Mary Edna Tobias Marcy, Shop Talks on Economics — The Value of a Commodity (1911)
“ It might seem that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labor bestowed upon its production, the lazier a man, or clumsier a man, the more valuable his commodity, because the greater the time of labor required for finishing the commodity. ”
Mary Edna Tobias Marcy, Shop Talks on Economics — The Value of a Commodity (1911)
“ Workers make shoes; bakers of bread are working men or women; houses, street cars, trains, palaces, bridges, stoves—all are the product of the laboring man. All commodities are the product of labor. There is one common thing which all commodities contain. This is labor. A commodity only has value (exchange value) because it contains human labor. Horses are commodities, cows are commodities, gold is a commodity. Human labor has been spent in producing all these. Labor-power is also a commodity, the result of human labor in the past. ”
Mary Edna Tobias Marcy, Shop Talks on Economics — The Value of a Commodity (1911)
“ Working men and women spent labor producing you and me. Somebody made bread, sewed shoes, built houses and made clothes for us. All the things we ate and drank and wore and used were made by the labor of working men and women. Their labor was necessary labor. Without it we should never have grown old enough or strong enough to have labor-power to sell. Labor-power was spent in raising us to the point where we would be able to work. The value of a commodity is determined by the social labor-time necessary to produce it. ”
