Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 13:54:51 -0700 (MST)
From: Hans Ehrbar <ehrbar-AT-econ.utah.edu>
Subject: BHA: Contradictions generating indeterminacy


In my online class reading Marx's Capital
we came across a situation in which
a contradiction generates indeterminacy.
The study question was:

 88> Does skilled labor (i.e., labor for which schooling and
 88> training is necessary, for instance the labor of an
 88> engineer) produce more value per hour than unskilled
 88> labor (like the labor of a janitor)?  Explain!


Here is what I sent to the students:

Brutal [31] first says that yes, skilled labor produces more
value than unskilled labor, and then he adds:

> However, we cannot say that this difference in labor value
> is due to differences in education or any other factor (or
> any specified combination of factors).  In fact, Marx does
> not try to define what separates simple and complicated
> labor because there are so many factors that have an
> effect and most cannot be quantified.


Brutal seems to be thinking here, just as Martin after him
in [33], of the many accidental circumstances affecting the
price of labor: certain skills may be in short supply and it
will take several years until more people have studied them,
other skills are well organized and maintain a semi-monopoly
position, still others are such that the bosses need
someone who is on their side and therefore they have to pay
that person more.

Such accidental circumstances have their effects not only in
the labor markets but also in the other markets.  Their
presence does not mean that there is no law determining
commodity prices, and it is also not in contradiction to the
labor theory of value.  The labor theory of value says that
there is a *tendency* for prices to be proportional to labor
content, but it does not deny the possibility that other
forces may prevent this tendency to have effect, even over a
long time.  But as long as there are markets, this tendency
is there too, and in the long run one can expect it to
succeed.

Now regarding the reduction of complex to simple labor, I
hold the view, and I also think this was Marx's view, that
there is no underlying tendency asserting itself in the long
run which carries the day after all the other factors have
had time to play out.  Why not?  Because different labor
powers are qualitatively different, and there is no logical
way to equate them.  By trading their commodities on the
market, the members of society act as if all labor powers
were equal, but in reality they are not 100 percent equal.
This is a contradiction, and this
contradiction creates indeterminacy in the reduction of the
different types of labor to simple labor.

One short remark about how I understand the notion that
labor powers are equal.  If all members of society were
identical twins, then everybody could potentially do the
same as everybody else.  In this case, labor powers would be
very equal.  In real life, it is still true that for every
job there are enough people who could do the job, so that
the bidding for this job is not based on the peculiarities
of the job, but on the expenditure of labor time which is a
general factor common to all jobs.


(For information about this class see
<http://www.econ.utah.edu/ehrbar/ec5080.html>.
If you want to observe the email traffic,
email me and tell me which pseudonym you want.

Hans E.




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