The capacity to do labor, the actual caloric energy etc. expended by the laborer when exerting effort. Labor power is sold by the working class to the capitalitsts as a commodity so that they may do with it what they will.
Capitalists expend labor power to produce other commodities. That is, they use money to purchase means of production and labor power (all of which are commodities), they take the commodities which have resulted from this combination, and they resell them for a larger amount of money (see capital).
“The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article. So far as it has value, it represents no more than a definite quantity of the average labour of society incorporated into it…. Given the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance.
“The labour-power withdrawn from the market by wear and tear and death, must be continually replaced by, at the very least, an equal amount of fresh labour-power. Hence, the sum of the means of subsistence necessary for the production of labour-power must include the means for the labourer’s substitutes, ie.e., his children, in order that this race of peculiar commodity-owners may perpetuate its appearance in the market.”
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