Labour-value: living labour as an alternative to physiological and value-form interpretations of Marx’s theory

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present an interpretation of the Marxist theory of labour-value that differs from the traditional physiological interpretation of value as labour embodied in the commodities during their production, but also differs from another interpretation that can be traced back to Rubin's work (or to a certain reading of his work), which sees the quantitative determination of value through the market (circulation), or through the emergence of market-oriented production. In the alternative interpretation presented hereby it is living labour, i.e. the socially necessary labour for the reproduction of a commodity at the time of its exchange which quantitatively determines value, while abstract labour is the result of the reduction of the labour process to a moment of capital accumulation, thus the labour characteristic of the capitalist era. After presenting this interpretation, a critical assessment of the previous two schools is made and its limitations are explored.