Socially necessary labour time

Socially necessary labour time in Marx's critique of political economy is what regulates the exchange value of commodities in trade and consequently constrains producers in their attempt to economise on labour. It does not 'guide' them, as it can only be determined after the event and is thus inaccessible to forward planning. Unlike individual labour hours in the classical labour theory of value formulated by Adam Smith and David Ricardo, Marx's exchange value is conceived as a proportion (or 'aliquot part') of society's labour-time. Marx did not define this concept in computationally rigorous terms, allowing for flexibility in using it in specific instances to relate average levels of labour productivity to social needs manifesting themselves as monetarily effective market demand for commodities. In addition, although it is axiomatic that socially necessary labour input determines commodity values, precise numerical calculation of such an input in relation to the value of a given commodity, i.e. the empirical regulation of the values of different types of commodities, is exceedingly difficult, due to incessantly shifting social, physical or technical circumstances affecting the labour process. In a market economy, labour expenditures producing outputs and the market demand for those outputs are constantly adjusting to each other. This is a complex process, in which enterprises operating at varying levels of productivity and unit-costs compete with each other in responding to the expansion and contraction of total market demand for their output. In the third volume of Das Kapital, Marx discusses how the market value (or "regulating price") of a commodity may be determined under different conditions of demand and productivity. A given mass of new value is produced in a given time, but if and how this new value is realised in money terms and distributed as income and reinvestment is finally established only after products are sold at specific market prices.

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Das Kapital

Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie), also known as Capital, is a foundational theoretical text in materialist philosophy and critique of political economy written by Karl Marx, published as three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his life's work, the text contains Marx's analysis of capitalism, to which he sought to apply his theory of historical materialism "to lay bare the economic laws of modern society", following from classical political economists such as Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill.

Marxian economics

Marxian economics, or the Marxian school of economics, is a heterodox school of political economic thought. Its foundations can be traced back to Karl Marx's critique of political economy. However, unlike critics of political economy, Marxian economists tend to accept the concept of the economy prima facie. Marxian economics comprises several different theories and includes multiple schools of thought, which are sometimes opposed to each other; in many cases Marxian analysis is used to complement, or to supplement, other economic approaches.

Abstract labour and concrete labour

Abstract labour and concrete labour refer to a distinction made by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It refers to the difference between human labour in general as economically valuable worktime versus human labour as a particular activity that has a specific useful effect within the (capitalist) mode of production. As economically valuable worktime, human labour is spent to add value to products or assets (thereby conserving their capital value, and/or transferring value from inputs to outputs).