ can have exchange value, and there is a great > deal of highly useful labor in any society which does not create any > sort of commodity (product or service) and thus produces no exchange > value. Teachers produce workers but they do not produce a commodity, > > ^^^^ > CB; Actually, in _Capital_ Vol. I , Marx uses the example of a teacher > as producing a commodity in teaching students. He analogizes to stuffing > a sausage. > > Many services are commodities. They are not material objects, but they > are commodities. A massage is a commodity, even though no material > object is produced. > > ^^^^^^ > > > -- Paul Phillips Professor Emeritus, Economics University of Manitoba Home and Office: 3806 - 36A st., Vernon BC, Canada. ViT 6E9 tel: 1 (250) 558-0830 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
