labour power
Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word labour power. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word labour power, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say labour power in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word labour power you have here. The definition of the word labour power will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition oflabour power, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Calque of German Arbeitskraft.
Noun
- (Marxism) The capacity to do work (as opposed to labour, the physical act of working) which becomes a commodity under capitalism.
Translations
Translations
|
References
- Ben Fine, Alfredo Saad-Filho (2010) “Commodity Production”, in Marx's Capital, 5th edition, Pluto Press, →ISBN, pages 19–21: “To distinguish the workers themselves from their ability or capacity to work, Marx called the latter labour power, and its performance or application labour. […] The most important distinguishing feature of capitalism is that labour power becomes a commodity.”
- Karl Marx (1887) “The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power”, in Friedrich Engels, editor, Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, volume I, London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co., pages 145, 149:
- By labour-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description. […] Labour-power, however, becomes a reality only by its exercise; it sets itself in action only by working. But thereby a definite quantity of human muscle, nerve. brain, &c., is wasted, and these require to be restored.