Labour Power - Criticism of The Concept of Labour Power

Criticism of The Concept of Labour Power

There are five main kinds of criticism of Marx's concept.

• Critics have often argued that Marx's definition of labour-power, and how its value and price are regulated, is vague, incomplete, too general or imprecise; at any rate, that it permits different interpretations. In part, this criticism is anticipated by Marx, who acknowledged there was not just "one way" of valuing and compensating workers but many, although the basic economic relationship involved remained the same.

• It has been argued by Ian Steedman that Marx's own concept of labour power was in truth very similar to that of David Ricardo and Adam Smith and, therefore, that Marx was not saying anything really new. However, Marx's interpretation is (as he himself said) different from the "natural price of labour" of the classical political economists, because the "free play of market forces" does not gravitate spontaneously and automatically toward the "natural price" (the value) of labour power. Precisely because labour power is a unique and peculiar commodity, being lodged in the living worker, it does not conform to all the same laws as other kinds of commodities. Depending on social conditions, labour power may durably trade at prices well above, or below, its real value. Marx only assumed that labour power traded at its value, in order to show that even if that was the case, the worker was still economically exploited. But he was well aware that often labour power did not trade at its value, either because of unfavourable wage-bargaining conditions or because of labour scarcity.

• Another sort of criticism is that whereas the concept of labour power may be perfectly valid, Marx misrepresents what happens when a worker enters into a labour contract with an employer (see Hodgson). It is argued for example that the worker does not sell his "labour power" but rather hires out (or leases out) his labour. But while that may be how it observably appears, in many different forms, Marx's argument really concerns the economic relationship involved.

• Marx did not just disregard the many different forms in which workers could be remunerated (although he acknowledged their existence) but he provided no comprehensive analysis of the labour market. Thus, while he might have provided an analysis of capital, his analysis of capitalism is deficient because the labour market is a very important part of it. It is argued that the trade in human labour is much more complex than Marx makes out.

• A recent criticism by Prof. Marcel van der Linden is as follows:

"Marx's thesis is based on two dubious assumptions, namely that labour needs to be offered for sale by the person who is the actual bearer and owner of such labour, and that the person who sells the labour sells nothing else. Why does this have to be the case? Why can labour not be sold by a party other than the bearer? What prevents the person who provides labour (his or her own or that of somebody else) from offering packages combining the labour with labour means? And why can a slave not perform wage labour for his master at the estate of some third party?". This difficulty was first noted in research conducted during the 1980s by Tom Brass, gathered together in his 1999 book. The buying and selling of human work effort can and has taken many more different forms than Marx acknowledges - especially in the area of services. A modern information society makes possible all kinds of new forms of hustling.