§ II. Labor-time as a Standard

The labor-time alone cannot serve as a standard for the distribution of the proceeds of labor; for in the first place this standard is unjust. A more skilful, better trained, more practised and diligent laborer produces more in the same time than one in whom these qualities are deficient. Let us take two carpenters both working ten hours daily. One of them is strong, experienced, skilful, and diligent, the other one lazy, stupid, and awkward. Are they to receive each evening the same labor certificates, the same title to a share of the total product? That would be unjust and demoralizing.

This difficulty cannot be avoided by taking as a standard not the actual labor-time, but “the socially required unit of labor-time”—that is, the time which is required “to produce a given value under given normal social conditions of labor, and with a given socially required grade of skill and intensity.” This standard of distribution could be regarded as just only in the supposition of Marx’s theory of value. If the exchange-value of useful commodities does not consist in the “crystallized” labor contained in them, as Marx would have it, but chiefly in the difference of their use-value, it is manifestly unjust not to regard the difference of the labor-forces, but to treat all according to the same norm. Let us suppose five laborers working side by side in a factory. How is the share of the universal produce to be determined which falls to the lot of each? According to the “average of skill and intensity of the [social] labor.” But this average is a mere abstraction. Actually, perhaps, none of the five laborers has the average mean. Some have more than the average, some less. ‘It were folly to suppose that all possessed the same skill and labored with the same intensity; for men differ greatly from one another. But why should the laborer who possesses greater skill get credit only for average skill, and why should he who possesses less than the average skill get credit for the skill which he does not possess?

German social democrats established the proposition that useful labor—labor which produces exchange-value—is possible only through society, not through individuals. However, though this proposition should be conceded, it would not thence follow that all the members of society produced the same amount of labor and have the same right to remuneration; but the proposition itself is untrue, and has been established only for the purpose of gaining some semblance of right to weld individuals into the machine of public production. True, useful commodities can gain exchange-value only where several persons are living together and one possesses what the other does not. But this condition supposed, exchange-value depends chiefly upon use-value; and to produce useful commodities personal ability is sufficient. Could not Robinson Crusoe produce many articles for his own use? Or would socialists only say that personal labor is in many respects dependent upon society? If so, logically speaking, labor-power is no longer private property, but must be considered the property of the community; and the community must, consequently, have the right to dispose of such common labor at pleasure, independently of the individual laborer.

The standard of the division of produce by the “necessary social unit” of labor-time is, therefore, unjust and rests upon a false assumption. But it is also impracticable. Here, as in similar difficulties, Bebel¹ cuts the knot and simply declares: “The labor-time . which is required to produce a certain object is the standard according to which its social use-value is to be determined. Ten minutes of social labor-time in one object are exchangeable for ten minutes of social labor-time in another object—no more and no less.”

¹ Die Frau, p. 282.

Let us examine the matter practically. We wish to know how much social labor-time is contained in a bushel of wheat. To ascertain this it will not suffice to figure out how much time a farmer actually spent in ploughing, manuring, harrowing, harvesting, etc., and then to divide the total number of hours by the number of bushels reaped.

One farmer is diligent and skilful, and cultivates his field in a much shorter time and in a much better manner than another. The distance of the fields from the farmers’ residences, the roads, the farming implements, are different. But above all, the produce depends to a great extent upon the quality of the soil, upon the kind and quantity of manure, upon the climate and the favorable or unfavorable weather. The same soil will produce in different years very different crops. Who, then, can determine the socially required unit of labor-time contained in a bushel of wheat? With the same labor an acre of land in the fertile districts of the Rhine will produce double or three times the crop which by the same labor will be reaped on an acre in the Harz Mountains or on the sandy plains of Holland. One need only recall these difficulties to perceive that the calculation of the socially required unit of labor-time, even for a single commodity, is a thing impossible.

But this is only the beginning of the difficulty. What we say of wheat is true in like manner of all kinds of grain and vegetables, nay, of all agricultural products (meat, butter, cheese, eggs, etc.). The same may be said of the produce of mines, fisheries, etc. Who could determine the unit of labor-time for such products as change from year to year and even from month to month? We say nothing of the fact that it is altogether an erroneous process to determine the exchange-value of commodities by the unit of time required for their production.

The difficulty increases if we admit that in the society of the future there would be paid judges, physicians, surgeons, artists, scholars, etc. Schäffle¹ says: “Those who yielded services of general utility as judges, administrative officials, teachers, artists, scientific investigators, instead of producing material commodities... would receive a share in the commodities produced by the national labor, proportioned to the time spent by them in work useful to the community.”

¹ Quintessence, p. 8.

Proportioned to the time spent in work useful to the community! Did Schäffle consider the difficulty of calculating this proportion? How is the time spent in services useful to society to be determined in the case of the scientist, the artist, and the philosopher? Should all be treated in the same way? Would all physicians get the same salary, whether skilful or unskilful, experienced or otherwise? Are physicians to draw a higher salary than philosophers, artists, and teachers? Again, shall an elementary teacher receive the same pay as a professor of an intermediate school or of a university? It would be unjust to treat them all alike. It would be an outrage to the more gifted and industrious. But an unequal salary would be contrary to the fundamental principles of socialism, and a constant source of jealousy and contention. Nor could the present scale of payment be retained in the socialist state, for the present system, as Schäffle remarks, would on the very first day be upset by social democracy: and justly so according to socialist principles, for it is contrary to the equal rights of all; and it would of necessity lead to a social aristocracy, by whatever name we might choose to call it.