Value of the Commodity Labor-Power

Like other commodities, labor-power has a value once has become a commodity, and its value is determined by the labor-time socially necessary for the production and reproduction of this commodity. However, as a particular commodity, labor-power’s value has a particularity compared with that of commodities in general. Labor-power is human 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. Therefore, labor-power is dependent on the living personality, and the production and reproduction of labor-power presupposes the existence of the worker. Only when the workers consume certain means of life and services, can they maintain a normal state of existence and continuously provide their labor-power. Therefore, the labor-time socially necessary to produce and reproduce labor-power can be reduced to the labor-time necessary to produce various means of life. The value of labor-power is determined by the value of the necessities of life required for the production, development, maintenance and continuation of labor-power, and the value of the commodity labor-power is the value of the means of life that the worker requires for maintaining his survival. Concretely speaking, the value of the commodity labor-power consists of three contents: the value of the means of life that the worker requires for his survival; the value of the means of life necessary for the worker for his reproduction and the propagation of his race; and the costs of education and training of the worker, etc.

The particularity in the determination of the value of labor-power also lies in the fact that it contains a historical and moral element, i.e., the natural conditions, historical traditions and customs and the level of socio-economic and cultural development of the country where the worker lives. This is because workers always live in a certain country in certain times, and the differences in natural and historical conditions in different countries and times affect the scope, quantity and quality of the means of life necessary for the worker. Therefore, the value of labor-power varies from country to country and from time to time, but the value of labor-power in the same country within the same period is still relatively fixed, and is a constant.