We explain what the workforce is and how this concept arises. Difference between work and labor power. Examples.
What is the workforce?
The labor force is called mental and physical capacity of any human being to carry out a given task. It is a concept coined by Karl Marx in his doctrine, developed in his work The capitalfirst published in 1867.
Marx stated in his labor-value theory that the value of a good or service is determined by the amount of work or effort necessary to produce it, and not by the utility that this good can offer to its consumer or owner. In this way, special goods that are particularly difficult to produce will have much more value than others.
From there, the value of the labor force in a given society will be the sum of the value (that is, the work necessary to produce them) of the goods that make up the “basic” (average) consumption basket of the working class. .
The labor force would thus form part, along with raw materials and tools (means of production), of the productive processes of society that is, those in which it provides itself with the goods and services it needs. In exchange for this productive capacity, the working class is rewarded with a salary, which constitutes the core of the exploitation of man by man.
See also: Marxism
Elements of the workforce
Since labor power is the human capacity to perform work, the instruments of said force will be the tools necessary to carry it out, specialized knowledge (technical or procedural), and the means of production (the factory, the machinery, etc.).
Nevertheless, For the labor force to exist it must be free of the means of production and their remuneration must be the only means of support; This means that the labor force of a nation at a given time will be the number of workers willing to work and in need of employment to meet the demands of their family.
Skilled workforce
The workforce of a society is divided into two: the skilled and the unskilled, according to the level of experience and education that the workers have.
- The unskilled workforce It is one that has not received any type of training (technical or procedural), that is, it does not yet have the knowledge to perform a job. This means that their hiring must provide them with this knowledge.
- The qualified workforce It is, however, one who has the experience or knowledge to carry out an immediate task and therefore aspires to better salaries.
Differences between work and labor power
Labor power and work performed are two different things. The latter is the concrete aspect, the materialization, of the potential work that the labor force contemplates. That is to say, it is the consequence of applying labor force to a task.
This distinction is key, according to Marx and Engels, to understand concepts in political economy such as surplus value and profit, key to the mechanism of exploitation of the working class. On the other hand, the economists of the time preferred to think about work based on the cost of training the worker himself, what they called the cost of production of the labor force.
With this distinction, Marx states that the worker sells his labor power to the capitalist not their work, thus distinguishing the work process from the valorization process. The key thing in this is that in a working day a worker does more work in the production of the commodity than it costs to reproduce the value of his labor power.
Put more simply: a worker produces for the capitalist more than what he and his family need to survive. This surplus is the surplus value, the profit of the factory owner, for which he will not pay the worker (he will pay him only for his labor power).
Examples of workforce
An example to understand this concept is the following. Suppose a textile worker is looking for employment, selling his labor power. A capitalist hires him to produce clothing whose production cost is $100, in exchange for a salary of $50.
In this scenario, the capitalist is not paying her for the production cost of each dress, but for her labor force, estimated at half. However, for each garment that the textile worker produces and the capitalist sells, he will obtain the cost of the worker's salary and an additional 50% of surplus value.
Hence, labor power can also be understood as a commodity that the worker sells to the owner of the textile factory.
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