Editing Labour power (section)

==Labour power as commodity==
[[File:Sabah Sarawak labour advert Kuala Lumpur.JPG|thumb|right|An advertisement for labour from Sabah and Sarawak, seen in Jalan Petaling, Kuala Lumpur]]
Under capitalism, according to Marx, labour-power becomes a [[commodity#Marxist Concept|commodity]] &ndash; it is sold and bought on the market. A worker tries to sell his or her labour-power to an employer, in exchange for a wage or salary. If successful (the only alternative being [[unemployment]]), this exchange involves submitting to the [[authority]] of the capitalist for a specific period of time.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Chapter 19: The Transformation of the Value of Labour-Power |url=https://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/357k/357ksg19.html |access-date=2023-02-02 |website=la.utexas.edu}}</ref>

During that time, the worker does actual labour, producing goods and services. The capitalist can then sell these and obtain surplus value; since the wages paid to the workers are lower than the value of the goods or services they produce for the capitalist.{{Citation needed|date=March 2013}}

Labour power can also be sold by the worker on "own account", in which case he is self-employed, or it can be sold by an intermediary, such as a hiring agency. In principle a ''group'' of workers can also sell their labour-power as an independent contracting party. Some labour contracts are very complex, involving a number of different intermediaries.

Normally, the worker is legally the owner of his labour power, and can sell it freely according to his own wishes. However, most often the trade in labour power is regulated by legislation, and the sale may not be truly "free"—it may be a forced sale for one reason or another, and indeed it may be bought and sold against the real wishes of the worker even although he owns his own labour power. Various gradations of freedom and unfreedom are possible, and free wage labour can combine with slave labour or semi-slavery.

The concept of labour power as a commodity was first explicitly stated by [[Friedrich Engels]] in ''The Principles of Communism'' (1847): {{cquote|"Labor [power] is a commodity, like any other, and its price is therefore determined by exactly the same laws that apply to other commodities. In a regime of big industry or of free competition—as we shall see, the two come to the same thing—the price of a commodity is, on the average, always equal to its cost of production. Hence, the price of labor is also equal to the cost of production of labor. But, the costs of production of labor consist of precisely the quantity of means of subsistence necessary to enable the worker to continue working, and to prevent the [[working class]] from dying out. The worker will therefore get no more for his labor than is necessary for this purpose; the price of labor, or the wage, will, in other words, be the lowest, the minimum, required for the maintenance of life.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm|title=The Principles of Communism|author=Frederick Engels|work=marxists.org}}</ref>}}

Marx considered the sale and purchase of labour-power "the absolute foundation of capitalist production"; the reason was that "[m]aterial wealth transforms itself into capital simply and solely because the worker sells his labour-power in order to live."<ref>Marx, "Results of the immediate process of production" [1864], appendix in Marx, ''Capital, Volume 1''. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976, p. 1005.</ref>