Simple Labor
Simple Labor
the labor of a worker who does not have training qualifications; in other words, unskilled labor. All complex (skilled) labor can be reduced to simple labor because, to K. Marx, “Skilled labor counts only as simple labor intensified, or rather, as multiplied simple labor, a given quantity of skilled labor being considered equal to a greater quantity of simple labor” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 23, p. 53). The reduction of complex labor to simple labor makes it possible to determine the value of goods. Since a work hour of complex labor includes several hours of simple labor, a skilled labor force creates more value per unit of time than does a labor force without qualifications.
Under capitalism, complex labor is reduced to simple labor spontaneously during the process of exchange through the leveling of the values of goods created by these types of labor. In socialist society, expenditures of complex and simple labor are made commensurate on a planned basis. In the process of commodity production, complex labor is reduced to simple labor on the basis of the law of value.
V. V. MOTYLEV