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Is Labor a Commodity?

Is Labor a Commodity


  • Total voters
    28
Number four from your cite: wage slavery.

For more on this, look up "company store". Load sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Saint Peter don't call me cuz I can't go. I owe my sould to the company store.

Chains can be forged of laws and debt actually more easily than of steel. And wage slavery is superior to chattel slavery from a business standpoint, as it turns livestock upkeep from a cost to an income stream by making ones slaves responsible for their own upkeep.

Not fantasy or conspiracy. History and anthropology.

I'm in tears I'm laughing so hard. Are you seriously seriously seriously trying to make your case based on an old song? And you didn't even use the right title.
 
Sorry, but both you and your communist friends are incorrect. Labor is human activity. Yes it can be bought and sold within the context of time, wage, and productivity; but thinking of it in these terms just confuses the differences. A man who has a new born child on the way can become motivated more so than he was, causing his real value of labor to increase. However, a commodity such as corn is not motivated to become "cornier", and therefore more valuable. A commodity such as corn differs in value based on the level (in terms of productivity and focus) of labor required to create it.
that doesnt disprove the claim or the assertion that labor is a commodity
 
I'm in tears I'm laughing so hard. Are you seriously seriously seriously trying to make your case based on an old song? And you didn't even use the right title.

Nope. I was reinforcing my case based upon the obvious cultural referents upon which the song is based and continues to resonate.

And I was obviously suggesting you look up the term "company store".

And did you have any expansion on your cite in definition #4 wage slavery?

Its one thing to question the relative weight of various points of view. Its entirely another to ignore factual historical information, pretending the references themselves are imaginary, rather than their relevance to the issue at hand. Ignorant or intellectually dishonest is what it is.
 
that doesnt disprove the claim or the assertion that labor is a commodity

Continue to read the thread; and answer these questions:

How does one define commodity?

Gold is a commodity, yes? But is a gold necklace with the shape of the Cash Money emblem a commodity?

Corn is a commodity, yes? But is a tortilla a commodity?

I believe there are significant distinctions between commodities and capital.
 
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Continue to read the thread; and answer these questions:

labor is one commodity that goes into producing a product. for example a tortilla is a combination of labor, energy and materials
 
liblady said:
semantics. practically, labor is a commodity.

It is not mere "semantics" that caused Ricardo to fail to bring classical value theory to its conclusion.

Goldenboy said:
Is the work an automated forklift does a commodity? This is a serious question.

No.
 

{playing protagonist}

So it is not a matter of action; but the said (or potential) result of that action which renders labor a commodity?!?! I reach this conclusion under the assumption that time is not a commodity. Would you agree?
 
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Labor isn't a commodity. Labor power is. The worker exchanges his ability to work for his wage. It is a commodity because it is useful and exchangeable. You should know where I'm coming from with this...

Time is as much a commodity as space.
 
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Not about the rich...about what the rich have done to the bulk of americans and to the country..out of GREED....

Then, the same argument can be made about how the poor costs the US hundreds of billions in welfare. The rich has it's own faults, yes, but this isn't exactly the thread to talk about that.
 
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