The Labor Theory of Value -Reconsidered

Edgar Degas, Women Ironing. 1886 Presenter: Lydia Alpural- Sullivan

What is the Labor Theory of Value?

Adam Smith -Labor as the determinant of value, by transforming raw materials into exchangeable goods. (relative value, in the rate of exchange)

Karl Marx - Socially Necessary Abstract Labor Time

= (Average time to perform)

Service Vs. Manufacture: Classicals

Adam Smith:

“There is one sort of labour which adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed; there is another which has no such effect…. the labour of a manufacturer adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his master's profit. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing.”

Wealth of Nations, p.429

Service Vs. Manufacture: Post-Classical

“A difference of tenses”

Objectified Labor: Labor performed in the past, which is embodied in an object. = “perfect tense” (Commodity)

Living Labor: labor in the form of an activity. =“present tense” (Service)

A Formal difference, mediated by division of Labor and exchange.

-Grundrisse

Wages

The story is that wage rates are purely market-

determined:

Wage Determination

In reality, wage determination is complex and multi-factorial.

To some extent, wage prices are “administered”.

Who gets what wage, and why?

Wages

The “market-determined wage” story fails to explain the wage gap.

& our definition of the wage gap – in which working women earn 77% of what men earn,

on average – is one-dimensional.

Gendered Time Allocation

Weekly earnings come closest toparity for non-married people with nochildren.

They are most disparate for marriedcouples with children 6-17 yrs.

Weekly earnings are generally moredisparate for married vs.non-married.

Quantifying Housework

Starting in their mid-20’s until retirement age, women spend an average of 16.3 hours perweek on household non-leisure activities.

After retirement age, that average goes up to 20.3.

For educated women, a 10% increase in time spent working correlates to only ~2% decrease in time spent on housework.

Household Division of Labor

Average hours per day men and women spent in various activities

Average hours per dayMen Women

Non-leisure Household activities 1.3 2.2Caring for and helping household members 0.3 0.6 Weekly Sum: 9.4 hr 15.8 hr

*Data include all days of the week & annual averages for 2013. SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey

“A Labour of Love”

Silvia Federici:Marxist-Feminist scholar & activist.

“Not only has housework been imposed upon women, but it has been transformed into a natural attribute of our female physique and personality… an internal need, supposedly coming from the depth of our female character.” Wages Against Housework, p. 2

“Doing work” Vs. “Being Work”

Impact on Wages?

Labor Value and Capital

“As long as capitalism and the wage system rule, only that kind of work is considered productive…. which creates capitalist profit. From this point of view, the music-hall dancer whose legs sweep profit into her employer’s pocket is a productive worker, whereas all the toil of the proletarian women and mothers in the four walls of their homes is considered unproductive.” Rosa Luxembourg, Women's Suffrage and class Struggle, 1912

Capital

Wage Labor Domesti

c Labor

surplus +

wage

Reproduces

Cost-Benefit Imbalance

Socialized Cost Privatised Benefit

Child care, ma/paternity leave a “family” (women’s) issue.

Gendered division of Labor

“Feminine” work culturally undervalued

No benefits extended, no “need” for paid leave.

Work of keeping wage laborers productive is done at no cost.

“Divide and Conquer”- Always have a low-cost segment of workers available

Remunerating Domestic Work

Wages for Housework Campaign demanded wage compensation for domestic labor.

What about a Basic Income?

Domestic Labor

Wage Labor

Productivity Levels

A relatively simple way to ensure that productivity producedby labor is re-distributed to ALL productive labor, even that which is not directly linked to capital.