Labour power

Labour power (German: Arbeitskraft; French: force de travail) is the capacity to work, a key concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. Marx distinguished between the capacity to do the work, i.e. labour power, and the physical act of working, i.e. labour.^[1] Human labour power exists in any kind of society, but on what terms it is traded or combined with means of production to produce goods and services has historically varied greatly.^[2]

The general idea of labour-power had existed previously in classical political economy.^[3] Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and David Ricardo's On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation already referred to the "productive powers of labour". However, Marx made the concept much more precise, critically examining the functions of labour-power in production, how labour-power is used, organized and exploited, and how it is typically valued and priced in bourgeois society.

Under capitalism, according to Marx, the productive powers of labour appear as the creative power of capital. Indeed, "labour power at work" becomes a component of capital, it functions as working capital.^[4] Work becomes just work, workers become an abstract labour force, labour becomes an economic input or a factor of production, and the control over work becomes mainly a management prerogative.

^ Fine, Ben; Saad-Filho, Alfredo (2010). Marx's Capital (5th ed.). London: Pluto Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-7453-3016-7.
^ Zoe Adams, Labour and the Wage. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020; Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly, Worthy Efforts: Attitudes to Work and Workers in Pre-Industrial Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2012: Peter Scholliers & Leonard Schwarz, Experiencing wages: social and cultural aspects of wage forms in Europe since 1500. New York: Berghahn Books, 2002; Jan Lucassen (ed.), Wages and currency: global comparisons from antiquity to the twentieth century. Bern: Peter Lang, 2007; Jan Lucassen, The story of work. Yale University Press, 2022; Karin Hofmeester and Marcel van der Linden (eds.), Handbook Global History of Work. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2018; Maurizio Atzeni et al., Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2023.
^ Ian Steedman, "Marx on Ricardo", in: Ian Bradley and Michael Howard (eds.), Classical and Marxian Political Economy — Essays in honour of Ronald L. Meek. London: Macmillan, 1982.
^ See Constant and variable capital.

[1] Fine, Ben; Saad-Filho, Alfredo (2010). Marx's Capital (5th ed.). London: Pluto Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-7453-3016-7.

[2] Zoe Adams, Labour and the Wage. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020; Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly, Worthy Efforts: Attitudes to Work and Workers in Pre-Industrial Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2012: Peter Scholliers & Leonard Schwarz, Experiencing wages: social and cultural aspects of wage forms in Europe since 1500. New York: Berghahn Books, 2002; Jan Lucassen (ed.), Wages and currency: global comparisons from antiquity to the twentieth century. Bern: Peter Lang, 2007; Jan Lucassen, The story of work. Yale University Press, 2022; Karin Hofmeester and Marcel van der Linden (eds.), Handbook Global History of Work. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2018; Maurizio Atzeni et al., Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2023.

[3] Ian Steedman, "Marx on Ricardo", in: Ian Bradley and Michael Howard (eds.), Classical and Marxian Political Economy — Essays in honour of Ronald L. Meek. London: Macmillan, 1982.

[4] See Constant and variable capital.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]