II.
The Value of a Commodity.
In the preceding chapter, we learned that the wageworker's relation to the boss is that of a seller of a commodity. Whether you work in a mine, a mill or a factory, whenever you get a job, you are selling your strength to work—or your labor-power—to the boss.
We know that labor-power is a commodity like shoes or hats or stoves.
Now all commodities are the product of labor, that is, there was never a commodity that was not the result of the strength and brains of working men or women. 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.
Working men and women spent labor producing
10
