>
> "If it were not for captitalist relations of production, the growing social
> wealth would be characterized by a continuous reduction of direct labour
> time, and the wealth of society would be measured not by labour time but by
> free time. So long, however, as exchange value is the goal of production,
> labour time quantities remain the source and measure of capitalist wealth,
> because, as value, capaital cannot be anything other than appropriated
> labour time. 'Although the very development of the modern means of
> production,' Marx wrotes, 'indicates to what a large degree the general
> knowledge of society has been a direct productive force, which conditions
> the social life and determines its transformation,' capitalism's particular
> contribution to this state of affairs consists of no more 'than its use of
> all the media of the arts and sciences to increase the surplus labour,
> because its wealth, in value form, is nothing but the appropriation of
> surplus labour time.'" Critique of Marcuse, p. 47-8
Well, without capitalist social relations, social wealth *could* be measured by free time, not labor time, *in the first instance*. But that would not be only measure, nor the best one. There would be alternative measures of wealth, starting with labor itself as intrinsic value.
Labor in capitalism is expended by workers to acquire the means of subsistence. It has no intrinsic value to the worker, only exchange value to capital. Indeed, in capitalism, work is a disutility. Think, for example, of those work-leisure tradeoffs the classroom neoclassicals always prattle on about, where people are typically looking to exchange work for leisure (except, it is sometimes said, for those workaholic "entrepeneurs", and, of course, lawyers).
Dispense with capitalist social relations, and things change. With workers having some measure of control over production, labor ceases to be a disutiity to the individual. Now, people and society as a whole would get to choose between two kinds of utilities (values)--work and free time. Value, no longer measured solely in exchange (by consumption) can be measured by work and/or leisure. Some people may value work more than free time; they would exchange leisure for work.
Roger