8
in the raw material, one dollar either in the coal, which was burned up during the work or in the machinery and instruments which were used during the process and by that much became deteriorated in value by losing an aliquot part of their efficiency. There remain then 4 dollars, which have been added to the value of the raw material. These 4 dollars, however, according to the very assumption of our economists, can be due solely to the labor applied by the workman to the raw material. His twelve hours’ labor has then created a new value of 4 dollars. The value of his twelve hours’ labor, it would seem, equals then four dollars. The problem, “what is the value of labor”, would thus seem to be solved.
“Stop there!” interjects our engineer, “Four dollars Why! I have received but two. My employer assures me with all his heart, that the value of my twelve hours’ work is but 2 dollars, and finds it ridiculous for me to demand four. Well, how do you account for it?”
It appears then, that whereas before, while trying to define the value of labor, we have landed in a vicious circle, we have now become hopelessly involved in an insolvable contradiction. We have been seeking the value of labor, and found more then we can use. For the workman the value of twelve hours’ labor is 2 dollars, for the capitalist—4 dollars, out of which he pays the work man 2 in the form of wages and puts two into his own pocket. Labor then, it appears, has not one, but two values and quite different ones too, in the bargain.
The contradiction becomes even more perplexing, in case we reduce the values, as expressed in terms of money, to hours of labor. During the 12 hours of labor a new value of 4 dollars has been created: during 6 hours then—one of 2 dollars, the exact amount the workman is paid for 12 hours’ labor. In other words for 12 hours’ labor the workman receives as equivalent the product of 6 hours. The result then at which we have arrived is the alternative conclusion either that labor has two values, of which
