[Marxism] work - ability - needs

[S. Artesian]

Thought I stated that Marx says exactly this in Contribution to the Critique 
of Political Economy.

Here's something that might help:

"The labour-time expressed in exchange-value is the labour-time of an 
individual, but of an individual in no way differentiated from the next 
individual and from all other individuals." ACTTCOPE, New World Paperbacks, 
1970 p 32.

Actually any page of Part One, Capital in General,  Chapter One, The 
Commodity is positively dedicated to the explication of this.  Somewhere in 
there, or elsewhere?  Marx actually says  "One man's hour is worth the same 
as another's."

You can also look at Wage-Labour and Capital, where Marx grapples with the 
same issue.

Anyway, this egalitarian concept is the basis for all of Marx's analysis, 
and indeed, forms the basis for socialism.  See for example the Appendix to 
Vol 1 of the 1st edition of Capital-- The Forms of Value:

"The mystery of the value-expression--the equality and equal validity of all 
labors because and insofar as they are human labor in general-- can only be 
deciphered once the concept of human equality comes to possess the stability 
of a popular prejudice.  That is, however, only first possible in a society 
in which the commodity form is the universal form of the laobor 
product,...."

Let me know if you need more.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pance Stojkovski" <pance at rogers.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 4:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] work - ability - needs
>