Labor-Power

Human labor-capacity. The aggregate of physical and mental faculties used by people in the labor-process. “We mean by labor-power, or labor-capacity, the aggregate of those mental and physical faculties existing in the physical body, the living personality, of a human being, capabilities which he sets in motion whenever he produces a use-value of any kind.”

Since the dawn of human society, labor-power has been the decisive element in the productive forces of society. In a certain relation of production of society, only when the means of production are combined with labor-power, can a product be created in the production process; without human labor-power acting on top of the means of production, the means of production are useless no matter how good they are. The labor-process is a unified process in which men create material wealth and temper and improve themselves. In other words, in the labor-process, people use their own labor-power and handle certain instruments of production to change nature and create material wealth. Moreover, they also temper themselves, enrich their experience in production and improve their labor skills and other qualities.

Under different social systems, the mode of combination of the means of production with labor-power and the conditions of the utilization of labor-power determined by it vary. In primitive society, the means of production were collectively belonged to all members of the primitive commune, the means of production were directly combined with labor-power, the labor-power was collectively utilized by the commune in mutual aid, co-operation and common work, and the products of labor were distributed equally within the commune. In slave society, the means of production and the slaves themselves belonged to the slave-owners. Slaves, rid of everything, were subjected to compulsory labor under whips and sticks, and all the products belonged to slave-owners, while slaves, like the livestock, was given only scraps of food to satisfy their hunger. In feudal society, the land belonged to feudal landlords, peasants were bound to the soil, and most of the products were appropriated by the landlords. In capitalist society, the means of production belong to the capitalists and the workers have gained their personal freedom, which is also “freedom” from the means of production. In order to survive, workers have to sell their labor-power as a commodity, become wage-laborers, and engage in compulsory labor under the supervision of the capitalist. All the surplus-value created by wage-laborers is appropriated by capitalists without compensation. Under the socialist system, the public property in the means of production replaces the private property in the means of production, and workers become the masters of the means of production. Each worker’s labor-power is a component part of the total social labor-power, which realizes the direct combination of labor-power and the means of production. Marx once predicted: “Let us finally imagine, for a change, an association of free individuals, working with the means of production held in common, in which the labor-power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labor-power of the community.” Along with this, a fundamental modification takes place in the purpose of production, whereby the products of labor are owned by all the associated workers and—after deducing the needs of society—are distributed to the workers in accordance with the rule of distribution according to contribution.