[lbo-talk] Domestic labour premium wage

Charles Brown cb31450 at gmail.com
Wed Apr 27 16:13:32 PDT 2016


Here is Marx's explaining that human labor power adds more value to a commodity than the value that went into creating the labor power. That's because domestic labor is slave labor ; unpaid :

"Let us examine the matter more closely. The value of a day’s labour-power amounts to 3 shillings, because on our assumption half a day’s labour is embodied in that quantity of labour-power, i.e., because the means of subsistence that are daily required for the production of labour-power, cost half a day’s labour. But the past labour that is embodied in the labour-power, and the living labour that it can call into action; the daily cost of maintaining it, and its daily expenditure in work, are two totally different things. The former determines the exchange-value of the labour-power, the latter is its use-value. The fact that half a day’s labour is necessary to keep the labourer alive during 24 hours, does not in any way prevent him from working a whole day. Therefore, the value of labour-power, and the value which that labour-power creates in the labour-process, are two entirely different magnitudes; and this difference of the two values was what the capitalist had in view, when he was purchasing the labour-power. The useful qualities that labour-power possesses, and by virtue of which it makes yarn or boots, were to him nothing more than a conditio sine qua non; for in order to create value, labour must be expended in a useful manner. What really influenced him was the specific use-value which this commodity possesses of being a source not only of value, but of more value than it has itself. This is the special service that the capitalist expects from labour-power, and in this transaction he acts in accordance with the “eternal laws” of the exchange of commodities. The seller of labour-power, like the seller of any other commodity, realises its exchange-value, and parts with its use-value. He cannot take the one without giving the other. The use-value of labour-power, or in other words, labour, belongs just as little to its seller, as the use-value of oil after it has been sold belongs to the dealer who has sold it. The owner of the money has paid the value of a day’s labour-power; his, therefore, is the use of it for a day; a day’s labour belongs to him. The circumstance, that on the one hand the daily sustenance of labour-power costs only half a day’s labour, while on the other hand the very same labour-power can work during a whole day, that consequently the value which its use during one day creates, is double what he pays for that use, this circumstance is, without doubt, a piece of good luck for the buyer, but by no means an injury to the seller."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm#S2

Paul Cockshott

Sent from my iPhone


> On Apr 27, 2016, at 8:39 AM, Charles Brown <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> You say , the value of men's labour power ( in cases where wife is doing domestic work) includes the cost of reproduction of a family; family reproduction being specifically childcare . However, housework , domestic labour is not only childrearing, but reproducing the man's labour power daily and nightly :shopping, cooking, coitus, feeding him , clean his work clothes, have fun with him . Get him feeling so good he can go in and work 2 hours for him, you and the kids and 6 hours producing capital for the boss.
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> Look good for him. Look at the hair and dress your girl has on in the meme picture. Superwoman . Nietszche got the wrong gender.
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