s
say, for purposes of illustration, that he works three hours for himself
and seven hours for his employer for nothing. This three hours we call
his necessary labor time, or his paid labor; and the seven hours we
call his surplus labor time or his unpaid labor. The product of his
three hours' labor is the equivalent of his wages or as we call it, the
value of his Labor-Power. The product of the other seven hours of his
labor, his surplus or unpaid labor, is surplus product or surplus-value.
Starting from the fact that every workingman knows to be true, that he
don't get all he feels he ought to get, we have thus, I think, made the
definition of surplus-value clear to every one of you, but we have been
talking of surplus-value and value of labor power and we have not yet
defined Value.

When we speak of the value of an object we mean the amount of human
labor that is embodied or accumulated in it, that has been spent in
fitting it to satisfy human needs. And we measure the amount of this
human labor by its duration, by labor-time. You, if you are a skilled,
highly-paid worker, receiving say four dollars a day, may say that it is
absurd to say that an hour of your labor produces no more value than an
hour of Tom's or Dick's or Pete's, who get only eighty cents a day
apiece. You are quite right. Your hour does produce more value. The
labor-time that determines value is the labor-time of the average,
untrained worker. Again, you may waste your time, spending half of it
looking out of the window or carrying on a flirtation. This wasted labor
does not count in measuring value. The only labor that counts is the
labor that is socially necessary under normal conditions for the
production of the given commodity. Again, labor spent to produce a
useless article does not produce value. To produce value the labor must
serve to satisfy human wants. Now, I think this is quite clear so far.
We know what surplus-value is. We know what value is and how it is
measured. Let us now see what is meant by the Value of Labor-Power.

To begin with, what is Labor-Power? When a workingman goes upon the
market to sell something for money with which to buy bread and butter
and other necessaries of life, what has he to offer for sale? He cannot
offer a finished commodity, such as a watch, a shoe, or a book, because
he owns nothing. He has neither the necessary machinery, the necessary
raw material, nor even the necessary place in which to work to ma